Re: [NTG-context] spacing before items

-----Original Message----- From: ntg-context [mailto:ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl] On Behalf Of Hans Hagen Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2020 12:50 AM To: mailing list for ConTeXt users Subject: Re: [NTG-context] spacing before items

On 6/24/2020 12:00 AM, Mike Cooper wrote:

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-----Original Message----- From: On Behalf Of David Rogers Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2020 3:18 PM

Mike Cooper writes:

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Thanks Tomáš!

1. Where can this solution be found?

Mike, I know how you feel.

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David

Indeed. It's all volunteer work that doesn't pay the bills. Sitting down and starting to write a big manual simply doesn't pay off so it has to happen in free time. And that being the case, it is more attactive to work on some new challenge.

Concerning manuals: I sometimes wonder if they are really read. So, how to set up one that works for all, build up explanations, etc ... isn't it more about googling a solution nowadays (ok, not entirely true i guess, as one then has to learn how to distinguish the wrong solutions from the good, but i suppose one can just test it).

I started out maybe a little bit hodge-podge, looking through some documentation recommended to me. The basic concept is very straightforward. No problem. But implementation has been extremely challenging (but it's probably just me!). Then I was pointed to Henri Menke's "Definitive Guide" post. I read the entire Excursion (though I confess I did not *practice* as I went along (partly because SciTe was such a pain)). The Excursion is not for (true) beginners. And, no offense, but I thought it was poorly typeset as well... Then I went through Aditya's "amazing tutorial" (mostly with a good bit of help from Aditya just to be able to get started!) and definitely learned more. But at the end I felt like it was mostly an exercise in "slow-motion copy/paste" (I retyped all the code). Of course, when I got the code right, I got the intended output. I did fiddle with options a little bit as I went. No doubt, I should have done more. There was too much of what I had "successfully" done that I still didn't really understand at the end of it.

It has been said before: one can have manuals, wikis, mailing lists, journals ... once they cross the beginners level they also become large and hard to navigate. One can have 'beginners' and 'advanced' but who wants to be a 'beginner' ... when is the line crossed. Maybe on the wiky we should actually have that distinction.

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Thanks David!

I don't think I've ever been quite so frustrated at trying to learn anything else in my life! If it wasn't required by my job, I wouldn't have made it past the first day or two (3 months ago). But I'm slogging away and it's gradually coming together (I think). I spent my whole day yesterday figuring out how to do some very basic formatting/layout that would have taken 5-10 minutes in Word or HTML/CSS.

People have been very helpful and patient with me!! Thanks to all of you for that!

Let me challenge you: how would your solution translate to a wiki page for a beginner with the sam eproblem to solve ... content but also the 'how to get there aspect'

This is more general than about "my specific problem". There have been a number of different ones. They are all basic formatting/layout. I've resorted to asking about a couple of them on the mailing list after no joy anywhere else. Off the top of my head, I would suggest more explanation/description and especially more examples of what each option/key/whatever does. I've always found w3chools.com to be especially helpful with HTML/CSS because they give plenty of examples and explanation. I don't know if it's really feasible to do anything about it but another thing is the jargon. I probably mainly think in terms of HTML/CSS lingo and then MS Word. When I hunt through the wiki or the manuals or Google for solutions, I naturally use the terms I know. But it seems that the things I've wanted are referred to differently in ConTeXt. I spent *days* trying to figure out how to add more whitespace around a floated graphic (the default is too cramped in my opinion). I finally just threw up my hands and decided that no one else has this opinion but me so nobody has ever "fixed" it and thus, no solution exists.

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And thanks David for this explanation of the situation. There are a couple of things that you need to keep in mind when you start with something like context:

- you often bring with your experience (and exposure) to different systems and these don't translate; recently i was playing with some css setup for a rather complex xml -> html mapping and things that would have taken me 5 minutes in tex costs me plenty of time in css due to all kind of interactions; just as with tex, one can end up with hacks found on the web (it was hobyism of course)

Sure. I suppose this is the same as my "jargon" comment above. I don't mean to be a jerk or anything. I'm trying to learn this stuff. It's just extremely frustrating...