[NTG-context] Re: incosistent output of --- dash

[Pablo Rodriguez via ntg-context <ntg-context@ntg.nl>]

On 4/6/24 11:43, madiazm.eoicc@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi everyone,

Hi Miguel,

> […]
> Am I missing something on the use of this ligature?

I don’t think so.

In some cases you may not get the ligature for a good reason:

  \starttyping
  program --option=value file.ext
  \stoptyping

It would make no sense to get an en-dash there (but I guess you don’t
mean that).

But all OSes provide character maps to get single characters. And also
Unicodia works fine in Windows (https://mercury13.github.io/unicodia/,
just in case it might suit your needs).

Having a single character (emoji, dashes or whatever) is way more
readable than a character combination for a ligature or a TeX command.

This single-character approach also makes easier to copy and paste text
to other formats.

> (the question is just out of curiosity, since I plan to create a
> command that adds a hairspace after or before the dash, since I don't
> like it to stick to some letters like "o").
Just consider that you should add an horizontal box (or pair both space
and hyphen), otherwise you may get a line break between character and
hyphen (instead of the hair space):

  \starttext
  \startTEXpage[offset=2st]
  \hsize\zeropoint
  this —\hairspace or so\hairspace— that

  this \hbox{—\hairspace}or so\hbox{\hairspace—} that
  \stopTEXpage
  \stoptext

Just in case it might help,

Pablo
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