- ntg-context - NTG Mailing Lists

ConTeXt oddities
by Frank Grieshaber 01 May '05

01 May '05

Dear fellow-ConTeXters, working with Context I noticed some small, strange behaviours: 1. I arranged pages in the following way: \definepapersize[myCustomLayout][width=12cm, height=19cm] \setuppapersize[myCustomLayout][A4,landscape] \setuparranging[2SIDE] now, when I use \showsetups I get the following values: paperhight: 18.9973cm paperwidth: 11.99829cm (happens with the rest of layout-definitions as well) well, sure enough nobody will see the difference in print... but nevertheless a bit annoying if you wanted to show the result of \showsetups to your clients (maybe the values are converted from cm to pt and back again?) 2. for control of orphans and widows I use the following: \clubpenalty=8000 \widowpenalty=8000 it seems, this has to be inserted after \starttext, which is - I think - not a too good place for such a global definition, shouldn't it be in the setup area before \starttext? but there I cant't get it working. Or am I doing something wrong with the commands? 3. if a command has lots of options it's better to sort of "pretty-print" those like the following: \setuplayout[ backspace=15mm, cutspace=10mm, ... grid=yes, marking=on, ] After some time (lots of time..) I figured out that the last "," is a must, without it, the last option is ignored - why is that? 4. I am well aware this has been asked before on this list, but no good solution came up: I need the footnote ref number to be beneath the main text, not in the small blank space between the text and the margin column. I managed to get it working with the hack by Paul Tremblay posted on this list some time ago and defined my own \myFootnote-command for it, but that is a "quick and dirty" solution, there has to be a better way, so I'd like to raise the question once again: How can this be done? Is it that difficult to change this kind of strange setting of footnotes? Many thanks for your answers, Frank

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Table in columns or framed columns
by Guillaume Chazarain 01 May '05

01 May '05

Hi, I cannot manage to let a long table span multiple columns, and I also can't find a way to put a frame around a multicolumns piece of text. I am using tetex-3.0 on Linux: texexec : TeXExec 5.2.4 - ConTeXt / PRAGMA ADE 1997-2005 texutil : TeXUtil 9.0.0 - ConTeXt / PRAGMA ADE 1992-2004 tex : pdfeTeX, 3.141592-1.21a-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.4) context : ver: 2005.01.31 cont-en : ver: 2005.01.31 fmt: 2005.4.30 mes: english Here is a sample: \starttext \startcolumns[n=2] \starttable[|l|l|] \HL \NC \bf a \NC \bf b \NC\SR \HL \NC a \NC b \NC\FR \dorecurse{100}{\NC \recurselevel \NC b \NC\MR} \NC a \NC b \NC\LR \HL \stoptable \stopcolumns \startframedtext \startcolumns[n=2] \dorecurse{100}{\recurselevel } \stopcolumns \stopframedtext \stoptext Subsidiary question: if \dorecurse is used to make a loop, and \recurselevel to get the current iteration, then why does it work in the framed text, but not in the table? Thanks in advance for any help. -- Guillaume

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install help
by Skip Collins 30 Apr '05

30 Apr '05

I am a tex/latex veteran user who would like to start using context to test the waters on some small projects. I have a lightly enhanced texlive 2004 full installation on my fedora linux box. So I already have a version of context installed. But since I noticed some problems with mathml output, I thought it might be a good idea to get the latest and greatest from pragma. This is where things got confusing. Are there simple instructions somewhere for upgrading context for texlive in a minimally invasive way? The installation guide at http://www.pragma-ade.com/general/manuals/minstall.pdf does not seem to capture all the necessary steps for getting things working right with new versions. The sparse instructions at http://contextgarden.net/Linux_Installation leave me with a non-functioning context and a corrupted /usr/TeX/texmf tree. Am I missing something? I downloaded cont-tmf.zip (which should I choose? current? beta? alpha?) and installed it in ~/texmf. But I ran into problems with latin modern font names (ec vs. cork). So I installed the latest lm font distribution in ~/texmf (lots of manual labor). Then I found that texexec could not find my formats and kept trying to rebuild cont-en.fmt (using 2005-04-28 alpha). When I run texexec as root, this problem does not occur(!?). Checking the mailing lists, it looks like I need to patch texexec. What is the right way to do this? Currently, I am invoking scripts installed in the texlive bin directory. I have not replaced them with the updated versions in the alpha distribution. Do I need to do something like texmfstart --make and manually move each and every script? Sorry for rambling. I guess this goes with the territory when living on the bleeding edge. As you can see, I am in need of some basic guidance for getting a newish context working properly. I have spent some time looking for step-by-step instructions, but all I get is more confused. The contextgarden wiki could be updated with more complete instructions. I would be happy to help with this if I could only figure out the correct recipe.

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layer in texshow
by Vít Zýka 30 Apr '05

30 Apr '05

Hallo, commands for layers (\setuplayer, ...) are missing in the texshow. What is the mechanism to add them? vit

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Rif: Re: [NTG-context] dotted line for \framed ?
by Luigi Scarso 29 Apr '05

29 Apr '05

With Metapost you can put in background almost anything you want, so it's not complex make a dotted line for frame; Metafun is a great tutorial for these things. A nice solution should be dotted line for \framed WITHOUT use metapost, something like \framed[rulestyle={dot},...] [OT] Can XYpic be used under Context ? I will try . luigi

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MetaPost 0.9 announcement
by Taco Hoekwater 29 Apr '05

29 Apr '05

The MetaPost team is happy to announce a new release of MetaPost: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MetaPost 0.9 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The sources and a win32 package can be downloaded immediately from http://sarovar.org/projects/metapost/ The source package should compile normally on all systems that are capable of compiling a modern web2c-based TeX distribution. The win32 package is intended for fptex or a similar web2c-based installation, and has been tested only with TeXLive 2003. These executables will *not* work for miktex, sorry. Of course, we welcome any comments (either good or bad) that you may have. Simply replying to this message is fine, but see the bottom of this message for a more formal way to report bugs and feature requests. For those of you who have noted the large gap between 0.641 and 0.9: We have deliberately chosen to step over some minor version numbers, such that the first major release by the current team (this release is planned for the autumn of 2005) can become version 1.0 without causing additional confusion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- What is new in version 0.9: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. There is a new internal quantity called mpversion that reports the current metapost version, and the version information is also written to the PostScript file. 2. The LaTeX sources of the mpman, mpintro, and mpgraph manuals have become part of the distribution package. 3. TEX.mp now has TeX format support through a pair of macros called TEXPRE() and TEXPOST(). This llows you to process the contents of the TEX() macro with, for example, LaTeX (instead of plain TeX). An example is given in the manual. 4. metapost now writes a %%HiReSBoundingBox comment 5. The EPS output no longer contains actual spaces within PostScript strings as for example output by label("a space"), but their octal escape (\040) instead. 6. The EPS output now also has a %%BeginProlog DSC comment as well as %%EndProlog 7. The comments in the Web source have been changed to point out that on modern machines, acquiring the random seed has actually become a system-dependant operation (a granularity of whole seconds is not small enough on new machines). 8. The 'newer' command now accepts more than 2 arguments, testing each of the files in turn. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bugfixes in version 0.9: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Documentation improvements: all known errata and typos have been removed, better explanations of e.g. dash patterns and dotlabel have been provided, and a number of omissions has been rectified. 2. The BoundingBox was not computed correctly when a filldraw command with a noticeable pen size was used at the edge of the picture. 3. Paths starting with degenerate constructions like (0,0)--(0,0)--(0,0) could overflow memory. 4. The PostScript output could accidentally contain 8-bit characters within PostScript strings in previous versions because a test was shared between terminal printing and PostScript printing. 5. A bug has been found in the assignment of serial numbers to independant variables in metafont 2.71828. This bug affected MP as well, and the same patch has been applied. 6. The turningnumber was sometimes wrong in unexpected ways. The new implementation is still sometimes wrong (when there are strange path segments involved), but in a much more predictable way: the new code always draws straight lines between the actual points, and calculates the turningnumber based on that path instead of the actual path. The effect is that cusps and loops within segments are now completely ignored. A more thorough fix of turningnumber is planned for the next release. 7. There was an 'off by one' error in dvitomp wrt. the interpretation of virtual fonts. 8. mpto uses a new TeX macro for the generation of labels, making it more robust wrt. strange user code within the actual label text. 9. A missing colon in boxes.mp has been added 10. A missing save in mfplain.mp has been added 11. The generisize in boxes.mp has been fixed so that it now accepts [[ as a valid variable name ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Legal notice / license / bug reports ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MetaPost is a system for producing graphics developed by John Hobby at AT&T, based on Donald Knuth's Metafont. The MetaPost home page is http://tug.org/metapost. MetaPost and related programs are in the public domain. The MetaPost development project is currently hosted at Sarovar, http://www.sarovar.org/projects/metapost; please report bugs and request enhancements through there if possible. Alternatively, you can reach us through the <metapost(a)tug.org> mailing list as well. (Please do not send bug reports or feature requests directly to Dr. Hobby any more) Have fun! Taco Hoekwater, for the MetaPost team, April 28, 2005

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widow and orphan control
by Paul Tremblay 28 Apr '05

28 Apr '05

How does one prevent orphans (the first line nof a paragraph on the last line of a page) and widows (the last line of a paragraph on a new page)? If I have the title of a new section that must not be the last line of a page, how can I do this? Thanks Paul -- ************************ *Paul Tremblay * *phthenry(a)iglou.com * ************************

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Old-style figures throughout the document
by varheit＠gmx.de 28 Apr '05

28 Apr '05

Hello, I am experimenting with old-style figures (or text figures, as they are also called). Basically, I would like every number in my source document to be typeset in old-style figures (OSF) by default unless stated otherwise. This means: I want to reverse the mechanism so that I can explicitly say where NOT to use OSF. As a work-around I found the following on the list: \defineconversion[number][\os] \defineconversion[numbers][\os] This does not work for plain digits in the text, but it works for generated numbers like page numbers, and, to some degree, for the generated numbers of floats. \starttext \chapter[sample]{Sample} \placefigure[here][a]{cap}{test} Reference: \in{figure}[a] \section[test]{Test} \stoptext In this setup, chapter numbers do not use OSF, and the numbers of figures (as well as references to them) use a mixed form, which looks rather odd. I can add \setuphead[chapter,section][numberstyle=\os] which makes heading numbers use OSF, but then again, references like \in[sample] do not work. Also, the numbering of the section changes from 1.1 to 1>1 (where > is a right pointing triangle). To see the results, you can process this: ------------------------ cut here --------------------- \defineconversion[number][\os] \defineconversion[numbers][\os] \setuphead[chapter,section][numberstyle=\os] \starttext \chapter[sample]{Sample} This is chapter \in[sample]. Below is \in{section}[test]. Here is \in{figure}[a] on \at{page}[a] \placefigure[here][a]{Caption}{FIGURE} \section[test]{Test} \stoptext ------------------------ cut here --------------------- Is there any way, to change the numbering style globally? Thanks, Viktor -- +++ GMX - die erste Adresse f�r Mail, Message, More +++ 10 GB Mailbox, 100 FreeSMS http://www.gmx.net/de/go/topmail

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bachotex
by Hans Hagen 28 Apr '05

28 Apr '05

Hi, I'm away for a week to the polish bachotex conference; given mail access, i'll try to keep up with my mails. Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------

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texexec does not Rotate right on pdfarrange
by Thomas Schrader 28 Apr '05

28 Apr '05

Hi everybody, I've got a PDF saying /MediaBox [ 0 0 842 595 ] /Rotate 270 but on concatenating it via texexec to a second PDF saying /MediaBox [0 0 595 842] the first one is displayed landscape and cut to half. How can I prevent this. Does texexec ignore the rotation commands? Need I parse odd PDFs myself? Thanks much for any hints

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