August 2004 - ntg-context - NTG Mailing Lists

Problem with TeXexec
by Michal Kvasnicka 03 Aug '04

03 Aug '04

Good afternoon. I have just installed a new Linux system (SuSE 9.1 with teTeX) and the new ConTeXt (texexec version 4.3) -- in the same way as older one. But it doesn't work. It writes a following error message: ... sh: line1: cont-en: command not found ... This is pdfetex... ... ** ! End of file on the terminal ... why? I do wrong? How can I correct it? I tried to link cont-en to pdfetex, but I've still got the second error message. Moreover, the system tried to make the format file. Many thanks for your help. Michal Kvasnicka

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Re: [NTG-context] Best source of ConTeXt documentation?
by Paulo Ney de Souza 03 Aug '04

03 Aug '04

Everyone learns a language by example, if you try to teach one you will see, even Patrick, when he was a baby learned his first language by example (real language), it is only natural, it is only human. To argue the contrary is just lack of experience in teaching. Paulo Ney >From ntg-context-bounces(a)ntg.nl Mon Aug 2 20:05:20 2004 >From: skhilji(a)tampabay.rr.com >Subject: Re: [NTG-context] Best source of ConTeXt documentation? >To: ntg-context(a)ntg.nl > >Adding to this thread (I don't mean a reply to Paulo, but rather a reply to what Hans was saying earlier)...The problem with "normal users" cooking up new styles is the lack of artistic abilities in some people (like me). One can, obviously go thru the manual cover the cover, but if one does not have creative thinking, then creating professional looking styles would be hard. That is why, users like me really do not care if our documents look like everybody else's (just as long as they look professional). > >Its kind of like learning Photoshop and knowing what each toolbar button does....but not knowing how to mix all the available tools create a professional looking graphic. > >And of course, once we learn the tool, then making small changes here and there to make it look slightly different is no big deal. > >Salman > >_______________________________________________ >ntg-context mailing list >ntg-context(a)ntg.nl >http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context >

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Re: [NTG-context] Best source of ConTeXt documentation?
by skhilji＠tampabay.rr.com 03 Aug '04

03 Aug '04

Adding to this thread (I don't mean a reply to Paulo, but rather a reply to what Hans was saying earlier)...The problem with "normal users" cooking up new styles is the lack of artistic abilities in some people (like me). One can, obviously go thru the manual cover the cover, but if one does not have creative thinking, then creating professional looking styles would be hard. That is why, users like me really do not care if our documents look like everybody else's (just as long as they look professional). Its kind of like learning Photoshop and knowing what each toolbar button does....but not knowing how to mix all the available tools create a professional looking graphic. And of course, once we learn the tool, then making small changes here and there to make it look slightly different is no big deal. Salman

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Re: [NTG-context] Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?
by Paulo Ney de Souza 03 Aug '04

03 Aug '04

>From ntg-context-bounces(a)ntg.nl Mon Aug 2 08:46:53 2004 >From: "Patrick Gundlach" <patrick(a)gundla.ch> >To: ntg-context(a)ntg.nl >Subject: [NTG-context] Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation? > >Oh come on, this is completely crap. The people at PRAGMA (i.e. Hans) >share ConTeXt, wich is the holy grail that PRAGMA is based on >(besides the knowledge). It is such a generous gift to the community. >Please think about if you write stuff like that. I realize better that you do Hans contibutions to the Open Source community and I never complained about the sharing of ConTeXt, which is indeed the best typesetting system I have seen. You are taking my comment into a completely different context, pun not intended! >You are right, that not all (only few) manuals are available in .tex >format. See pdftex manual and the magazines. Putting source >code online needs time, a lot of time. Source code needs to get >documented. And I don't know Hans very well, but I'd guess that his >day only has 24h. > >There are already some styles in the ConTeXt wiki. And there are >styles that come with the distribution. The discussion is not about styles, it is about examples and how-to. >Why reverse-engineer? Just cook up the style you want. If you have >questions doing this, ask on the ConTeXt list. If you are ready, put >the style onto the Wiki. The styles at pragma are very good, but >definitely not the only way to go. Making a good style is not >copy/paste. It is a matter of experience. Experience is something you >have to gain yourself. We are not talking about experience and or copy/paste, if you are assuming that I don't have the experience or that the guy that posted the initial message wants to copy and paste, again you are on the wrong track. >And yes, it is time for us to put examples online. But the ConTeXt >community is still rather small. So there won't be many results in a >short time. I certainly will welcome the day we have a minimal how-to posted in there. >You can do the first step. Go to the wiki, edit a page that states >your questions regarding style development. Put a table of contents >or something similar there, which steps you would like to see, which >things you would like to have explained and so on. After that "we" >(the more experienced ConTeXt users) can fill in the gaps. And >finally we all have a small manual on style design. This is much >better than being so aggressive on the unwillingness to share source. > >Patrick I'll give it a try, the wiki is certainly the way to go ... Paulo Ney

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PPCHTeX broken
by Peter Münster 02 Aug '04

02 Aug '04

Hello, PPCHTeX seems to be broken in the latest ConTeXt beta version. Here an example (copied from the manual): \usemodule[pictex,chemic] \starttext \startchemical[scale=small,width=6000,height=6000,frame=on] \chemical[SIX,SB2356,DB14,Z2346,SR36,RZ36] [C,N,C,C,H,H_2] \chemical[PB:Z1,ONE,Z0,DIR8,Z0,SB24,DB7,Z27,PE] [C,C,CH_3,O] \chemical[PB:Z5,ONE,Z0,DIR6,Z0,SB24,DB7,Z47,PE] [C,C,H_3C,O] \chemical[SR24,RZ24] [CH_3,H_3C] \stopchemical \stoptext log-file and dvi-file are attached. Greetings, Peter -- http://pmrb.free.fr/contact/ _____________________________________ FilmSearch engine: http://f-s.sf.net/

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Understanding registers command
by Salman Khilji 02 Aug '04

02 Aug '04

From the BM, I copied the following and created a file named junk.tex. \starttext \defineregister[street][streets] \street{Ridderstraat} \placestreets \stoptext However, texexec gives me the following: ! Undefined control sequence. <recently read> \placestreets l.4 \placestreets ?

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Collecting command arguments in a startstop environment
by Brooks Moses 02 Aug '04

02 Aug '04

There's a nice little problem that arises in LaTeX, of wanting to write a bit of code like the following, to define an environment that passes the contents of the environment to a command as an argument: \newcommand{\foo}[1]{...} \newenvironment{fooenv}{% \foo\bgroup }{% \egroup } There's even a nice FAQ entry about this. [1] As it turns out, the amsmath package defines a handy \collect@body command that handles collecting the environment body to pass it to a command. Anyhow, I'm finding myself wanting to do this in ConTeXt, with of course replacing \newenvironment with \definestartstop. Is there by any chance a built-in ConTeXt macro that can do this? Or even things that would make a decent foundation for building such a thing? Thanks much, - Brooks [1] http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=cmdasenv

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Some proposed improvements for t-amsl.tex.
by Brooks Moses 02 Aug '04

02 Aug '04

Giuseppe and ConTeXt list members - Having figured out how to use \grabuntil (see my previous messages to this list), I've realized that it's really an inconvenient solution in some cases, because it's searching for a literal bit of text rather than an end to the appropriate grouping level. (Apparently there isn't a way to do the latter in TeX, given that AMSmath's \collect@body also searches for literal text.) This means that, if I write a "LaTeX compatibility function" that does things like define \end{myenvironment} to expand to \stopmyenvironment, my redefinition will not work on any environments using \grabuntil. This inconvenience happens to show up in t-amsl.tex's "align" and "gather" implementations, which is one place where I really need that compatibility function. However, it turns out that there's a simple way to rewrite the implementation so to avoid needing \grabuntil. Mostly, this works on the fact that the definition of Plain TeX's \eqalign function can be split apart into a before and after part, as follows: \def\starteqalign{\null\,\vcenter\bgroup \openup\jot {\mathsurround=0pt}% \ialign\bgroup \strut\hfil$\displaystyle{##}$&$\displaystyle{{}##}$\hfil \crcr} \def\stopeqalign{\crcr\egroup\egroup\,} (This, aside from the \bgroup's and \egroup's, is copied directly from Appendix B of The TeXbook.) Thus, we could expand the instances of \eqalign in the \startalign and \startgather definitions, shuffle things around appropriately, and obtain the following: \def\startalign{\startformula \let\\\cr \starteqalign} \def\stopalign{\crcr\stopeqalign\stopformula} \def\startgather{\startformula \def\\{\cr&}% \starteqalign&} \def\stopgather{\crcr\stopeqalign\stopformula} This exactly duplicates the existing functionality in the t-amsl.tex package. However, that functionality could be improved to be a better match to what's provided in amsmath.tex; in particular, align should accept multiple columns of equations, and gather should center its lines. Thus, I propose that the following redefinitions be included in t-amsl: \def\startalign{\startformula \let\\\cr \null\vcenter\bgroup \openup\jot {\mathsurround=0pt}% \everycr={}\tabskip=4pt plus1fil \halign to \displaywidth\bgroup \strut\hfil$\displaystyle{##}$% \tabskip=0pt &$\displaystyle{{}##}$\hfil% \tabskip=4pt plus1fil &&\hfil$\displaystyle{##}$% \tabskip=0pt &$\displaystyle{{}##}$\hfil% \tabskip=4pt plus1fil \crcr} \def\stopalign{\crcr\crcr\egroup\egroup\stopformula} \def\startgather{\startformula \let\\\cr \null\,\vcenter\bgroup \openup\jot {\mathsurround=0pt}% \ialign\bgroup \strut\hfil$\displaystyle{##}$\hfil \crcr} \def\stopgather{\crcr\crcr\egroup\egroup\,\stopformula} Also, a similar method can be used to replicate the split environment (which, unlike the above, should go inside an explicit \startformula and \stopformula pair). I propose the following definition be added as well: \def\startsplit{% \let\\\cr \null\,\vcenter\bgroup \openup\jot {\mathsurround=0pt}% \ialign\bgroup \strut\hfil$\displaystyle{##}$&$\displaystyle{{}##}$\hfil \crcr} \def\stopsplit{\crcr\egroup\egroup\,} This still doesn't address the fact that the lines in the align and gather environments are not given individual equation numbers as they should be, but I think that is a project for another day. - Brooks P.S. A question: is it intentional that the array environment in t-amsl produces notably different spacing than LaTeX's array environment?

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Re: [NTG-context] Best source of ConTeXt documentation?
by Paulo Ney de Souza 02 Aug '04

02 Aug '04

>From ntg-context-bounces(a)ntg.nl Mon Aug 2 09:08:22 2004 >From: Hans Hagen <pragma(a)wxs.nl> >To: mailing list for ConTeXt users <ntg-context(a)ntg.nl> >Subject: Re: [NTG-context] Best source of ConTeXt documentation? >Cc: > >- it would take a lot of effort to keep such a source code repository up >to date and in sync (else too many questions) with the pdf repositoty If we are talking about examples, ones does not need to have the latest manual and the latest source in sync. Just one copy of the manual (that will eventually go old) and one copy of the source. For example, the Calculator, mixing TeX and JavaScript http://www.tug.org/applications/pdftex/calculat.pdf has NOT changed in many years now, so there is no problem maitaining the PDF and the source in sync... >- we only publish documented sources That is an important point ... and the only one I can give credit to, but I still think the abundance of examples, even without documentation, is better than the short of examples. >- i want to stimulate users to writ etheir own styles not to mimick >existing ones (i.e. avoid the 'all tex files look the same' problem) .... >so ... there are no hidden tricks (unless it would bother/confuse >users); and .. things like cover designs i wanna keep for myself if only >to avoid cutting and pasting >Hans Hans: Imitation is indeed the truest form of flattery! Paulo Ney

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Re: [NTG-context] Best source of ConTeXt documentation?
by Paulo Ney de Souza 02 Aug '04

02 Aug '04

This is one of the sore points of ConTeXt and of the development effort. People at Pragma are willing to show off but not willing to share code and teach by example... contrary to most opensource projects I have seen. There is another gallery of examples without source for some pdfTeX material at: http://www.tug.org/applications/pdftex/index.html and as you can see there is a large intersection with the some of the familiar developers at Pragma. Maybe it is time for us to start an group to reverse-engineer some of these files and post them into a public archive. Paulo Ney de Souza >From ntg-context-bounces(a)ntg.nl Sun Aug 1 19:55:39 2004 >From: skhilji(a)tampabay.rr.com >Subject: Re: [NTG-context] Best source of ConTeXt documentation? >To: ntg-context(a)ntg.nl > >I'd like to see the sources of all the PDF files available at pragma-ade. Its much easier to look at examples and learn from it than to ask for complete documentation. > >Salman > > >_______________________________________________ >ntg-context mailing list >ntg-context(a)ntg.nl >http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context >

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