Message-Id: <9212031224.AA26528@sc.zib-berlin.dbp.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
In-Reply-To:  Gaulle Bernard's message of Thu,
              3 Dec 92 12:29:03 NFT <16826.9212031137@m1.cs.man.ac.uk>
Date:         Thu, 3 Dec 92 12:22:40 GMT
From: David Carlisle <carlisle@CS.MAN.AC.UK>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
To: Multiple Recipients of <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
Subject:      accented words in {tabbing} environment
Status: R


> This is nearly easy to do it in LaTeX 2.09. I have coded a bypass via
> a \tabbingaccents command in french.sty  for french diacritics. Using that
> feature i require that LaTeX real tabbing commands were followed by a space.
> This remains a bypass.
>
> Do we consider that we need to change a well known environment syntax for
> an obsolate manner of inputing accented letters? In few years (i hope)
> nobody will use the old Knuth manner for putting diacritics and everybody
> will input (at least) 8bits chars and then we will discuss about the 32bits
> notation...

If \' etc are going to be used for accents, then I think that we
definitely *should* change the tabbing commands. I see nothing wrong
with giving these names \tabflushright or something. having to change
from \'e to \a'e is a real pain for users (given how often this
appears in c.t.t) it makes it even harder to define macros that
produce text that may be used inside and outside the tabbing env.
(The idea of keeping \' for both uses, depending on whether it is
followed by a space, is a nice trick, and keeps maximum compatability
with latex2.09, but I do not think this could be the 'standard' in
latex3, where at least the kernel should have consistency in the
syntax of commands (and most commands do not check ahead for a space!)

While it is true that the *internal* accent mechanism should move to
8-bit chars to allow proper hyphenation etc, I think that the current
syntax is useful. If you have a keyboard with accented characters, or
at least use them a lot, and so know what key combinations produce
these symbols, then 8-bit input is fine. Most English speakers only
use accents very occasionally, and the \'e (or even \'{e}) syntax is
very memorable. \' can be redefined to call the appropriate 8-bit
char, rather than using the \accent primitive.

David