On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 05:49:26 +0100, Aditya Mahajan <adit...@umich.edu> 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)
Just to confirm -
- 0-9 are 48-57 in ASCII
- a-z = 97-122
- A-Z = 65-90
- LC Greek = ?-? (given by \alpha to \omega range)
- UC Greek = ?-? (given by \Alpha to \Omega range)
- Is that right?
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},
]
OK, it might be useful when one wants e.g. ALL Greek letters to be printed
somehow, e.g. bold.
I don't think that the basic criterion for style in math is the (alphabet)
range, it's rather the meaning of maths
(variable/parameter/vector/tensor/operator (e.g. Nabla operator)). But OK -
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]}{}}
Or rather the following (?):
\def\VEC#1{\groupedcommand{\setupmathmappings[vector]}{#1}}
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 kind of switching would be great.
This interface makes it easy to switch math fonts for disciplines 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?
It looks good. Some examples would be needed, starting at simple ones and ending with
"wildly" switching math formulas.
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?
Personally, no matter. Programming "clarity" should be kept at most - so it's
up to you. When some samples are provided, someone will follow them.
Thank for your effort.
Lukas
Aditya
--
Ing. Lukáš Procházka [mailto:l...@pontex.cz]
Pontex s. r. o. [mailto:pon...@pontex.cz] [http://www.pontex.cz]
Bezová 1658
147 14 Praha 4
Tel: +420 244 062 238
Fax: +420 244 461 038
___________________________________________________________________________________
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 : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________
