Re: A few questions regarding ConTeXt
Broberg, Mats wrote:
Dear Sir,
For some time now, I have been looking for suitable software solutions for my publication projects. The projects are mainly books up to 500-750 pages, with alot of figures, CMYK, solid PMS or lineart images, cross references, several series of margin notes and footnotes, drop caps, list of figures, indices, tables of contents etc.
I have never used TeX or any of the wide array of macro packages, but I know from having read about it that it can solve many of my publication problems - and with a very high level of typographic quality too (which is important to me). Initially, I was looking closely at using LaTeX - mainly due to the fact that it is so widely used and has a vast number of packages for the functions I need - but when coming across your site, I think that ConTeXt may fit the bill better, since it seems to be designed in a more parameter-driven way.
However, judging from the documentation on your site, some features that I have read about in LaTeX - such as drop caps, complex headers, cross references, several series of footnotes etc (i.e. the packages "lettrine", "fancyhdr", "varioref" and "ledmac") - don't seem to be available in ConTeXt.
I assume packages like these can not be used "out of the box" when using ConTeXt, but that one needs to have someone create new packages?
I'm a bit in a hurry (need to give a workshop at the practical tex conference). The features you mentioned are present in the core system, often providing more features; opposite to latex, where you need packages, context has all things built in. More information can be get from the rather active context mailing list. I cc the mail to there, so that others can confirm this Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------
Hi, I use ConTeXt sinds a couple of years now. In the meantime I made up different books and would like to stress, that there is hardly anything I can not achieve with this system. Most issues can be addressed with options(parameters). There is a very active mailing list available and there are plenty of knowlegeable and smart users out there. I would suggest that you indeed go for ConTeXt you will not regret this step. Kind regards Willi Egger Hans Hagen Outside wrote:
Broberg, Mats wrote:
Dear Sir,
For some time now, I have been looking for suitable software solutions for my publication projects. The projects are mainly books up to 500-750 pages, with alot of figures, CMYK, solid PMS or lineart images, cross references, several series of margin notes and footnotes, drop caps, list of figures, indices, tables of contents etc.
I have never used TeX or any of the wide array of macro packages, but I know from having read about it that it can solve many of my publication problems - and with a very high level of typographic quality too (which is important to me). Initially, I was looking closely at using LaTeX - mainly due to the fact that it is so widely used and has a vast number of packages for the functions I need - but when coming across your site, I think that ConTeXt may fit the bill better, since it seems to be designed in a more parameter-driven way.
However, judging from the documentation on your site, some features that I have read about in LaTeX - such as drop caps, complex headers, cross references, several series of footnotes etc (i.e. the packages "lettrine", "fancyhdr", "varioref" and "ledmac") - don't seem to be available in ConTeXt.
I assume packages like these can not be used "out of the box" when using ConTeXt, but that one needs to have someone create new packages?
I'm a bit in a hurry (need to give a workshop at the practical tex conference).
The features you mentioned are present in the core system, often providing more features; opposite to latex, where you need packages, context has all things built in.
More information can be get from the rather active context mailing list. I cc the mail to there, so that others can confirm this
Hans
----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------
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[...]
However, judging from the documentation on your site, some features that I have read about in LaTeX - such as drop caps, complex headers, cross references, several series of footnotes etc
(i.e. the packages "lettrine", "fancyhdr",
These two should be no problem. The dropped caps might need some fine tuning. (Just looked in the The LaTeX Companion, lettrine has some nice options for making the layout look 'right' - I don't think these are in ConTeXt)
"varioref" and "ledmac") - don't seem to be available in ConTeXt.
I haven't seen anything like varioref in ConTeXt. For those who don't know LaTeX: it create a reference like "See fig. 3 on the following page" from a single command (See fig.~\vref{fig:myfig}.). I never looked into ledmac and alike, so I have no idea if this is available in ConTeXt. Patrick -- (moving soon:) texshow-web: http://members.ping.de:8061 ConTeXt wiki: http://members.ping.de:8062
However, judging from the documentation on your site, some features that I have read about in LaTeX - such as drop caps, complex headers, cross references, several series of footnotes etc (i.e. the packages "lettrine", "fancyhdr", "varioref" and "ledmac") - don't seem to be available in ConTeXt.
I use the packages lettrine, fancyhdr and ledmac, and from time to time I have a look at the way ConTeXt does the things I need. Dropped caps (versals) is possible with ConTeXt, finetuneable and not more difficult than with lettrine in LaTeX. Documentation for ConTeXt is hidden in the file supp-fun.tex in the base system. Creating complex running headers is easier in ConTeXt than in LaTeX, because the ConTeXt marking mechanism allows more than just leftmark and rightmark (and the two extramarks provided by the package extramarks), as in LaTeX. Documentation is in the main manual. However, there was a problem with the ConTeXt marking mechanism when using a two column layout, which had to be overcome by an "email bug fix" by Hans Hagen. I have not tried yet to create a complex critical edition with ConTeXt, with more than one footnote apparatus, which is easy with ledmac. Yours sincerely Tobias Hilbricht
Broberg, Mats wrote:
However, judging from the documentation on your site, some features that I have read about in LaTeX - such as drop caps, complex headers, cross references, several series of footnotes etc (i.e. the packages "lettrine", "fancyhdr", "varioref" and "ledmac") - don't seem to be available in ConTeXt.
Hello Mats, I agree with you: ConTeXt is certainly superior to LaTeX, but sometimes, I know how to do a special thing in LaTeX, but not in ConTeXt. Often I don't know, if a special feature is already there but undocumented, or not. Sometimes, I find a sort of "workaround" to get some LaTeX behaviour, for example "\flushbottom". For beginners there is the document http://www.berenddeboer.net/tex/LaTeX2ConTeXt.pdf by Berend de Boer. It would be nice, to have something like this for advanced topics, such as varioref or lettrine. These special "LaTeX to ConTeXt" examples can then be added to the ConTeXt-wiki: http://contextgarden.net/From_LaTeX_to_ConTeXt Cheers, Peter -- http://pmrb.free.fr/contact/ _____________________________________ FilmSearch engine: http://f-s.sf.net/
-----Original Message----- From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl [mailto:ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl] On Behalf Of Peter Münster Sent: den 24 juli 2004 19:45
Hello Mats, I agree with you: ConTeXt is certainly superior to LaTeX, but sometimes, I know how to do a special thing in LaTeX, but not in ConTeXt. Often I don't know, if a special feature is already there but undocumented, or not. Sometimes, I find a sort of "workaround" to get some LaTeX behaviour, for example "\flushbottom". For beginners there is the document http://www.berenddeboer.net/tex/LaTeX2ConTeXt.> pdf by Berend de Boer. It would be nice, to have something like this for advanced topics, such as varioref or lettrine. These special "LaTeX to ConTeXt" examples can then be added to the ConTeXt-wiki: http://contextgarden.net/From_LaTeX_to_ConTeXt Cheers, Peter
Thanks for the info. Having looked more closely at this, I guess it now stands between learning LaTeX and the memoir class, or learning ConTeXt. There are things that talk in favour for both these roadmaps, but I have not decided yet. One of the issues is how to solve a problem in ConTeXt if it suddenly becomes clear this or that feature is not implemented. Best regards, Mats Broberg
Hi, following this list for a couple of years now, I can not remember that Hans or other list members hinted how to solve arrising problems. - Specially if it concerns interesting / necessary features, Hans has always beeing prepared to cook them up! Kind regards Willi Mats Broberg wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl [mailto:ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl] On Behalf Of Peter Münster Sent: den 24 juli 2004 19:45
Hello Mats, I agree with you: ConTeXt is certainly superior to LaTeX, but sometimes, I know how to do a special thing in LaTeX, but not in ConTeXt. Often I don't know, if a special feature is already there but undocumented, or not. Sometimes, I find a sort of "workaround" to get some LaTeX behaviour, for example "\flushbottom". For beginners there is the document http://www.berenddeboer.net/tex/LaTeX2ConTeXt.> pdf by Berend de Boer. It would be nice, to have something like this for advanced topics, such as varioref or lettrine. These special "LaTeX to ConTeXt" examples can then be added to the ConTeXt-wiki: http://contextgarden.net/From_LaTeX_to_ConTeXt Cheers, Peter
Thanks for the info.
Having looked more closely at this, I guess it now stands between learning LaTeX and the memoir class, or learning ConTeXt. There are things that talk in favour for both these roadmaps, but I have not decided yet.
One of the issues is how to solve a problem in ConTeXt if it suddenly becomes clear this or that feature is not implemented.
Best regards, Mats Broberg
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On Sun, 25 Jul 2004, Willi Egger wrote:
following this list for a couple of years now, I can not remember that Hans or other list members hinted how to solve arrising problems. - Specially if it concerns interesting / necessary features, Hans has always beeing prepared to cook them up!
Most times, I think, but not always. Some missing features are mentioned for example on http://contextgarden.net/Bugs_and_workarounds and http://contextgarden.net/From_LaTeX_to_ConTeXt But you are right: in general, Hans does a very great work, Thanks!! Greetings, Peter -- http://pmrb.free.fr/contact/ _____________________________________ FilmSearch engine: http://f-s.sf.net/
On Sun, 25 Jul 2004, Mats Broberg wrote:
One of the issues is how to solve a problem in ConTeXt if it suddenly becomes clear this or that feature is not implemented.
You have the same problem with LaTeX. There are some features not present in LaTeX (balanced columns with floats for example), that are so hard to implement, that you have to wait for LaTeX 3. The few ConTeXt features, that I'm still waiting for, are quite small and could be even made perhaps by someone else than Hans, if necessary. This should be also true for the features of varioref and lettrine. Best regards, Peter -- http://pmrb.free.fr/contact/ _____________________________________ FilmSearch engine: http://f-s.sf.net/
participants (6)
-
Hans Hagen Outside -
Mats Broberg -
Patrick Gundlach -
Peter Münster -
Tobias Hilbricht -
Willi Egger