[luatex] Why obsolete the fontforge name space?

[Hans Hagen]

Yue Wang wrote:
> Hi:
> 
>> Except for the complete and total showstopper that it will not support
>> opentype features nor aat features. Please, if you want to continue
>> along this track, figure out how to some the enormous problem of missing
>> opentype feature support first.
>>
> 
> Complex text layout can only be done by combination of FreeType2 and
> otf layout support library.
> I do not know what the "complete OpenType feature support" means.
> If it just means it can dump the low-level GPOS, GSUB, GDEF related tables.
> libotf or harfbuzz has no problem doing them
> (both libotf and harfbuzz are small libraries and only depends on
> freetype2, so they are not system libraries).

the whole idea behind luatex is that we want an open engine i.e. no 
libraries that do the things we'd like to do in whatever way; pdftex is 
limited to the build in typesetter, xetex uses libraries, luatex 
provides access and the ability to write your own typesetter

even if you'd have loader-x and character-to-glyph-processor-y you'd 
have to glue them together somehow, i.e. pass info back and forward; 
simple for some scripts, more tricky for others, even more tricky when 
we have a mixture of scripts, math, boxing etc etc

so, there is a way to load fonts (and you can add yoru own code if 
needed), there are ways to tell tex how to use a font in relation to the 
nodelist, there is the traditional machinery (after all, it's tex) and 
most of the popular otf features can be mapped onto it (ligaturing, 
kerning, replacements) and for the rest one can program whatever one 
likes (today's fashion is otf but one might as well use the info in a 
font in a completely different way); no hard coded solutions (just as 
there are no hard coded macros); after all, there are other (office) 
apps out there that might do decent jobs as well

Hans

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