Re: Editor recommendation

From	Don Y <this@isnotme.com>
Newsgroups	comp.arch.embedded
Subject	Re: Editor recommendation
Date	2013-08-30 21:15 -0700
Organization	Aioe.org NNTP Server
Message-ID	<kvrqlg$jd4$1@speranza.aioe.org> (permalink)
References	<kems19dsqi8b4s4m1gcfm3ilgd48au2v5q@4ax.com> <imju19pchf20lfp1mtcrl0c6npjra86cej@4ax.com> <kvo607$a1f$1@speranza.aioe.org> <8761um66fz.fsf@digitalsignallabs.com>

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Hi Randy,

On 8/30/2013 5:37 PM, Randy Yates wrote:
> Don Y <this@isnotme.com> writes:
>> [...]
>> There comes a point where you just can't get a monitor *big*
>> enough!!  :-/
>
> Not that I really need it, but I've been lusting on an HP ZR30W
> for some time...  Currently using the ZR24W and it is excellent.

If you're just writing code or drawing schematics, you can get
a lot out of a generic display.  E.g., it's easy for me to have
9 (non-overlapping) xterms open on a single display concurrently
with very little problems reading what's displayed on each.  All
you're concerned with is selecting a typeface in which '1' and
'l', '0' and 'O', etc. are readily distinguishable.  (and, diodes
are easily differentiated from caps, resistors, etc.  :> )

But, when you're actually creating documents for publication,
you need to be able to resolve different type *styles* (e.g.,
italic vs. bold vs. bold italic vs. condensed, etc.), sizes
(e.g., sub/superscript), typefaces (san serif vs serif et al.)
and spacing/kerning.

On a *printed* (phototypeset) document, these things are really
easy to resolve.  On a *display*, they are much harder!

E.g., I'm currently preparing a document on cubic Bezier curves.
I use a 10 pt serif typeface for body text.  This means footnote
text is 8 pt.  Footnote *references* (i.e., in the body text)
are superscripts -- so, about 5-6 pt on the 10 pt text.  Within
footnote text, subscripts are about 4-5 pt!

Some footnotes from that document (not sure if non-USASCII characters
will be visible, here):

1 Unqualified, the term “Bézier”, herein, shall refer to cubic Bézier 
curves.

2 All curves begin from the same P0. The choice of second control point, 
P1, is varied between each of the remaining points. The final control 
point, P3, is obvious on visual inspection.

3 Thus, C1 Continuity implies G1 Continuity. However, the reverse is not 
true.

4 For examples of these degenerate cases, see Special Cases.

Some issues that you need to be able to resolve, "visually", while
updating the document:

The first 'e' in Bezier carries an accent.

The opening and closing quotes surrounding the first instance of
Bezier in (1) are different characters/glyphs.  They must be
differentiable from "normal" double quotes.

"Cubic" in (1) is in italics as are "G1 Continuity" and "C1 Continuity".

Each digit in the selected footnote texts above are subscripts.

"Special Cases" in (4) is bold.

Recall, footnote text is 8 point.  With a 150dpi display, this
corresponds to ~16 pels tall -- including interline leading!
(i.e., the actual glyph from baseline to ascender is about 10-12
pels tall)  For subscripts within those footnotes, you're talking
about 6-8 pels.  I.e., resolving a 10 pt glyph "accidentally" copied
into footnote text (i.e., by pasting something cut from body text
*without* stripping the formatting information from it, first!) from
the normal 8 point text boils down to a few pels on each axis.
Resolving "X sub 1" vs. "X sub l" in footnote text would, at best, be
tedious/time consuming/prone to error!

[in fact, the effective bitmaps for the two subscript glyphs differ
by one -- maybe 1.5 -- pels!]

I won't even go into the issues involved with presenting complex
mathematical formulae with the large variety of symbols they
introduce.

OK, so what's a "150 dpi" display?  If you're viewing an 11" tall
sheet of paper "at full scale" (i.e., 1:1), that's ~1600 dots
vertically.

Using a 4:3 monitor in landscape mode would require a resolution
of 1600x2100 in an 18.5" diag display.  A 4:3 monitor in portrait
mode would require a resolution of 1200x1600 in a 14" diag display.

Using a 16:9 monitor in landscape mode requires a resolution of
1600x2850 in a 22.5" display.  In portrait mode, you'd need
900x1600 in a 13" display.

[My math may be off -- I haven't done this calculation in a few
years!]

I.e., you want *small* displays with high resolutions.  And, that
just barely gives you the visual resolution to determine what's
actually on the screen!

Most displays with higher resolutions (i.e., *better* than these
figures!) tend to be physically larger.  Then, you start having to
deal with "pages" that are too large to comfortably view (unless
you can lay the monitor *into* the desk surface -- how often do
you read an 11" tall sheet of paper "standing straight up" on
it's edge?

So, you either get used to typesetting at a much magnified scale
(which means you see less of the page and have a distorted view
of the page's overall presentation) *or* fight trying to resolve
these fine features in a *coarse* presentation... *or*, resort
to other tricks (like colored tags) or custom tools to parse
your documents on your behalf.

Thread

Editor recommendation Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> - 2013-08-28 16:18 -0400
  Re: Editor recommendation David Brown <david.brown@removethis.hesbynett.no> - 2013-08-28 22:46 +0200
    Re: Editor recommendation chris <meru@devnull.com> - 2013-08-28 22:10 +0000
      Re: Editor recommendation dp <dp@tgi-sci.com> - 2013-08-29 09:23 -0700
        Re: Editor recommendation Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> - 2013-08-29 17:15 +0000
          Re: Editor recommendation dp <dp@tgi-sci.com> - 2013-08-29 10:38 -0700
            Re: Editor recommendation Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> - 2013-08-29 17:49 +0000
              Re: Editor recommendation dp <dp@tgi-sci.com> - 2013-08-29 12:19 -0700
          Re: Editor recommendation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-08-29 12:16 -0700
        Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-29 11:32 -0700
          Re: Editor recommendation Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-08-29 12:15 -0700
          Re: Editor recommendation dp <dp@tgi-sci.com> - 2013-08-29 14:04 -0700
            Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-29 14:25 -0700
              Re: Editor recommendation Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2013-08-29 17:05 -0500
                Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-29 16:32 -0700
              Re: Editor recommendation dp <dp@tgi-sci.com> - 2013-08-29 15:44 -0700
                Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-29 18:02 -0700
                Re: Editor recommendation Hans-Bernhard Bröker <HBBroeker@t-online.de> - 2013-08-30 13:22 +0200
                Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-30 15:00 -0700
                Re: Editor recommendation Hans-Bernhard Bröker <HBBroeker@t-online.de> - 2013-08-31 02:17 +0200
                Re: Editor recommendation Stefan Reuther <stefan.news@arcor.de> - 2013-08-31 11:36 +0200
          Re: Editor recommendation Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com> - 2013-08-30 20:30 -0400
            Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-31 00:50 -0700
              Re: Editor recommendation Stefan Reuther <stefan.news@arcor.de> - 2013-08-31 11:54 +0200
                Re: Editor recommendation Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com> - 2013-08-31 10:17 -0400
                Re: Editor recommendation Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com> - 2013-08-31 10:20 -0400
        Re: Editor recommendation chris <meru@devnull.com> - 2013-08-30 13:29 +0000
          Re: Editor recommendation dp <dp@tgi-sci.com> - 2013-08-30 15:04 -0700
    Re: Editor recommendation George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2013-08-30 13:05 -0400
      Re: Editor recommendation chris <meru@devnull.com> - 2013-08-30 22:55 +0000
  Re: Editor recommendation Les Cargill <lcargill99@comcast.com> - 2013-08-28 21:22 -0500
    Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-28 19:54 -0700
      Re: Editor recommendation Les Cargill <lcargill99@comcast.com> - 2013-08-28 22:28 -0500
        Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-28 22:38 -0700
    Re: Editor recommendation George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2013-08-30 12:42 -0400
      Re: Editor recommendation Paul Urbanus <urb@urbonix.com> - 2013-09-02 21:20 -0500
        Re: Editor recommendation Paul Urbanus <urb@urbonix.com> - 2013-09-04 01:20 -0500
        Re: Editor recommendation Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com> - 2013-09-04 07:22 -0400
  Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-28 19:52 -0700
  Re: Editor recommendation bbhack <bbhack@gmail.com> - 2013-08-28 22:41 -0500
    Re: Editor recommendation chris <meru@devnull.com> - 2013-08-29 12:19 +0000
      Re: Editor recommendation bbhack <bbhack@gmail.com> - 2013-08-31 11:54 -0500
        Re: Editor recommendation chris <meru@devnull.com> - 2013-09-03 15:32 +0000
  Re: Editor recommendation Tauno Voipio <tauno.voipio@notused.fi.invalid> - 2013-08-29 09:19 +0300
  Re: Editor recommendation Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> - 2013-08-29 10:01 -0400
    Re: Editor recommendation Tauno Voipio <tauno.voipio@notused.fi.invalid> - 2013-08-29 18:45 +0300
    Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-29 12:04 -0700
      Re: Editor recommendation Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2013-08-29 16:31 -0500
        Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-29 15:00 -0700
        Re: Editor recommendation Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com> - 2013-08-30 20:50 -0400
      Re: Editor recommendation Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com> - 2013-08-30 20:37 -0400
        Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-30 21:15 -0700
          Re: Editor recommendation Stefan Reuther <stefan.news@arcor.de> - 2013-08-31 12:05 +0200
            Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-31 11:26 -0700
              Re: Editor recommendation Stefan Reuther <stefan.news@arcor.de> - 2013-09-01 20:21 +0200
                Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-09-01 17:02 -0700
                Re: Editor recommendation Stefan Reuther <stefan.news@arcor.de> - 2013-09-02 19:55 +0200
                Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-09-02 16:22 -0700
                Re: Editor recommendation Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com> - 2013-09-02 19:39 -0400
                Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-09-02 17:51 -0700
                Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-09-02 18:49 -0700
          Re: Editor recommendation Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com> - 2013-08-31 15:13 -0400
            Re: Editor recommendation Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2013-08-31 13:45 -0700
  Re: Editor recommendation Habib Bouaziz-Viallet <h.bouazizviallet@free.fr> - 2013-08-29 16:31 +0200
    Re: Editor recommendation bbhack <bbhack@gmail.com> - 2013-08-31 12:03 -0500
      Re: Editor recommendation Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com> - 2013-08-31 13:27 -0400
        Re: Editor recommendation bbhack <bbhack@gmail.com> - 2013-08-31 13:17 -0500
      Re: Editor recommendation Habib Bouaziz-Viallet <h.bouazizviallet@free.fr> - 2013-09-01 19:16 +0200
        Re: Editor recommendation Randy Yates <yates@digitalsignallabs.com> - 2013-09-01 19:52 -0400
          Re: Editor recommendation chris <meru@devnull.com> - 2013-09-03 14:41 +0000
  Re: Editor recommendation jhallen@TheWorld.com (Joseph H Allen) - 2013-08-29 20:09 +0000
  Re: Editor recommendation stephenXXX@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2013-09-04 12:10 +0000

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