>> The reason for a standard tag language is that the main engine >> should be able to do some operations on data, like breaking it >> in pieces like words, paragraphs or staffs on music scores, >> sometimes without fully understanding what exactly those are. >> >> Possible outcomes: with a proper script language (Lua?), things >> like tables, multi-column text, and even a lot of crazy ideas >> could be really easy to write. Plug-ins results would be >> predictable, since they know nothing about the world except >> what the main engine has informed them. > > > As far as I can judge, music typesetting has completely > different rules than text typesetting.
Sure. > > Ok, you would "just" use another plugin. But then the plugins > need a way to interact: captions in graphics (like in MetaPost > today), lyrics in music etc. That's the idea. I do believe it's possible. > > I myself wouldn't probably able to handle a MetaPost based > system (or something similar) - even if I "speak" a bit of > PostScript, I just don't think of graphics as formulae: Myself, I never touch my computer mouse :) I did read an answer from Donald Knuth on why he thinks Metafont never became a popular tool for font creation. His answer: you can't ask an artist to become enough of a mathematician in order to be able to design his font based on 60 variables. > However, you need different parsers for different types of > content A system like what I want should have a common language for all. I'm not smart enough to say which one. > (I don't speak Lisp. I don't speak TeX-the-language or Lua as > well. But the latter seems easy.) Yes, it is easy and powerfull. And it was created here in Brazil! (Proud smile) > There is your unified system. XML rulez - for better or for > worse. It's really no fun to write XML by hand. But, as you said, TeX and Lilypond have a similar syntax. I belive they could share some kind of common language. > Perhaps you should try to help enhancing OpenOffice's typesetting? # > Or Scribus? I really would like something we could program, and then change design variables at will. Thanks for your comments. I have no knowledge to go beyond what I went in my first message. Best, Maurício ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
