On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 02:26:55PM -0400, Carlos wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 06:20:29PM +0200, Mikael Sundqvist wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > It is extremely difficult to follow what you write.
> > 
> > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 11:43 AM Carlos <linguafalsa@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > If I have the following, with these linebreaks as in:
> > >
> > > {\par But a system cannot be successful if it is too strongly
> > > influenced by a single person. {\obeylines Once the initial design is
> > > complete and fairly robust, the real test begins as people
> > > with many different viewpoints undertake their own
> > > experiments.}}
> > 
> > Is that the complete document? What do you have in mind with obeying
> > lines in the middle of a paragraph?
> > 
> > >
> > > and opted to load another font, other than cmr that is, a \frenchspacing
> > > approach wouldn't be further required
> > 
> > cmr? Not used in ConTeXt for a long time. (And what does the changing
> > of font have to do with this?)
> > 
> > >
> > > Bear with me here, in the current state, for example, and as long as say
> > >
> > > «…person.␣{\obeylines Once the initial is
> > > complete…» though feasible enough, leaves any prior \␣ at the mercy of
> > > whatever fontsize and/or set width happens to be. And this is just plain
> > > wrong.
> > 
> > What?
> > 
> > >
> > > Likewise, if a word sequence such as \TeX\ occurs as in {\ss The separation
> > > of any of these four components would have hurt \TeX\ significantly. }
> > 
> > Likewise what?
> > 
> > >
> > > The next sentence: «If I had not participated…» does not get any
> > > \nofrenchspacing which is equally and doubly problematic. It shows lack of
> > > consistency. And this ought not to be an ‹either› ‹or› scenario. But
> > > rather, an and conjunctional construct. It fails both ways.
> > 
> > Consistency of what? Spacing? Where? Can you make a complete example?
> > (You can show space amount with \showmakup[space])
> > 
> > >
> > > Furthermore, with the same token, if width is specified with a
> > >
> > > \setuplayout[width=15cm]
> > 
> > OK, here the game changes...
> > 
> > >
> > > Anything less than 12.895pt, especifically for that use case, wwould
> > > throw anything, particularly control sequences such as \TeX\ out
> > > of whack, and conversely, once a value of that very pt or pica or
> > > whatever is lowered, it brings that nonfrenchspacing right back on.
> > > And if width increments occur, then it follows that any control sequence kerning
> > > also gets thrown off as a result.
> > 
> > Of course the width influences the spacing. That is how the paragraph
> > builder works (and really, why it often looks good).
> > 
> > >
> > > It seems so far, that with lmtx, any standalone file, document, minimal
> > > working example that does not load cmr at the outset does not produce
> > > an acceptable outcome either. By saying acceptable I meant to say it
> > > namely from a typographical point of view. Nothing else.
> > 
> > I have no clue of what you talk about here.
> > 
> > >
> > > from the TeXbook 380-381
> > >
> > > «\obeylines doesn’t say ‘\def^^M{\par}’, so we must make any desired changes to
> > > \par before invoking \obeylines. (2) The \uncatcodespecials operation changes a
> > > space to category 12; but the \tt font has the character ‘␣’ in the ⟨space⟩ position, so we
> > > don’t really want ␣12 . (3) The \obeyspaces macro in Appendix B merely changes the
> > > ⟨space⟩ character to category 13; active character ␣13 has been defined to be the same
> > > as \space, a macro that expands to ␣10 . This is usually what is desired; for example,
> > > it means that spaces in constructions like ‘\hbox to 10 pt {...}’ won’t cause any
> > > trouble. But in our application it has an undesirable effect, because it produces spaces
> > > that are affected by the space factor. To defeat this feature, it’s necessary either to
> > > say \frenchspacing or to redefine ␣13 to be the same as \␣. The latter alternative is
> > > better, because the former will discard spaces at the beginning of each
> > > line.»
> > >
> > > «In theory, this seems like it ought to work; but in practice, it fails in two ways. One
> > > rather obvious failure—at least, it becomes obvious when the macro is tested—is that
> > > all the empty lines of the file are omitted. The reason is that the \par command at the
> > > end of an empty line doesn’t start up a new paragraph, because it occurs in vertical
> > > mode. The other failure is not as obvious, because it occurs much less often: The \tt
> > > fonts contain ligatures for Spanish punctuation, so the sequences ?‘ and !‘ will be
> > > printed as ¿ and ¡ respectively. Both of these defects can be cured by inserting
> > >
> > > and
> > >
> > >
> > > «When INITEX creates a brand new TEX, all characters have a space factor code
> > > of 1000, except that the uppercase letters ‘A’ through ‘Z’ have code 999. (This
> > > slight difference is what makes punctuation act differently after an uppercase letter; do
> > > you see why?) Plain TEX redefines a few of these codes using the \sfcode primitive,
> > > which is similar to \catcode (see Appendix B); for example, the instructions
> > > \sfcode‘)=0
> > >  \sfcode‘.=3000
> > > make right parentheses “transparent” to the space factor, while tripling the stretcha-
> > > bility after periods. The \frenchspacing operation resets \sfcode‘. to
> > > 1000.»
> > 
> > Everything you cite above is very likely true for plain TeX, but maybe
> > not for ConTeXt...
> > 
> > /Mikael
> > 
> > PS I do not think that your emails come out well. In order to get
> > help, I would suggest a strategy that not so much only sounds as
> > nagging and complaints. One thing that has been lacking is a clear
> > explanation of what you really try to achieve.
> 
> Mikael, I'll surely heed your advice with that strategy. It's almost
> impossible to have a decent looking pdf with lmtx
> 
> kerning of a simple word sequence is off, along with spurious spaces
> interjected between sentences. What gives?
> 
> And with luatex frozen for better or for worse, I better stick to plain
> tex
> 
> -- 
> Thus spake the master programmer:
> 	"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless."
> 		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
> 
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