ANNOUNCEMENT: Arabic-Latin Modern Fixed

ANNOUNCEMENT: Arabic-Latin Modern Fixed

[Idris Samawi Hamid ادريس سماوي حامد]

[This announcement is dedicated to the 110% recovery and return of our  
visionary and fearless leader Hans Hagen: Three cheers to you, Hans!!!]

Dear gang,

It's my pleasure to announce the release of Arabic-Latin Modern Fixed, a  
monospaced font that extends TeX-Gyre Latin Modern Mono 10 Regular. It has  
been uploaded to CTAN, although I do not know how long it will take for  
the CTAN people to approve and publish it. Eventually it will make it's  
way into the ConTeXt minimals as well. Until then, you may use this  
private link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pulgaxshzr5bcmy/almfixed.zip

README.txt is reproduced below. Future plans include both bold and  
proportional versions. Enjoy and

Best wishes
Idris
-- 
Idris Samawi Hamid
Professor of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523

==========README.txt==========
Typeface Family: Arabic-Latin Modern
Font: Arabic-Latin Modern Fixed
Style: Regular
Version: 0.92
Author: Idris Samawi Hamid
Date: August 5, 2014

License:

Arabic-Latin Modern Fixed is licensed under the GUST Font License with one  
important adjustment: It is requested, as well as legally *required*, that  
derived works be distributed only after changing the names of the fonts  
comprising this work.

http://www.gust.org.pl/projects/e-foundry/licenses/GUST-FONT-LICENSE.txt/view

Contains:

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/doc/almfixed-dtk.pdf
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/ps;
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/tt;

Some notes, in no particular order:

1. For more extensive documentation, examples, and background; see  
almfixed-dtk.pdf.

2. The final version number (per any future fixes, maintenance etc.) is  
intended to be Version 1.10.

3. Arabic-Latin Modern Fixed is an extension of TeX-Gyre Latin Modern Mono  
10 Regular. Every glyph and opentype feature of the Latin Modern Mono has  
been retained, with minor improvements. On the other hand, we have changed  
the vertical metrics of the font. Although the Arabic script is designed  
to use the same x-size as Latin Modern Mono, the former script needs  
greater ascender and descender space. And there are cases (such as certain  
kinds of academic assignment and definitely mixed Latin and Arabic text)  
where Latin can use the extra vertical space as well. Otherwise, only the  
vertical metrics prevents this from being a drop-in replacement for Latin  
Modern Mono . Of course one can always set the vertical metrics in TeX to  
match LM Mono.

4. Every Arabic glyph in each Unicode-code block is supported (up to  
Unicode 7.0): Arabic, Arabic Supplement, Arabic Extended, Arabic  
Presentation-Forms A, and Arabic Presentation-Forms B.

5. This is a totally original design, using the Knuthian letters as  
inspiration. Indeed, virtually all Arabic characters were developed on the  
foundation of a study of the Latin Modern Mono letters 'l', 'r', and 'c'.  
In other words, this is a genuine extension of the original Knuthian  
design to an authentic and culturally authentic Arabic typing font.

6. There are two versions of the font: ps and tt. The Type~1 version is  
for print applications (and usually the default for TeX). The TrueType  
version is for on-screen applications such as text editors. Hinting in the  
tt version is much better for on-screen, at least on Microsoft Windows.

7. The most unique feature of Arabic-Latin Modern is in its treatment of  
vowels and diacritics. Each vowel and diacritic (ALM Fixed contains a  
total of 68 such glyphs) can now be edited horizontally within any text  
editor or processor. I believe this is the very first opentype Arabic font  
ever to have this capability. Editing complex Arabic texts will now be  
much easier to input and to proofread.

8. At least 12 additional format characters are included; see  
almfixed-dtk.pdf for details. Also designed a glyph representation for  
U+00A0 (no-break space), as well as U+25CC (dotted circle).

9. Arabic-Latin Modern Mono will be a boon to scholars, academics, coder  
editors, and anyone who wants to manage the entry of the wide array of  
Unicode Arabic text for editing, verbatim, or other purposes.
==============================
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