[bug #59932] allow characters defined with .*char requests to be kerned

[Dave]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?59932>

                 Summary: allow characters defined with .*char requests to be
kerned
                 Project: GNU troff
            Submitted by: barx
            Submitted on: Sat 23 Jan 2021 10:14:08 AM CST
                Category: Core
                Severity: 1 - Wish
              Item Group: New feature
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
         Planned Release: None

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Details:

The Texinfo manual clearly states: "Only the current font is checked for
ligatures and kerns; neither special fonts nor entities defined with the
'char' request (and its siblings) are taken into account."

This limitation seems the wrong default.  If kerning were done by default for
.char-defined characters, users who want to disable kerning before or after
such a character could do so with \&.  Instead, currently such kerning is
inactive by default, and there is really no way to tell groff to turn it on.

Two real-world cases where this matters:
* Bug #59839: the proffered rfc1345.tmac is a list of nearly 1700 character
aliases defined with .char.  With the current restriction, no character
specified with one of these aliases will be kerned.
* _Bug 58930 comment 9 <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?58930#comment9>_

On the email list, I proposed changing this behavior
(http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2021-01/msg00031.html), and while
responses were extremely limited, no one opposed the idea.




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