[XeTeX] Let's discuss \mathchar again

[Jonathan Kew]

On 14 Dec 2005, at 9:02 am, Malte Rosenau wrote:
>
> as in: a text file with additional typographic data read by XeTeX
> on runtime?

Perhaps -- I really haven't thought this through very much.

> I think a lot of people would love to manipulate fonts
> (not just math fonts) without tampering with the actual font files.
> Is this technically possible/hard to implement?

Well, you could use Omega, and manipulate fonts by creating  
customized OCPs and OVFs and OFMs and all that stuff...... :)

One of the primary goals of XeTeX is that fonts -- any fonts, not  
just those that some expert has preinstalled for you -- should "just  
work", *without* users needing to manipulate or configure them in  
esoteric ways.

But in the case of math, the entire structure (fonts, metrics,  
algorithms, code tables, macros) is extremely complex and needs to be  
understood and updated as a whole, because the layers are so tightly  
interrelated. It's certainly a worthwhile goal, but I don't want to  
rush in without a really thorough understanding of it all.

JK