> > Indeed. Right now I'm using such a font in Emacs, a 12x24 bitmap
> > font (Etl-Fixed-Medium).
>
> I'm using my own 6x10 bitmap font, hand-drawn pixel by pixel
> in long hours of hard manual labor ;-). [6x10 means that
> you can display *lots* of text on a 1920x1200 display.]
Uh, oh, I *hate* such small fonts -- it's far too laborious for my
eyes.
> > Please bear in mind that we are talking about man pages, not
> > troff documents in general.
>
> I understand. I'm just unwilling to accept different basic design
> principles for every individual device.
Hmm. There aren't `different basic design principles'! I tried very
hard to have consistent glyph and character shapes and names across
all devices. Regarding \` and \', CSTR #54 clearly says that they are
grave and acute accents, respectively. However, for man pages, a
different *input convention* seems to have been established over the
time, which needs different mappings.
> Also, when formatting manual pages with the ps device, it's much
> better to use "ascii" quotes from the Courier font than acute and
> grave accents from the Times font.
One more reason to have better mappings for man pages on the PS
device.
> Actually, I believe \` and \' are used extremely seldom in their
> role as accents. If I would ever find it necessary to use a custom
> accented character I'd think it's easier to use .char [...]
I fully agree.
> Thus, it's perfectly okay for me if \` and \' change to mean ascii
> quotes. But then, please, in all groff devices, everywhere.
For all groff devices, everywhere, *within man pages*. Sorry to say,
but everything else would break backwards compatibility -- something
groff should retain IMHO.
Werner
