metafun broken?

[Siep Kroonenberg]

On Fri, Sep 29, 2023 at 04:14:36PM -0600, Karl Berry wrote:
> Hi Siep,
> 
>     I am worried about the changes in infrastructure. 
> 
> Me too.
> 
>     In the context standalone, everything is now done with luametatex,
>     i.e. context and mtxrun are now symlinks to/copies of luametatex.
> 
> Yeah. We certainly don't want to change that. I have some vague idea
> that there is some way to tell the current mtxrun/context executables to
> use mkii. Or maybe just running "texexec" is the answer.
> 
>     Just adding .mkii/.mpii files should be pretty safe.
> 
>     I can continue itemizing and collecting what needs to be added. But
>     if you go ahead, it might be useful to put the extended ConTeXt
>     package somewhere where I can download it for testing.
> 
> I can't easily create the package or put it anywhere without actually
> installing the updates in TL. But, as you say, if all we do is add m?ii
> files and not (yet) change anything in the infrastructure, that
> shouldn't do any harm. Who knows until we try ...
> 
> Just adding m?ii is not easy either.  The current cont-tmf.zip has many
> changes to existing files. I have to suspect the current cont-tmf also
> requires the current lmtx binaries. That would be extra pain, but
> doable, I suppose.
> 
> On the other hand, there's a list of mkii directories removed in
> Master/tlpkg/libexec/ctan2tds, starting around line 6692. I guess we
> could just manually extract those directories from the zip and add them
> to TL, to at least make some progress toward being able to test. Namely:
>   doc/context/scripts/mkii/
>   fonts/enc/
>   fonts/map/
>   scripts/context/ruby/
>   scripts/context/stubs/
>   tex/context/*/mkii/
>   metapost/context/base/mpii/

I can use similar methods as what I did for mkiv, adding a modified
context to a small test-installation of TL without context. Then I
can test with the resulting installation.

I am comparing the content of an up-to-date 'standalone' context
with the content of the zipfile, and deciding what to do with the
files that are in the zip and not in the standalone.

I hope and expect that no too much is going on anymore with the mkii
stuff.

> Well, before I take any action ... wdyt?
> 
>     I would also like to have a metafun sample file and 
> 
> I believe any MetaPost serves as a basic test. E.g., the one line:
> 
> beginfig(0); draw (0,0) -- (1,1); endfig; end.
> 
>     with what commandline Norbert expects to compile it.
> 
> Norbert will have to pass on whatever is going on with the (I'm
> guessing) Debian package, but from the metafun manual that's in TL
> (texmf-dist/doc/context/documents/general/manuals/metafun-p.pdf page 9):
> 
> mpost --ini metafun.mpii yourfile.mp
> 
> I haven't tried it (with any version of TL).
> That manual dates from 2017. Somehow I suspect there is a new world out
> there with metafun just as with context ... --thanks, karl.

Well, that is something to try.

-- 
Siep Kroonenberg