June 2026 - ntg-context - Mailing Lists

Columnsetspan rendered when only when coloured?
by Chen Wang 11 Jun '26

11 Jun '26

Dear All, I am using the latest version of ConTeXt. In "main.tex", the top section is not rendered. All I did was add some colouring and now the top section gets rendered in "main copy.tex" in blue colour. How do I make the stuff render properly? I do not understand why the top columnsetspan is not being rendered and why trying to colour it makes it render. Any ConTeXt wizards please help me. Yours sincerely, Wang Chen

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metadata:foo or {metadata}{foo}
by scerac＠mail.ustc.edu.cn 11 Jun '26

11 Jun '26

Following settings work well with \getvariables{metadata}{...} \setvariables [metadata] [ title={Bonus}, author={scerac}, date={\currentdate}, ] I find that I can't use \getvariables{metadata}{...} for following setup. \setupdocument[metadata:author={scerac}, metadata:title={Bonus}, metadata:date={\currentdate}] Are metadata:foo and {metadata}{foo} different?

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https://wiki.contextgarden.net/Command/definedelimitedtext
by Jim 10 Jun '26

10 Jun '26

Hi, the comment at the bottom of the example says The last form does not work in the MkIV on the wiki (\contextversionnumber), but it works with ConTeXt 201200419 23:18 MkIV. The last form is % Definition inherits and sets up all in one step \definedelimitedtext[qtwo][quotation][right=»] The output is “Inheritance simultaneous with setup» Either that comment is now defunct, or the last form is supposed to do something different than I imagine. I suspect the former, but I'm not 100% certain. Would someone who *definitively* knows what the last form is supposed to do take a look and see if that comment can now be removed? (I'll be happy to edit the page if someone with definitive knowledge verifies the comment should go.) Thanks. Jim

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regular online meet-up
by Henning Hraban Ramm 10 Jun '26

10 Jun '26

[Forgot to send this earlier, sorry!] You’re invited to our regular online meet-up, tomorrow, Wednesday, June 10th, 19:30 CEST (UTC+2) at https://lecture.senfcall.de/hen-rbr-rku-oke (same, but shorter: https://u.mtxrun.eu/ctxmtg) ConTeXt users of all levels are welcome! Looking forward to seeing you, Hraban (Same blurb as always:) [Howto] * No special software installation required; most modern browsers should work (WebRTC required). * Open the URL above, accept the privacy statement, * enter your name, * click "join" (or "start" if you’re the first), * click "with microphone", allow your browser to access it, check the audio. * Your microphone is muted if you join. Activate microphone and/or camera with the buttons at the bottom. * Minimize the default presentation with the "screen" button, bottom right. * If you’d like to share your screen or upload a file, you can make yourself the presenter: Click on your user name, change the setting, then you’ll see the "screen sharing" button beside the camera button; also there’s now "manage presentations" behind the "plus" button. Beware there is only one presenter at a time, so don’t kill someone else’s presentation. [Technical hints] * Sound is usually better if you use a headset (less noise for everyone). * Connection problems are mostly due to low bandwidth or high latency on your side, esp. with mobile connections. * Sometimes leaving and re-entering helps. * If audio/video doesn’t work for you, you can still use the text chat. * Screen sharing needs a lot of bandwidth. * BigBlueButton documentation applies: https://bigbluebutton.org/tutorials/ [Netiquette] * Please use a name that we recognize from here. Some feel uncomfortable with anonymous lurkers. * Mute your microphone while you’re not talking. * It’s nice to show your face at least when you join. * If there are connection problems, stop camera sharing. * The room is set to “everyone’s a moderator“, I trust you...

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Regression in footnote / page break mechanism
by Steffen Wolfrum 07 Jun '26

07 Jun '26

Please have a look at MWE below. With old ConTeXt ver: 2026.01.08 23:30 LMTX fmt: 2026.1.26 there is the needed page break in tufte and second page starts with … «fine, enumerate, glean, synopsize, winnow the wheat from the chaff and separate the sheep from the goats.1» … with 1 being the footnote marker. At the bottom of the page is text of footnote 1. That's how it should be. With recent ConTeXt ver: 2026.04.27 13:56 LMTX fmt: 2026.6.5 the tufte is not split at all. The footnote text now stands all alone on next page. Help please! Steffen --- \setupnote[footnote][split=verystrict,scope=text] % \setupnote[footnote][split=verystrict,scope=page] \starttext \dorecurse{31}{\dots\par} \input{tufte}\footnote{\input{knuth}} \stoptext

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widget woes (input fields)
by Jim 06 Jun '26

06 Jun '26

Hi all, I have attached a minimal non-working example .tex file and the resulting PDF. If I type something in the text input line, and/or click the check box, when I print the file (from a variety of web browsers and versions of Acrobat reader on Linux and windows) those show up in the printout (or the "print to file" file). However, if I select a radio button, while on screen the button is visibly selected, but in the printout (or "print to file" file) the button is not selected. I understand (possibly incorrectly) that these widgets are using PDF features which are a bit out toward the edge of the PDF galaxy, but in case it is a "me" problem I come to the list, cap in hand. Can anyone tell me how I can fix my example so that a selected radio button prints out visibly selected? [[ This PDF causes my "evince" program to dump core. Without the buttons evince is somewhat happier, in that it doesn't dump core. I will wildly guess that these problem are somehow related. ]] (In case you are wondering... I created a fourth button because I don't want any visible button to be selected when the document is opened, and other methods I tried failed in various ways, depending on the program used to view the PDF.) Thanks. Jim

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vskip causes error
by Steffen Wolfrum 06 Jun '26

06 Jun '26

In the past I adjusted the vertical distance between blackrule and notes by \vskip: \unexpanded\def\MyRule{\blackrule[width=30pt,height=1.5pt]\vskip2pt} %\unexpanded\def\MyRule{\blackrule[width=30pt,height=1.5pt]} \setupnote[footnote][before=\vskip26pt,rule=command,rulecommand=\MyRule] \starttext Test \footnote{text} test. \stoptext In recent version this causes an error. What needs to be changed? Steffen

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Small suggestion: zathura close action in l-pdfview.lua (Linux)
by Eduardo Bohoyo Díaz 05 Jun '26

05 Jun '26

Hi Hans, First, thank you for the SciTE + ConTeXt setup. I use it daily on Linux to write books, and it works beautifully. I would like to share one small observation about the PDF viewer methods in l-pdfview.lua. On Linux, the close action for the zathura method is set to `killall zathura`, while evince and mupdf use `false`. Because zathura reloads the PDF automatically when the file changes (just like evince and mupdf), it does not really need a close-and-reopen step. The `killall` also closes every zathura window the user has open, not only the document being compiled. Would it be possible to set the zathura close call to `false`, so it matches evince and mupdf? That single change would make `--autopdf=zathura` safe and comfortable on Linux. In the meantime, in case it helps other Linux users, this is the workaround I use: I simply do not let ConTeXt drive the viewer at all. In ~/.SciTEUser.properties, after importing scite-context, I override the flag to an empty value: name.flag.pdfopen= This removes --autopdf from the SciTE compile command, so ConTeXt no longer opens or closes any viewer. I open zathura once myself, and because it reloads the PDF automatically on every compile, the preview stays up to date with no stacked windows and no killall involved. It is only a user-side workaround, not a replacement for the fix above. I run exactly this configuration almost every day, so I am very happy to test any change you make and report back to this list. Thank you for considering it, and, again, for all your work. Best regards, Eduardo Bohoyo

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PDF/UA checker
by Henning Hraban Ramm 05 Jun '26

05 Jun '26

Patrick Gundlach published a command line / web assembly checker for PDF/UA: https://news.speedata.de/2026/06/05/pdfa11y/

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Vowels placement in placeinitial and placement of letter with starthanging
by Aryeh Zapinsky 03 Jun '26

03 Jun '26

Hi, I've noticed that the vowel mark is not centered under letter being used with the \placeinitial command. I'd expect the vowel (the horizontal line) to be centered under the letter (the character that looks like an "n"). Additionally, when I tried another approach to do a similar thing and used \starthanging, the letter appears higher and more to the right than I expected. I expected the top of the letter to be positioned roughly as high as the text on the rest of the line, but it appears higher. *Questions:* 1. What is the change that would make the \placeinitial combine the letter and the vowel? 2. Is there something that I should be doing to center the graphic when using \starthanging? Or is there something that needs to be changed here as well? 3. Is there a better way to set up the initial character? (I was thinking I would use metapost to make a graphic eventually.) *Minimal example:* \definefontfeature[minimal][default][ script=hebr ] \starttypescript [serif] [hebrew] \definefontsynonym [Serif] [file:/workspaces/context_lmtx/context_2/build_from_cmake_2/context_from_scratch/tex/texmf-fonts/firago/FiraGO-Regular.ttf][features=minimal] \stoptypescript \definetypeface [hebrew] [rm] [serif] [hebrew] \definetypeface [hebrew] [ss] [serif] [hebrew] \setupbodyfont[hebrew, 20pt] \setupalign[r2l] \setupdirections[bidi=global, method=unicode] \setupinitial[n=2,m=2] \starttext \placeinitial חַי ה' וּבָרוּךְ צוּרִי בַּה' תִּתְהַלֵּל נַפְשִׁי כִּי ה' יָאִיר נֵרִי בְּהִלּוֹ נֵרוֹ עֲלֵי רֹאשִׁי בַּה' תִּתְהַלֵּל נַפְשִׁי כִּי ה' יָאִיר נֵרִי בְּהִלּוֹ נֵרוֹ עֲלֵי רֹאשִׁי חַי ה' וּבָרוּךְ צוּרִי בַּה' תִּתְהַלֵּל נַפְשִׁי כִּי ה' יָאִיר נֵרִי בְּהִלּוֹ נֵרוֹ עֲלֵי רֹאשִׁי \blank \def\hangingCharacter#1{% \setMPtext{hebrew_letter}{#1} \startuseMPgraphic{letter_w} picture q; q := outlinetext(\MPstring{hebrew_letter}) scaled 3; for i within q: j := j + 1; draw pathpart i withpen pencircle scaled 2; endfor; \stopuseMPgraphic \useMPgraphic{letter_w} } \starthanging[left]{\hangingCharacter{חַ}} י ה' וּבָרוּךְ צוּרִי בַּה' תִּתְהַלֵּל נַפְשִׁי כִּי ה' יָאִיר נֵרִי בְּהִלּוֹ נֵרוֹ עֲלֵי רֹאשִׁי \stophanging \stoptext *Context Version:* ConTeXt ver: 2025.11.24 17:55 LMTX fmt: 2025.12.31 int: english/english Any help would be appreciated. -- Aryeh

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