25 May
2006
25 May
'06
8:47 a.m.
Dear ConTeXters,
surprisingly, in this e-mail you will find any bug report! It is a
summary of my experience with typesetting of a little complex book
layout. I have finnished it during a one year long winning battle. Thank
to everybody who helped, especially of course to Hans.
Thank you very much!
------------------
Next text can show, what is in present ConTeXt (or a bit older one)
possible and what is still problematic.
Firstly, let us show some examples:
- transparency frames
ftp://cmp.felk.cvut.cz/pub/cmp/users/zyka/vg-ex/vg05-ex-body1.pdf
- two columnsets + marginals + figures + balancing
ftp://cmp.felk.cvut.cz/pub/cmp/users/zyka/vg-ex/vg05-ex-body2.pdf
- two columnsets + page float
ftp://cmp.felk.cvut.cz/pub/cmp/users/zyka/vg-ex/vg05-ex-body3.pdf
- three columnsets + floats
ftp://cmp.felk.cvut.cz/pub/cmp/users/zyka/vg-ex/vg05-ex-encyk.pdf
- content
ftp://cmp.felk.cvut.cz/pub/cmp/users/zyka/vg-ex/vg05-ex-content.pdf
- index
ftp://cmp.felk.cvut.cz/pub/cmp/users/zyka/vg-ex/vg05-ex-index.pdf
Legend for comming comments:
+ pros
- cons
? dreaming about new feature
! attention
= my (perhaps suboptimal) solution
* note
Comments:
> grid
+ very powerfull and working support
+ works gracefully with columnsets and floats
* avoiding orphans and widows was done manually by:
= enlarging/decreasing figures
= adding/removing (half)blank lines around heads
? if we want to do avoiding orphans and widows automatically,
we would probably need the glue with DISCRETE STEP of
stretch/shrink.
Then we can say e.g.
\let\bl=\baselineskip
\setuphead
[section]
[before=\vskip1\bl plus1\bl withstep1\bl]
to get vertical space before section head exactly 1 OR 2
\baselineskip height.
Another solution with stepwise box:
\vbox to2\bl plus2\bl withstep1\bl{\vfil heading \vfil}
! the only problem was in the table of contents + columns;
from the first line there was a small shift between columns;
perhaps \splittopskip? but setting it to large enough value
does not solve it.
> columnsets
+ very nice feature, really;
after Hans improvement seems that some floats soes not dissappered
now, but need to be carefull
+ floats insertion with specifying place
? for top float: automatically setting \placeongrid[{broad,high}]
for bottom float \placeongrid[{broad,low}]
to be vertically align with text on the rest of column(s)
* balancing: only manually by setting:
\setupcolumnsetlines[columnset_id][columnset_page][column][line]
! Not so painful if it not occures next: If there are many
floats near balancing place they sometimes disappear or cause ignoring
balancing - even if they can fit on the place.
? understand that automatical balancing with floats is extremly
difficult
* page floats: big improvements during the work.
! running marginal text continue through the page with only float
= so you have to manually insert blank vertical margin on such place
* header & footers: Hans did a new column marking:
\getmarking[marking_id][column][last/first].
! There are some problems [perhaps with expansion (different
counter number and text)] if marking goes between two columnsets (framed
chapters cross two cols in examples).
= found acceptable hack but need more ivestigation on small
examples for cleaning.
> metapost inclusion
+ the most powerful, smooth and stable part of ConTeXt in my opinion
(see random frames, circles with transparent graphics, lines with color
shading)
= if you have many (over 1024!) shadings (-> MP specials) do
\settrue \manyMPspecials
> index (register)
+ nice possibility to differentiate several groups (here 8 from which
4 have different visual marking of page number, see index example)
- sorting: until this spring there was no satisfied backround for
Czech sorting in newtexutil.rb till this spring.
= I did dirty reimplementation of old texutil.pl for doing so
* I have to have a look for new sorting now.
- coupling: page numbers with group preserving (see example)
= also in texutil.pl reimplementation
> regime
* my great discovery was that the regime IS
\enableregime{latin2} % correct
and NOT
\enableregime{il2} % incorrect!
> pseudo-small caps
= http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Pseudo_Small_Caps
> ...
I provide the environment files (design definition) in case of
somebody's interest. But suddenly they are very very very dirty.
Partially due to my unsufficient ConTeXt knowledge, partially due to my
despair during trying many ways to solve some problem, partially due to
putting pathes to old ConTeXt (it was fresh of course when the work
begins), ...:
ftp://cmp.felk.cvut.cz/pub/cmp/users/zyka/vg-ex/vg05-env.tex (core)
ftp://cmp.felk.cvut.cz/pub/cmp/users/zyka/vg-ex/vg05-mark.tex (markup)
Best
Vit