Tuesday, December 3, 2002 Hans Hagen wrote:
HH> At 01:37 AM 12/3/2002 +0100, you wrote:
This is where we differ. After all, the empty line is the *standard* TeX (and ConTeXt) way to denote new paragraph. While should it be different for displayed items? It's inconsistent.
HH> it's because in my limited perception display stuff is not part if the par -)
Even assuming the displayed part might not be "part" of the par, the following text would (or rather could) still be part of the same par as the previous text. But then again, displayed material *is* part of the par --it's a displayed part of it, something put in evidence, but still part of it.
[You could convince yourself by thinking for example of displayed math $$...$$ in (plain) TeX: it is considered part of the paragraph (and "forced" to three lines, IIRC)]
But I have to specify it manually. If I later decide to rewrite the stuff so that it's really in separate paragraphs I have to change the displayed environment, while what should suffice is letting ConTeXt understand that a new paragraph is started --the *standard* way (empty line).
HH> eh .. not sure if i understand this; some global switch would do most of HH> the trick i assume
Nope. As an example, assume the displayed material in question is a quotation: changing a global switch will make all/none of the quotations be "distinct paragraph". This is not good, because wether or not the quotation is a part of the paragraph or not depends from the quotation and its context, so the user should be able to decide when new pars are started and when not, for each single quotation. And since the standard way to get new pars in TeX is by putting empty lines, why should it be different for displayed material?
I don't think there should be any need to look back or ahead. Just don't force a new paragraph before and after each displayed item. Let the user choose, the standard way(s).
HH> well, since i want to be able to control consistency, i do need to look HH> back; say that the design says: no empty lines (parskips) before something, HH> then i need to configure that particular display instance to ignore the HH> (possiibly already applied) parskip; keep in mind that it's not always the HH> author who decides that somethign should start like a new paragraph;
I'm not sure I understand this.
HH> hm, not sure it it hooks/should hook into start/stop
Where should it hook? All displayed items are start/stop pairs. If you want to overrule this for a specific start/stop pair, you can always to it with the local switch:
HH> i cannot simply before=\startdisplay things because it would break HH> compatibility, so it would mean that each environment would get a HH> display=... switch with some global default, in addition to start/stop
Oh, that's fine for me.
is part of a paragraph but gets "highlited" by typesetting it in a different format, sort of like a subparagraph. This category includes itemizations (all itemgroups, actually), formulas (not inline, of course), quotations, etc.
HH> hm, i like a more general view on 'display': anything that stands out in HH> the text stream, being par or not, this is why it should be configurable HH> (even tex is a bit fuzzy about it, since display math is used for both HH> in-par or between par math)
That's precisely my point. Contrary to TeX, ConTeXt always forces new paragraphs for displayed material: each displayed material is always considered a distinct paragraph, and thus always terminates the previous paragraph and begins a new one after its end.
Of course "between par" displays (i.e. displays surrounded by empty lines) should be distinct pars, but this should not be enforced on all displays (as it it by ConTeXt, currently).