xfig device (was [Rd] Re: [R] MetaPost device?)

[Peter Dalgaard BSA]

Prof Brian D Ripley <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk> writes:

> Are we not just discussing a xfig driver for R, and R's driver model only
> writes single text strings at specified (x,y) locations?  So test output
> from an R xfig driver would not be richly structured?  Yes, there is
> kerning but there is using postscript fonts directly, surely?
> By the time a dvixx driver is reading the dvi file the kerning has been
> done, but the information is all there in the tfm, and the format is
> readily available (e.g. in tftopl).

But what about plotmath? If we want to get the equivalent of
\alpha*\text{threshold}_i (say) to come out right then we need to know
the length of "threshold" in the relevant font... Of course you could
(potentially) get the driver to output actual TeX, but then you have
no inkling about the total size of the formula object, and it comes
out as TeX code inside XFig. Xfig is pretty much geared towards
postscript fonts, so I suppose the most practical thing to do is to
assume PS as the final target and accept the approximations caused by
the screen fonts while previewing. 

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907
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