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Date:         Tue, 20 May 2014 15:51:58 +0100
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From: David Carlisle <davidc@NAG.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Unicode math
To: LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE
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Status: R

On 20/05/2014 15:04, Ulrike Fischer wrote:
> Am Tue, 20 May 2014 11:39:35 +0930 schrieb Will Robertson:
>
>
>> 3. To get proper bold symbols, including Greek, we'll need a whole new set
>> of commands. These will need sensible names of some sort. Below I've chosen
>> \symbf, etc., which doesn't look too bad to me.
>> used for bold math identifiers that aren't real single-letter symbols -- in
>> such cases it would surely be sensible to use (perhaps a variation on)
>> \textbf.
>
> Imho math fonts should be fix fonts, they should not like \textbf
> switch one aspect of the "current" font but always to a fix, well
> defined font.
>
> Also chars should not only look ok but in the days of unicode also
> have the code point with the correct meaning. That means that a bold
> "T" in math should if possible be the one from the math plane in
> unicode and not a bold "T" from some textfont -- even if they look
> the same.

That would be good to have but may be hard with currently available fonts.

If you want \mathbf{Var}  to "look OK" then you need to kern the V and a
and that means (as far as I understand the current situation) either using a
text bold font or having tables somewhere in the macro layer and inserting
kerns "by hand",  that is: make the macros iterate over every character 
inserting
kerns where needed. (but maybe luatex and or xetex can modify the font 
metrics
at font loading time?


>
> So in my opinion the current \mathbf-etc setup in unicode-math
> actually did the right thing and improved the standard
> \math-commands. I wouldn't like to loose this completly. If \mathbf
> pointed to a textfont then everyone who wants the real math symbols
> would have to replace \mathbf in their code by \symbf. And back
> again if he wants to use a text font.
>
> Wouldn't it be possible to have a "\usetextfontasmathbf..." command
> which disables the mapping to the math plane? So that one doesn't
> have to switch between \symbf and \mathbf depending on the font
> setup of a document?
>
>

Yes as I said in my reply to Will I can't see anyone is going to want 
\mathbf and
\symbf in the same document so I would expect that the document markup was
always \mathxx with that being one definition or the other depending on 
document
wide settings: either package options or a package for a particular font 
family  just
making a choice of definition to get the best coverage for that family.

David