Re: mm(7) DT string and super/subscripts (was: troff Memorandum Macros documentation derived from the paper "MM - Memorandum Macros")

[G. Branden Robinson]

At 2021-08-09T09:11:50-0500, Nate Bargmann wrote:
> So far I've not read much of the book[1] closely.  I have skimmed
> through Chapter 4 and on page 4-117 (page 247 of the PDF) is a table
> of the available MM strings.  Given that I've seen example dates from
> 1987/88, this list may be quite close to the final AT&T MM (it really
> doesn't appear that Apple changed much, if anything in this regard,
> but I'm mostly guessing).

I expect they didn't.  I like how Apple didn't include the man(7) macros
in the book.  Who needs a man page?  If the single button on your mouse
can't get the job done, it's not worth doing.  ;-)

> The same document[1] has a slightly different formula on page 3-36 (102)
> for a superscript:
> 
>       \v'-.5'\s-4\&2\sO\v' .5'

Boy did that ever OCR badly.  I think they mean this.

        \v'-.5'\s-4\&2\s0\v'.5'

The use of \&, unnecessary here as far as I know, suggests to me that
someone got burned by the magic syntax of the \s escape sequence.  (I
can't find a good inline copy of CSTR #97 so I'm attaching one; see PDF
page 4 of 15, second paragraph under section 2.)

It's interesting to me that the following two are not equivalent.

        foo\v'-.5'\s-4bar\s0\v'.5'
        foo\u\s-4bar\s0\d

Our use of the term "half-line motion" might require some clarification.

> Regarding the MS formula, for the font family I chose, I did modify it
> to not raise as high by changing the .9m to .8m which I think lined up
> slightly better.

Yes; for things like this I think we need a reasonable solution for
general audiences, trusting people to redefine things to meet their
needs.  Once we leave the fenced garden of man(7) and mdoc, the hood on
the *roff vehicle becomes transparent, and the document author can muck
around inside.  They just need to be aware that they're lifting that
hood and sticking a tool inside.

Regards,
Branden

CSTR_97.pdf
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