\defineactivecharacter in LMTX + composing characters
Dear gang, It appears that \defineactivecharacter does not work in lmtx: \starttext \defineactivecharacter Ḥ {\d{H}} \defineactivecharacter ḥ {\d{h}} \defineactivecharacter Ṣ {\d{S}} \defineactivecharacter ṣ {\d{s}} \stoptext This should not produce any typeset output but in lmtx it does. Background: The following characters are essential for Arabic transliteration (assuming your email client has the chars): Ṯṯ Ḥḥ Ḫḫ Ḏḏ Šš Ṣṣ Ḍḍ Ṭṭ Ẓẓ Ġġ Āā Īī Ūū ʿ ʾ But most really good fonts don't have them, so we have to compose them. Now there are other methods, e.g, 1) \definecharacter Hbottomdot {\buildtextbottomdot H} but cannot use it without something like \defineactivecharacter (there's no way we're going back to the bad old days of control sequences for accented chars). That is, we need to be able to say something like \definecharacter Ḥ {\buildtextbottomdot H} But this doesn't work. The other method 2) \definefontfeature[default][default][compose=yes] doesn't appear to work either (at least not with, e.g., Minion Pro Opticals). And even when it used to (somewhat) work (often ugly default results) it did not support utf 02BE and 02BF (ʿ ʾ). So we still need something like \defineactivecharacter ʿ {\high{c}} \defineactivecharacter ʾ {\kern.07 em \high{\rotate[rotation=180,location=high]{c}}} or better \definecharacter ʿ {\high{c}} \definecharacter ʾ {\kern.07 em \high{\rotate[rotation=180,location=high]{c}}} The upshot is that we need a general, configurable solution for this kind of situation. And please don't say, "Use a different font!" -) Thank you in advance for any guidance and assistance in this matter. Best wishes Idris -- Professor Idris Samawi Hamid Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523
On 8/1/2023 4:18 PM, Hamid,Idris wrote:
Dear gang,
It appears that \defineactivecharacter does not work in lmtx:
\starttext \defineactivecharacter Ḥ {\d{H}} \defineactivecharacter ḥ {\d{h}} \defineactivecharacter Ṣ {\d{S}} \defineactivecharacter ṣ {\d{s}} \stoptext
This should not produce any typeset output but in lmtx it does.
Background: The following characters are essential for Arabic transliteration (assuming your email client has the chars):
Ṯṯ Ḥḥ Ḫḫ Ḏḏ Šš Ṣṣ Ḍḍ Ṭṭ Ẓẓ Ġġ Āā Īī Ūū ʿ ʾ I'd use a different font but as you want to go cheap ... attached gets you going and will give you a few hours playing around with fonts.
Using a scaled c for some c like shape is kind of bad anyway, kind of using a comma for an ogonek. Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------
On Aug 1, 2023, 10:09 AM -0600, Hans Hagen
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Hamid,Idris -
Hans Hagen