0news.txt -- changes to Malvern between releases -- -*-text-*- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ RELEASE 1.2 -- CHANGES SINCE MALVERN 1.1 All file names are now compatible with MS-DOS/ISO 9960 All files have names fitting in the 8+3 straightjacket required by stupid MS-DOS and ISO 9960 filesystems. I was about 12 or 13 when I worked out for myself that trying to identify data with eight-capital-letter names was a dumb idea; too bad ISO didn't consult me. One side effect is that the capital-letter file names traditional on UNIX systems for important installation files (README, INSTALL, COPYING, NEWS) have been changed to 00readme.txt, 0install.txt, 0copying.txt, 0news.txt for the sake of MS-DOS and VMS sufferers. Abandoned standard font names As of October 1994, the font names standard does not allow more than two variant letters without breaking the eight-character limit for MS-DOS and ISO 9960 file names. Variants includes encodings and things like whether the font is slanted. As an extreme example, Malvern 58 with the caps-&-small-caps, old-style-numerals variation on the OT1 encoding is fmvr9ci7tc12! My best temporary solution to this situation is to abandon "fmv" names altogether and extend the "ma" names to include the encoding schemes needed by plain TeX, plain LaTeX and LaTeX 2e. Therefore, *all* Malvern fonts now have names starting with "ma". Standardized encoding scheme numbers Now I have been forced toi come up with a set of 2-letter encoding codes for every encoding under the sun, I use encoding=19 for TeX Text instead of 0. pdc 1994.10.11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ RELEASE 1.1 -- CHANGES SINCE MALVERN 1.0.02 Better documentation A lot of the excess verbiage is irrelevant and has been enclosed in \iflong...\fi. At the same time the sections on installation and such have been rewritten or expanded. There is a separate installation guide (install.dvi) which uses no nonstandard fonts. Support for LaTeX 2.09 and LaTeX 2e I have included style options that should work with LaTeX 2.09 (either with or without NFSS), as well as LaTeX-2e FD files. The 2e file includes support for small capitals (but not italic small capitals, because NFSS 2 has no way to refer to them). All of these are generated by the same script that generates the fonts, so they should match the supplied fonts. Macro file changed from "malvern.tex" to "maamac.tex" The name "maamac" is more "standard" in that it ends with "mac" (as many plain TeX macro files do) and starts with "maa" (as most Malvern-A-related files do). It leaves open the possibility of a "magmac.tex" file for Malvern G, and so on. Macro files used in documentation renamed The macro files I used to format plain-TeX documents have been renamed so that they all start with "pdc" and are valid ISO-9960 names. Files for fontinst There are ETX and MTX files included for making T1-encoded fonts from. Driver files, TFM and VF files included A set of driver (.mf) files and TFM and VF files have been included, generated using "mff" and Alan Jeffrey's fontinst package. These come in three main groups: (1) OT1 (the encoding shown in App.F of the TeXbook) and T1 (Cork) fonts, all with names starting in "fmv" (such as fmvmq12, fmvm9r12); (2) Malvern-encoded fonts, used to make the T1 fonts and those of the OT1 fonts that include small caps, with names starting with "ma" (such as ma55a12); and (3) some other Malvern-encoded fonts included as examples (such as ma55g11). All of the fonts in group (1) are composite fonts (VFs), except for the OT1 fonts without small caps. It follows that systems without the ability to use VFs will not be able to use T1 fonts. Cyrillic letters The Cyrillic alphabet is still very incomplete, and some of the glyph designs need revision. Composites-only font in limbo The previous release had a half-baked composite-letters-only encoding, Malvern C. This letter has now been used for Cyrillic instead, and eventually Malvern E will be some sort of composite-letter font. Since the Fontinst package makes pre-built composites largely redundant, I don't expect this font to be used for anything much unless I come up with new ideas on designing composite letters. Encodings schemes Only uses Malvern encodings The Malvern programs no longer make any attempt to support any font encodings other than Malvern A, B, ... and the CMR encoding described in the TeXbook (now called OT1). This is because (a) trying to support Cork & other encoding vectors was getting to be a great pain even without including support for caps-and-small-caps variants and (b) all this can be better done using Alan Jeffrey's fontinst package. Changes to some Malvern encodings Malvern B no longer includes Greek or Cyrillic letters -- these have their own encodings, Malvern G and C. Malvern B contains a selection of symbols etc. and includes the glyphs needed to make Cork, Adobe and ISO-8859-1 fonts. Replaced and mended glyph programs Letters A and E with Ogonek redesigned The new designs for "A" and "a" have the ogonek mark drawn as a continuation of the last stroke of the letter. I don't know if this is more "authentic" or not... Figures don't turn absurd then compressed or expanded. Curves have more intermediate points, and the ones with circular rings (8, 6, 9) behave more intelligently when there isn't enough space to use circular circles. Curves generally made more robust Many curves used to turn angular when compressed; most such curves now use a macro that draws them as a quarter-superelipse. pdc 1994.07.29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ RELEASE 1.0, PATCH 02 -- CHANGES SINCE MALVERN 1.0.01 Added a new encoding G (Greek) Designed lower case Greek letters and composite letters, and made a new Malvern encoding G. This uses similar ligature conventions to GreekTeX to generate fully marked up Greek text using ligatures like a| for alpha with iota subscript and <'h for eta-lenis-acute. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ RELEASE 1.0, PATCH 01 -- CHANGES SINCE MALVERN 1.0 Fixed the letter L The width was wrong.