[XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort

[Keith J. Schultz]

Hi All,

I chime in here again. First, I give you some of my background.

I have been around computer for 30 years, since the advent of the PC
Apple IIe (my first) and the IBM PC( The 386 my second).
I have work with Wordstar, Word, and (La)Tex when they were in their
infancy.
I have studied Physics, Mathematics, Humanities and Computer Linguistics.
I am a computer linguist, programmer and developer.

Now to the Topic.

First, TeX et al was developed as a typesetting system and doing word processing
in the true sense. Its most prominent feature was its device independent format DVI.
It help mostly the academics in the (natural) sciences because it gave them a tool to,
at the time, easily produce documents with figures and formulas. It was practically unknown
in the Humanities, even well into the 90s.
The only good books where from Knuth, Lampert et al. you had to buy them if you wanted to 
do anything with LaTeX or even get an idea what it was about and if it was useful.  You found out
how get it was by word of mouth or from your publisher.

To help the situation lshort was created to give you a sense what can be done with LaTeX and it was
free. It was a showcase to get the beginner started.

The same should be true of xelshort. It should:
	1 Introduce Unicode from a users point of view
	2 Introduce fonts from the users point of view
		- different types
		- unicode fonts 
			- what glyphs are 
			- glyph repertoire (roughly)  
			- it should not describe unicode features that is font fontspec
		- advantages of using unicode fonts
		       - especially for input (more WYSIWYG like)
	3 Introduce editors/systems from a users point of view
		- what TexLive is
		- advice on editors 
			- why is the choice of an editor/system is important
			- suggest TeXWorks/TeXShop as starting point
			- advice of what is out there for the linux world
			      mention that there is E-macs et. al also for 
			      Windows/Mac
	4 Simple Example Xe(La)TeX document
		- explain preamble
			- class
			- why fonspec et. al.
			- why polyglossia
				- why not use babel
		- describe the most minimal specification need to use fonts with fonspec
			- how do I get my text displayed with my system font xyz
	5 Examples of using Xe(La)TeX with standard LaTeX packages
		- what should be loaded when and where
		- RTL/LTR
		- language switching
		- which packages should be used instead standard packages
			- especially math
	6 a short introduction to fontspec
		- basic features it offers for loading fonts
		- basic manipulation of fonts
		- where to get more infromation
	7 advance features
	8 where to go from here

Well I think wraps it up.
One of my main gripes about learning Xe(La)TeX is that I am not interested about getting
a font with a particular metrics. I want to use my unicode and system fonts. In my documents
and not worrying about metrics and font design and features. 
I mean I have still to find a introduction that says do this and you should be fine.

YES, Xe(La)TeX can do more, but those are IMHO for specialist or experts. Most on this list are
most certainly expert!!

regards
	Keith.