When to migrate from MKII to MKIV?
Hi all, I've been using ConTeXt for a few years and I'm curious about whether it is worth migrating to MKIV (I've just re-read the mk.pdf document). Here are the features I often use: - Postscript fonts... I have typescripts setup for the fonts I bought (full versions of Utopia, Minion, Warnock, and a few compatible sans fonts). I believe I can get these as open-type as well if needed. - Bibliography via \usemodule[bib] - Chemistry via \usemodule[chemic] - Inclusion of PDF figures using an XML Figure database, i.e. \usemodule[fig-base] - Equations (with the multiline and alignment macros) using Fourier/Utopia including the bold math modifications in the MyWay document. - Tables (tabulate, natural, linetable) The questions I have: 1) Do all of the above work in MKIV? 2) How much of a pain is it to switch to MKIV? Do I need to rework my fonts/typescripts? Will all my current environments (setups, macros and one-line definitions) work? 3) Beyond speed and better font support, does it offer anything else to me? For the most part, I'm content with MKII and wonder if it is really worth the effort to move to MKIV. Perhaps the sample is skewed, but after reading the mailing list I get the impression that the current experimental/beta MKIV has a number of bugs and is not particularly feature complete when compared to MKII.
On Tue, 3 Feb 2009, Dave wrote:
Hi all, I've been using ConTeXt for a few years and I'm curious about whether it is worth migrating to MKIV (I've just re-read the mk.pdf document). Here are the features I often use:
- Postscript fonts... I have typescripts setup for the fonts I bought (full versions of Utopia, Minion, Warnock, and a few compatible sans fonts). I believe I can get these as open-type as well if needed. - Bibliography via \usemodule[bib] - Chemistry via \usemodule[chemic] - Inclusion of PDF figures using an XML Figure database, i.e. \usemodule[fig-base] - Equations (with the multiline and alignment macros) using Fourier/Utopia including the bold math modifications in the MyWay document. - Tables (tabulate, natural, linetable)
The questions I have: 1) Do all of the above work in MKIV?
In principle they should. Font support for latin script in MKIV is quite stable now. Writing typescripts for both postscript and opentype fonts in MKIV is much easier than in MKII. The bibliography module works fine, equation and math alignment is currently the same as in MKII. Math font support is being reworked, so using bold fonts will eventually be much easier in MKIV. I personally do not use chemic, figbases, and complicated tables, so cannot comment on those.
2) How much of a pain is it to switch to MKIV? Do I need to rework my fonts/typescripts? Will all my current environments (setups, macros and one-line definitions) work?
You may need to rework your typescripts, but they are much easier in MKIV. User interface for other things have not changed.
3) Beyond speed and better font support, does it offer anything else to me?
Depends on how complicated macros you write. In MKIV, you can harness a proper programming language (lua) to write macros, so if you do anything complicated, it is a big help.
For the most part, I'm content with MKII and wonder if it is really worth the effort to move to MKIV. Perhaps the sample is skewed, but after reading the mailing list I get the impression that the current experimental/beta MKIV has a number of bugs and is not particularly feature complete when compared to MKII.
My current suggestion is that if you find MKII adequate for you use, do not switch now. Wait until things stablize a bit, or you need an exotic feature for which is only availble in MKIV, or you want to help with testing MKIV. Aditya
On Tuesday 03 February 2009 22:34:24 Aditya Mahajan wrote:
I personally do not use chemic, figbases, and complicated tables, so cannot comment on those.
Chemic seems to work with apparently the same results in mkii and mkiv. I am using this with mkiv without being too demanding for the moment... This package may have a small user base, but it appears to be rather unique. In order to progress, it must not sleep but be put to use. Note, however, that I am not a chemist and so do not write very many chemical structures and formulae. The big problem for scientific writers is that publishers at very best will accept plain LaTeX. A notable exception is the American Physical Society who developed revTeX, a LaTeX package well suited to their publishing style. The American Chemical Society will accept plain LaTeX. Often, other scientific publishers as for Word! Also, we need to contribute more pages like http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Posting_on_arxiv.org Indeed, I had terrible problems submitting texts to arxiv as their system identifies the source as TeX but fails to process it. Alan
Alan BRASLAU wrote:
The big problem for scientific writers is that publishers at very best will accept plain LaTeX. A notable exception is the American Physical Society who developed revTeX, a LaTeX package well suited to their publishing style. The American Chemical Society will accept plain LaTeX. Often, other scientific publishers as for Word!
Rather off-topic, but as I am a chemist (and also write the "achemso" LaTeX package for the ACS), I'd point out that many more "physical" chemistry journals will accept LaTeX material. The ACS will also take "author generated" PDFs, so I assume ConTeXt/LaTeX/plain/whatever. The thing with chemical formulae is that while in-line ones are okay as text ("CH2=CH2 + H2O -> CH3-CH2OH"), complex structures are really a pain to enter in TeX (despite many valiant efforts). So most synthetic chemists use ChemDraw. -- Joseph Wright
For the most part, I'm content with MKII and wonder if it is really worth
the effort to move to MKIV. Perhaps the sample is skewed, but after reading the mailing list I get the impression that the current experimental/beta MKIV has a number of bugs and is not particularly feature complete when compared to MKII.
My current suggestion is that if you find MKII adequate for you use, do not switch now. Wait until things stablize a bit, or you need an exotic feature for which is only availble in MKIV, or you want to help with testing MKIV.
My experience said that one should switch now. Luatex+mkiv was and is a big change for me . -- luigi
participants (6)
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Aditya Mahajan -
Alan BRASLAU -
Dave -
Joseph Wright -
luigi scarso -
Mojca Miklavec