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)
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]}{}}
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?
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
with the variants sansitalic-italicsans, boldsans-sansbold, etc. as synonmyms.
Which way of specifying the keys do you prefer?
Aditya
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