Re: x-symbol?

[Mario S. Mommer]

Hi,

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:
> With regard to the optic sugar, you might \usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
> in connection with some utf-8 special characters, namely let LaTeX cater
> for the conversion.

Do you know of any resource that describes that? I presume one would
have some input method producing the (for example) nabla in utf8, and
then some macro that translates to \nabla. Is that what you mean?

> For the visual component, I consider X-Symbol's approach a bit too
> invasive on the buffer text: if things go wrong, you lose original
> input.

In all the years i've used it, i did not observe that I lost input. I
mean, yes, if you for example delete an alpha character, all six letters
of the \alpha disappear, but that has never bothered me.

> preview-latex's own way of inserting graphics instead, however,
> appears like overkill for the same application space.  A middle ground
> would be the use of display properties substituting appropriate Unicode
> characters, but not graphics.

But I think that is exactly what x-symbol does. It has a special font
for some characters that seem not be in Unicode, but that is about
it. It does include small thumbnails of graphics included with
\includegraphics (which btw, is of very little use).

> The work still has to be done, but once it _has_ been done, chances are
> that it will at least be guarded somewhat against bitrot.

Here is me crossing my fingers :-)

I'll try to contact the original author. Maybe assigning fsf the
copyright would be a first step...

Regards, and thanks,

          Mario