Novice Questions

[Colin Klipsch]

Greetings.

I've just started using Basser Lout about a month ago, and have
accumulated a gaggle of unrelated questions.  I've read over the
user's guide, the "expert" document, and the "design" document, and
have some experience with LaTeX.  Apologies in advance if some of
these are obvious.


(1) One supplies a "mydefs" file to contain definitions for a
    document.  This is working well enough for me, but most of my
    symbol definitions use symbols in @BasicSetup, so they all look
    like this:

        import @BasicSetup
        def @MySymbol {...}

    Since I have a couple dozen such definitions, with more on the
    way, this is getting quite cumbersome both to type and to read.
    I must be missing some simplification, but my trials with "extend"
    and "export" haven't worked.  Is there a way to define a whole
    batch of symbols, all commonly dependent on the same package, but
    without qualifying each definition individually?  Is this where
    I'm supposed to clone one of the existing document definition
    files and make my own amendments?

    And just as a general issue, Lout's scoping model is still unclear
    to me.  Is there such a thing as a "global" or "document-wide"
    namespace?  If not, how are symbols scoped?  Can I define global
    functions as well as functions local to a chapter or section?


(2) I want to define a function that makes a "keyboard key" symbol out
    of a given character or word.  My first draft is this:

      def @Key right x {
        @CurveBox{ {Helvetica Slope -4p} @Font {x} }
      }

    which works fine for many inputs.  However, in the case of narrow
    letters like "I", the box is too narrow, and in the case of a
    punctuation mark like ".", the box is both narrow and squat.  The
    key shape really needs to have a minimum width, and a constant or
    minimum height -- the dimensions needed to contain a "W" let's
    say.  Also, the contained character should be centered within the
    CurveBox.  How to go about this?


(3) I have a macro I was using in LaTeX for displaying acronyms:

        \newcommand{\Acronym}[1]{{
            \scshape\lowercase{#1}
        }}

    In other words, it takes its one argument, converts it to
    lowercase, then renders this result in small caps.  I'd like to
    migrate this command into Lout.  I see there's a symbol (@S) for
    making small caps, but is there one for converting text to
    lowercase?


(4) LaTeX's NFSS provides the \oldstylenums command for rendering
    old-style numerals (numerals with ascenders and descenders).  Can
    this be done in Lout?


(5) Is there a section in the documentation discussing how to install
    and use additional PostScript fonts?  Can one easily incorporate
    the font files supplied in Acrobat Reader?


Thanks much for any help offered.

-- Colin K.  <address@hidden>