On Sat, 29 Nov 2014, Mark Szepieniec wrote:
So I guess my problem is resolved, but I'd still like to understand better why my earlier solution of doing
\setupfloat[figure][width=2cm]
didn't set a default for later instances of \placefigure. I feel like I might be missing some aspect of the ConTeXt philosophy, or I'm misreading the manual, or it's just a bug...?
\setupfloat[figure] sets the values of \startplacefigure (and \placefigure), and not for \externalfigure. The width value for startplacefigure is not used anywhere. The default value of \setupfloats[width=...] is used when the float box is empty. So, the only scenario where the value of \setupfloats[width=...] will matter is the following: \starttext \setupfloats[width=2cm] \placefloat{}{} \setupfloats[width=10cm] \placefloat{}{} \stoptext Aditya