[lltx] Re: luamicrotype?

[Elie Roux]

Hello Robert,

thank you for your answer!

> You seem to be steering towards reinventing the wheel here (and the 
> axis, too).

Strange news but good news!

> Just recently I have been working on microtype in a luatex context, 
> and fortunately, it isn't all that difficult. The pdftex primitives 
> pertinent for protrusion and expansion still exist in luatex and will 
> -- in sha' Taco -- exist in the future, too. They also work with otf 
> fonts, so the main problem to solve here was how to convert the 
> characters in the configuration (where the user may specify them 
> straight-forwardly as 'A', '\textendash' or '©' etc.) into slot 
> numbers in the font. This has been puzzled out, so microtype now also 
> works with opentype fonts, as long as you stick to the NFSS, eg.:

Great! I don't have time to see how this works tonight, but I'll try to 
take a look tomorrow. Does it work with the latest CTAN version?

> It does not yet work with fontspec of course, however, only because 
> the latter deviates from the NFSS. I do not see the principal 
> difficulties you seem to make out. It should not be too hard to teach 
> microtype about fontspec, so that it is able do its task of activating 
> microtypography both systematically (if the font is included in the 
> set of fonts that should be activated) as well as in an ad-hoc manner 
> (eg., \fontspec[protrusion]{font}). Probably all that's required on 
> fontspec's part is a hook to call microtype once the font is loaded.

This looks simple... I guess the main thing will be for microtype to 
convert the fontspec naming (which is multiple as a font can be called 
in may ways) into some kind of nfss naming (which is ways simpler) to 
know which settings to use?

> I agree with Will that eventually, microtype and fontspec belong 
> together, but then the same holds true for microtype and the NFSS. 
> However, since for historical reasons, microtype is not part of the 
> latter, I do not see why it should become part of the former, 
> especially if this leads to different interfaces for the user.

Or more simple according to the new situation... should fontspec 
automatically load microtype when loaded with LuaTeX?

> Yes, and simple, too:
>   \DeclareOption{microtypography}{\RequirePackage{microtype}} % in 
> fontspec
> once microtype has been adapted to fontspec.

This would be a simple solution too...

> So, I would suggest to keep things as they are, be a bit patient with 
> me, and maybe in March, microtype will also work with fontspec...

Great news! We'll try to provide the needed hook in fontspec soon.

Thank you!
-- 
Elie