On Thu, Oct 3, 2013 at 6:55 PM, Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl> wrote:

On 10/3/2013 12:35 PM, Wolfgang Schuster wrote:

Am 03.10.2013 um 12:26 schrieb H. van der Meer <H.vanderMeer@uva.nl>:

If I remember well, framedtext sets a localhsize for the width of its content. I guess that is why boxedcolumns stays within the width specified. But is there a specific reason why mixedcolumns in general does not?

The global settings for mixedcolumns are

    \setupmixedcolumns
      [maxwidth=\makeupwidth]

which forces columns to use the width of the textblock but boxedcolumns uses this

    \definemixedcolumns
      [boxedcolumns]
      [maxwidth=\availablehsize]

where the width of the columns depends on the available width of the environment,
e.g. in a narrower environment or in a frame the you get shorter columns.

also, boxedcolumns, as the name says, are for use in boxes while by default mixedcolumns (unless set up as boxed) are operating at the page level (the so called mvl)