Re: lout output in ghostscript

[Valeriy E. Ushakov]

On Sat, Oct 02, 1999 at 04:54:04PM +0200, Hanu? Adler wrote:

> Where could I get the font, or more fonts,

    CTAN:fonts/psfonts/polish

Where polish in fact means latin2.


> and where do I find some docs on how to set them up for lout /
> includeres to work with? Any FAQ on this anywhere on the net?

At my job I will have a code freeze for the project I work on the next
week.  I will than have some time to write an explanation for this.
That's really simple, I hope I'll be able to write a summary for
everyone to use.  Feel free to hold me by my word and kick me to do
what I promised.


> Well, maybe it is not as good an idea. When I'm thinking about it,
> I feel it would be better to include these packages in the basic
> distribution of lout for several reasons:
> 
> - if those packages aren't part of lout, they won't be included in the
>   prepackaged distributions of lout (redhat, debian packages) which
>   average users tend to use.

What stops RedHat or Debian or FreeBSD from making, say, lout-palladio
package for average user to install on top of installed lout package?
They do this for perl modules, why lout modules are any different?


> - It is simply unfair... Why should some admins have a more difficult
>   installation than others?

Ok, is that fair to make Jeff to work around every problem that might
arise with some particular setup?


> and last, which I perceive as maybe the most important:
> 
> - lout should not be perceived as a frontend to Postscript. That means
>   if Postscript is limited to several "basic" fonts, lout should not
>   copy this limitation. To the contrary, postscript should be perceived
>   only as a means, one of many, of displaying what the author described
>   through lout.

There are so many fonts out there, that you can't please everyone.  If
we stick to 14 basic fonts and ship other fonts as add-on packages, we
have a flexible scheme that can accomodate all the fonts out there in
a prepackaged way via add-ons.  Stuffing everyting into the
distribution is like chasing a moving target, which gains nothing but
supplying a constant source of headache for Jeff.

If document author wants to use some font, the burden is on him to
make the font known to lout.  That's the case with TeX, that's the
case with *roff.  Adding a font to lout is so easy (i.e. Jeff has
already done his best), that I think requesting an out-of-the-box
support for any given font is unfair to Jeff.


I feel that the issues you bring up are really packaging issues.  If
something can be done to ease the packaging, then let us know.  I
understand that from the average user's viewpoint things just "should
work", but I feel that it's unfair to shift all the responsibility to
authors of the software.  Lout, as it is now, is modular enough to
allow for packagers (like Linux distros) to make a smooth integration
into their systems.

Fell free to disagree with these opinions of mine and submit your
proposals to making things better.

SY, Uwe
-- 
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