I'll try once more to explain the setup.
If I understand the unicode philosopy correctly, then we do not any font
switching macros in math. If we want math italic A, we can simply type
0x1D434; if we want math bold A, we can type 0x1D400; and so on.
One difficulty with this approach is that it is not easy to type (and see)
these characters in an editor. One way to circumvent this, as is done by
the latex unicode-math package, is to define a macro for each symbol:
\mathitA, \mathbfA, etc.
Even if we define such macros, writing such macros is inconvinient. A more
nature way is to write $A {\bf A}$ rather than $\mathitA \mathbfA$ etc.
Traditionally, commands like \bf, \it, etc are font switches. However, in
unicode math, rather than font switches, these macros are simply input
mapping commands. Thus, by default, 0x0041 (latin A) maps to 0x1D434 (math
italic A), and so on. If \bf is active, 0x0041 (latin A) maps to 0x1D400
(math bold A), and so on.
Roughly speaking, this is how \bf. \it, \bi, \cal, \Bbd, etc work in the
background. However, at present these mappings are unsatisfactory. For
example, by default, 0x03B1 (Greek alpha) maps 0x1D6FC (Math italic small
alpha), while 0xO391 (Greek capital Alpha) maps to itself. What should
these mappings be when \bf is active? Or when \bi is active?
The trouble with the current implementation of \bf, \bi, \cal, etc is that
these mappings are not explicitly specified. My proposal is to allow users
to customize these mappings.
I agree that digits, upper and lower case latin and greek does not capture
all mathematic characters for which such mappings are needed. Similar
mappings might also be needed for some symbols like nabla (are there other
such symbols?). These can also be added as a key like
nabla={normal,italic}
or
nabla={bold,normal}
Hopefully, the above explanation makes more sense.
Aditya
On Thu, 9 Dec 2010, Aditya Mahajan wrote:
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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