Hello Khaled,
I think the point of file: was to use kpse to locate the files bypassing the name database entirely, it might not be clear from the documentation but it has always been the intent. Fonts outside TEXMF tree have to be given as full paths, just like any kpse lookup.
Sounds consistant... Philipp Gesang is working on the topic (see https://github.com/phi-gamma/luaotfload/issues/4#issuecomment-17041960). It makes documents less portable though... We have to find the right balance between easiness and a correct syntax, close to XeTeX... maybe I'm balancing too much on the easiness side? I have to say I've always been quite allergic to the new (XeTeX/fontspec) way fonts are called so I'm maybe not the best designer for it!
Philipp, what do you think? Thank you, -- Elie
