Bug#564089: [tex-live] \FDP@colonspace is no longer defined in frenchb v2.3d (v2.4a is OK)

[Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard <mpg@elzevir.fr>]

Hi,

Norbert Preining a écrit :
> ----- Forwarded message from Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> -----
>> I've used
>>
>> \makeatletter
>> \renewcommand{\FDP@colonspace}{\FDP@thinspace}
>> \makeatother
>>

I beg your pardon, but why the hell are your trying to fiddle with frenchb's
internals rather than using the provided interface?

The most correct way to achieve this effect with frenchb 2.x is

\frenchbsetup{ThinColonSpace=true}

Previously, the official interface (which still works with 2.x) was:

\renewcommand\Fcolonspace{\thinspace}

(note you don't need \makeatletter). This interface was introduced in frenchb
1.5f. I can't find the release date, but I checked that the version in TL 2005
was already 1.6g. So this interface has been stable for at least 5 years.

> Now since that breaks completely backward compatibility, also in
> our upstream TeX Live, any suggestion what we should do here?
> 
Well, my opinion is that is does not break compatibility since users are
supposed to use the interface, not the @-macros. And the interface is stable and
not broken.

To tell the truth, there is however a problem with the fact that \FDP@colonspace
is undefined in the preamble in frenchb 2.3d (as a matter of fact, it is defined
\AtBeginDocument): it break with tex4ht. For example, the HTML French version of
the TeX Live guide doesn't compile with frenchb 2.3d. As discussed with Daniel,
this was arguably a bug with the way tex4ht is trying to guess the version of
frenchb, however he preferred fixing this on his side, since the maintenance
status of tex4ht was rather unclear at that time.

So, I don't know if it's worth an update, but I just wanted to get the facts
clear: there is no compatibility breakage for documents using the advertised
interface. The only breakage is for documents using tex4ht.

Manuel.