September 2024 - ntg-context - NTG Mailing Lists

Steps to become a ConTeXt developer
by Shiv Shankar Dayal 08 Sep '24

08 Sep '24

Hi, I am not sure if this is the best place to ask this question but here it goes. Suppose a C programmer wants to become a core ConTeXt developer then what steps one should follow. Assume that the programmer knows only the basics of LaTeX and never wrote macros etc using TeX or ConTeXt. -- Respect, Shiv Shankar Dayal

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\ldot and \ldotp not working
by Aditya Mahajan 05 Sep '24

05 Sep '24

Hi, With context 2024.08.16 the following gives an error: \starttext $A \ldot B$ \stoptext tex error > tex error on line 2 in file ./test.tex: Control sequence expected instead of undefined <line 3.2> $A \ldot B$ Same error with `\ldotp`. However \starttext \show\ldot \show\ldotp \stoptext gives > \ldot=permanent \Umathchar"02"00"00002E > \ldotp=permanent \Umathchar"06"00"00002E which appears correct. So, not sure what is going on. Any ideas? Thanks, Aditya

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leave
by Bitvic-ntg 04 Sep '24

04 Sep '24

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Combining styles (especially bold and italic)
by Gerion Entrup 04 Sep '24

04 Sep '24

Hi, I have the situation that I want to typeset a special formatted name within a section heading. The name contains an italic part while the heading is bold, but both styles are defined at another place. Is there a way to tell ConTeXt to combine them, so that it is bold _and_ italic? Here is a minimal example: ``` \define\somename{HX\style[italic]{print}\autoinsertnextspace} \setuphead[section, subject][style={\bfc}] \starttext \startsection[title=The \somename name] \somename is a strange written name. \stopsection \stoptext ``` In the normal text, HXprint is written correctly, in the section heading "print" is italic but not bold. Best Gerion

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Is there an alternative to \reference[]{} that won't interfere with the document design?
by Joel 03 Sep '24

03 Sep '24

I had to place \reference[]{} in various places in my document as I need to refer to page numbers of a lot of various items in the document. There are hundreds of these. When placing them, I hadn't realized it would impact the document design--I assumed such a command would be invisible. Though I've tried placing as many inside the section titles, where they become invisible, I've found just placing \reference[]{} anywhere on a page will create extra blank spaces, leading my document to expand from 440 lines to 448. It added up quite quickly to 8 whole pages. No matter how much I use % or try to hide it within the page, it still produces weird results. It isn't invisible, its doing things to the document, moving text around, leaving gaps. In addition, it makes the document look haphazard, creating random formatting "glitches". I'm assuming because \reference has a curly bracket {} that its causing something to be rendered, even it its not really something visible always, it often makes a carriage return on the page if placed say after a table, or before a section title. Sadly, the way the document was designed I don't have a way to integrate them inside the section titles everywhere, there are too many and some need to mark a specific page within a section. I haven't placed anything inside the {} and only use the square brackets to mark the reference name. Is there an alternative command that won't occupy space like this? --Joel

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Inserting text between end notes
by Rik Kabel 03 Sep '24

03 Sep '24

Hello all, I am trying to implement some style-guide-defined (Chicago 17, and now, 18) requirements to the end notes in a book. The need is to insert non-end-note text into the list of end notes. But end notes are not a list (as far as I can see) and \writetolist and such are no help. The text to be inserted is of two types. The first is the name of the chapter from which the following notes were generated. It would be nice to automatically generate these. The second type is pseudo-end-notes crediting the book and chapter epigraphs, which should appear as unnumbered end notes (at the start of the note section and the start of each chapter's notes). Ideally these would be generated in the same way as regular end notes but will not increment the note numbers (and should not, at least in my use case, require cross-referencing or bookmarking). I can hack the first requirement with: \define[1]\EndNoteChapter{\testpage[3] \blank \midaligned{\tfa{Chapter #1}} \blank} in the environment and \EndNoteChapter{6 How I Saved the World} at the end of the last end note in the preceding chapter, but this is obviously prone to mistakes. I would rather integrate the handling into the chapter heading environment. I suppose that this hack might be extended to handle the epigraph notes as well, but it is just a hack. Has anyone successfully dealt with this before? If not, is there the possibility of adding similar functionality to \writetolist and such for end note structures? -- Rik

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Placement of floats with an "anchor"
by Gerion Entrup 03 Sep '24

03 Sep '24

Hi, in my document, I recently left a TODO note that said: "This floating graphic needs to be on the same page than this formula at the end." My floating graphic currently uses: \startplacefigure[title={bla}, location=top, reference=fig:bla] ... \stopplacefigure The graphic should be at the top of the page where the formulas are typeset at the end. Normally, I would do that manually, when all other text is finished. Can I somehow automate this in ConTeXt? So defining a (non visible) "anchor" at a random place within the normal text and then tell ConTeXt to place the float at the same page (if possible)? Here is a minimal example to play around (the float is placed on page 1, while the "anchor" is on page 2). ``` \starttext \input{knuth} \input{knuth} \input{knuth} % anchorto is made up to demonstrate the problem \startplacefigure[title={A figure explaining the formula.}, location=top, reference=some, anchorto={eq:important}] \startalign[center] \style[sans]{This is a figure that explains the formula.} \stopalign \stopplacefigure It is explained with these equations (see also figure \in[some]): \startformula[reference=eq:important] \startalign \NC a \NC = b \NR \NC a \NC = b \NR \NC a \NC = b \NR \NC a \NC = b \NR \NC a \NC = b \NR \NC a \NC = b \NR \NC a \NC = b \NR \NC a \NC = b \NR \NC a \NC = b \NR \stopalign \stopformula \input{knuth} \input{knuth} \input{ward} \stoptext ``` Best Gerion

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(ConTeXt LMTX) How do I fix the centering and setting up width in xtables?
by Felix 02 Sep '24

02 Sep '24

https://pastebin.com/TQdzmxeP I am trying to make a resume in ConTeXt (to see how well my skills have gotten, I am still quite a beginner) and Iw as able to produce what is in Pastebin. Though, I am having trouble with the table that goes over the big sized text that would be my name. It has an email, a phone number, and an address but they are all.... aligned very weirdly. I want them to be centered. Though, the phone number has some sort of problem with alignment, and I don;t know fi the other ones are causing it or are also aligned wrong. I also wanted to make this code: \startxcell[topframe=on,bottomframe=on,align=flushright] Ability to communicate strongly and effectively, being a reliable team member, supporting a team whenever needed, and the desire to help everyone \stopxcell has it so that it doesn't take up so much horizontal space (Ideally it is taking up 1/3 of the width I am allowing for since there are three rows in total) , but when I add width={some value} into the square brackets, it will add a blank line after all the text, and this is not what I want. is there a way to fix what I am experiencing? I would also not mind if I could be told how to improve my code, whether it be by adding startxrowgroup, startxcellgroup, or head and footer sections., or other options. Thank you for reading.

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Has anyone packages the ConTeXt standalone distributon for nixpkgs/NixOS?
by mica＠silentumbrella.com 02 Sep '24

02 Sep '24

Hello, I'm wondering if anyone has packaged the ConTeXt standalone for nixpkgs/NixOS and if yes, can you share your derivation? Thanks! Best, Mica

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BUG(?): mailing list archive formatting
by Jim 01 Sep '24

01 Sep '24

To whomever might be able to do something about this: The "quoting" on the mailing list archive seems to have a bug. For example, in https://mailman.ntg.nl/archives/list/ntg-context@ntg.nl/thread/NZOIVLVPZHHM… in Hans' response of 27 Aug 1:07 a.m., it has "There are three ways" attributed to contact(a)0vladimirgrbic.com, whereas in the email I received those four words (appear to) come from Hans. Is this something that someone can (and cares to) fix? Cheers. Jim

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