[request]: Multiplication Symbol

[kqewrr]

Thanks for the powerful alternative to "unify"! A hopefully simple request of mine is to customize the exponent multiplication symbol from "times" to "cdot". In "number.typ" line 358 there is a direct call #sym.times, which might be easily replacable with #sym.dot.

A further modification some people might be into is offering to replace the "attach[10]" in the next line with a smallcaps "E" and full size exponent numbers

[janekfleper]

Hey, thank you for the request.

I agree that the multiplication symbol should be customizable. I didn't include this in version v0.1 on purpose because I wasn't sure about how I wanted to implement a fine-grained customization. For version v0.2, I have developed a new approach where you can transform and format individual parts of the numbers, units and quantities. This will allow you to change the multiplication symbol as well as the base of the exponent. The following snippet changes the multiplication symbol to a dot.

#import "@local/fancy-units:0.2.0": *

#configure(
  num-format: (
    format-exponent.with(separator: sym.dot),
    format-num,
  ),
)

I haven't thought about allowing the format with a smallcaps "E" and full-sized exponent numbers. Adding a parameter attach to the function format-exponent() that defaults to tr (top-right) might be a good option here? You could then just set attach: false or attach: none to get a full-sized exponent. Do you have any opinion on this approach to handle the different exponent format?

If you already want to play around with the version v0.2, you can install the dev branch locally.

[kqewrr]

Thanks for the solution, works great! Sorry to say I have no leads on my curveball suggestion, just thought it might be a good readability option for dense figures with smaller font size.

[janekfleper]

I will keep the issue open until both customization options are actually implemented in the latest package version.