On 11/21/05, Hans Hagen wrote:

Hi,

I'm going to clean up the beginners manual (at least the source code) so i think this s a good moment to pick up the 'translation' thread

So the question is:

- what can go out - what should go in - what should be updated

as well as:

- who will participate (in translation)

I have no so many free time but I could organize (I hope) in VnOSS community for vietnamese translation of ConTeXt's manuals. Regards, -- http://vnoss.org Vietnamese Open Source Software Community

I could think of translating to swedish. Depends on how much work it is and about if it must be done before that or that day. I got pretty much to do at work... /Micke P On 11/21/05, Hans Hagen wrote:

Hi,

I'm going to clean up the beginners manual (at least the source code) so i think this s a good moment to pick up the 'translation' thread

So the question is:

- what can go out - what should go in - what should be updated

as well as:

- who will participate (in translation) - how to deal with localization (maybe dedicated language related chapters)

Hans _______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context

Hi, Hans Hagen wrote:

Hi,

I'm going to clean up the beginners manual (at least the source code) so i think this s a good moment to pick up the 'translation' thread

So the question is:

Here is my 2 cents (numbers refer to the sections).

- what can go out

\setupsectionblock (4) \indenting (34) twoletter language shortcuts (37)

- what should go in

\mainlanguage endnotes environments arranging&papersize quotes"ations&narrower forms overlays typescripts regimes encodings? columnsets? natural tables?

- what should be updated

special characters: explain e.g. \{ and \[ (3) rename Headers => Sectioning or Structure (5) perhaps TABLE gets to much attention (11) rename Definitions => Descriptions (15,16) comments should be explained earlier (37) modules (38) Cheers, Taco

Hans Hagen wrote:

Hi,

I'm going to clean up the beginners manual (at least the source code) so i think this s a good moment to pick up the 'translation' thread

So the question is:

- what can go out - what should go in - what should be updated

31.2. \showbodyfont[cmr] 32.2. has to be rewritten I guess (write something about \enableregime[utf-8] and something about encodings) 38 (using modules): to be rewritten C (auxilary files): mention texutil --purge[all] What could be added: - Tables: Natural tables (already mentioned by Taco). I just realized that this is the only manual where the "usual" tables are actually explained. I was looking for the explanation in cont-eni before. - Bibliography - Slides: some basic example with \usemodule[pre-whatever] to show the user that making slides is no more difficult than making an A4 document - Metafun: some basic examples and a reference to the manual - XML: a basic example - mention XeTeX & Aleph somewhere (at least under section with fonts or lnguage-specific issues)

as well as:

- who will participate (in translation)

Slovenian translation is not rentable yet :(

- how to deal with localization (maybe dedicated language related chapters)

Not a bad idea. Encodings, regimes, \mainlanguage, using different interface, French "active characters", quotations, Greek, Vietnamese, Russian, ... under the same hood. Mojca

Hi!

I'm going to clean up the beginners manual (at least the source code) so i think this s a good moment to pick up the 'translation' thread

So the question is:

- what can go out - what should go in - what should be updated

as well as:

- who will participate (in translation) - how to deal with localization (maybe dedicated language related chapters)

As a beginner myself and typesetting in Portuguese I can tell you what I had troubles with: - mainlanguage - Special characters as º (\ordmasculine and stuff like that). And maybe not in the beginners manual but I think there should be an updated manual about how to install context. I'm still using a context version from 2004.08 as it is the only one it worked for me. I downloaded as far as I remember the file mswincontext.zip , the stand alone version of context, but the newer versions need Perl and Ruby to be installed. By the way... Are there any sugestions on the installation of Ruby and Perl on windows ? I think there should be some instructions on how to install mswincontex.zip on any system, because the dificulty in installing Context might drive some users away. Anyway... Context is great ! I'm now typesetting my first document with it. :) Thank you, Miguel Queirós

Hi, this is a follow-up to the first message... Are you (Hans) collecting the sugesstions from this thread or should they be wikified? Patrick -- ConTeXt wiki and more: http://contextgarden.net

Hans Hagen wrote:

I'm going to clean up the beginners manual

Yippee! :-) Having read one printout to shreds I really appreciate this...

- what should go in

As has been suggested here to an extent, there should be attachments (or separate smaller manuals) on how to install and update ConTeXt in different operating systems (Mac OS 10.4 was a breeze even for a new Mac user, Windows is a great pain in the butt every time; still running TeXLive 2004 ConTeXt on this machine because I can't afford to break anything). As I probably should do it for work anyway, I'm willing to write the part for MsWinConTeXt (for Win 2000/XP) as long as I get at least until the end of the year. I also suggest writing a separate set of instructions for those people who migrate from LaTeX (like my brother did) and for those who migrate from MSWord (like I did) or Apple's Pages (or similar word processing software). I strongly feel that the beginners' manual per se should be for ALL beginners and shouldn't refer to either Word or LaTeX. Again, as I probably have to write it at some point anyway, I'm willing to chip in for the MS Word part and I might even be able to write a draft for others to fill in with.

- what should be updated

Tables is what would be really useful. This far I've only used tabulate and \table, but I have a faint idea that "natural tables" would be the real solution to my problems - but finding info on them has been so challenging that I've given up this far. I also personally feel that a totally different approach to the fonts chapter would make my life a lot easier. I'm sure this partly relates to my Windows background, but for example the term "font family" was totally alien to me when I started using ConTeXt. And of course, much of the first weeks with ConTeXt (in Windows) were overshadowed by the important question of "how to make the fonts and font switches work at all". I still don't understand the system at all, so even though I've successfully gotten a few of the TeXLive fonts to work, I always have to refer to my older ConTeXt documents to copy the code that has worked at least at some stage. [In Word, you switch the font of the Normal style from Times New Roman to Century Schoolbook with about three clicks of the mouse - in ConTeXt the same may be a three-hour or three-day operation, at least with my not-even-intermediate skills... I love ConTeXt, I hate fonts.] The order of things in the beginners' manual has often frustrated me as I feel that "same stuff" is split in different places all over manual. I have not dealt with math, but when I taught word processing with Word, these would be things that come up in the very, very beginning: - how to change the font (family, size, emphasis) - how to change the paragraph (line spacing, paragraph spacing, indents, alignment) - how to print preview i.e. see the document as laid out on paper (in ConTeXt this would be "how to compile and view; maybe put more detailed instructions into the ConTeXt in Unix/Linux/Mac/Windows attachment/manual and just refer to these) - how to change the margins [I had REAL problems with this in ConTeXt, the whole context is so different; but this should probably go into the "ConTeXt for word processor users" chapter] [- how to save and retrieve a document; not really an issue with ConTeXt, I suspect all users are this much computer literate] Next step is often additional text features: - headings (in Word, "header" is only top part of page, the section/chapter titles are called headings) - lists (i.e. itemize in ConTeXt) - page numbers (many Word users never use their header/footer for anything else!) - page breaking - hyphenation And, as many people migrate to ConTeXt when having to deal with large documents and/or math, the next step for many would probably be: - figures (i.e. graphics) - tables - footnotes - header & footer - formulae, units, math otherwise - special characters! - registers, references - interactivity? If ConTeXt comes nowadays with modules, those should probably get a more prominent position in the manual and obviously a lot more detailed explanation than the current one. If I've understood the concept correctly, the modules are comparable to Word templates, but this far the information has been so split that I haven't bothered to piece it together to actually even try to use a module, not to talk about making one (although that bit probably belongs to the big manual).

- who will participate (in translation)

I can do Finnish, it shouldn't take that long once the English original is ready. A bunch of LaTeX stuff exists in Finnish and that should help with the terminology (should probably try to stick to existing stuff) and I can possibly enlist brother to review what I've done, if there're no other Finnish speakers on this list. I'll also be quite happy to proof the Swedish manual but as there are native speakers of Swedish on this list, I'd rather leave the actual translation work to them (especially when I use Swedish as spoken in Finland, which sometimes makes a difference).

- how to deal with localization (maybe dedicated language related chapters)

Yes, definitely. Having now worked with translations of originally English ConTeXt document to German and Spanish I've had to look for answers for the following problems: - hyphenation (how to turn it on and how to prevent it) - labels in captions and references (how to switch language, how to adjust) - regiments - character sets (especially non-Latin stuff) - punctuation rules (for example one vs. two spaces after period) Sometimes I'd really, really love to have a list of what characters and languages ConTeXt is/is not capable of coping with, just a quick reference would help... A few thoughts from the Windows front, Mari