# Re: MF hackery (arrow kit)

• To: math-font-discuss@cogs.susx.ac.uk
• Subject: Re: MF hackery (arrow kit)
• From: Ulrik Vieth <vieth@thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de>
• Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 11:09:07 +0100


[dashed vs. dotted]

> Yes I think that is how I derived the original widths and dot separations.
> About the dash/dot question: IIRC, I have taken them from Alan Jeffreys
> paper about requirements for arrows. I don't know why he didn't have
> dashed arrows.

IIRC, msam has a dashed arrow constructed using arrow heads and
a middle piece which have appropriate side-bearings for the gaps
as part of the glyphs.  (These glyphs were excluded in your version
of MSAM.etx since they don't have control sequences to address the
individual parts.

[ square brackets ]

> Good idea. Should I give them rounded corners (like the floors/ceilings)
> or should I change the floors/ceilings to have sharp corners ?

Maybe try both.  Rounded corners (i.e. simple strokes using rule.nib)
should probably work with any design (like purely geometric symbols),
whereas sharp corners may open up the need for adapting the design
in different versions.

> On my list of changes for the next version are

> * Reshuffling of the extensible fonts to remove the extensible
>   recipes from the variable area (an idea found in the archives)

> * Made all bigops should have small counterparts, but not necessarily
>   vice versa' true (also from the archives).

Do we really need this?  We already have slots for small integrals.
Do you also want small \sum and \prod?  Why nout use \Sigma and \Pi?

> * Most new bigops in MX2 now have glyphs in the cm version (their
>   design is improvable though).

If possible, I'd argue for moving certain bigops from MX2 to MX1.
For instance, the \squarecup and \squarecap should live together.
Probably also the \dijkstrachoice (looks like both combined)?

> PS Yesterday evening I noticed that the xta family doesn't pick up
> any italic glyphs from psyro. That is another point to fix before
> the next version.

I've seen that something was wrong when I printed bigdoc.  Strangely
enough, it worked for me when I regenerated it.  Were you missing
psyro.pl files when generating it?

BTW, another point concerning bigdoc: It would be nice to have a
version number and date on the title page (yes, I did print it) and
perhaps a \clearpage after the introduction to the font table section,
so that the first doesn't get split across pages unnecessarily.

> PPS Now that Michael Downes announced the alpha version of breqn.sty'
> should we try to make newmath.sty' compatible with it ? From my
> short look at breqn.sty, I think we would just need to provide
> a command \DeclareMathCompound and use it for everything that is
> not a simple \mathchardef.

Sorry, I haven't looked at it yet, so I can't comment.

That's all for now.  I've had another look at the arrow kit last
night and dit some more cleaning up, but I'm not finished yet.

Cheers, Ulrik.

`