On Jun 19, 2011, at 8:58 AM, Philip TAYLOR (Webmaster, Ret'd) wrote: > > > Peter Dyballa wrote: >> >> Am 19.06.2011 um 15:14 schrieb Philip TAYLOR (Webmaster, Ret'd): >> >>> Yes, but your mail will be read by others (such as myself) >>> who are unaware of either of these facts, and will then be >>> misled into believing that it should work in their platform. >> >> The term "AAT" stands for "Apple Advanced Typography". The term is also >> used in the fontspec manual. And it appears in many files of the TeX >> distribution. >> >> You shouldn't blame me or others (you not included). But look into >> Wikipedia or some other source of wisdom and information. I am also sure >> that some simple facts can be learned. Like that it's bright when it's >> day and that it's dark when it's night. (At least on Earth.) Put into >> other words: I know where AAT, ICU, and Graphite belong to or come from >> and don't spend further thinking on this, it is to me as common as day >> and night are to most people. And since this is no hermetism or >> esotericism I use them in the same way as the ideas of day and night and >> some million other things. > > Then perhaps you are an Apple user. I am not. Millions of > potential readers of your message are not. They will have > no idea what AAT stands for. They will have no idea whether > or not they have an AAT renderer, or a Graphite renderer, > or any other renderer, as a part of their system. This does > not mean that they do not know that it is dark when it is night : > they inhabit the same real world as you, but a totally different > world when it comes to computers and computing. [1] > > I am not /blaming/ you, or anyone else : I am simply asking, > for the benefit of the vast majority of computer users that > do not use, and have zero experience of, an Apple Macintosh > computer, that when you (or others) make a statement that > is true only for the Apple Macintosh platform, you make that > plain, so that the rest of us do not spend hours wondering why > something does not work. > > This is directly analogous to the statement in Will's XeTeX > documentation that "color" may take a fourth (transparency) > byte in the extended font syntax; the statement is true, but > it will have no effect when "xdvipdfmx" (the default driver) > is used to process the file. Documentation is wonderful, > and everyone applauds those who write it, but for it to be > useful it must also be accurate. > >>> >>> /Please/, when making platform-specific statements, make >>> this obvious in the message; it will save a great deal >>> of grief and misunderstandings in the long run. >> >> I did not make platform specific statements, I made software, font, and >> font renderer specific statements. >> >> >> Does Graphite work on any platform? > > I have no idea. I know that my pencil "lead" is > really graphite, and I know it can be used as a lubricant, > but what it means in terms of fonts is completely opaque > to me (and, I suspect, to millions of others as well). > >> Why don't you complain here as well? > > I am not complaining : I am asking for precision, which > is another matter entirely. > >> >> Would it work to extend netiquette of this list to mention in the >> subject that the reported problem is specific to some OS so that >> recipients can put those OS words into their kill files? > > What is a "kill file" ? Another platform-specific feature, I suppose ! > > Philip Taylor > -------- > [1] Apple Macintosh users are currently estimated as forming > less than 10% of the total worldwide computer base. Data > taken from W3Schools, which I would not normally cite, but > I have no reason to doubt this statement. > > http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp >
Howdy, Since XeTeX uses system fonts and they are treated differently on different platforms it's only natural that platform specific things come up on this list. I have rarely, if ever, seen titles or content that tell you immediately what platform people are talking about although listening for a while gives you some information once you learn a bit about other platforms. So please, let's stop this. Oh... sorry, but one comment about the ``footnote'' in the message. I would suggest that Mac users are a considerably higher percentage of XeTeX users worldwide than the number quoted there. Good Luck, Herb Schulz (herbs at wideopenwest dot com) -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
