Dear list,

Out of curiosity.

Perhaps a question already discussed but wondering if there were plans to implement eventually in LMTX an equivalent of framework described in article 2018-01-FMi-CI-Journal-28454894_as_submitted.pdf (latex-project.org) https://www.latex-project.org/publications/2018-01-FMi-CI-Journal-28454894_a... or something similar ? When cooking up solutions I normally start from practical cases, not from something like discussed in there. I'm more a 'play with something and see how it works out' than 'read all kind of theoretical stuff' (I simply don't have the patience for reading up on that). So, context evolved from use cases and solutions needed. Often solutions then go

On 11/22/2020 7:58 PM, Joseph wrote: through some iterations. It helps that right from the start context was set up to make extensions relatively easy. Theoretical discussions on typesetting are wasted on me, sorry. (For the record: I read a lot, on all kind of topics, but the last time I read something about typographics is more than a decade ago.) Now, when discussing document wide optimizations ... I played with that long ago but kind of stopped when it became clear that it's too easy to get oscilliation. An interesting suggestion Herman Zaph made when we discussed this was that like horizontal hz (expansion in tex) one could also do that vertical: no one will notice it, no matter what folks claim to notice. That would actually solve quite some issues. It was easy to make a quick demo then and I might actually bring that into context (if I can find back the code). Trial and error is my friend (of course with a dose of thinking and feedback). It is no big deal to cook up a solution for some subclass of well defined problems (say: text only with an occasional display element) but it happens that tex is seldom the candidate for that. Problems show up when you have plenty of extra elements, backgrounds, floats, notes, etc. All kind of tricky interactions and constraints. My personal opinion is that there are no perfect automatic solutions for cases where in fact the visual appearance matters more: that is why desk top publishing works ok for complex layouts (it just pays off). It all has to do with the solution space. Just use the right tool for the job. Actually, before looking at complex cases it probably makes more sense to make simple cases look nice and probably the majority of documents one can find on the web done with tex look quite average. So, from the context perspective it makes more sense to chellenge users to make nice documents and provide the means for that, even it occasionally means some hand work. Now, with respect to future plans for context / lmtx: I do have some things on the agenda because there are some half finished experimental mechanisms in context that could use a bit of help from the engine, but first I want to finish what we currently have. But, as mentioned: the starting point is 'user demand' and 'useability' (there are for instance some things Thomas and I look at occasionally wrt parallel texts that we need to pick up). And, as with all in context, it starts by just looking at what is needed, and playing around to get a feeling. Personally it's more about (visual) fun than about neccessity. So: feel free to come up with demands but keep it practical and keep useability and constraints in mind and perspective. Hans ps. When it comes to columns ... I don't see much of a future in them, because on devices one doesn't have the constraints of paper: why complicate ones live. We moved on in other areas too. Actually, if a pdf viewer could handle a page with height 5 meter well (wrt go back) then each chapter would be one page and we got rid of floats too. Ok, one could also use html then -) Of course in magazines, news papers, large size stuff, separate text flows make sense but that is typically not the domain where tex makes muich sense. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------