Mauricio wrote:
Mauricio wrote:
Original Tex is not an option, since PDF, today's font formats (and Unicode) and many algorithms didn't exist when Knuth decided no features would be added anymore. Maybe I should hack the source code of pdftex or luatex? I can try that, but that's going to be hard work and I would like to know how far I can get before starting, or if there are easier options (like libraries to write PDF and read OpenType and books or example code of typesetting algorithms). you want to writ ea full blown macro package with advanced font support etc etc? well, it will take you a couple of man-years
I'll never use macros, whatever the task is :)
well, for most users a macro is just an abstraction doing something typographically meaningfull; in that sense it's not much different from a library where you use some function call to achieve the same no matter what programming tools you use, the problem remains the same ... if for instance you want to deal with fonts in a systematic way you have to program that (and there are several approaches for organizing fonts); in the end you end up with much macro code, haskell code, c code, whatever code, either ot not hidden what system you use or build depend on what you need to typeset, for instance if you need to implement a specific design (which changes over time and therefore it should be easy to change your code) that is used to process thousands of documents codes in a special way ...
If that's not possible today, maybe I could at least write a nice library of general purpose typesetting algorithms that someone could use in the future to do what I want. Although I don't think giants should be on top of dwarfs...
... general purpose might not be what most users want; eventually luatex will provide many typesetting library components, but in themselves they are rather useless, as it's the integration that makes it useable 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------