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Re: \aliasfont for name-mapping
Karl Berry forwarded a suggestion on a VTeX-inspired way of aliasing . . .
>
> Here is an alternative way for achieving the substitution. VTeX implements
> an \aliasfont primitive. After
>
> \aliasfont cmr10 = adobe-times
>
> all references to cmr10 are replaced by adobe-times. This mechanism offers
> two advantages over a text substitution file:
>
> 1) It's dynamic (\aliasfont settings can be saved in a .FMT file).
> 2) Versions of TeX that implement alterations can use \aliasfont to
> map unneeded fonts. For example, in VTeX you can set
>
> \aliasfont cmsl10 = cmr10 slant 233
>
> and discard cmsl10 altogether.
>
>> (Karl now)
>> This is true, but there is one giant disadvantage to adding \aliasfont
>> -- the result is no longer `TeX', since it's not 100% compatible.
>> It might be worth adding in concert with other new features, but not by
>> itself.
>
Another problem is that this is using up TeX memory resources in a
rather fabulous way if we are considering putting into a format file
a standard set of aliases for however-many fonts we are attempting to
standardize names for.
My view of the operation of the fontmapping scheme we have been thinking
about so far, is that at [what is now] tfm-lookup time, the adapted-to-local-
conditions TeX would do a database lookup of only the fonts referenced in the
document, and refrain from loading the entire database of aliases (which
would put us out of the ballpark on any non-virtual-memory OS).
cheers,
Tom
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Thomas Ridgeway, Director,
Humanities and Arts Computing Center/NorthWest Computing Support Center
35 Thomson Hall, University of Washington, DR-10
Seattle, WA 98195 phone: (206)-543-4218
Internet: ridgeway@blackbox.hacc.washington.edu
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