#metapost — Public Fediverse posts

Wolfgang let the cat in.

Embroidery cat font, implemented in MetaFun with added color support.

#TeXConTeXt #MetaPost

@frischefarbe zeigt im nächsten Mini-Vortrag eine andere Spielerei. Ihr findet sie unter https://hobby.boxesandglue.dev/ und macht Werbung für #Metapost, was tatsächlich an vielen Stellen etwas mehr Aufmerksamkeit verdient hätte.

Im #TeXConTeXt Umfeld wird es deutlich mehr genutzt, aber bei #TeXLaTeX haben gerade #TikZ & Co mehr Nutzung.

#DANTE2026

This was an excellent week for boxes and glue.

* the textshape Text shaper is now usable and passes almost all harfbuzz tests (still working on the last ones)
* mpgo - a Go MetaPost code is now pretty much feature complete (an bug free, of course)
* hobby, a Lua frontend for mpgo works fine
* glu, a boxes and glue Lua frontend is getting more and more functionality
* boxes and glue can now render SVGs in PDF and is font aware. it uses the textshape engine to render fonts in SVG.
* Merged some pull requests for textshape and boxesandglue.

https://boxesandglue.dev

#boxesandglue #PDF #SVG #MetaPost

Partly because of our #MetaPost workshop of next week at #AutomaticType #anrt @ANRT https://automatic-type-design.anrt-nancy.fr with @Ludi @eugbidaut @AntoineGelgon I'm reading an old brochure on (the always incredibly rich) archive.org about the "#Compugraphic Modular Composition System"
https://ia801000.us.archive.org/29/items/bitsavers_compugraphphicModularCompositionSystemBrochure_14979239/Compugraphic_Modular_Composition_System_Brochure_text.pdf
#photocomposition #typography
(lot of text in the alt of pictures)
According to the Compugraphic page on wikipedia "Following the success of the EditWriter, Compugraphic introduced [somewhere in the 70's] the Modular Composition System, known as the "MCS". The entire system was modular, including the software, which was delivered on 5" floppy disks. As the product matured, a "#WYSIWYG" (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) display was added (the PreView) so that a user could see a "soft" view of a job before it was typeset. This was followed up by the PowerView whereby the user worked directly on a "WYSIWYG" display. The MCS was a huge success, and also marked a change in technology from 8bit to 16bit (Intel 8086) cpu hardware."

There are two things that always fascinated me. One, the graphics language developed in #MetaFont → #MetaPost → #asymptote And second, connecting various libraries from different sources.

With that in mind, here's another proof of concept of an interface for loading asymptote paths expressions into #CadQuery.

Gavin about #documentation for #MetaPost:

I am working with #MetaPost in #ConTeXt. Here are the resources I use, roughly in the order I search when trying to solve a problem.

➤ #MetaFun Manual (http://www.pragma-ade.nl/general/manuals/metafun-p.pdf) This is most comprehensive and helpful source.
➤ MetaPost Manual (http://mirrors.ctan.org/systems/doc/metapost/mpman.pdf) This is not specific to ConTeXt, but it is very useful.
➤ The MetaFun page on the ConTeXt wiki (https://wiki.contextgarden.net/Graphics_and_media/Tutorials/Graphical_programming_with_MetaPost_and_MetaFun)
🧵
#LuaTeX #LuaMetaTeX

Still thinking about a pure Go graphics language for boxes and glue. One option would be porting #MetaPost to Go, but this is quite a bit of work. Any other possibilities / ideas?

https://tug.org/metapost.html

#boxesandglue #metapost #golang #graphics

#strokefonts 3 days workshop, 8 schools, 70 hands online on a #BigBlueButton + #metapost common code on #etherpads. From a common version, timelapses of 4 diverging forks on 5 #fonts work in progress.
#LaCambre #Erg #ANRT #EnsadNancy #HEARStrasbourg #HEARMulhouse #ESADReims #ESALMetz

#strokefonts 3 days workshop, 8 schools, 70 hands online on a #BigBlueButton + #metapost common code on #etherpads. From a common version, timelapses of 4 diverging forks on 5 #fonts work in progress.
#LaCambre #Erg #ANRT #EnsadNancy #HEARStrasbourg #HEARMulhouse #ESADReims #ESALMetz

Stroke fonts online 3 days workshop using #Metapost with @osp_kitchen and 35 participants
#strokefonts #workshop - using the #BigBlueButton instance of Constant association
@erg_be @La_Cambre — @EnsadNancy — HEAR Strasbourg - Mulhouse — ESAD Reims — ESAL Metz — @ANRT_type #typography

The program of the last #Contour week-end is online. Development and design of the website by #OSP with good intricate #metapost loops inside.
https://www.contour9.be