Converting fontdimens in PL files

[Lars Hellström]

I am currently in the process of rewriting the mechanisms in fontinst that
convert (V)PL fontdimens to \setint commands in the MTX file. The idea is
that the ETX file should be able to declare which integer a fontdimen
corresponds to (e.g. fontdimen(1) corresponds to italicslant) so that the
converter will be able to interpret fontdimens whose meaning has not been
built into TFtoPL. (TFtoPL only knows about the basic seven fontdimens,
fontdimens 8-22 in OMS encoded fonts, and fontdimens 8-13 in OMX encoded
fonts.)

There is however one old mapping that does not fit in with the new
mechanism: fontinst has been converting the DEFAULTRULETHINKNESS fontdimen
(no. 8 in OMX fonts) to a \setint for underlinethinkness. With the new
mechanism, omx.etx would probably rather declare defaultrulethickness to be
the corresponding integer and one could then do (in latin.mtx or similar
file):

  \ifisint{defaultrulethickness}\then
     \setint{underlinethinkness}{\int{defaultrulethickness}}
  \fi

Does anyone feel strongly against this?

Lars Hellström