LIST 1.1.4 92/07/06 -*-text-*- = MALVERN & MFF MAILING LIST = WHAT THIS LIST IS FOR This list is for announcements, bug reports and discussion of two interrelated software packages: * Malvern, a METAFONT font definition, and * mff, a simple wrapper about METAFONT that makes maintaining such a family of font files more convenient. (mff can be used to make other fonts, but Malvern is currently the only publically-available, "real" font written to take full advantage of mff's features.) Malvern is still being developed, but is made available for interested people to try it out and offer comments and suggestions. This list might carry occasional discussions on the design of the face as a face as well as as computer software. The older releases of mff were called "mfjob". I have changed the name to reduce confusion with Eberhard Mattes' MFjob (which is part of his emTeX distribution for MS-DOS and OS/2 computers). HOW TO SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE Send a request to me, Damian Cugley, at the address malvern-request@prg.ox.ac.uk HOW TO SEND MESSAGES TO THE LIST Mail messages for everyone on the list to malvern@prg.ox.ac.uk HOW TO GET THE PROGRAMS At present they are on the Oxford archive-server (Oxford now has Internet, and future releases will be placed on a local FTP server in the usual manner which should need no further explanation). This program will not send files of more than 100K and will not send two shar files in one mail message, so you have to send N requests (in separate mail messages) to get a N-part package. Send a message of the form send CATEGORY FILE to , where CATEGORY is either "tex" for Malvern or "prog" for mff, and FILE is one of: mff-1.shar ) mff 2.8.2 (a C program for UNIX mff-2.shar ) but mostly tested on Suns). mff-3.shar ) Includes several sample meta-fonts. malvern-0.3-1.shar ) Malvern 0.3 (*very* obselete) malvern-0.3-2.shar ) The server also understands the messages "help" and "index CATEGORY". The files are sent as "shell archives" -- ".shar" files. On UNIX systems they are unpacked by running the Bourne shell (/bin/sh) on them. Each part of the package unpacks into a directory named after the version number to prevent clashes. (The Malvern files are old and are still named according to a different system to the later ones. Sorry.) WHAT MFF IS mff grew out of a UNIX shellscript I had for running METAFONT and installing the TFM and PK files. Its unique feature is that it will parse a font name "mabi10" as "10pt Malvern bold italic" and run METAFONT with variables like |weight| and |italicness| set appropriately (all that is user-definable, of course). The driver file understands these and sets stem widths etc. based on them. The practical upshot of which is that I have *one* driver file ma.mf and a command like mff ma{55,56,75}a{8,10,12} creates 9 fonts automagically. mff isn't vital but it is *very* convenient for creating fonts on the fly. mff comes with sample meta-fonts thrown in for free! WHAT MALVERN IS Malvern is a METAFONT font program; it can be used with the METAFONT program to produce a font for use with Donald E Knuth's TeX typesetting system (and some other systems as well). Malvern grew out of my frustration with trying to get what I consider a pleasing sanserif font out of the CM program files. Its design is intended to be simple and elegant, a touch old-fashioned, and very different from (say) CMSS or Helvetica (I consider this its main attraction:-). It is intended to be used by itself as the main font of a document, rather than being just another alphabet for mathematics! It has at least the following eccentric features: * rounded terminals and corners * three sets of figures -- ranging, "text" (sort-of old-style) and small figures for footnotes and fractions. * four alphabets -- lower case, small, medium and large caps. Medium caps can be used with a separate set of marks to make capital composite letters. * more currency signs and quote marks than anyone could want, including the dubious PostScript florin sign and single guillemets. * a raised "c" for writing names like "McDonald" (if you are feeling like being eccentric). Because it was developed with mff, it comes in any combination of weights and widths, with roman and italic variations. However, Malvern is UNFINISHED -- the italic corrections and kerning table are half-done and I need to write some VF stuff to make fonts with other encodings (e.g., the Cork encoding (TUGboat 11#4), which includes various national letters). I'm making it available now so interested people can try it out and offer advice. CURRENT STATE OF PLAY Since Malvern release 0.3, I have started adding support for creating fonts with the Cork encoding directly. I have support for Karl Berry's name font system in the mff files, and my own eccentric system which translates 12-pt Malvern 55 as ma55a12. (The names suggested with the 0.3 distribution are obselete.) I have revised the TeX macros that support malvern in the process of documenting them. Experiments with "compression" (where the chapes change cleverly when compressed rather thn just turning into ellipses) have been discarded. Many character shapes have been improved. I can only work on Malvern during my scant spare time, however, so these simple changes may take some time. The next release will be "release 1". I've installed mff 2.8.2 on the Oxford archive.