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Re: x-symbol?
From: |
David Kastrup |
Subject: |
Re: x-symbol? |
Date: |
Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:15:34 -0000 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.50 (gnu/linux) |
m_mommer@yahoo.com (Mario S. Mommer) writes:
> David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:
>> With regard to the optic sugar, you might \usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
>> in connection with some utf-8 special characters, namely let LaTeX cater
>> for the conversion.
>
> Do you know of any resource that describes that?
I'd guess the inputenc documentation.
> I presume one would have some input method producing the (for example)
> nabla in utf8, and then some macro that translates to \nabla. Is that
> what you mean?
For example. In Emacs, the TeX input method will produce, when you type
\nabla, "∇" in your text.
>> For the visual component, I consider X-Symbol's approach a bit too
>> invasive on the buffer text: if things go wrong, you lose original
>> input.
>
> In all the years i've used it, i did not observe that I lost input. I
> mean, yes, if you for example delete an alpha character, all six
> letters of the \alpha disappear, but that has never bothered me.
It has happened to me quite a bit that something went wrong and the file
contained unconverted material. When you were lucky, some code
conversions made it possible to salvage.
>> preview-latex's own way of inserting graphics instead, however,
>> appears like overkill for the same application space. A middle ground
>> would be the use of display properties substituting appropriate Unicode
>> characters, but not graphics.
>
> But I think that is exactly what x-symbol does.
No, it replaces the buffer text instead of changing its display.
> It has a special font for some characters that seem not be in Unicode,
> but that is about it.
It works with special fonts and codings for other characters as well IIRC.
> It does include small thumbnails of graphics included with
> \includegraphics (which btw, is of very little use).
I don't consider this part of its defining feature set. It's more like
a completely separate functionality.
>> The work still has to be done, but once it _has_ been done, chances
>> are that it will at least be guarded somewhat against bitrot.
>
> Here is me crossing my fingers :-)
>
> I'll try to contact the original author. Maybe assigning fsf the
> copyright would be a first step...
If you can't get anybody willing to work on the code, it would be sort
of pointless. Sure, it is a kind of insurance against some programmer
eventually being able and willing to work on it, and the original author
being no longer available or willing to bother. But I think it might be
smarter if you'd try to see whether you can find somebody willing to
work on this first.
--
David Kastrup