Jonathan Fine wrote:
What I want is for LuaTeX and XeTeX to have a shared 'extended dvi format' which is suitable for print, for generating PDF and possibly other purposes.
And of course I'd like this format to be of at least satisfactory technical quality.
Since luatex is mostly pdftex the code related to the backend is also interwoven with functionality (like annotations and objects etc). Most if that can be supported via the dvi route too but it's not always as efficient. Also, some functionality can be written in lua by parsing node lists etc. Anyhow, it's on the agenda (2009-2010) to rewrite the backend code in such a way that more backend can be used (maybe written in lua). Although we want luatex to be backward compatible as much as possible (as long as it does not complicated the code), it might be that redesigning the interface between frontend and backend will lead to extensions to the dvi format (or we might as well decide that dvi supports only part of the frontend features); specials are always an escape at the cost of more macro package code. So, it's not 'dvi' that sits in the middle of 'print and generating pdf', but dvi as one of the (traditional) output formats: luatex frontend -> api -> [dvi,pdf,...] [dvi->ps,pdf,...] of course one can stil go the luatex frontend -> api -> [dvi+] [ps,pdf,...] route then. As said: it's one of the longer term objectives. A quick and dirty non-introsve patch to produce xetex compatible dvi is no problem, but one never knows if it will stay that way. Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------