TeX font hierarchies.

[karl@cs.umb.edu (Karl Berry)]

[Barbara forwards messages giving umpteen different schemes to arrange
font directories.]

I don't think any one scheme will suffice at all sites.  (Clearly some
schemes are worse than others, on the other hand.)  Personally, I have
top-level directories named for the typeface family, e.g., `cm' and
`euler' or sometimes foundry (`adobe').  Then I put the font files under
there, since I don't have to support very many devices.  This makes
maintenance very easy (according to my way of thinking, I realize other
people think differently).  No one mentioned that alternative at all
(unless I missed it).

Instead, I believe drivers should not care what the names of the
directories are; instead, they should search subdirectories
automatically, to (perhaps) N specified levels.  (You definitely don't
want to do it fully recursively, because the bottom level always has a
zillion files, which you don't want to look at to discover they're not
directories.)  One of the Unix ports of TeX, web2c, does this for one
level now.  Then the installer can set up the directories however s/he
wants.

karl@cs.umb.edu