Il 27/12/2009 19.41, Wolfgang Schuster ha scritto:

You're wrong, MkIV supports colors by default while you have to enable it in MkII by yourself for backwards compatibilities. The screen value for the background key could be used to set a gray background where you could change the gray value with the backgroundscreen key but real colored backgrounds are set with 'background=color,backgroundcolor=...'. In MkIV Hans made the decision to break sometimes backward compatibility and one result of this was that background=color is no longer supported because you could use backgroundcolor.

Yes, I'm wrong and I'm not surprised. I've said it clearly: I don't know ConTeXt as much as I need to use it correctly. Part of the problem is the documentation: it's difficult (for me) to navigate and know what works on what version, especially with very limited time to figure out everything. Another "problem" is the "fluidity" of ConTeXt: it changes rapidly and the documentation is left behind. It's good because it responds very quickly to the real world and users needs, on the other hand it's bad because a new user has to be "in the club" for some time to figure out everything.

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---- \setupcolors[state=start] \setupbackground[background=screen] \setupbackground[state=start] \def\quotebox#1#2 {\blank \midaligned{\startbackground \quotation{\em #1} \crlf --#2 \stopbackground} \blank} ----

- the above \quotebox command, in some cases, sends pdftex and luatex (MKII and MKIV) to the moon with an infinite loop (100% CPU).

I guess this is a result of your own definition of the \quotebox macro which expects a space at the end of the command, you should write (untested) instead:

\define[2]\quotebox {\blank \startalignment[middle] \startbackground \quotation{\em#1}\crlf--#2 \stopbackground \stopalignment \blank}

A infinite loop with 100% cpu for some spaces? Well, I wasn't expecting this.

You should try to play a while with ConTeXt without such a strict and shirt timeline as you had it this time.

Best regards, Wolfgang

You are perfectly right, I've picked the wrong choice given this specific context and requirements. -- Manuel P.

On 28-12-2009 14:44, Manuel P. wrote:

Another "problem" is the "fluidity" of ConTeXt: it changes rapidly and the documentation is left behind. It's good because it responds very quickly to the real world and users needs, on the other hand it's bad because a new user has to be "in the club" for some time to figure out everything.

most of context (interface) is quite stable and hasn't changed in ages; however with luatex/mkiv we can move forward and do things that are impossible in good old tex but it's not neccessarily functionality that you need now (after all, we have been producing pretty complex docs with mkii and mkiv has hardly be touched the last years) 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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"Manuel" == Manuel P writes:

Manuel> Another "problem" is the "fluidity" of ConTeXt: it changes Manuel> rapidly and the documentation is left behind. Maybe for some things, but I'm using a manual from 2004 and from my point of view very little has changed. I would say the interface is remarkably stable, so hopefully that might be some encouragement to come back one day. -- Cheers, Berend de Boer

Well, well, ConTeXt can help you if you give him a little love and don't try pull all triggers at once. Having written my Ph.D. in LaTeX and published couple of books in ConTeXT I can assure you, ConTeXt is surprisingly better suited for "scientific" texts (oops sorry, I just mean text with footnotes, bibliography, a couple of indexes, list of illustrations, definitions whatever) even if you disregard its typographic quality. That's of course my entirely subjective opinion. Piotr 2009/12/29 Manuel P. :

Il 29/12/2009 3.48, berend@pobox.com ha scritto:

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    Manuel>  Another "problem" is the "fluidity" of ConTeXt: it changes     Manuel>  rapidly and the documentation is left behind.

Maybe for some things, but I'm using a manual from 2004 and from my point of view very little has changed.

I would say the interface is remarkably stable, so hopefully that might be some encouragement to come back one day.

Sure!

-- Manuel P.

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Il 27/12/2009 20.16, Peter Münster ha scritto:

On Sun, Dec 27 2009, Manuel P. wrote:

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I've had some unpleasant surprises: - Bibliography doesn't work the way it should on MKIV. Unlike MKII.

Hello Manuel,

You mean perhaps the problem to get all entries in the bib-database, even without citations. I don't have the solution, but I'm quite sure, that this is trivial for guys like Taco and others. There is at least one workaround: cite them all at some place in a 0-width box with white color on white background.

Hi Peter, Yes, Taco written that this is bug and will be resolved sometimes soon. The workaround that you suggest is surely functional, but I can't help feeling a bit uneasy about it.

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\def\quotebox#1#2

You want perhaps a %-sign: \def\quotebox#1#2%

No, it doesn't work despite the %-sign. Sorry. Wolfgang Schuster proposed a solution (untested, I haven't tried it yet). -- Manuel P.