@ -21,6 +21,8 @@ Pollen uses a special character — the @italic{lozenge}, which looks like this:
I chose the lozenge as the command character because a) it appears in almost every font, b) it's barely used in ordinary typesetting, c) it's not used in any programming language that I know of, and d) its shape and color allow it to stand out easily in code without being distracting.
Consideration (b) is especially important in a text-based language like Pollen. If Pollen used something more common as its command character, then every time you used that character in text, you'd have to specially escape it. This would make it cumbersome and annoying to import plain text into Pollen source files. This is the Pareto-optimal trade.
If you're using DrRacket, you can use the @onscreen{Insert Command Char} button at the top of the editing window to —you guessed it — insert the command character.
If you're using a different editor, here's how you type it:
@ -29,9 +31,9 @@ If you're using a different editor, here's how you type it:
@(linebreak)@bold{Windows}: holding down Alt, type 9674 on the num pad
@(linebreak)@bold{GNU/Linux, BSD}: Type Ctrl + Shift + U, then 25CA, then Enter
For more information on entering arbitrary Unicode glyphs, see @link["https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_input"]{Wikipedia}.
For more information on entering arbitrary Unicode characters, see @link["https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_input"]{Wikipedia}.
@subsection{``But I don't want to use it ...''}
@subsection{``But I don't want to use the lozenge ...''}
Fine, but you have to pick @italic{something} as your command character. If you don't like this one, you can override it within a project —see @seclink["setup-overrides"].
