On 3/19/2013 7:47 PM, Aditya Mahajan wrote:

On Tue, 19 Mar 2013, Hans Hagen wrote:

...

One these days there will be a first iteration of this years 'current' release. This has to do with the texlive code freeze.

Are there any plans to do an actual development freeze a few weeks before the TL code freeze to ensure that the TL version is not beta quality.

The code freeze is in about a month. In principle Mojca/Taco can use the current beta as starting point for testing. I have no clue if there are issues but as context is rather independent there shouldn't be many I have just one (flat) source tree here so freezing current also means freezing beta. Afaik Mojca never figured out how to have a current alongside a beta in her git setup, otherwise someone could push fixes from beta into the current branch. I have no time to look into that kind of stuff.

Although most active users use ConTeXt standalone and are willing to update frequently, TL still plays an important role in introducing new users to ConTeXt. An experienced TeX user who wants to try ConTeXt is more likely to try ConTeXt distributed as part of TL rather than ConTeXt standalone. When there are serious bugs with ConTeXt TL, it gives the impression that ConTeXt is not a mature macro package.

Sure. Although mkiv, certainly at that time, was a bit more beta, even the then 'current' -)

As anecdotal evidence, I used ConTeXt TL for my most recent article for tugboat. There were some serious bugs in ConTeXt TL (multi-column footnotes not working, marking styles not working, wrong font scaling, etc.) and I had to struggle to get everything to work correctly. Most of these bugs were fixed in the latest beta. But if I were a new user, I would not have the patience to download and test the latest beta when a supposedly stable release has serious bugs.

Last year we froze too soon. In retrospect we should have pushed the beta (also because we froze about the time the new luatex came out). In retrospect frozen could have been less frozen then. We even had the weird situation that the generic font code was frozen in current but the last versions were taken for non context use instead of the frozen code. But that's out of our control anyway.

So, I'd like to suggest that for a few weeks before the TL freeze, we do a ConTeXt-beta freeze with only changes being bug fixes.

We can try .. I have no plans for drastic changes (and no time for it the next weeks anyway). We depend on users to notice things that are broken (let's forget about things that could be improved): fonts not rendering, files not being found, crashes due to typos, etc. 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 19 mars 2013, at 19:47, Aditya Mahajan wrote:

[…]Although most active users use ConTeXt standalone and are willing to update frequently, TL still plays an important role in introducing new users to ConTeXt. An experienced TeX user who wants to try ConTeXt is more likely to try ConTeXt distributed as part of TL rather than ConTeXt standalone. When there are serious bugs with ConTeXt TL, it gives the impression that ConTeXt is not a mature macro package.

Hi, To support what suggests Aditya, I would like to say that the main issue with the current state of ConTeXt in TeXLive (either mkii or mkiv) is that most « lambda » users of TeX whom I know in the mathematics world and in accademia, that is: --- users who are not familiar with what should be changed in TeXLive, --- users who don't even know TeX and LaTeX are not synonyms, --- users who don't know that there exist another environments and macro packages for typesetting tex-files, --- users who don't know that using ConTeXt one can do better typesetting, and that it has better features, all those users are not going to install a stand alone ConTeXt. They would use TeXLive, they would try everything in it, but all they want is to write a paper and typeset it with a TeX package with a single command (or in the case of Mac users, from within TeXShop or another editor). Most of them do not even know where TeXLive sits on their computer, and they don't know how to install something new. Unfortunately, the ConTeXt in TeXLive does not work out of the box: the user has to issue a few commands before he can typeset a file with ConTeXt, either mkii or mkiv (for instance on my installation of TeXLive, after having issued a few commands, which I don't remember right now, I can use ConTeXt with LuaTeX, that is mkiv, but I cannot use mkii). For my part I have been advocating ConTeXt among my colleagues (especially for course materials and books, since submitting a paper to a journal is essentially impossible if it is a ConTeXt file). Most of them agree that ConTeXt gives a much better result, but when it comes to how to use ConTeXt from TeXLive they are afraid and don't go further. For some of them I have installed a stand alone ConTeXt, but most of them do not update their installation, since they would not use the most recent features or improvements (for most of day to day typesettings, when one does not use complexe features, even a beta version is sufficiently stable for such users). So my pledge is this: make any stable version of ConTeXt in TeXLive so that it works and typesets a tex-file « out of the box », without needing to issue any command other than: context myfile.tex This is the case with LaTeX inside TeXLive, and so I cannot see any strong reason for ConTeXt not having the same behavior. Best regards: OKs

Hi All, Am 20.03.2013 um 07:05 schrieb Otared Kavian :

On 19 mars 2013, at 19:47, Aditya Mahajan wrote:

...

[…]Although most active users use ConTeXt standalone and are willing to update frequently, TL still plays an important role in introducing new users to ConTeXt. An experienced TeX user who wants to try ConTeXt is more likely to try ConTeXt distributed as part of TL rather than ConTeXt standalone. When there are serious bugs with ConTeXt TL, it gives the impression that ConTeXt is not a mature macro package.

Hi,

[snip, snip]

For my part I have been advocating ConTeXt among my colleagues (especially for course materials and books, since submitting a paper to a journal is essentially impossible if it is a ConTeXt file). Most of them agree that ConTeXt gives a much better result, but when it comes to how to use ConTeXt from TeXLive they are afraid and don't go further. For some of them I have installed a stand alone ConTeXt, but most of them do not update their installation, since they would not use the most recent features or improvements (for most of day to day typesettings, when one does not use complexe features, even a beta version is sufficiently stable for such users).

I find it interesting, that here and in other posts that is mention that publishers are reluctant to accept ConTeXt files. O.K. Understandable! But, my experience has been that they will accept PDFs, or prefer PDF over TeX-source files or Word files. regards Keith.

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Hans Hagen wrote:

On 3/20/2013 7:05 AM, Otared Kavian wrote:

...

So my pledge is this: make any stable version of ConTeXt in TeXLive so that it works and typesets a tex-file « out of the box », without needing to issue any command other than: context myfile.tex This is the case with LaTeX inside TeXLive, and so I cannot see any strong reason for ConTeXt not having the same behavior.

if it doesn't work that way something is wrong ... mtxrun (to which context is an alias) is selfcontained and will generate its own file database and then context will generat eits own format (even after an update) so ...

Yes, this seems a bit weird. ConTeXt in TeX Live 2012 might have had bugs, but it should have at least worked out of the box. It is possible that your copy actually became problematic *after* issuing those few commands. In particular, running "texexec --make en" would create a new format at a different location than the system would put it. As a consequence all further updates become shadowed by the old manually created format and you would need to run "texexec --make en" manually for every update, else MKII becomes broken (not that there were many updates, but this could serve as an example). Mojca

Am 20.03.2013 um 09:25 schrieb Marcin Borkowski :

Dnia 2013-03-20, o godz. 09:12:21 "Keith J. Schultz" napisał(a):

...

[snip, snip]

...

My suggestion would be to have garden have a manuals download area where one can get the up to date manuals from Pragma and where one can discern how old the others are. It should be also, easy to find.

regards Keith.

That is quite true, though not that easy. In essence, I think someone would have to be paid for tracking the mailing list and updating manuals. AFAIK, Sietse does a great job updating the wiki, but the wiki is not necessarily the easiest thing to go to for newbies (as you have noticed).

It is quite obvious for me that Pragma won't fund such an enterprise (not that I'm claiming it should - of course not!). I think the only body which might do it is either TUG, either some other UG - but then, I guess they are already funding LaTeX3 (which is kind of a competitor - albeit friendly - to ConTeXt), either font projects (TeX Gyre!), which are quite beneficial to the ConTeXt ecosystem, too.

I do not get you here. Garden just needs a little redesigning or more correctly cleaning up. I see no need for funding. I am not into wikis or I would offer to do it. regards Keith.

On Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:19:24 +0100 Mojca Miklavec wrote:

Marcin wasn't talking about organizing the wiki page, but about writing up-to-date and complete manuals (in PDF) which is nearly impossible with the speed that Hans keeps developing ConTeXt ;).

Unless we find funding somewhere to assign someone sufficiently competent to work full-time for Hans just to write and maintain documentation. This is not a bad idea if only we could get it sponsored... Alan

Hi All, Maybe, we could setup a collaborative work group to do the documentation. That is a group of us are responsible for certain groups of commands. This way the manuals can become more complete. That way some of the more advance stuff that is hardly documented finally gets documented. What we would need is a specification for: 1) how the command and its parameters are portrayed 2) full description of defaults values and their effects and side effects 3) general intention of the command its parameters 4) MWEs describing the standard use of all parameters 5) MWEs for non standard use (Advanced technics) 6) standrad way for referencing other commands If everybody follows the conventions we can then combine all the parts to a comprehensive manuals. They will work as a reference and tutorial. When something new is introduced the group is informed and can update their subject(s). I would be willing to help. Any other takers? regards Keith. Am 21.03.2013 um 15:26 schrieb Marcin Borkowski :

Dnia 2013-03-21, o godz. 11:32:01 Alan BRASLAU napisał(a):

...

On Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:19:24 +0100 Mojca Miklavec wrote:

...

Marcin wasn't talking about organizing the wiki page, but about writing up-to-date and complete manuals (in PDF) which is nearly impossible with the speed that Hans keeps developing ConTeXt ;).

Unless we find funding somewhere to assign someone sufficiently competent to work full-time for Hans just to write and maintain documentation.

This is not a bad idea if only we could get it sponsored...

I have an impression that I heard about something similar to GSoC, but for writing docs...

Also, it might not need a full-time job, even if you want to keep up with Hans' speed. And even a good free book on, say, a "snapshot" of ConTeXt from some point in time (later than official manuals) would be useful.

Hello, On Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:26:20 +0100, Peter Münster wrote:

Hi Keith,

What about one lua table per command? See also: - http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/

this looks nice. Some connection to wiki would be useful, too - once a command definition is prepared for PDF manual, it would be good to have a generator which would convert and add info to wiki. I don't know whether it is possible; and I'm aware that much efforts of many contributors were passed to wiki... But I'm thinking about how to avoid doubling documentation work (not: wiki <-> PDF <-> whatever, but: something (be it Lua) -> {PDF, wiki, whatever}). Best regards, Lukas

- http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tex.context.devel/1507 - https://foundry.supelec.fr/scm/viewvc.php/context-commands/?root=contextman

-- Ing. Lukáš Procházka [mailto:LPr@pontex.cz] Pontex s. r. o. [mailto:pontex@pontex.cz] [http://www.pontex.cz] Bezová 1658 147 14 Praha 4 Tel: +420 244 062 238 Fax: +420 244 461 038

On 3/22/2013 11:11 AM, Procházka Lukáš Ing. - Pontex s. r. o. wrote:

Hello,

On Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:26:20 +0100, Peter Münster wrote:

...

Hi Keith,

What about one lua table per command? See also: - http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/

this looks nice.

Some connection to wiki would be useful, too - once a command definition is prepared for PDF manual, it would be good to have a generator which would convert and add info to wiki.

I don't know whether it is possible; and I'm aware that much efforts of many contributors were passed to wiki...

But I'm thinking about how to avoid doubling documentation work (not: wiki <-> PDF <-> whatever, but: something (be it Lua) -> {PDF, wiki, whatever}).

Wolfgang has redone many of the xml defs (not yet finished afaik). anyway, as long as I can construct a "cont-en.xml" file from whatever data it's fine for me (manipulating and filtering xml is rather convenient.) Makes me wonder ... did anyone ever look into http://sputnik.freewisdom.org/en/Lua it stores info in lua and it could probably be used for managing such a reference beast. 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------

Peter wrote:

...

What about one lua table per command? See also: - http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/

NB1: I waffled a lot about wiki templates in the previous e-mail, but of course it is also an option to use the Lua tables format and store those files on the wiki. That gives us the visibility and editability of the wiki without binding us to the wiki template format. --Sietse On 22 March 2013 15:42, Sietse Brouwer wrote:

Hi all,

Peter wrote:

...

What about one lua table per command? See also: - http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/

Lukáš wrote:

...

Some connection to wiki would be useful, too - once a command definition is prepared for PDF manual, it would be good to have a generator which would convert and add info to wiki.

But I'm thinking about how to avoid doubling documentation work (not: wiki <-> PDF <-> whatever, but: something (be it Lua) -> {PDF, wiki, whatever}).

Hello all,

As regards the question 'where/how to store a the master information of the command reference'; I' been thinking on that for a while, and I believe "on the wiki / in structured wiki templates" is the best answer.

This is not because the wiki syntax is so nice -- as far as that goes, Lua is nicer. But: the wiki is massively more visible than any file or directory in the standalone could ever be.

These are advantages the wiki copy has over other copies:

A. It is the most visible copy B. It is the easiest copy for people to edit C. It has versioning and contributor-tracking built-in D. The wiki will always receive contributions. If it is also the master copy, we don't have to backmerge the contributions into some other file. E. The wiki updates immediately when people edit it. F. There exists a form-based editor for wiki pages, to ensure people use the template. Example: http://discoursedb.org/w/index.php?title=Picture_IDs_are_perfectly_sensible&action=formedit G. There exists an extension to mark versions as 'reviewed'.

Now, creating a suitable template is core to this plan. Since that is (1) a rather tricky problem, (2) one that I want to solve anyway (because even if we go Lua-based, we still want a wiki template to write to), I will open a separate e-mail thread on the subject.

== How to make sure people use the template? ==

The Semantic Forms extension means that with one click of the button, you are taken to a semantic form to create or edit (part of) a command page. You fill in the fields; the extension enters the field values into the proper bits of the template. You can add descriptions of what to write in the field.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Semantic_Forms Example of how such a form will look: http://discoursedb.org/w/index.php?title=Picture_IDs_are_perfectly_sensible&action=formedit

== How do we know we can trust wiki edits? ==

For that, there is the MediaWiki extension Flagged Revisions, to mark versions as approved. It is used by wikibooks, inter alia. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs

Cheers,

Sietse

Sietse wrote:

...

NB1: I waffled a lot about wiki templates in the previous e-mail, but of course it is also an option to use the Lua tables format and store those files on the wiki. That gives us the visibility and editability of the wiki without binding us to the wiki template format.

Hans wrote:

isn't wikimedia lua aware nowadays?

Hah, so it is — I didn't know that. That sounds like it might be an ideal fit at least for displaying the command reference, possibly also for storing its info. In case anyone else is curious: here are some useful pages I found. (The information was a bit scattered sometimes, but this set of pages covers most bases.) --Sietse Wikipedia's main page on the Lua extension: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lua Good example template: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Module:BananasArgs The reference manual: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension%3AScribunto/Lua_reference_manual The extension's page: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Scribunto Some discussion on using Lua databases: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2013-February/066656.html

Hi Peter, All, Sorry for the late reply. As such looks good! I have no preferences, as to the formats, that is something the community or those involved should decide. regards Keith. Am 22.03.2013 um 09:26 schrieb Peter Münster :

Hi Keith,

What about one lua table per command? See also: - http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/ - http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tex.context.devel/1507 - https://foundry.supelec.fr/scm/viewvc.php/context-commands/?root=contextman

Hi Bill, On 03/22/2013 03:19 PM, Bill Meahan wrote:

...

What we would need is a specification for: [snip]

In 45+ years of programming[1] it has never ceased to amaze me how the wheel has to be reinvented for every new system whether language, macro package or whatever. Why do it again? Why not adopt some documentation system that is already widely-used and for which infrastructure and knowledge of use is already in place?

I do not want to dig into the documentation discussion (I have no time for that), but your reply did make me want to respond to the analogy. In fact, I have a return question for the "Why reinvent the wheel?" : Why do bicycles not come equipped with tractor wheels? Best wishes, Taco

On 3/22/2013 3:19 PM, Bill Meahan wrote:

...

Hi All,

Maybe, we could setup a collaborative work group to do the documentation.

That is a group of us are responsible for certain groups of commands. This way the manuals can become more complete. That way some of the more advance stuff that is hardly documented finally gets documented.

What we would need is a specification for: [snip] In 45+ years of programming[1] it has never ceased to amaze me how the wheel has to be reinvented for every new system whether language, macro

On 03/22/2013 03:31 AM, Keith J. Schultz wrote: package or whatever. Why do it again? Why not adopt some documentation system that is already widely-used and for which infrastructure and knowledge of use is already in place?

I have no investment in any particular system. I'm happily generating other types of non-computer-related documents using reStructuredText since I can easily convert that various publication formats as required without separate source files for each format. It seems to me docutils has everything that would be needed to document ConTeXt and is very widely used given the popularity of Python (which makes me cringe). If doxygen or something else would work better, so be it. The point is, **use something that exists instead of expending time and effort reinventing the wheel yet again!**

[1] I was, am and will be a "programmer" and not a "software developer" or "software engineer." The term adequately depicts what I did/do while the others are simply too pretentious. Find the old article "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" in an archive somewhere -- I've been a "real programmer" and I suspect Hans is, too. :)

Sorry for the rants but it is so frustrating to have to install so many different language support and documentation systems simply because I use FOSS tools exclusively.

I can only speak for myself, but - I did my share of programming (pascal, modula 2) when I university but at that time documentation was mostly in-source. My background is educational technology and not programming but I always ended up doing that. (I still have a stack of old listings somewhere of a formatter that I wrote for vms that took some kind of tagged ascii and paginated that etc.) - Later on when I ended up in educational consultancy and development of all kind of educational stuff, context was developed simply because we needed a flexible typesetting tool. We also developed tools and workflows around it. Ha, there was no internet, at least not for us, so we didn't even know what else was around. - So, whenever I have to write some documentation, I use context itself, after all, one needs to typeset examples. I normally pay a lot of attention to the document source code and can live with some tagging. If I had to do that in some * ** == -- & based ascii text format or whatever, I'd probably never write manuals (too much hassle to go beyond the obvious and not looking nice either, but that's personal). - When I started with the command specification in xml, it was also because xml is easy to process, and (in mkiv) we can also easily filter based on expresssions. So, for that xml is quite natural for me. Just as nowadays lua is my natural choice and most of my current docs are a mix of mp, lua and tex, also depending on what looks nicest in document source. - I happily leave additional documentation to others and whoever does that should should the tools he/she likes most. In these days one can always convert. - But, to come back to your last comment: tex can typeset its own documentation so that's a rather natural choice for part of it. 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 3/20/2013 9:12 AM, Keith J. Schultz wrote:

Hi Hans, All,

The biggest crux in using ConTeXt is its documentation. True, things have gotten a lot better in the past year!

Yet, there is no ONE definitive place to get comprehensive and EASY to find documentation.

1) Garden is really not that easy to navigate 2) Garden is loaded with a mixture of mkii and mkiv and it is not always clear if the page one is on is for mkii or mkiv or quite outdated.

i wonder how easy it is to split that ... we could move mkii stuff to s separate place (or always at the bottom below a "MKII" subtitle)

3) PRAGMA does have up to date manuals. 4) These manuals are quite unfinished in many parts, as are all many of the older manuals.

Very frustrating

Most of the old manuals are not that faulty. Maybe incomplete with respect to the latest features, but most in it should still work. With respect to unfinished: yesterday i wondered if I should put the intermediate but unfinished font manual on the website but it looks like I can better not do that.

5) The newer manuals should be part of the standalone. ( I hate going online to look for a manual when it should be installed already)

Up to others.

6) Reference manuals are fine for the advanced user, but for the beginner or intermediate they are not much help. Especially, if if one does not understand TeX, or Typesetting, and one really does not need to use all those options.

That's up to users ... it has been said before, but this is where the internet backfires: a lot of tex tutorials started out as articles i.e. users writing down experiences. I simply have no more time left to write down more than I do now.

My suggestion would be to have garden have a manuals download area where one can get the up to date manuals from Pragma and where one can discern how old the others are. It should be also, easy to find.

So maybe you can help Mojca with that .. someone needs to do it and keep doing it (descriptions, copies cq. links, etc.). 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------