Re: Vertical rules

[Giovanni Zezza]

Il Sat, 26 Apr 2003 07:54:22 +1100, Jeff Kingston scriveva:

>I think it's quite reasonable to go back to Lout primitives when
>generating documents from data using software.  The primitives
>give a simple, well-defined semantics with no unwanted bells
>and whistles, and typically run faster too.

That was exactly the point, but I'm facing more problems than I thought I
would, it seems. Now we (Lout and me) seem to have a different opinion about
what exactly is an object and what dimensions it has, so cells don't get
correctly ruled (or they do, in Lout opinion, but they are quite different
"cells" than mines).

It seems I need to reread some pages of the expert manual.

>  def @VRule
>  {
>    "0 0 moveto 0 ysize lineto stroke" @Graphic {}
>  }

I guessed the PDF part too (from @LocalWidthRule as well); it seems to work:

    def @VRule
    import @LengthUnits named linewidth {}
    {
    @BackEnd @Case {

        PostScript @Yield {
        { "0 0 moveto 0 ysize lineto" @StrokeCommand linewidth }
            @Graphic {}
        }

        PDF @Yield {
        { "0 0 m 0 __ysize l" @StrokeCommand linewidth }
            @Graphic {}
        }

    }
    }

>It does seem odd that nothing like this has ever been
>packaged up in the standard packages.  I guess there
>is just no demand for vertical rules in most documents.

Yes, I think so too. Only in tables, maybe; but then you have the tbl
package.

Ciao.