Re: substitutions

From: "Idris Samawi Hamid ادريس سماوي حامد" <ishamid@colostate.edu>
To: "mailing list for ConTeXt users" <ntg-context@ntg.nl>
Subject: Re: substitutions
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 06:34:51 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <op.uipg8dqnfkrasx@your-b27fb1c401> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <6faad9f00810070353h170387fm234b5b6a5c75b8c6@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:53:40 -0600, Mojca Miklavec  
<mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 1:57 AM, Idris Samawi Hamid ادريس سماوي حامد

>> Sometimes I use the following for simple substitutions:
>>
>> \defineactivecharacter  '  {\otfchar{quoteright}}
>>
>> But is there a more general mechanism to do things
>>
>> \definesubstitution{<string1>}{<string2>}
>>
>> eg
>>
>> \definesubstitution{--}{–}
>>
>> Of course ConTeXt already provides this particular substitution
>
> In mkii it doesn't. Fonts do that substitution. In mkiv a hack is
> applied to fonts (not to TeX macros), so that this particular
> substitution works.

Hmm, so this is much more complicated than I thought...

>> but I'm
>> interested in such a mechanism for more general purposes.
>
> In mkii this is not possible, except with some ugly hacks. You can
> easily substitute a single character by making it active. To
> substitute whole words, you either need to modify fonts, or write some
> dirty macros.

I see. In any case, mkii is "obsolete" for my purposes, if/when I get to  
writing a book on ConTeXt it will cover mkiv only.

> In mkiv you can either apply some "patches" to fonts (search for tlig
> in ConTeXt source, for example font-otf.lua, also, there are some fea
> files in fonts/fea/context capable of doing that), or change input
> text while reading/digesting some TeX file.

tlig was buggy, but it works in the latest beta. Thank you, Hans!

> Hans and Taco can probably tell you more.

And Thank you, Mojca!

Idris

-- 
Professor Idris Samawi Hamid, Editor-in-Chief
International Journal of Shi`i Studies
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
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