On 18/11/2011, at 10:00 PM, Pontus Lurcock
On Fri 18 Nov 2011, Hans Hagen wrote:
so, best is that those asking for it come up with a list of issues: which symbols need this option, is it language related or whatever, so that i can do them all at once. We can already have different mapping sets so spacing could be part of that.
I don't personally have a need for units in the foreseeable future (I was just nitpicking with Robin about spacing) so feel free to ignore any of my suggestions, but I think the summary so far would be:
1. Spacing for almost all SI units should be the same and doesn't need special cases.
2. Geographical degrees/minutes/seconds should have no spaces.
3. Spacing for degrees temperature varies according to different style guides -- both before and after the ° -- so ideally it would be possible to set these independently of the rest of the units.
For my own part I would add:
4. SI unit abbreviations are mostly capital letters, and look (to me) strange with old-style figures. I have seen books which used old-style figures for page numbers, years, etc. but switched to lining figures when a unit was involved; this is also what I did in my thesis. So I think it would be useful to allow an automatic switch to lining figures to be configured when typesetting a unit.
Pont
I agree on points 1 and 2 (although it seems arcminute and arcsecond are not implemented anyway). Point 3, yes, but I'm dubious about space after ° for the temperature units °C or °F as it breaks the rule about unit ambiguity ("° C" is a degree-Coulomb -- although I can't image a physical situation that would need such a unit). Point 4 is a bit beyond the scope of the SI units scheme but sounds like a potential need. Over the weekend I've discovered a couple more problems with \unit so I'll make up some test cases and desired output and post it in a few days. Robin