Hello Sietse, thank you for your proposal. I guess that there is not a lack of options here. However, my problem may be simpler than I had described in the first place. I am not so much concerned with using a specific slide layout (be it s-pre-05 or some fancy simple- or complexslide layout), but whether I want to use ConTeXt at all... ... and as life is already complicated enough ;-), my decision has more to do with usability and reliability than with the number of options. I am a software developer for more than 20 years now, so I know very well how easy it is to implement some "bug in recently updated XYZ code" as Hans had diagnosed my problem. But would it be possible to use ConTeXt without having to care about bugs in updated code or broken links between different modules...? So before turning to additional modules with additional questions like... - if I use simple- or complexslide , do I need to install the visualcounter-module before? - if so, is there a clear documentation of the required modules? ... I wanted to see whether a rather simple example without any additional module would work out of the box. Well, it did partially... ;-) Best wishes Thomas Am 09.01.2013 um 17:01 schrieb Sietse Brouwer: Hello Thomas, Just to widen your options a bit: I have greatly enjoyed using the \complexslides module by Aditya (and co?). I've attached an example document, which shows inter alia how easy it is to override a design component. (The fontscheme, in this case.) Cheers, Sietse PD Dr. rer. nat. Thomas Meigen Univ.-Augenklinik Würzburg Josef-Schneider-Str. 11 97080 Würzburg Tel. +49-(0)931-201-20437 Fax +49-(0)931-201-20430 Email: t.meigen@augenklinik.uni-wuerzburg.demailto:t.meigen@augenklinik.uni-wuerzburg.de

Hi Hans, I am kind of confused about the relationship between luatex and ConTeXt. The way I read the wikis and web sites luatex and ConTeXt are basically two different animals. They have a common core, but two different code bases, where the ConTeXt group doing most the work advancing the Lua code base and those changes integrated into the LuaTeX side. Your statements below would suggest things are the other way around!? Would your care to elaborate or anybody else for that matter if this request is not to OT. Thanx in advance. regards Keith. Am 10.01.2013 um 10:11 schrieb Hans Hagen :

[snip, snip] some of the presentation styles started out a experiments and therefore can have code that should be adapted if experiments have turned feature

anyhow, the transition from mkii to mkiv involves rewrites and therefore there can be issues but normally they're fixed rather fast; also, updating is easy (just run first-setup again); it's the price we pay for using luatex, which is evolving

On 1/10/2013 12:19 PM, Martin Schröder wrote:

2013/1/10 Keith J. Schultz :

...

I am kind of confused about the relationship between luatex and ConTeXt.

http://www.tug.org/levels.html

ConTeXt MkIV needs LuaTeX.

That's a somewhat confusing description. (1) Context is just a format, so it should be mentioned as format. (2) We call all instances context, i.e. we don't combine engine names with 'context' so there is no 'pdfcontext', although one could do that. (3) As there are language dependent user interfaces, we have more formats (cont-en, cont-nl, ...). (4) We use a management script to run the engine with the context format. Reasons for this are: we need to manage multiple runs, we might need to call intermediate programs (in mkii for instance we need to sort indices). (5) This also permits us to present to user with an engine independent call to context. In mkii we had 'texexec' (on top of a more generic script manager called texmfstart), in mkiv we have 'context' (and again a script manager called mtxrun). Now, to come to luatex: this project is quite related to context as it all started in the context community. We also use context for testing and exploring new functionality. For this we use mkiv/mkvi which is a rewrite of context using the full potential of luatex so that we can go beyond what traditional tex engines can do. We explicitly have chosen for a lua + tex combination so that we don't have to hardcode solutions in the engine (macro packages have too many conflicting demands anyway) and are more future proof. Given that mkii is frozen, and given that type1 fonts are sort of obsolete (context has always been an early adopter of lm and gyre fonts), and given that utf is the way to go (so no messing with input and font encodings any more), and given some more reasons, in practice users will no longer use pdftex and/or xetex but luatex. In that sense context depends on luatex and also keep the development of that engine going. The philosophy of context is that by having most functionality in the core, users can rather easy create their own styles (the average style has not that many lines anyway). I'm always sort of puzzled when I see remarks that context is close to plain, as I cannot see where that conclusion comes from. The whole reason that context exists is that I didn't want to hack around in low level style files and deal with funny commands having @ in their names. Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------

On Thu, 10 Jan 2013, Hans Hagen wrote:

you only need modules for special kind of functionality or rendering (like presentations) although one can make presentations without extra modules (just set the papersize to S6 or so)

I created an example to show how to create basic slides from scratch. https://github.com/adityam/context-slides-example/commits/master The first commit starts with a basic skeleton document, Each additional commit adds new functionality (pagesetup, layout, fonts, heads, style, bullets) and shows how to incrementally add features to a style. When I get the time, I'll add code to show how to create a titlepage etc. Basically, you don't need any modules for slides as creating your own style is relatively simple Aditya

Hi Thomas, In your original post you stated that stated that you have be using LaTeX for your work. That would suggest to me that you are not proficient with TeX proper. ConTeXt runs, in my opinion, along the lines of TeX proper. That is you need intimate knowledge of TeX. Furthermore, you need a good background in ConTeXt and its use of Lua. These facts would have me advise you to not use ConTeXt. Furthermore ConTeXt is a moving target. That is, it is still in development. At least you can compare it to the early days of LaTeX2e. Things change fast, especially if you use the standalone, even though it is probably the best option. do not get me wrong ConTeXt is powerful and usable, but you really need to know what you are doing and what the modules really do. I assume I am in a similar position as you I prefer a LaTeX approach. Though ConText is quite advanced and interesting, it is too TeXian for me. I follow this list because I am interested to and using Lua(La)TeX. (Please ConTeXt group disregard my somewhat negative opinion of ConTeXt, just is not my cup of tee!) I noticed that you are using a MacBook Pro with OSX 10.6. My suggestion would be to use MacTeX and TeXLive 2012. It is most likely to give you more mileage. Furthermore try out LuaLaTeX. It gives you the advantage of using what you know and you can use Lua for doing things that are not that easy to do with LaTeX alone. Once you are comfortable with LuaLaTeX or LuaTeX then you may want to switch to ConTeXt. As a side note I am using a mid 2009 MacBook Pro 17" with OSX 10.8.2 and MacTeX/TeXLive 2012. Hope this helps. regards Keith Am 10.01.2013 um 09:13 schrieb "Meigen, Thomas" :

Hello Sietse,

thank you for your proposal. I guess that there is not a lack of options here.

However, my problem may be simpler than I had described in the first place. I am not so much concerned with using a specific slide layout (be it s-pre-05 or some fancy simple- or complexslide layout), but whether I want to use ConTeXt at all...

On 1/11/2013 11:58 AM, Meigen, Thomas wrote:

...

1 \usemodule[s-pre-05]

crashed for s-pre-05 and most of the other s-pre-XX modules indicates that such crashes have nothing to do with the decision to load modules from other users. The s-pre-XX modules are part of the standalone ConTeXt installation, my installation was fine, but a recent update of some mkiv component was not compatible with luatex.

Most of those presentation styles were used at tex user group meetings and in those cases I often use new (or experimental) functionality, i.e. hooking in extentions and such; in the transition from mkii to mkiv some of the hacks needed in traditional tex are gone but then I need to check all those styles too and I don't use them that often.

So what to do next? Load an earlier ConText version? Wait until this problem is fixed? If the mkiv <-> luatex interaction is the reason for this problem, the problems might not be restricted to some s-pre-XX modules (that are unchanged since about two years...) ?

The benefits of mkiv over mkii compensate the occasional issue. Also, issues are often fixed quite fast and as we have a perfect update structure running on the garden problems never stay long. I (and probably others) use mkiv in (often unattended) production runs so it's on the average pretty useable. I haven't used mkii for years. Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------

You can ignore everything Keith said and you will be just fine. Regards, Khaled On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 11:32:39AM +0000, Meigen, Thomas wrote:

Hi Keith,

thank you for your open comments. You exactly understood the questions that I am asking right now. Would it be a good idea to switch to ConTeXt?

Yes, I do not have (and I do not want to have) a deeper understanding of proper TeX. Well, I have Knuth's TeXbook in my shelf, but it is simply a question of time. Life is too short anyway ;-)

But... do I really have to have a knowledge of proper TeX and Lua before I can use ConTeXt? For me, the charme of ConTeXt had always been that those nice documents had been prepared with rather smart code. I dont want to write my own modules (in which case I definitely would need to know proper TeX and Lua). I just want to use ConTeXt and focus on the content, not on the technical background.

Sure, I am using MacTeX and TeXLive now for many years.

What attracted me to ConTeXt was the project-product-component structure to use and re-use components. Other aspects are

- different modes (presentation, handout, manuscript)

- poster production

- nice graphics/animation via pstricks or metapost

- export to other formats (when writing articles many journals in my field do not accept .tex-files)

- export to epub/mobi format. I enjoy reading mobile versions of my own texts and of the texts my students give me for review.

- import from Scrivener... When writing difficult texts I noticed that LaTeX-typesetting is often an interruption of the writing flow. After writing some sentences I am curious to see how the text might look like, so I typeset the text and sooner or later I am fiddling with some LaTeX details instead of focussing on the writing process. One help had been to use Scrivener during the writing process and using the LaTeX typesetting for the final steps only (as a reward... ;-) ).

How much of this list can be accomplished with LuaTex and ConTeXt...?

Best wishes Thomas ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

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Hi Thomas, You wrote, a good number of e-mails ago:

But would it be possible to use ConTeXt without having to care about bugs in updated code or broken links between different modules...?

Thought I'd add a brief note to the conversation about updates and stability. ConTeXt Mark II (can use XeTeX, pdfTeX, LuaTeX, and all those other engines) is extraordinarily stable. Its development is frozen (although I think bugfixes can still be requested). Because it is written in TeX, a language that is also frozen, I think it is quite likely that Mark II documents will still compile in 20 years. Mark II is included in the Standalone distribution; use the `texexec` command to compile a document with Mark II. ConTeXt Mark IV is Hans's rewriting of ConTeXt in TeX + Lua, adding lots of features along the way because Lua makes it so damn easy. It requires LuaTeX. * The beta version are mercurial; bugs are introduced and fixed all the time. If you want to use a beta for a project, this is the usual advice: make a separate Standalone installation for your project, and don't update that unless you want/have to. That said: this is only because the next update might contain a bug when you least need it, it's not about compatibility. Hans, as far as I know, tries very hard to not break backward compatibility. * A stable version comes out once a year. They receive special bug-checking attention, and because Hans dislikes breaking backward compatibility I think you could hop from stable to stable and your documents would still compile. As for your third worry, modules dependency hell: this is very much a LaTeX thing. 2 reasons: 1. Pretty much everything is already in ConTeXt itself, meaning less external modules are needed. 2. ConTeXt is 10 years younger than LaTeX, meaning that its design and architecture are 10 years more modern. Specifically, LaTeX has an entire taxonomy of packages that make package-writing easier -- key-value, loops, string operations -- and user-facing packages may depend on any number of these. ConTeXt doesn't have this problem: everyone just depends on the core. So if it's stability you worry about, you have three options: * Use Mark II, solid as a rock. * Follow the stable Mark IVs. * Take a bleeding-edge beta and don't update it. Good luck! --Sietse