Comments wanted: Directory structure of fontinst/inputs/

[Vladimir Volovich]

"LH" == Lars Hellström writes:

 >>> BTW, didn't Vladimir Volovich some time ago write something about
 >>> that he was writing support for cyrillic fonts?  IMHO that seems
 >>> like a good starting point for two directories cyretx/ and
 >>> cyrmtx/!)
 >>  This is already part of the t2 package on CTAN.

 LH> So it is!

so feel free to include these files into fontinst. :) i'll make
changes from time to time to files contained in t2 package, and they
will be migrated to fontinst, ok?

this makes cyrillic fontinst files more available because e.g. tetex
contains fontinst but does not contain cyrfinst; so when fontinst will
include cyrfinst, it will be more available.

 LH> macros/latex/contrib/supported/t2 isn't where I would think of
 LH> looking for fontinst material, but the use of certain LaTeX
 LH> macros (\@ifundefined, \@for) in the code explains why it was put
 LH> there. (I have only had the time for a quick glance at it, but I
 LH> think fontinst v1.9 already contains analogues of all the LaTeX
 LH> macros used, so updating the t2 package for v1.9 would remove the
 LH> restriction that it must be used with a LaTeX format.)

i'll try to adapt fnstcorr.tex to macros provided by fontinst.  btw,
could you please consider the approach of glyps aliasing provided by
fnstcorr.tex and maybe include it into fontinst? it is a more
convenient (imho) mechanism for renaming glyphs <<on the fly>> than
the one provided in fontinst.

commands like

\galias{fontinst-glyph-name}{[prefix-]alias1,[prefix-]alias2,...}

declare that glyphs with names alias1, alias2, ... (in afm files)
should be treated as declaring a glyph fontinst-glyph-name.

prefixes are used to allow some kind of `name space' for aliases.
then,

\aliasfonts{prefix-}{}{fontname1,fontname2,...}

will make mtx and pl files for fonts listed in the third argument
using either a `name space' for aliases with prefix prefix-, or
`global' aliases (declared without a prefix).

i plan to extend this syntax to

\aliasfonts{prefix1-,prefix2-,...}{}{fontname1,fontname2,...}

so that each font could be aliased using aliases from name spaces
`prefix1-', `prefix2-', ... (in that priority), so that the current
behavior should be declared as

\aliasfonts{prefix1-,}{}{fontname1,fontname2,...}

(the second name space is empty -- global), and to alias only using a
namespace `prefix1-' (ignoring global aliases):

\aliasfonts{prefix1-}{}{fontname1,fontname2,...}

This aliasing mechanism makes it really easy to deal with LOTS of
fonts with non-standard glyph names. To illustrate that this is useful
not only for cyrillic, here are aliases derived from *.enc files. when
declaring these global aliases, one does not have to warry about such
things as the name of `Eng' glyph which could have been named as `Ng'
(not conforming to AGL) in some odd font, etc.

% aliases for latin part of fontinst
% derived from AGL, *.enc, *.etx, *.afm
\galias{Ohungarumlaut}{Odblacute}
\galias{ohungarumlaut}{odblacute}
\galias{Tcommaaccent}{Tcedilla}
\galias{tcommaaccent}{tcedilla}
\galias{Uhungarumlaut}{Udblacute}
\galias{uhungarumlaut}{udblacute}
\galias{Zdotaccent}{Zdot}
\galias{zdotaccent}{zdot}
\galias{Lcaron}{Lquoteright}
\galias{lcaron}{lquoteright}
%\galias{Scedilla}{Scommaaccent} % AGL 1.1 vs 1.2
%\galias{scedilla}{scommaaccent} % AGL 1.1 vs 1.2
%\galias{hyphen}{minus}
%\galias{section}{paragraph}

\galias{Idotaccent}{Idot}
\galias{dcroat}{dmacron,dbar,dstroke}
\galias{Dcroat}{Dmacron,Dbar,Dstroke}
\galias{dcaron}{dquoteright}
\galias{Dcaron}{Dquoteright}

\galias{Eng}{Ng}
\galias{eng}{ng}
\galias{tcaron}{tquoteright}
\galias{Tcaron}{Tquoteright}

\galias{underscore}{underline}

% glyphs absent in AGL:
%compwordmark cwm bom zerowidthnobreakspace
%perthousandzero zeroinferior perzero
%visualspace visiblespace
%Germandbls SS
%hyphenchar sfthyphen hyphen dash % hanging hyphen

	Best regards, -- Vladimir.