Hi, I hope that this is the right place to ask this question. I am one of the author of XePersian ( a XeTeX package for typesetting Persian). We have to decided to write our package based on LuaTeX and call it LuaPersian. and we want to maintain and develop both packages at the same time so that the user have freedom in coice, either XeTeX or LuaTeX. As far as I know no latex package is still done for LuaTeX. so If I want to write my package in Lua, I have to do a considerable amount of extra work. My question is, is there any way that by some changes in fontspec package of XeTeX, that package would also work for LuaTeX? or we should be writing a new fontspec package for LuaTeX? I have heard that LuaTeX handles bidirectional texts, far better than XeTeX? is that correct? and also XeTeX allows you to have unicode maths characters, is LuaTeX currently support this feature? Thanks _________________________________________________________________ Are you a friend magnet? Play now to win prizes for you and your friends! http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/106906016/direct/01/?href=http://www.friendmagne...
وفا خلیقی، Vafa Khalighi wrote:
Hi, I hope that this is the right place to ask this question. I am one of the author of XePersian ( a XeTeX package for typesetting Persian). We have to decided to write our package based on LuaTeX and call it LuaPersian. and we want to maintain and develop both packages at the same time so that the user have freedom in coice, either XeTeX or LuaTeX.
As far as I know no latex package is still done for LuaTeX. so If I want to write my package in Lua, I have to do a considerable amount of extra work. My question is, is there any way that by some changes in fontspec package of XeTeX, that package would also work for LuaTeX? or we should be writing a new fontspec package for LuaTeX? I have heard that LuaTeX handles bidirectional texts, far better than XeTeX? is that correct?
and also XeTeX allows you to have unicode maths characters, is LuaTeX currently support this feature?
luatex is a merge of pdftex and aleph and as such does the same as those two engines in addition it provides interfaces to the internals of tex and permits you to overload current behaviour as such, it's a starting point for macro package writers who can use lua scripting to solve problems as well as provide solutions without the need to change the tex kernel; so, in order to support xepersian you need to (1) implement open type support (or any support needed using fonts), as luatex only provides loading of an opentype font and at the tex end turning characters into glyphs, as well as traditional line breaking, hyphenation, and lig building; anything else is to be programmed (2) make your system work with the omega bidirectional mechanisms which provide the basicbuilding blocks (3) manipulate tex's internal datastructures (if needed at all), take care of the input stream (if needed), etc so, contrary to xetex, luatex has no frozen behaviour (does not use libraries) but is more in the tradition of tex: program it yourself (after all, there are multiple ways to solve a problem) btw, one of the driving forces behind luatex development is the oriental tex project which aims at high quality arabic typesetting; code for this is in all 3 categories mentioned (of course you can wait till the context mkiv modules that deal with these issues are generalized which might take a while) idris might show a few more insights 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 26 Sep 2008 05:44:20 -0600, Hans Hagen
idris might show a few more insights
In addition to Hans points: Oriental TeX -- the "mother" or "midwife" of luatex -- is interested in both Persian and Arabic (as well as other languages that require the Arabic script). At present we have a team in Iran that is helping us to move some of the OTeX goals forward. On the other hand, OTeX is definitely ConTeXt-centric. Javier Bezos, I believe, is working on the luaTeX-LaTeX front, and he may have more to say on that, assuming XePersian is LaTeX-centric. Any suggestions from the XePersian team are of course most welcome! Best wishes Idris -- Professor Idris Samawi Hamid, Editor-in-Chief International Journal of Shi`i Studies Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523
good to hear that. It is wonderful that you are collaborating with an Iranian team. We will be in touch for sure. As the current status of XePersian, now we have written a package that allows a user to select a font and then all the digits in maths environments will be typeset in Farsi format in that specific font. I actually did this alone and to be honest maths fonts in LaTeX is a very complicated matter. It almost killed me. I hope that it is far easier in ConTeXt, so you do not have to put too much time and energy on it. Have you guys achieved that? and How did you find it? Our updates ocures every three months. For next update, we are considering writing a Unicode editor, I mean the one that really is a bidirectional editor unlike many other unicode editors and also write a package for Persian hyphenation. Cheers ----------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:01:24 -0600 To: vafa@live.com.au Subject: Re: [Dev-luatex] Making a Lua Package From: ishamid@colostate.edu CC: dev-luatex@ntg.nl; omid.kashefi@gmail.com; lists@texytipografia.com
On Fri, 26 Sep 2008 05:44:20 -0600, Hans Hagen wrote:
idris might show a few more insights
In addition to Hans points:
Oriental TeX -- the "mother" or "midwife" of luatex -- is interested in both Persian and Arabic (as well as other languages that require the Arabic script).
At present we have a team in Iran that is helping us to move some of the OTeX goals forward.
On the other hand, OTeX is definitely ConTeXt-centric.
Javier Bezos, I believe, is working on the luaTeX-LaTeX front, and he may have more to say on that, assuming XePersian is LaTeX-centric.
Any suggestions from the XePersian team are of course most welcome!
Best wishes Idris
-- Professor Idris Samawi Hamid, Editor-in-Chief International Journal of Shi`i Studies Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523
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On Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:16:39 -0600, وفا خلیقی، Vafa Khalighi
For next update, we are considering writing a Unicode editor
سلام وفا, Have you looked at Unipad? It was created by a Persian team and is, in my view, the best unicode editor out there, especially as reagrds its implementation of bidi -- although it applies it only line-by-line. In any case, that is the standard to match or beat, in my view. Also, Notepad++ is a very good editor with global bidi support -- above and beyond what Scintilla provides. My own suggestion would be to work with Neil Hodgson and/or Don Ho to add full bidi support to Scintilla. I have even considered the possibility of raising funding to accomplish just that. Please forgive my fuzuulee, Vafa ;-) سلام and Best Wishes Idris -- Professor Idris Samawi Hamid, Editor-in-Chief International Journal of Shi`i Studies Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523
وفا خلیقی، Vafa Khalighi wrote:
good to hear that.
It is wonderful that you are collaborating with an Iranian team.
We will be in touch for sure. As the current status of XePersian, now we have written a package that allows a user to select a font and then all the digits in maths environments will be typeset in Farsi format in that specific font. I actually did this alone and to be honest maths fonts in LaTeX is a very complicated matter. It almost killed me. I hope that it is far easier in ConTeXt, so you do not have to put too much time and energy on it. Have you guys achieved that? and How did you find it?
in context there are no special arabic (persian) modules, the functionality is just present (and being worked on) in the kernel anyway, context related discussions should not take place here but at the context list 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------
Javier Bezos, I believe, is working on the luaTeX-LaTeX front, and he may have more to say on that, assuming XePersian is LaTeX-centric.
Yes, I am and I uploaded a very basic lua-inputenc to CTAN which should be available soon, so that people can begin to test LuaTeX more easily. I'm now working on a lua-fontenc. However, there is a lot of work to be done, and even if I can base it on my previous work on mem (for omega/aleph), luatex is based on soooo different concepts I think things must be done from scratch. And I'm trying to learn Lua as fast as I can :-) (I've got a copy of Beginning Lua Programming, by Jung and Brown). Javier ----------------------------- http://www.tex-tipografia.com
participants (4)
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Hans Hagen -
Idris Samawi Hamid -
Javier Bezos -
وفا خلیقی، Vafa Khalighi