Hans Hagen wrote: this is runtime tex into passed to the graphic ... imagine that we flush this to the mp file ... it can contain info that is not known in that session (like overlay info) which willbreak the mp run the issue here is that a static graphic is processed in another, independent run, that's the whole idea behind static graphics (quick hack for independent graphics) That makes sense. So should I use reusableMPgraphic instead of staticMPfigure? My figures started as standalone mpost figures that I incorporate chapter by chapter into the ConTeXt source file. I was using staticMPfigure because I'd noticed the code in the ConTeXt sources and it's so fast. we can spend a lot of time to make it more advanced but within a year from now we will have mp as a library in tex which will reduce runtime to nearly zero (at least that 's what experiments show) so .... Great! Although earlier you had said, when I wondered whether pdftex+lua will make it easier to meld tex and metapost: not really, for that we need mp as a library (we did experiments with simulating that but it's kind of tricky) concerning lua ... i do have a mkiv file on my machine that uses lua to parse the mp output (precursor to mp natively spitting out such code); currently its a bit slower (two step conversion ps -> lua -> tex) but when using many pen shapes its faster because then we don't need the tex based concat code; also, less (and cleaner) code is needed for parsing Oh I understand what you were saying: that pdftex+lua is not sufficient for clean metapost intergration, one also needs metapost as a library (I guess in lua?). Anyway, don't bother to answer that. Develop in peace, and I'm looking forward to the result (and will be happy to test when that's useful). what we can do [for staticMPfigure] is pass info from the mpenvironment" It works well, thanks for another instant improvement. The 2006.09.28 beta passes the following test case (I will commit it to the contexttest repository). It gives a 12pt "outside sometxt" and a 20pt "in sometxt": ============= with-static.tex ================================ \startMPenvironment \setupbodyfont[20pt] \stopMPenvironment \starttext \startstaticMPfigure{fig} label(\sometxt{in sometxt},origin); \stopstaticMPfigure outside sometxt\quad \usestaticMPfigure[fig] \stoptext ============================================= Another difference (not important to fix, just a strange corner case) between staticMPfigure and reusableMPgraphic is the depth of the resulting box. With staticMPfigure, the 'in sometxt' is raised to have its baseline about at the midline of the 'outside sometxt': ============= with-static12.tex ================================ \starttext \startstaticMPfigure{fig} label(\sometxt{in sometxt},origin); \stopstaticMPfigure outside sometxt\quad \usestaticMPfigure[fig] \stoptext ============================================= In the reusableMPgraphic method, the outside and inside texts have their baselines aligned: ============= with-reusable12.tex ================================ \starttext \startreusableMPgraphic{fig} label(\sometxt{in sometxt},origin); \stopreusableMPgraphic outside sometxt\quad \reuseMPgraphic{fig} \stoptext ============================================= BUT: I don't need this fixed! It's a corner case I happened to notice, and I'm noting it in case it indicates a bug in the box manufacturing. 'See loose thread, any loose thread, pull thread' is how I debug. -Sanjoy `A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.' -- Bertrand de Jouvenal