Re: Proposal for math mappings

[Otared Kavian <otared@gmail.com>]

Dear Aditya,

I do think that your proposal would be of great help in writing mathematics.
Indeed the use of different alphabets, or range of characters with different styles, depend on the fields of mathematics, so having a \setup command like the one you suggest would be wonderful.
However, IMHO, the new setup command should follow the general rules of ConTeXt commands for setting up different environments. So maybe the option of having all the 12 forms, as you suggest,
	normal, italic, sans, sansitalic, blackboard, script,
	bold, bolditlaic, boldsans, boldsansitalic, boldblackboard, boldscript
would be more homogeneous with the usual style choice.

Best regards: OK

On 10 déc. 2010, at 16:29, Aditya Mahajan wrote:

> On Fri, 10 Dec 2010, Vladimir Lomov wrote:
>> 
>> ** Aditya Mahajan [2010-12-09 23:49:26 -0500]:
>> 
>>> This is a proposal for a new way of selecting math mappings in MkIV. I want
>>> to get input from other math users whether this syntax would take care of all
>>> scenarios or not.
>>> 
>>> There are five different ranges in mathematics:
>>> - digits (0..9)
>>> - lower case Latin (abc..z)
>>> - upper case Latin (ABC..Z)
>>> - lower case Greek (αβγ..ζ)
>>> - upper case Greek (ΑΒΓ..Z)
>> Should be: αβγ..ω
>> and ΑΒΓ..Ω
> 
> Thanks. I need to learn my Greek :)
> 
>>> A user may want to control what each range is mapped to. So, I suggest a setup
>>> command
>>> 
>>>    \setupmathmappings
>>>      [
>>>         digits={style,alternative},
>>>        lclatin={style,alternative},
>>>        uclatin={style,alternative},
>>>        lcgreek={style,alternative},
>>>        ucgreek={style,alternative},
>>>      ]
>>> 
>>> where the options for style are
>>> 
>>>  normal, bold
>>> 
>>> while the options for alternative are
>>> 
>>>  normal, italic, sans, sansitalic, blackboard, script
>>> 
>>> This command will the mappings for each range. **NOTE**: All combinations are not valid.
>>> 
>>> A companion command
>>> 
>>>    \definemathmappings
>>>      [whatever]
>>>      [....]
>>> 
>>> can be used to define multiple mappings. These mappings can be used by
>>> 
>>>    \setupmathmappings[whatever]
>>> 
>>> (An alternative is that these mappings are activated using \whatever ...)
>>> 
>>> For example, we can define a command to typeset vectors using
>>> 
>>>    \definemathmappings
>>>      [vectors]
>>>      [ digits={bold,normal},
>>>       lclatin={bold,normal},
>>>       uclatin={bold,normal},
>>>       lcgreek={bold,normal},
>>>       ucgreek={bold,normal}]
>>> 
>>>    \def\VEC{\groupedcommand{\setupmathmappings[vector]}{}}
>> Is it should be
>> \def\VEC{\groupedcommand{\setupmathmappings[vectors]}{}}
>> ?
> 
> Indeed. Thanks.
> 
>>> If later, we want to represent vectors as sans serif, we can use
>>> 
>>> 
>>>    \definemathmappings
>>>      [vectors]
>>>      [ digits={normal,sans},
>>>       lclatin={normal,sans},
>>>       uclatin={normal,sans},
>>>       lcgreek={normal,sans},
>>>       ucgreek={normal,sans}]
>>> 
>>> This interface makes it easy to switch math fonts for disiplines that want
>>> different style for different alphabet ranges.
>>> 
>>> It is relatively easy to implement the above interface. All we need
>>> is some bookkeeping to set the right attributes. The default math
>>> mapping commands can be reimplmeneted using \definemappings. Before
>>> implementing this, I want to ask the opinion of other math users.
>>> 
>>> Would the above interface take care of different use cases, or is it missing
>>> something?
>> IMHO, style is already used so it is normal.
>>> Finally, I am not too happy with the syntax. There are only a few ConTeXt
>>> commands in which the keys take a pair of values. Another option is to allow all
>>> 12 valid options
>>> 
>>>  normal, italic, sans, sansitalic, blackboard, script,
>>>  bold, bolditlaic, boldsans, boldsansitalic, boldblackboard, boldscript
> 
>> This very depends on used fonts.
> 
> I am assuming a complete opentype math font.
> 
>>> with the variants sansitalic-italicsans, boldsans-sansbold, etc. as synonmyms.
>>> 
>>> Which way of specifying the keys do you prefer?
>>> 
>> Actually I don't get what you try to do.
> 
> I'll try to explain better in a later post.
> 
>> I thought that 'font
>> switching' command should take care of font switching either in math or
>> text modes (if typescript is set properly).
> 
> I am proposing to separate out math font switching from text mode font
> switching.
> 
>> Right now the only good
>> example of usage of proposed mechanism is \VEC command (for vectors and etc).
> 
> More on this later.
> 
> Aditya
> 
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
> 
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
> webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
> archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
> wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
> ___________________________________________________________________________________


___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________