Hi Marco & al,
On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 11:34 AM, Marco Patzer
I was on http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Mpgraphic which I actually found for informative, but not quite enough for my "very dummy" level.
and 3.3 Integrated Graphics in the MetaFun Manual.
*This* was my missing link (and I was being pretty stupid). I dug the book out of my pile of ConTeXt papers and found exactly what I needed, at the end of chapter 3.3, pages 115-117 in my paper copy. To answer to myself (in case somebody else ever looks for this); At least in theory the key to the problem is to create a file somefile.mp, then write the MP code in the file beginfig{01} . . . endfig ; end . The whole file is used by \startMPrun input somefile ; \stopMPrun and the individual figure is available in the virtual file mprun.01. Thus it can be included with \externalfigure[mprun.01][width=0.5\textwidth] %etcetera Page 117 even has an example of exactly the type of combination I'm trying to achieve, so now it's just down to creating the graphic(s) file(s). As my braiding graphics come in groups (steps and variations, to be exact), this solution looks like a winner for now.
\defineframed [graphicframe] [frame=on,offset=none]
\define[1]\MPframed {\graphicframe{\useMPgraphic{#1}}}
\startuseMPgraphic{first} fill fullcircle scaled 2cm withcolor red; \stopuseMPgraphic
\startreusableMPgraphic{second} fill fullsquare rotated 45 scaled 2cm withcolor blue; \stopreusableMPgraphic
\startbuffer [third] fill fullsquare scaled 1cm withcolor green; \stopbuffer
\starttext \useMPgraphic{first} \reuseMPgraphic{second} \processMPbuffer [third] \MPframed{second} \stoptext
Thank you! I'll have to delve into this bit once the current almost-past-deadline project is done, looks like this'll take a bit of processing before it starts to make sense to me (my computer has no such problems...). Now, time for some recoding, thanks once more! Mari