Re: Comments on _Réflexions_ so far

[Thierry Bouche <Thierry.Bouche@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

» Bonjour à tous,

Bonjour à vous ;-)

» p.6 "Obliques are not italics"
»  I wonder if the 'i' button should change to an oblique 'o' if a real
» italic isn't available, and when the caret is in text with a new "oblique,
» not italic" attribute?

That may be confusing for (Sans) fonts whose italic identifies already
itself as oblique... TeX has a name for that: slanted, which
emphasizes pretty well the mechanical aspect of its
generation. Moreover, some layouts use both italic & slanted (there is
a theory according to which, as an `a' may be as well text as a math
symbol, they should be distinguishable [i don't like that theory,
though]). What about an extra `sl' button, and greying the `i' one
when not available?


» p.7 Small caps
» The idea of synthesizing these with multiple master fonts when *true* small
» caps are not available is interesting, but how many people like and use MM
» fonts?

they're waiting for correct support in software!

» essentially a virtual font that allows specifying harmonious "real"
» fonts

I think we discussed that issue somwhere at length, with TeX's VF as a
guideline. This is a very _practical_ workaround as long as we don't
have a huge collection of Unicode++ fonts (Unicode++ = Unicode + all
typographer's glyphs like in adobe's glyph list
http://www.adobe.com/supportservice/devrelations/typeforum/glyphlist.txt)

» p.8 Superscript/subscript
» It sounds like the conversation is mainly about typesetting formulas

Not really. Having the ability to place arbitrary text at an arbitrary
spot on the page (defined absolutely or relatively to current text
flow) may be very handy for some works (avant-garde poetry,
experimental typography). Our idea was that if there were kernel
support for that, then a formula plug-in could be much more simple and
integrated to the general interface.


» p.11 Crénage
» The point is made that kerning doesn't work between different fonts, or even
» different sizes in the same face. But why is automatic kerning still
» desirable in this case? 

J'ai donné des exemples : complément expert, alternates, swash
initials. À l'heure actuelle, si j'écris « Tastevin » en Adobe
Garamond Italique, avec T swash, la ligature {st}, et un n swash
final, j'ai quatre approches de paires à revoir à la main ! Pareil
pour un mot C&sc entre la cap initiale et les petites caps...

La _bonne_ solution est certainement de définir ces paires pour une
fonte virtuelle, je suis bien d'accord qu'un crénage Times-Helvetica
est absurde !

» Regarding algorithmic kerning, I have to agree with F.H. Villebrod

We all agree with him;-) The reading of the paper by P. Karow at
RIDT'98 is usefull though (Jacques, c'est encore téléchargeable
gratuitement chez Springer ?). The function as implemented in InDesign
is half-satisfactory, so far...

 
» p.13 (F.H. Villebrod) On devrait même pouvoir enregistrer des tableaux de
» crénage différents selon le corps utilisé...
» 
» So the kerning does not scale correctly and tracking doesn't help either?

I call that « optical spacing » as a cheap alternative to actual
different optical sizes. Better to use MM fonts, of course, but
tracking yields too often uneven spacing, no?


Thierry Bouche, Grenoble.