From: Ming Hua <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> On Fri, Dec 15, 2006 at 07:28:08AM +0100, Danai SAE-HAN wrote:
> > From: Ming Hua <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > 
> > > And if you are suggesting using entities like "&cjkspace;" in the SGML,
> > > then I'll probably object.  It's too cumbersome and counter-intuitive
> > > for spaces that are so frequently used.
> > 
> > I don't think it's too cumbersome if the entity's name is
> > abbreviated.  Or we could just use "~" in the SGML source and then use
> > sed to change it all in "&cjkspace;" when processing it to other
> > formats, and use \tilde for real tildes.
> 
> I don't know how fast you type Chinese (I suspect not very fast), but
> for me, using anything else instead of space is a huge distraction.  Of
> course using ~ would be much better than &cjkspace;, but that's still
> quite cumbersome IMHO.

I don't think this should be a problem at all: one only uses ~ when
switching from CJK<->English inside a sentence, you never use it
between Chinese characters.  If a CJK tilde is not used, TeX will
sometimes output an ugly 

This is from the example file that comes with CJK:

本常問問答集~(FAQ list)~是從一些經常被問到的問題及其適當的解答中,[...]

Normally "~" is a non-breakable space in TeX.  When the \CJKspace
option is set, CJK will change this into a breakable space.

Here's an extract from the CJK documentation:

| Embedding non-CJK words into CJK text
| -------------------------------------
| 
| To enable line breaking you should separate non-CJK words and CJK characters
| with horizontal space. But the ordinary space dimensions inserted by TeX
| based on the current non-CJK font often looks bad because the surrounding
| CJK characters are printed almost side by side (the non-stretched value of
| \CJKglue is 0pt). Especially in extreme cases which happen in underfull
| \hbox commands the default space distorts the CJK text too much.
| 
| If you say \CJKtilde, the active `~' character doesn't produce an
| unbreakable space; instead, the following definition is used:
| 
|     \def~{\hspace{0.25em plus 0.125em minus 0.08em}}        .
| 
| This defines a space which has a normal width of a quarter (CJK) space. See
| the file japanese/shibuaki.txt for some further details.
| 
| This defines a space which has a normal width of a quarter (CJK) space. See
| the file japanese/shibuaki.txt for some further details.
| 
| Here an example:
| 
|         ThisIsChineseText~test~ThisIsChineseText
|                          ^^^^^^
| Simply use tilde characters instead of spaces at the border between CJK and
| non-CJK characters.
| 
| In BibTeX entries, you have to use `{~}' instead of `~'.
| 
| The original definition of `~' is available as \nbs (non-breakable space, a
| shorthand for the LaTeX command \nobreakspace). To return to the standard
| `~' macro definition say \standardtilde.
| 
| Note that the opposite is not true: To embed CJK words into non-CJK text an
| ordinary space is optimal.


> > Point is that a text should not only be informative, but also be
> > written in a structural way.  That's the power of markup languages
> > such as SGML and TeX.  If it wasn't, then we could just return to
> > writing plain texts without much further ado.  We need to help the
> > computer to make the right decisions, and inserting an extra entity
> > will do that.
> 
> And I think one of the main strong point TeX and SGML have over other
> formats such as MS word is that they separate the structure/content and 
> the layout/style.  I feel that using ~ in CJK LaTeX to deal with the
> spacing issue is a violation to this spirit.  I can't suggest better
> alternative, though.

I beg to differ: that is exactly part of the structure.  Just as we
write \TeX\ instead of just \TeX.  Just as we have to use
\foreignlanguage{latin}{Insert cool Latin proverb here, like ``Nemo
censetur ignorare legem''} instead of just \textit{}.


> With all these said, however, it's ultimately up to the decision of the
> document translation coordinators.  I am not one of them, so there is no
> point persuading me.  If no one else, especially no translators or
> coordinators, is interested in this topic, I suggest we agree to
> disagree and let this thread die.

Oh, I thought you, easthearo, and Haifeng Chen were among the
translators?  I don't think that any of the top coordinators will
object to fine-tune the SGML output.


Best regards



Danai SAE-HAN
韓達耐

-- 
題目:《襄邑道中》
作者:陳與義(1090-1138)

飛花兩岸照船紅,百里榆堤半日風。
臥看滿天云不動,不知云與我俱東。


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