I wouldn't know - I don't move in circles where one could even contemplate
shelling out that much for such an item.
John
----- Original Message -----
From: Wilfred van Rooijen
To: Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 1:01 PM
Subject: Re: [XeTeX] Em-dash
But is this keyboard so expensive because of the technology or because
of the "design" (which, by the way, I find to be fairly conservative :-)) )
Wilfred
--- On Tue, 4/5/10, John Was <[email protected]> wrote:
From: John Was <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [XeTeX] Em-dash
To: "Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms"
<[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, 4 May, 2010, 5:23 PM
Hello
Well if money is no object try this:
http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/
Unfortunately I'm too busy emptying my bank account with important
things like wind-up gramophones....
In case of difficulty, don't forget the third way of communicating
with the computer - SHOUT.
John
----- Original Message -----
From: Wilfred van Rooijen
To: Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 9:11 AM
Subject: Re: [XeTeX] Em-dash
Hi all,
This seems to be precisely the issue. Xetex can read and
understand all unicode characters, but at this time, the only way to
communicate with the computer is through the keyboard and the mouse. Thus,
there will always be issues with "special characters". I don't know if it
exists, and if not it may be interesting to develop, but a keyboard with LCD
keys would be nice. Then one can switch layout, and the characters on the keys
appear differently. Of course, there would still be strange side-effects, such
as a CJK space, which is really a 2-byte space, and xetex does not treat it as
a regular space (rather, treats it like ~, I suppose).
Cheers,
Wilfred
--- On Tue, 4/5/10, Juan Francisco Fraile Vicente
<[email protected]> wrote:
From: Juan Francisco Fraile Vicente
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [XeTeX] Em-dash
To: "Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms"
<[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, 4 May, 2010, 4:48 PM
Which is that compose key on Linux?
I think all of you have a part of reason, but we have to
remember that one of the best things of the world of TeX is the multiple
options that offers. Erasing that conventions would be a loss.
Although I agree (it's difficult to see --- sometimes and
the source code may result in low readability), XeTeX is everyday more known
for linguists that work with several languages. And the great characteristic of
XeTeX is a more comfortable environment for working with several languages
(that it is possible in LaTeX, but some time ago it was not so easy for some of
us if working with Unicode).
Many people working with documents in several languages
have the same problem: it's necessary to change again and again between
language-keyboard. And every keyboard usually puts diacritical marks, dashes,
points and other chars where the designer wanted/preferred. In this way those
methods of LaTeX are very productive: LaTeX accents, for instance, make much
easier to put vocalic quantities in Latin, or marks for textual criticism in
Greek like a point under a greek letter. These are two examples only, and I
agree with some of you that suggest to learn the keyboard distribution, but
sometimes it's more difficult than it seems (for instance, in Spain we have our
own distribution, specially different because it includes our 'ñ', and if I
change to Greek layout on Linux is really different and few intuitive for
Spanish users). I am designing a layout for Ancient Greek for Spanish keyboard
and people who will use it will have to learn where I put the em-dash for
instance, but if they work with XeTeX and those codes of LaTeX, this question
is independent of the keyboard, the system or the editor, I think.
Sorry if I have made any mistake talking about XeTeX, I
will be always a **TeX learner...
Best regards,
Juan Francisco
2010/5/4 Andrew Moschou <[email protected]>
On Linux, there is the compose key, on Mac, there is the
option/alt key, and both are very convenient. On Windows, there are the alt key
codes but these are very inconvenient, instead you can use the program AllChars
(allchars.zwolnet.com) which imitates the behaviour of the compose key. I use
these methods and have learnt the few combinations that represent the common
unicode characters (dashes and quote marks apart from accented letters).
I would argue that using the proper characters increases
readability of the source code: e.g. J\"urgen Strau\ss{} is harder to read than
Jürgen Strauß.
The tricky thing about the various dashes is that, with a
monospaced font, it is hard to work out what sort of dash you are looking at
(they're all the same length).
Andrew
On 4 May 2010 13:15, Wilfred van Rooijen
<[email protected]> wrote:
I'd have to somehow input the character directly, and I
am sure that there are ways to do that, but those will not increase readability
of the source code :-))
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