I'm finally fairly happy with APL text and LaTeX, vi,
web browser, and APL windows now, thanks
to the following:
- Geoff Streeter (and probably others) at
Dyalog, They have created a Unicode-based
APL system including standard mods to the XFree86
(Linux windowing) configuration that let me enter
APL characters directly into the APL session,
using keystrokes like these. If you don't like the
keystrokes, you can customize them to your own whim:
This is an iota; Alt-i: ?
This is an omega; Alt-w: ?
This is a transpose; Alt-Shift-6: ?
What I find entirely delightful about this approach is that
the keyboard changes also work EXACTLY the same way in vi,
web browsers, etc. I can copy/cut/paste APL text across
apps with no problems.
- Adrian Smith, for his APL385 font.
- Alexander Skomorokhov, who told me about xelatex and
its ability to crank out APL with no fuss.
The above red text was directly copy/pasted from a pdf file
produced with xelatex, from this text, which I tinkered from slides
for a talk I'm giving at NYU on March 24. The red text is what
makes the APL happen:
\documentclass[handout]{beamer}
\usepackage{beamerthemesplit}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Arial}
\setmonofont{APL385}
\title{Tacit Parallelism}
\author{Robert Bernecky}
\institute{Snake Island Research Inc}
\date{\today}
\usecolortheme{default}
\begin{document}
This is an iota; Alt-i: {\tt ?}
This is an omega; Alt-w: {\tt ?}
This is a transpose; Alt-Shift-6: {\tt ?}
\end{document}
I'm using Linux, but Dyalog also has a BillWare(tm)
version of their unicode system.
I'm not totally happy with Adrian's font, as I don't think
it has the balance (if that's the right word) and elegance of
Joey Tuttle's APL fonts, and his font seems to pick
typefaces more or less at random. E.g., the dollar sign in
the following looks OK here, but in the pdf file, it is
clearly out of place with the remainder of the text:
x =. 2 3 $ 4
My thanks to all for making life much simpler.
Bob
Don Watson wrote:
> Raul
>
> The non-ASCII characters were a bit of a mess. This was a first attempt at
> something and I am not used to creating such script. I hand wrote the
> non-ASCII characters onto the printed page and scanned the result into a PDF
> file.
>
> J programs would still be transferable, because there is no change to
> storage format - the two ASCII characters are still stored. The change is
> only when those characters are output.
>
> Don
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Raul Miller" <[email protected]>
> To: "General forum" <[email protected]>
> Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 2:20 AM
> Subject: Re: [Jgeneral] J with APL
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 11:15 PM, Don Watson <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> http://bcompanion.com/Compromisepdf.pdf
>>
>
> Is there a reason you put this in a pdf ? I ask, because I recently
> uninstalled adobe's reader because of a security flaw.
>
> http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa09-01.html
>
> I am installing the new version of adobe now, but if you needed
> to use pdf because regular text was inadequate for your proposal,
> I think that says something about the proposal itself -- it would
> mean -- for example -- that you are proposing that J programs should
> not be transmittable using regular email.
>
> ...
>
> Ok, I have downloaded the proposal now. The hard part, obviously,
> is the characters themselves. (Personally, I could read the
> J code but had problems understanding the "compromise
> equivalent verb". I am not sure if my problems were because
> of the ways the intended characters were rendered or whether
> my problems in understanding were because I was expected to
> understand some character(s) which I did not understand.)
>
>
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