Re: Is this a bug?

[Ulrik Vieth <vieth@thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de>]

Rowland wrote:

>> I'd prefer to call it pckbj8a.afm, given that OsF fonts have a full
>> set of glyphs, of which only a few differ from the normal font.

> My copy of the fontname documentation states that 7d is used for OsF
> (yes, stated exactly like that) called oldstyle digit encoding;
> while j is for oldstyle digits.

> To me, this seems that you should use 7d for a fount with a full set
> of glyphs which includes oldstyle digits; while j should be used for
> founts with oldstyle digits and little else.

I was just saying, that I don't agree with what the fontname doc
says in that case.  I'd rather use j8a or j8r for raw OsF fonts
and maybe 7d for fonts, in you have extracted the oldstyle digits
and left out everything else.

>> It should have created 8rpck.fd, 8rpckx.fd and 8rpck9.fd, followed by
>> the same for OT1 and T1.

> It created 8rpckx.fd and 8rpck9.fd, but they both had no entries:

> \ProvidesFile{8rpckx.fd}
>    [1998/06/05 Fontinst v1.7 font definitions for 8r/pckx.]
> \DeclareFontFamily{8r}{pckx}{}
> \endinput

Could it be that something went wrong and you started over again
without deleting the files produced by the previous run?

>> Similarly, a \textcompfamily{pck}{} should produce 8c fonts with
>> missing glyphs in the slots for oldystyle digits.

> Can you say a little more about \textcompfamily?  I've never heard
> of it before now, and it's not in the v1.3 or v1.5 documentation

The definition of \textcompfamily used to be in a separate file
textcomp.tex.  As of fontinst-1.8, I'll integrate the functionality
into \latinfamily.

>> The third \latinfamily{pck9}{} should have produced 9t and 9e fonts
>> with expert glyphs (e.g. ff-ligatures) and with oldstyle numbers.

> I get the 9t and 9e founts, but no oldstyle numerals.  Given that I
> did a single fontinst run, asking for:

> \latinfamily{pck}{}% Caslon Book BE
> \latinfamily{pckx}{}% Caslon Book BE; expert
> \latinfamily{pck9}{}% Caslon Book BE; old style numerals

> I'd expect that the vpl files created by \latinfamily{pck9}{} would
> over-write those created by \latinfamily{pckx}{}.

> This looks like a problem to me.  Can anyone explain what's going on?

IIRC, \parse_family does a \setcommand\digit#1{#1oldstyle} to get 
oldstyle fonts rather than using a different set of .etx files.
Could it be that it doesn't work after \setcommand\digit#1{#1},
if you presviously did a non-oldstyle installation.


> You've given a perfectly clear explanation of what *should* happen,
> and I've added yet more incredibly useful stuff to my big file of
> notes on how fontinst works.

> The problem is that I didn't get what you said I ought to get.  Does
> this mean that fontinst is mis-behaving?

Yes, more or less.  It turns out that Alan's v1.511 had some extra code
for oldstyle encodings 9d/9o, while Sebastian's v1.6 is based on v1.504.

>> P.S.  Given that we already have 9* encoding names, I'd really like
>> to get rid of using `9' as a variant letter.  Can we agree on 'j' ?

> Is it necessary to have a distinction between `old style digit
> encoding' and `old style digits', as is made in the fontname
> documentation?  If not, changing to `j' makes sense, and it probably
> makes sense to tell Karl Berry about the change to see what he
> thinks.  

I guess, he'll use whatever we come up, unless he has a personal
interest in that matter.

> Given that the fontname scheme is very important to fontinst's
> behaviour when executing \latinfamily (and, I assume, the
> undocumented \textcompfamily command), it probably makes sense to
> change fontname unless there's a good reason to keep 9 as the OsF
> variant letter.

>> Furthermore, would it be acceptable to hack fontinst, so that
>> \latinfamily{<fam>9}{} automatically does \latinfamily{<fam>j}{} ?

> Hmm...  I'd say no.  Certainly change fontinst to act on
> \latinfamily{<fam>j>}{}, but the documentation should make it clear
> exactly which variant letters are acted on and exactly what each
> variant letter makes fontinst do, so there should be no reason for
> anyone to try <fam>9.  (This is assuming that the `9' variant is
> replaced by the `j' variant).

\latinfamily{<fam>j>}{} and \latinfamily{<fam>9>}{} *are* identical
in behaviour in Alan's v1.511 and I want to do the same in v1.8.
However, even if we agree on <fam>j, we still have many copies of
the LGC, which states that can use both.

Cheers, Ulrik.