Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?
Hi all, For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple question: What do you do with ConTeXT? We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you would normally type in an email message. One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling at) (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running away from) ConTeXt. If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line somewhere. Don't be shy! Taco
Taco Hoekwater wrote:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
I use ConTeXt for any document that I figure someone will want to print out on paper some day. This includes resumes, letters, and articles. I even considered typesetting software documentation with ConTeXt, but haven’t yet decided if PDFs are the right medium for that kind of text. I also typeset my master’s thesis using ConTeXt and probably spent as much time hacking ConTeXt as I did on doing “actual work” for the content. Not because ConTeXt couldn’t do what I wanted, but because ConTeXt allowed me to do anything I wanted. Having a lot of options can be time-consuming, as you want to try them all before deciding on the one that works best. This is both the good and the bad thing about ConTeXt. You can tweak and tweak and tweak, whereas with something like LaTeX you have a few boring designs and you just choose the one that suits the type of document your writing. And your document will look like five million other research papers outh there. I wanted something unique and ConTeXt was just the right tool for it. nikolai -- Nikolai Weibull: now available free of charge at http://bitwi.se/! Born in Chicago, IL USA; currently residing in Gothenburg, Sweden. main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}
I totally agree with the comparison you made of ConTeXt and LaTeX: With ConTeXt, you can produce something unique. With LaTeX, your document will look like a traditional research paper! -----Message d'origine----- De : ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl [mailto:ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl] De la part de Nikolai Weibull Envoyé : vendredi 4 novembre 2005 17:32 À : ntg-context@ntg.nl Objet : Re: [NTG-context] Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt? Taco Hoekwater wrote:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
I use ConTeXt for any document that I figure someone will want to print out on paper some day. This includes resumes, letters, and articles. I even considered typesetting software documentation with ConTeXt, but havent yet decided if PDFs are the right medium for that kind of text. I also typeset my masters thesis using ConTeXt and probably spent as much time hacking ConTeXt as I did on doing actual work for the content. Not because ConTeXt couldnt do what I wanted, but because ConTeXt allowed me to do anything I wanted. Having a lot of options can be time-consuming, as you want to try them all before deciding on the one that works best. This is both the good and the bad thing about ConTeXt. You can tweak and tweak and tweak, whereas with something like LaTeX you have a few boring designs and you just choose the one that suits the type of document your writing. And your document will look like five million other research papers outh there. I wanted something unique and ConTeXt was just the right tool for it. nikolai -- Nikolai Weibull: now available free of charge at http://bitwi.se/! Born in Chicago, IL USA; currently residing in Gothenburg, Sweden. main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);} _______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
Taco Hoekwater wrote:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
I first learned ConTeXt because of work: My employer makes measuring instruments for industry and I write and/or compile and layout the end-user manuals for those instruments. Traditionally, those manuals were written and edited in Word, but when the mass of text and the amount of figures grew, it was obvious that I needed a new tool before becoming a total wreck due to corrupted and unruly Word files. A workmate had written his thesis in TeX and started to look for various TeX based solutions, of which I finally chose ConTeXt. I had to stick to Windows because of work. We first tried MikTeX, but that just didn't work out. Then I got TeXLive and it worked - except fonts.... Hours later and with the help of the email list I finally found the correct combination of magical lines and there it was. And then somebody mentioned that I could get Emacs with Context-mode in Windows and that's it. That's still how I run ConteXt at work, although now there are easier Windows options available (not to talk about the Mac option...). Using Emacs usually gains points from younger nerds we occassionally employ. :-) ConTeXt was the first TeX based system I've ever used, but I was used to using styles and had done HTML (still do it by hand), so I have some idea of what I was getting into. Looking back I realize that I've learned an awful lot of things although I often feel that I don't know any of the things I should. Having to do something new usually results in curses at the beginning, but when it works, it always works. I'll still use Word (and equivalents) for small stuff, but when I need something big and printable, ConTeXt is the tool. My real "ConTeXt moment" came last summer, when I had to redo the layout on one of our old Word files that had been edited by somebody else in between. It was disgustingly difficult to the degree that I seriously considered cutting and pasting the whole thing into Emacs and ConTeXting it to my liking! Mari
This mini-survey is an excellent idea! What I do with ConTeXt: 1. Produce sales and marketing reports for my customers (we are a marketing and data mining consultancy). We have a very simple templating language written in Python that connects to an SQL database, generates the ConTeXt file, launchs ConTeXt and launchs Acrobat Reader to see the PDF file. 2. Produce totally personalized mailings for customers of companies we work for. Eveything is personalized: text, background, photos, etc. We produce it with the same templating solution (see previous point). We think ConTeXt is the perfect solution with regard to our needs (reporting and mailing). From our point of view, it has only two drawbacks: - The integration of new True Type fonts is a difficult and error prone process. One need to choose the appropriate encoding, create a .tfm file and write a map file. In order to simplify this, a future version of ConTeXt could natively use Unicode (no more need to choose an encoding) and could automatically create .tfm file on demand. - Absolute positionning is difficult. There is too many way to achieve the same result, difficult to understand, and the resulting code is very verbose. But I'm a beginner with ConTeXt! ;-) Thanks for your beautiful work on ConTeXt! Regards, Nicolas
What do I do with ConTeXT? 1. price-lists from xml (DB exports) ; 2. labels for shoes and dresses, from xml/csv ; 3. data sheetes (barcodes, code number and so on ), from xml/csv ; luigi
What do you do with ConTeXT?
I'm using ConTeXt to typeset my Ph.D. dissertation, and have used it over the last few years to typeset seminar papers, outlines, and so on. Recently I've also helped a friend typeset his monograph. He is an architect and painter, so this text is full of diagrams, paintings, fold-out pages, prose, and indexes. ConTeXt made it possible to generate a really beautiful, complex book. I believe that there was nothing he wanted to do that we couldn't work out with ConTeXt. For some reason I've always enjoyed working through the difficulties of using a complex program that I know should work—this reached a high point with plain TeX, then LaTeX, and carried on (due to my always being restless) to my favorite: ConTeXt. Installation of fonts was particularly difficult, though I can't exactly say why—things go much more smoothly now. I spent many hours trying and retrying, reading and rereading, to get OT fonts working with margin kerning. I feel much more connection with the history and practice of typesetting working with ConTeXt than with any WYSIWYG system I've tried.
Hi, No there is no reason to be shy! - Context has become THE tool for all typesetting purposes. So in my environment letters, invoices, addres-labels, envelop-printing, greetingcards etc are made up in Context together with functionality provided by Metafun. A favorite issue is making flowcharts for e.g. bookbinding guides, meatprocessing or visualization of the production of a tool. Next to all this I write my own books which are completely made up in Context including imposition of the pages for folding sections in order to end up with sewn books. E.g I prepared a 600 pages book which includes over a 120 drawings and metapost-figures. This book is bound as a girdle-book. - Whenever I am asked to give a presentation there is Context involved. - Why? Just because I know I can achieve what I want! Though there is sometimes a bit of hassle after all the changes in the tex-tree occuring during time, Context is still the best environment I have ever tried. Many thanks Hans for this great environment! Willi Taco Hoekwater wrote:
Hi all,
For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple question:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you would normally type in an email message.
One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling at) (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running away from) ConTeXt.
If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line somewhere.
Don't be shy!
Taco
_______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
I wrote my novel using ConTeXt. Inside figures with metapost, the cover layout with Scribus. See http://www.TheGuitarMakerExploration.com Ciro
On Nov 4, 2005, at 15:49, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
Hi all,
For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple question:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
I have decided not too long ago to move my book-project form LaTeX to ConTeXt (it was my second try, the first one I stopped because there were too many problems). Reason: I dislike how LaTeX output generally looks (though I found memoir to be pretty good) and after reading the documentation I liked how ConTeXt looked as an interface. I think those ideas are generally still correct, but using ConTeXt is often a wrestling match for me. The documentation is a disaster if you want to find out how things work other than the few actual examples given. Going to the source to find out what options there are is not optimal. E.g. can somebody tell mem how to prevent \textline to take up so much vertical space (and yes, I tried all the settings)? Secondly, writing is less conceptual than LaTeX and more visually oriented. That is a logical consequence of its philosophy and its layout power, but I really miss a more conceptual approach (as in a LaTeX "letter" class or "book" class) on top of ConTeXt. Lately, I have also become disappointed by the non-local nature of things I ran into (e.g. having a float in an endnote and having the float end up in the vincinity of the endnote marker in the main text, not in the endnote chapter), which are things I completely did not expect to happen. I get the feeling that ConTeXt is running into TeX-as-a-programming-environment limitations. I stick to ConTeXt for my book project, but I keep everything else still in LaTeX (e.g. letters). I still think ConTeXt has the potential to outclass LaTeX completely, but it is not there yet. For ordinary non-TeXhackers like me, it is not a smooth ride. G
Hi Taco, all,
What do you do with ConTeXT?
* use it as a reason to run contextgarden.net :-) * Do presentations on it and with it. The tight metapost integration is just great too nice. * I love to play with new things that I think have a vital future and ConTeXt persuaded me right the first time I saw it on a presentation in Oldenburg or Dortmund (a DANTE meeting). * prepare University papers and other pdf-based material. Actually, I do 50% of my typesetting with LaTeX. There are still several things that I can't yet do with ConTeXt (some footnote layout and table typesetting). I still need some time to generate test documents and ask on the lists for the right way to layout these special cases. Patrick -- ConTeXt wiki and more: http://contextgarden.net
I started using LaTeX just not to use MS, and because I was curious. Then I had that idea of creating my scores using one of the LaTeX packge. Good idea but nothing worked (namespace collisions, e.g.). So I found ConTeXt, fully equipped with Metatfun. The chic solution for my A2 scores with pdf graphics. Actually I use ConTeXt: i) as my algorithmic musical composition typesetting environment ii) for my university courses' presentations iii) as an output device for all text-based communication. Best -a- On 4 Nov 2005, at 15:49, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
Hi all,
For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple question:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you would normally type in an email message.
One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling at) (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running away from) ConTeXt.
If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line somewhere.
Don't be shy!
Taco
_______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
Andrea Valle DAMS - Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione Università degli Studi di Torino andrea.valle@unito.it
I use typesetting mainly for math: papers, class notes and slides. I started with Signum (a wysiwyg program for the Atari, which was great), switched to AmsTeX , then to LaTeX, and now to ConTeXt. I am bad at remembering macros, I wrote most papers using cut & paste, and when I needed to do something in LateX that I couldn't look up in a previous paper, I spent lots of time digging through the 1001 macro packages available for LaTeX. ConTeXt is much better here for several reasons: i) It is much more logical, i.e. the way it should work usually works, and ii) if not, there is this great email list where I can ask and usually learn that ConTeXt is even more logical than I thought before. iii) it is very easy to reuse material. I can have print and slide versions of class notes almost without extra work iv) ConTeXt is easy to learn incrementally. When I see a feature I like, I can incorporate it easily, there is no need to rewrite everything using another macro package. The one drawback is that my journal and collaborative papers are still in LateX, because my coauthors don't speak ConTeXt, and, more significantly, www.arXiv.org (preprint server) doesn't speak ConTeXt either. Matthias
Hi all,
For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple question:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you would normally type in an email message.
One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling at) (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running away from) ConTeXt.
If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line somewhere.
Don't be shy!
Taco
Hello *snip* " What do you do with ConTeXT?" I am mostly playing around abit. However, since I work with math it is mostly something that has to do with math. Some examples: Slides from a conference talk: http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/pauli-pres.pdf Notes to my students: http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/partikular.pdf A "second-rental" contract http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/andrahand.pdf Some playing with the Mathematica fonts http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/fultex.pdf Some sudokus: http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/sudoku.pdf (with fill-ins) http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/gp28aug.pdf (with solution steps) Melodikrysset: http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/melodikrysset.pdf A crossword for a friend http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/kors.pdf Love letter paper http://hurf.mine.nu/micke/tex/letterpaper.pdf OK, that was some examples... Best regards, Micke P
Quoting "Taco Hoekwater" :
-- was taco@elvenkind.com on Nov 04, 2005 at 03:49:59 --
What do you do with ConTeXT?
I use it over plain TeX for mainly these reasons: * ease of type1/otf font set up * ability to easily deal with layers * tight connection with pdf file format (like interactive features) I also thought learning a new macro package was worth because of the support for xml file format will enable to connect TeX with a lot of other appplications. Up to now, I used it for typesetting my thesis and conference slides. Greetings, Olivier
What do you do with ConTeXT?
There are two books that I typeset with ConTeXt: - a collection of Kofi Annan's speeches - a portrait of and story collection for German Unitarian religious fellowship see http://verlag.unitarier.de/?menu=0-2-2 Personally I use ConTeXt for PDF/paper output of my planner including address database, calendar and songbook. (Addresses are stored in a database, collected with a script and written to a ConTeXt table; calendar data incl. moon phases is computed, combined with events, holidays, personal appointments etc. from several lists and written to ConTeXt files by another script; the songbook contains LilyPond scores in ConTeXt files.) But I still use InDesign for most of my layout work, because I normally need the visual approach. Grüßlis vom Hraban! --- http://www.fiee.net/texnique/ http://contextgarden.net http://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer)
Am 04.11.2005 um 15:49 schrieb Taco Hoekwater:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
We are using ConTeXt for typesetting wonderful books ("werksatz"), mostly in the fields of arts and humanities. This kind of books often show an advanced use of footnotes, languages and alphabets. What could be improved in ConTeXt for this specific use is a better integration of figures: Images placed at a certain fixed position surrounded by text. Hans allready knows my \placefigure{top, left} or \placefigure{bottom, outer} request for years now ... Yours Steffen --- Esther Knoblich & Steffen Wolfrum | werksatz Berlin contact : Anklamer Straße 39 : D-10115 Berlin : +49-30-47374736 mobile : www.werksatz.com : post@werksatz.com : +49-163-4028151
Taco Hoekwater wrote:
Hi all,
For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple question:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you would normally type in an email message.
One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling at) (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running away from) ConTeXt.
If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line somewhere.
Don't be shy!
Taco
_______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
I use ConTeXt to typeset: 1. slides 2. mathematical formula 3. Chinese It is far more easier to write slides in ConTeXt than in LaTeX. And ConTeXt can produce PDF directly. The math enviroment is not as good as it in LaTeX, but it is enough for me now. The Chinese enviroment is not as good as LaTeX(CJK) either, but it is easier to learn. I hope the Chinese module can be enhanced some day. ConTeXt is a good work, and I like it! I'm going to stick to it. Regards, xiaojf
Hi all, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
What do you do with ConTeXT? As big project I typeset my Diploma (~ Master) thesis with it - and I will do so for my PhD as well. Otherwise I use it for slides and writeups. For papers I so far used LaTeX, but I'm toying with the idea to use it also for a paper; unfortunally APS and arXiv.org don't support ConTeXt. However, if enough authors bug them, they will probably do so at the end. ;-)
Tobias
Taco Hoekwater wrote:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
Dear Taco, I use ConTeXt for a) my class guides (incorporating genealogical tables and other graphics) and book-lists in both paper and screen versions b) for typesetting the Newsletter of the Group for the Study of Irish Historic Settlement c) my daughter used ConteXt (with my help) to typeset her thesis d) I have given three classes in the use of ConTeXt to my postgraduate students urging them to use ConTeXt to typeset their theses. Together with Omnigraffle and Bibdesk ConTeXt is ideal for students writing theses. I have been using XeTeX more and more for the ease of getting diacritical marks (when transliterating Sanskrit for example) or medieval characters using the SIL font Gentium. The use of fonts in ConTeXt is the main problem that I have. I have not come to terms with that area yet. Finally it is a joy to use ConTeXt. A very big thanks to Hans. Charlie Doherty ******************* Charles Doherty, Early Irish History, Room K113, School of History, John Henry Newman Building, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4 Tel: +353 1 716 8381
My first experience with ConTeXt was typesetting my brother's PhD thesis in chemistry. Used features: modes (A5 and A4), project-structure, a lot of floats, bibliography. ConTeXt at work: - technical specifications for electronic devices (used features: modules, project-structure, tables generated by scripts) - presentations - documentation - reports My problem at work: besides me, everyone is speaking M$-Office. I send my documents to my colleagues always in PDF. Just until today no problem, but there is some risk, that someone will ask for a Word/Powerpoint version one day... Unfortunately, our business is developing electronic devices, but not sophisticated typesetting, so I cannot spend much more time with ConTeXt, than I already do. ConTeXt at home: - construction plans (one page per figure with well defined scale) - letters - finding solutions for problems with ConTeXt at work (with the help of the mailing-list) Future projects: - typesetting the thesis of my sister-in-law (2 columns with a lot of floats) - writing a letter-module - teaching ConTeXt to my wife (perhaps impossible) - just doing more things with ConTeXt Most important request: a *complete* reference manual, with description of not only all commands, but also all parameters. Something like texshow is already fine, but still very far from complete. Very much appreciated: - all the nice features of ConTeXt - the great support by the developers: thank you! Cheers, Peter -- http://pmrb.free.fr/contact/
Taco, Hans— One of the key features of ConTeXt for me is its ability to create platform independent output that combines the ancient languages and mathematics in ways typical of publications in the humanities. So, first, my heartiest thanks to you both and also to Thomas Schmitz for his Greek module. I currently use ConTeXt to publish the Institute’s review/journal (which is available online, in print, and on CD), as well as its brochures and announcements. I will also be using it to produce its books too. I have designed a book publication series for my brother using ConTeXt; and I use it to write my own papers, reviews, and books. The main problem that I have is not really with ConTeXt itself. Since few of the history of science journals that I send papers to use ConTeXt, I am often required to I submit an .rtf file along with the .pdf file produced with ConTeXt. So, what I am still contemplating is an efficient, “mechanical” way around this problem. Best, Alan On Nov 4, 2005, at 9:49 AM, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
Hi all,
For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple question:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you would normally type in an email message.
One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling at) (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running away from) ConTeXt.
If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line somewhere.
Don't be shy!
Taco
_______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
Am Freitag, den 04.11.2005, 15:49 +0100 schrieb Taco Hoekwater:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
Two years ago -- I switched from LaTeX to ConTeXt. I typeset examinations and test for my wife's students at school. For that task I wrote based on exam.cls (LaTeX) a ConTexT-modul. All private und business letters are typeset with my special DIN-Brief-Modul, based on akletter.cls (LaTeX) and DIN-letter (ConTeXt) from Holger Schöner. I typeset different articles for my father. I typeset a book (350 page) with lots of tables, german and many czech words my next project is a book about my family from 1600 to now. Bernd ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bernd Militzer Dipl. oec. Dipl.-Hdl. OStR a.D. Hubertusstr. 34 47906 Kempen
I became dissatisfied with the usual word-processors after typesetting a book with Word and seeing the catastrophe that ensued: cross-references, indexes, typographic quality, everything was a disaster if you looked closer. My first steps into TeX-land were with LaTeX. I liked so many aspects of it, but I was a bit frustrated that it was so difficult to change the layout of simple things such as lists, headings, fonts etc. And I found the plethora of packages that one needs to add bewildering. ConTeXt immediately appealed to me because of its elegant user interface, and I liked the choice it offered to users---so many \setup this and \start that commands with infinite possibilities to modify the look of my documents. But I needed several attempts before I finally switched. I now do most of my work in ConTeXt, unless I'm forced to use a "normal" word processor because the file will have to be integrated in a volume or journal that just has Word etc. as a "standard." I'm a scholar in Classics, and I mostly use ConTeXt - to write my own lecture notes and typeset them on index cards, - to prepare my screen presentations, - for all kind of course-related materials; - and I'm currently preparing a book that will be typeset with ConTeXt. I am still amazed by the amount of options and for the wonderful integration that ConTeXt offers. But there are also some aspects that I find frustrating: - the rather small user and developer base is a problem. It's easy to be a dumb LaTeX user---somebody will already have encountered the same problem you are just having, and a bit of googling or a question on a newsgroup will probably provide a solution. In ConTeXt, you will need to acquire a minimum of knowledge yourself. I've become an instant expert in fonts and have prepared (with much help) modules to write ancient Greek. I still like playing around, but if you just want a job done, ConTeXt can be a bit daunting. The wiki is just beginning to take off, and when Hans and/or Taco are away or are too busy to answer questions on the list, it becomes a bit discouraging because there are so many questions with just very few answers being posted. - This has been repeated ad nauseam, but it's still true: the documentation is already wonderful, but there are still so many features around that aren't documented at all or not sufficiently. The source files sometimes help, but reading them sometimes is way over my level of knowledge. - I sometimes wonder where we will be in ten years: will we all stll be using this wonderful tool? Will Hans continue to have time and energy to develop it? How can we convince more TeX users to come over to ConTeXt and help?
Thomas A. Schmitz wrote:
around, but if you just want a job done, ConTeXt can be a bit daunting. The wiki is just beginning to take off, and when Hans and/or Taco are away or are too busy to answer questions on the list, it becomes a bit discouraging because there are so many questions with just very few answers being posted.
just repost; mails shift out of my mail windows -)
- I sometimes wonder where we will be in ten years: will we all stll be using this wonderful tool? Will Hans continue to have time and energy to develop it? How can we convince more TeX users to come over to ConTeXt and help?
don't worry, new things will keep coming -) Hans
After using LaTeX I use ConTeXt in my work environment (MS office based) for: - Letters, Quotes and Faxes - Reports (with floats and references) - Pricelists using perl based conversion of a database export But I must admit that I now increasingly use Apple Pages to write letters, faxes and the like as it just works faster (copy/paste graphic for example). For large documents ConTeXt stays the preferred option. What I miss is: - A layer on top of ConTeXt for common documents like Letters, Invoices, etc.. I had to build my own templates, which are not nearly as robust as the LaTeX classes I used before. - An IDE like LyX as it is easy to forget the macro's and getting in to a compile/error/correct cycle. Especially as the TeX error messages are not very clear to me. - A large user base. Regards, Frank On 04 Nov 2005, at 15:49, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
Hi all,
For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple question:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you would normally type in an email message.
One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling at) (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running away from) ConTeXt.
If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line somewhere.
Don't be shy!
Taco
_______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
On 11/4/05, Taco Hoekwater
What do you do with ConTeXT?
Hi all, I am a mathematician and I use ConTeXt mainly for my conferences when I do a presentation on computer. The reasons for which I chose ConTeXt rather than other TeX macros are: --- the material typeset with ConTeXt is visually beautiful (one sees that apart from being a wizard in writing clever macros, Hans Hagen is also a great artist...) --- ConTeXt includes (almost) everything from plain-TeX: since for my papers and other publications I use plain-TeX with some basic macros I have written, it is easy to port those material into ConTeXt; --- it is easy to use graphics and MetaPost material in ConTeXt; --- since I am a Mac user, it is possible to use XeTeX for writing Right-to-Left material and profit from (almost) all ConTeXt features (many thanks, among others, to Hans Hagen, Johnaton Kew, Adam Lindsay, and Gerben Wierda who made this possible). I use XeTeX + ConTeXt for writing Persian (or Faarsi), which is a non Arabic language using Arabic alphabet. Recently I use also ConTeXt for some lecture notes in mathematics for my students, but unfortunately I gave up learning enough of ConTeXt capacities to write a book with it... For this still I use plain TeX and some personal macros, since it seems easier to adapt them to the publisher's constraints. I have tried to convince friends and colleagues to use ConTeXt rather than LaTeX, but I must admit that so far I have not been successful, since ConTeXt is growing fast and sometimes changes happen to destroy what one used to be able to do, and that the available documentation is not very user-friendly (despite the fact that the community on this list is extremely helpful and friendly to help solve problems and questions). The interesting point is that up to now everything I have been thinking of doing with TeX and computer typesetting, has been found somewhere in ConTeXt. So I am confident ConTeXt is going to be stabilized and the documentation made more friendly, little by little, thanks to all of you... Best regards: OK
Taco Hoekwater wrote:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
I developed a workflow for (particle accelerator) conference proceedings using XML, Perl, and LaTeX. This task was an easy one, because it doesn't matter whether you need to combine 50 or 1400 papers, each page or book will look exactly the same for each conference series. But I became very dissatisfied with the standard abstract booklet(s) which have to be produced for the participants of such conferences. Here you (nearly) have the full freedom of putting the information together. When my original design (using bleeding boxes for titles, author names, and paper code information) brought me to the limits of LaTeX, I discussed what I wanted with Hans. His statement, 'No problem!', led to the question 'How?'. Within a week I learnt basic ConTeXt, and Hans provided the macros to combine METAPOST and TeX in a way that still leads to questions 'How was that done?.' So I now always include a 'Production Note' in my books and booklets to tell people what you can do with ConTeXt and TeX. Especially if you have Hans on-(a telephone)-line :-) In the meantime this 'Abstract Booklet Software' is part of scripts which are used for various conferences. One short example (it was printed as A5 booklet) you can find on the conference web page: http://bel.gsi.de/dipac2005/ --> Abstract Booklet or http://bel.gsi.de/dipac2005/papers/abstract.pdf Pages 3-16, 19-68 are produced by the scripts, starting at page 19 you will see what Hans does with METAPOST in an otherwise dull looking document. What I like to see is a documentation for beginners and advanced users, written not by the 'Master' himself. Up to now I could cope with my problems being able to reach Hans by mail or phone nearly everywhere and anytime. So, much of the praise I got for the booklets I owe to him. And for that I have to express my thanks! When I'm asked by TeX-aware people, what ConTeXt is, I now like to answer by citing Steve Grathwohl: 'What LaTeX was for the 20th century, ConTeXt is for the 21st!' Cheers, Volker
A las 15:49 del vie 04 nov, Taco Hoekwater tuvo a bien escribir:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
Hi all, I started some years ago to study ConTeXT out of my interest for typesetting. I just choose it over LaTeX for his integrated model seemed better to me, and never regretted. It have been a rough step learning curve, though. Til now I used to typeset/illustrate books with DSP tools and my aim is use ConTeXT/MetaFun to do it. Right now I'm converting html based documentation through the xml toolchain (texml), but most of the time I fight with some obscure parameter trying to put things where I want. Integrating MetaPost is definitely a plus for a designer. Thanks for the tools - (and the mental gym :) Jose -- José Antonio Rodríguez jar@eideia.net ------------------------ 'El Fuego vive en los corazones de quienes aman el futuro' (Agni Yoga)
Just a curiosity. Can anyone estimate how many people are using ConTeXt? -a- On 7 Nov 2005, at 19:54, Jose Antonio Rodriguez wrote:
A las 15:49 del vie 04 nov, Taco Hoekwater tuvo a bien escribir:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
Hi all,
I started some years ago to study ConTeXT out of my interest for typesetting. I just choose it over LaTeX for his integrated model seemed better to me, and never regretted. It have been a rough step learning curve, though. Til now I used to typeset/illustrate books with DSP tools and my aim is use ConTeXT/MetaFun to do it. Right now I'm converting html based documentation through the xml toolchain (texml), but most of the time I fight with some obscure parameter trying to put things where I want. Integrating MetaPost is definitely a plus for a designer.
Thanks for the tools - (and the mental gym :)
Jose
-- José Antonio Rodríguez jar@eideia.net ------------------------ 'El Fuego vive en los corazones de quienes aman el futuro' (Agni Yoga) _______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
Andrea Valle DAMS - Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione Università degli Studi di Torino andrea.valle@unito.it
andrea valle wrote:
Just a curiosity. Can anyone estimate how many people are using ConTeXt?
My guess would be somewhere from 100 to 200 active true users (people that are runing texexec themselves). I expect there to be about the same number of people that have used ConTeXt in the past but now have abandoned it for some reason. Those numbers are based on the amount of traffic & subscribers on this e-mail list. Also, I estimate some 500 or so people that have attempted to use ConTeXt one or a few times but never followed it through. Cheers, Taco
andrea valle wrote:
Just a curiosity. Can anyone estimate how many people are using ConTeXt?
hard to say - the list currently has some 435 members of which some are dormant - people come and go but the list is still growing - i know of people using context and not on the list (personal mails i get) - how many users expose themselves? i dunno: i use ruby, gs, etc and am not on any of the assiciated lists; - i don't keep track of downloads / website so no info from that - there are different kind of users (simple docs, no problem to get it running) or more advanced work; my impression is (when i compare usage with what i see at for instance user group meetings) that on the context list there are rather advanced (demanding) users (special layouts, fonts, etc) - so ... it hard to make a guess Hans
Op vrijdag 4 november 2005 15:49, schreef Taco Hoekwater:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
I use Context for making the church-magazine of the parish of which I am the minister. With Metafun I constructed headers, page-numbers and all sorts of symbols - forming a style that connects all sorts of input from members and bodies within the community. It's great fun to see each monthly edition grow, from (sometimes) scraps of paper into an well-organized and good looking magazine, complete with photos and other illustrations. I learned using Context while writing papers for my training as a contextual therapist. And since I started a practice as contextual therapist I use it for flyers, correspondence, bills. There is still a lot to learn. I haven't studied yet the project management facilities which might be helpful for my monthly editors job. I would like to explore the chart flow module to see if it would be useful in creating genograms which are used in contextual therapy. I am very interested in using Context for texts with mixed left to right and right to left texts (i.e. dutch (or english) and hebrew). With so much still to explore in this great project, I am far from being able to contribute to it. I owe so much to Hans and all the others who really build this wonderful 'thing'. May be some day .... tom --- Tom Fossen e-mail: tom.fossen@xs4all.nl
Taco Hoekwater wrote:
Hi all,
For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple question:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
- proceedings from individual PDFs, - presentations, - posters, - logos, visiting cards, - manual (HTML and PDF form from XML source), - personal electronic travel-journal (http://typokvitek.com/nzs you can see evolution of my ConTeXt skills) - booklet with very complex layout (sometimes seems to me over my ConTeXt skills) with two-column, margin, many, many floats, balancing, sorting, in Czech, ... I will write some experience with this -- if I will finnish it and survive two times postponned deadline... As a 'clever plain' with METAPOST, layers, and overlayes the ConTeXt it is excelent! As a 'all-in-one key-val LaTeX' it is nice and uniform. And as a tool to solve 'so far TeX dreams' it is problematic: without deadlines it is a funny game, with them a pain. In every point, thanks to authors for Him. vit
Taco Hoekwater schrieb:
Hi all,
For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple question:
What do you do with ConTeXT?
We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you would normally type in an email message.
I - write all my personal documents with ConTeXt - prepared some complicated fillable Forms including calculations by Javascript and sending the data to a webserver - convert some Manuals to ConTeXt (step by step) - query an Oracle database with perl and write the results to ConTeXt files - all my presentations i create with ConTeXt - typeset chinese texts Thanks for ConTeXt! Greetings Lutz
What do you do with ConTeXT?
As the editor of the 70+ page annual report of an ornithological society, I learned to hate word. When I was approached by a publisher with the offer of writing a textbook of biochemistry, I decided to try something more suitable and chose -- just why is hard to say, I didn't know anything about any of the possibilities -- ConTEXt. It was very hard simply to find out what it was and then how to install it and after that how to get some presentable result. But it's great -- thanks to everybody. It is always claimed that writing in a text editor and leaving the layout/typesetting part for later is better because you concentrate on writing. This is not true, at least not when working with ConTEXt. It is much more fun to "tex" what you have, to try out this and that, than to think about the next sentence. I now write with a Parker Duofold (bought years ago while on a bicycle tour in the Netherlands!) in a notebook before I go to the computer. One last thing: TEX-users seem to be very modest. They always claim to be just beginners. An example: The title of a recent TUGboat article (2003) was "Writing a book -- A first experience with LaTEX". The introduction defined the contribution as a "paper by non-experts for non-experts". Just what I need, I thought. It wasn't, and the explanation could be found at the end: The author had "a thirty-plus year career in high tech computer R&D" ... Cheers, Jörg. Prof. Dr.med. Jörg Hagmann-Zanolari Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics DKBW, University of Basel Mattenstrasse 28 CH-4058 Basel Switzerland Phone +41 (0)61 6953049
participants (32)
-
Alan Bowen -
andrea valle -
Bernd Militzer -
Charles Doherty -
Ciro Soto -
David Wooten -
Frank -
Gerben Wierda -
Hans Hagen -
Henning Hraban Ramm -
Jose Antonio Rodriguez -
Jörg Hagmann -
luigi.scarso -
Lutz Haseloff -
Mari Voipio -
Matthias Weber -
Mikael Persson -
Nicolas Grilly -
Nikolai Weibull -
Olivier -
Otared KAVIAN -
Patrick Gundlach -
Peter Münster -
Steffen Wolfrum -
Taco Hoekwater -
Thomas A. Schmitz -
Tobias Burnus -
Tom Fossen -
Vit Zyka -
Volker RW Schaa -
Willi Egger -
Xiao Jianfeng