[tex-live] \FDP at colonspace is no longer defined in frenchb, v2.3d (v2.4a is OK)

[Daniel Flipo]

Hi all,

----- Forwarded message from Vincent Lefevre <vincent at vinc17.net> -----
 > I've used
 > \makeatletter
 > \renewcommand{\FDP at colonspace}{\FDP at thinspace}
 > \makeatother
 >
 > for years in my French LaTeX documents, and this no longer works
 > with Debian's version of frenchb:
 >
 > ! LaTeX Error: \FDP at colonspace undefined.

\FDP at colonspace is an *internal* command according to the '@' in its 
name, so it is not meant to be redefined by the end-user.

The official way for customizing this space is:
\frenchbsetup{ThinColonSpace=true} for versions > 2.0  or
\renewcommand{\Fcolonspace}{\thinspace} for older versions (this still 
works now).

The origin of the problem is a change in version 2.3: 
\AutoSpaceBeforeFDP was differed 'AtBeginDocument' (\FDP at colonspace is 
still defined but not in the preamble), I reverted this change in 2.4 
because it breaks tex4ht (pointed out by Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard).

What I suggest to Vincent is to replace

\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\FDP at colonspace}{\FDP at thinspace}
\makeatother

by

\renewcommand{\Fcolonspace}{\thinspace}

in all his documents, even if he decides to switch to v2.4a ;-), because 
I cannot guarantee that the name of frenchb's internal commands will 
remain unchanged over the time.

-- 
Daniel Flipo