Bug#351917: tetex-extra: \textasciitilde is too high in cmtt

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.org> wrote:

> Package: tetex-extra
> Version: 3.0-13
> Severity: normal
>
> \textasciitilde is too high in cmtt, making URLs look strange with
> the url package when using T1 encoding. The tilde should be lowered
> for consistency with other fonts.

That's a matter of taste.  To me, the raised tilde looks much more
natural, and anyway the math simile used in url.sty looks much too thin
to me, whereas the tilde is considerably stronger.  Furthermore, the
math simile in url.sty has not the same width as the rest of the
monospaced font, so it looks weird.  IMHO, these two things make the
original (or the T1 version, if you want to put it that way) look better
even if one generally prefers a less raised tilde.

> (I originally reported the problem to Donald Arseneau, suggesting
> to lower the tilde as he did for OT1, but he didn't want to "have
> url.sty redesigning every font that it comes across".)

Hm, well, someone should probably tell Donald that the LaTeX team
recommends not to use OT1 at all, but T1 in general (unless a specific
other encoding is needed, of course).  So if he only redesigns one font,
it should be the EC versions of Computer Modern.

But I really can't see what we can do about this - neither as Debian
teTeX maintainers, nor by contacting our upstream (Thomas Esser who
collects CTAN files and puts together teTeX).  If DA cannot be
convinced, the only solution I see is to create a new version of
url.sty, call it niceurl.sty or the like, and put the fix in there.  For
a starter, you could simply try the following patch, but be careful with
the encoding, it's weird in url.sty.

Regards, Frank

--- /usr/share/texmf-tetex/tex/latex/url/url.sty	2004-04-04 05:10:00.000000000 +0200
+++ newurl.sty	2006-02-13 17:05:06.000000000 +0100
@@ -45,9 +45,9 @@
   \_{\_\penalty\@m}\do\|{\mid}\do\{{\lbrace}\do\}{\mathbin{\rbrace}}\do
   \\{\mathbin{\backslash}}}
 
-\@namedef{Url@T1encSpecials}{\do\µ{\mu}\do\¿{\mathchar190 }%
-  \do\�{\mathchar190 }\do\�{\mathchar247 }\do\ß{\mathchar255 }%
-  \do\ÿ{\mathchar184 }}
+\@namedef{Url@T1encSpecials}{\do\µ{\mu}\do\¿{\mathchar190 }%
+  \do\�{\mathchar190 }\do\�{\mathchar247 }\do\ß{\mathchar255 }%
+  \do\ÿ{\mathchar184 }\UrlTildeSpecial}
 
 \@namedef{Url@LY1encSpecials}{\do\~{\mathchar142 }}
 


-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX)