Hello,
I have spent some time with google in order to find an answer to the following questions. Unfortunatly, I was not satisfied with the answers, which I now hope to find here.
It is my plan not to use the MS Office suite for the production of my PhD thesis (in chemistry). I have used Miktex some years ago during my studies for some project reports, and I remember beeing quite satisfied with the results. My Master thesis, on the other hand, I wrote in word.. and although I remember not having too many difficulties, there were some nasty obstacles to be overcome. Obstacles which I simply do not want to risk having repeated a second time on a much bigger scale. I this mailing list I read several reports of people who either had written their thesis in Latex or ConTeXt. There was a mention of Latex beeing designed for mathematic purposes, while ConTeXt was said to be better suited for the intergration of graphics or larger/more complex layout changes.
1) Finding the right context For now I had quite some difficulties to find that proper Latex distribution - a problem that actually led me to the existence of ConTeXt. I am wondering which latex distribution I should choose in order to work with ConTeXt? I am running Windows Vista (64-bit). Or is there a ConTeXt stand alone package that will absolutely satisfy my me in my needs? In principle, all I need is
2) The right editor What is the preferred editor for ConTeXt? for such a project? Is there any loss in functionality when using Texniccenter with ConTeXt than with MikTex instead?
3) I have seen some thesis templates/examples in this mailinglist. Can anyone point me to additional sources regarding the creation of a PhD Thesis with ConTeXt? What is the advantage over Latex, what are the disadvantages? Is there a win-win distribution somewhere on the table?
4) Has anyone used a typesetting suite like ContTeXt with CVS?
5) Is the ConTeXt reference system compatible with Endnote?
Is there any point to have latex installed, when context can do the trick? Or lets ask the devils advocate the other way around: What is the point of installing context, when latex could do the trick? Apart that I have to re-learn latex anyway.. what is better with Context?
Regards,
Piotr Jakubowicz
Hi,
I will let the other, more experienced posters answer the bulk of your questions, as they will do better than I. But about Endnote, which I happen to use, alongside my own own doctoral dissertation writing under ConTeXt, I can share some of my experience.
Although Endnote can export into BibTeX format, the result seems not to be directly usable by BibTeX. Not familiar at all with BibTeX and stuff in the beginning, I had look hard to find my answer, and I finally did with the following link, although it's in a different context:
http://www.mackichan.com/index.html?techtalk/558.htm~mainFrame
So I wrote a small Python program converting the keys that Endnote exports -- and now everything works like a charm. I have no idea what are your options, and what you are willing to do, but the bottom line is, there is a slight obstacle going from Endnote to BibTeX, despite appearances.
Jeff
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 13:56, Piotr wuscheln@googlemail.com wrote:
Hello,
I have spent some time with google in order to find an answer to the following questions. Unfortunatly, I was not satisfied with the answers, which I now hope to find here.
It is my plan not to use the MS Office suite for the production of my PhD thesis (in chemistry). I have used Miktex some years ago during my studies for some project reports, and I remember beeing quite satisfied with the results. My Master thesis, on the other hand, I wrote in word.. and although I remember not having too many difficulties, there were some nasty obstacles to be overcome. Obstacles which I simply do not want to risk having repeated a second time on a much bigger scale. I this mailing list I read several reports of people who either had written their thesis in Latex or ConTeXt. There was a mention of Latex beeing designed for mathematic purposes, while ConTeXt was said to be better suited for the intergration of graphics or larger/more complex layout changes.
- Finding the right context
For now I had quite some difficulties to find that proper Latex distribution - a problem that actually led me to the existence of ConTeXt. I am wondering which latex distribution I should choose in order to work with ConTeXt? I am running Windows Vista (64-bit). Or is there a ConTeXt stand alone package that will absolutely satisfy my me in my needs? In principle, all I need is
- The right editor
What is the preferred editor for ConTeXt? for such a project? Is there any loss in functionality when using Texniccenter with ConTeXt than with MikTex instead?
- I have seen some thesis templates/examples in this mailinglist. Can
anyone point me to additional sources regarding the creation of a PhD Thesis with ConTeXt? What is the advantage over Latex, what are the disadvantages? Is there a win-win distribution somewhere on the table?
Has anyone used a typesetting suite like ContTeXt with CVS?
Is the ConTeXt reference system compatible with Endnote?
Is there any point to have latex installed, when context can do the trick? Or lets ask the devils advocate the other way around: What is the point of installing context, when latex could do the trick? Apart that I have to re-learn latex anyway.. what is better with Context?
Regards,
Piotr Jakubowicz ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
Am 2008-10-21 um 19:56 schrieb Piotr:
- Finding the right context
For now I had quite some difficulties to find that proper Latex distribution - a problem that actually led me to the existence of ConTeXt. I am wondering which latex distribution I should choose in order to work with ConTeXt? I am running Windows Vista (64-bit). Or is there a ConTeXt stand alone package that will absolutely satisfy my me in my needs? In principle, all I need is
If you don't need LaTeX or PlainTeX and just ConTeXt, go for the minimals (see wiki). I don't know about Win64 versions, though. (I'm on OSX)
- The right editor
What is the preferred editor for ConTeXt? for such a project? Is there any loss in functionality when using Texniccenter with ConTeXt than with MikTex instead?
Some ConTeXters use SciTE, others Emacs. I guess the ConTeXt modes of those are most evolved.
I mostly use TextWrangler (Mac only), that has only a rudimentary syntax highlighting, but it's enough for me.
see http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Text_Editors
Be sure to use an editor with proper Unicode abilities and (I'd suggest to) write in UTF-8 encoding.
- I have seen some thesis templates/examples in this mailinglist. Can
anyone point me to additional sources regarding the creation of a PhD Thesis with ConTeXt? What is the advantage over Latex, what are the disadvantages? Is there a win-win distribution somewhere on the table?
What you need depends on the requirements of your university...
I'm no academic, so don't know what would be special with a PhD thesis.
Did you look through http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Sample_documents ?
Did you find http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Chemistry ?
- Has anyone used a typesetting suite like ContTeXt with CVS?
Do you mean your sources or ConTeXt itself?
Of course all TeX files are simple text files, so any versioning system is usable.
But I'd suggest to use SVN or another less ancient system than CVS.
- Is the ConTeXt reference system compatible with Endnote?
Jeff answered that.
Is there any point to have latex installed, when context can do the trick?
No.
Or lets ask the devils advocate the other way around: What is the point of installing context, when latex could do the trick? Apart that I have to re-learn latex anyway.. what is better with Context?
- ConTeXt's scripts know how often your sources need to be run - more freedom in design (but some prefer LaTeX's "fixed" document classes) - more coherent interface (key=value syntax) - better support for modern features, esp. with LuaTeX - integration of external packages like MetaPost, GNUplot etc., see http://modules.contextgarden.net/ - easy font installation (or no installation at all with XeTeX or LuaTeX) - ...
Greetlings from Lake Constance! Hraban --- http://www.fiee.net/texnique/ http://wiki.contextgarden.net https://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer)
2008/10/21 Henning Hraban Ramm hraban@fiee.net:
Or lets ask the devils advocate the other way around: What is the point of installing context, when latex could do the trick? Apart that I have to re-learn latex anyway.. what is better with Context?
- ConTeXt's scripts know how often your sources need to be run
- more freedom in design (but some prefer LaTeX's "fixed" document
classes)
- more coherent interface (key=value syntax)
- better support for modern features, esp. with LuaTeX
- integration of external packages like MetaPost, GNUplot etc., see http://modules.contextgarden.net/
- easy font installation (or no installation at all with XeTeX or
LuaTeX)
Please don't forget... this wonderful and helpful mailing list :-) Welcome.
Dnia Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 07:56:27PM +0200, Piotr napisał(a):
Hello,
I have spent some time with google in order to find an answer to the following questions. Unfortunatly, I was not satisfied with the answers, which I now hope to find here.
It is my plan not to use the MS Office suite for the production of my PhD thesis (in chemistry). I have used Miktex some years ago during my studies for some project reports, and I remember beeing quite satisfied with the results. My Master thesis, on the other hand, I wrote in word.. and although I remember not having too many difficulties, there were some nasty obstacles to be overcome. Obstacles which I simply do not want to risk having repeated a second time on a much bigger scale. I this mailing list I read several reports of people who either had written their thesis in Latex or ConTeXt. There was a mention of Latex beeing designed for mathematic purposes, while ConTeXt was said to be better suited for the intergration of graphics or larger/more complex layout changes.
I'm also rather a ConTeXt newbie (and I daresay that I am more of an expert as far as plain TeX and LaTeX go), but I'll butt in with my $3*10^{-2};). I guess I have some right to say something here, too, since I was first a long-time plain TeX user (about 6 years' experience), then a LaTeX user (another 6 years or so) and now I've been trying hard to use ConTeXt for some months.
- Finding the right context
For now I had quite some difficulties to find that proper Latex distribution - a problem that actually led me to the existence of ConTeXt. I am wondering which latex distribution I should choose in order to work with ConTeXt? I am running Windows Vista (64-bit). Or is there a ConTeXt stand alone package that will absolutely satisfy my me in my needs? In principle, all I need is
Well, *the* TeX distribution is texlive (AFAIK, it works under unices, windows & mac). MikTeX is a popular alternative for windows; it should also contain ConTeXt, although not necessarily the state-of-the-art one. Nowadays texlive has an automatic package update (much like MikTeX). And if you want to use the latest-and-greatest ConTeXt, the so-called "minimals" are for you. (On a day to day basis, I use ConTeXt MkII which came with texlive, and it's enough for me; I don't use all these fancy things like xml, opentype fonts etc. OTOH, I have some newer version, too, just in case I need it some day.)
- The right editor
What is the preferred editor for ConTeXt? for such a project? Is there any loss in functionality when using Texniccenter with ConTeXt than with MikTex instead?
Well, my heart is breaking when I type this, but my beloved emacs;) has rather poor ConTeXt support... I use Emacs 22 with AUCTeX 11.84. Well, although it *works*, it is by no means convenient - at least not that convenient as an emacs should be;). Hans uses SciTE, which should therefore be a good answer.
- I have seen some thesis templates/examples in this mailinglist. Can
anyone point me to additional sources regarding the creation of a PhD Thesis with ConTeXt? What is the advantage over Latex, what are the disadvantages? Is there a win-win distribution somewhere on the table?
Well, recently I'm starting to prefer ConTeXt over LaTeX very much. The are quite a few reasons. (I blogged about some of them some time ago; you may find this post here: http://mbork.pl/2008-08-26_Dlaczego_nie_lubi%C4%99_LaTeXa; notice it's in Polish, so of no use to most people on this list;). I plan to translate this into English, but this not very high on my priority list...)
To sum it up (especially for non-Polish people here;) - I assume that my answer *might* be of interest not only to the author of this thread;)), the problems are as follows: while LaTeX is very nice when you write a scientific paper, it's not that nice when you write a test for students or a letter to Aunt Henrietta;). Another thing is an always possible package clash, which is highly improbable in a monolithic system like ConTeXt. And yet another is that many, many things in LaTeX have a somehow "hacky" feeling about them, and in ConTeXt they are much more natural (take the enumerate/enumitem packages, for instance, or text floating around graphics, or multicolumn typestting...). And last but not least - in LaTeX, writing content is easy, changing the way things look is difficult (I know, this is an oversimplification and need not always be the case, but this is my general feeling); in ConTeXt, both are easy.
There are some caveats, too. More about them in a moment.
- Has anyone used a typesetting suite like ContTeXt with CVS?
As it was pointed out, you write just plain text files, so it's not a problem (and I would consider it highly recommended!). Personally, I use (another) ancient system (RCS); since I write my documencts mainly by myself, it suffices for me.
- Is the ConTeXt reference system compatible with Endnote?
That I have no idea of - but this question was (at least partially) answered. I have no experience (yet) with bibliographies in ConTeXt; in LaTeX, I strongly recommend the amsrefs package over BibTeX, which I dislike very much. But this is off-topic a bit here;) and I include it only in case you choose LaTeX.
Is there any point to have latex installed, when context can do the trick? Or lets ask the devils advocate the other way around: What is the point of installing context, when latex could do the trick? Apart that I have to re-learn latex anyway.. what is better with Context?
For me, there *is* a point in installing LaTeX: most mathematical journals accept LaTeX files and not ConTeXt ones. I don't know what it is like with chemistry. OTOH, in case of simple documents (here "simple" means not only "simple" in the usual meaning, but also: "not messing with the presentation, but containing only content, and leaving the look to the class authors"), automatic conversion in either way should be rather easy.
Another disadvantage of ConTeXt is much smaller userbase; this might be a problem when something does not work; OTOH, the ConTeXt userbase is so active and helpful, that this should not be a serious problem... (I'm not saying that LaTeX userbase is worse, but being much, much bigger seems not to translate into being much, much more active/helpful - the level of activity and "helpfulness" is similar. Well, in fact it is difficult to imagine that the userbase of some tool could actually be *more* helpful and active;).)
Yet another thing is that ConTeXt lacks good documentation - we all know that 24h is 24h also for Hans, so no-one blames him for that, and there is the great wiki - but sometimes it's a bit frustrating (at least for me). Don't expect that you will be easily able to learn everything in ConTeXt by yourself; expect to be a frequent visitor of this mailing list and the wiki. If this is ok for you, no problem. Also, be prepared for a situation when something does not work and you have no idea why. (Well, this may happen with LaTeX, too, not to mention M$ Office;).)
OTOH, LaTeX documentation (I mean here documentation of different packages) has a very, very wide spectrum - from the excellent docs for pgf and beamer to the only thing being available being one page example and some obscure source code...
I hope that fanatic ConTeXters won't kill me for what I've written above, but in case they get angry let me stress now some other advantages of ConTeXt.
* many more things are available "out of the box" - and they usually Just Work (TM). (Well, not always - maybe some things work better in LaTeX - but still, you can always ask here, and if your question is well-defined, most probably sooner or later some wizard will help you.)
* the layout design is way more user-friendly - and if you are both the author and designer, this is important.
* it's much easier to do graphics, linked pdfs or colors in ConTeXt than in LaTeX; it is much more modern. ConTeXt is also well-suited for preparing presentations, although now that we have the beamer LaTeX class, doing it in LaTeX is also a very pleasant experience.
Summing it up: use ConTeXt. It will be frustrating from time to time, but rewarding and fascinating most of the time. The learning curve has similar slope as for LaTeX (which will BTW also give you your share of frustration), and you will get to know all these wonderful people on this list:). (Not that the LaTeX people are worse!) And if you choose ConTeXt, it will be not only you who will benefit, but also the society: the more people use ConTeXt, the better it may become (I mean especially documentation and wiki).
Regards,
Piotr Jakubowicz
Greets
On Wed, Oct 22 2008, Marcin Borkowski wrote:
Well, my heart is breaking when I type this, but my beloved emacs;) has rather poor ConTeXt support... I use Emacs 22 with AUCTeX 11.84. Well, although it *works*, it is by no means convenient - at least not that convenient as an emacs should be;).
Hello Marcin,
What are the problems with emacs?
Cheers, Peter
Dnia Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 07:31:32AM +0200, Peter Münster napisał(a):
On Wed, Oct 22 2008, Marcin Borkowski wrote:
Well, my heart is breaking when I type this, but my beloved emacs;) has rather poor ConTeXt support... I use Emacs 22 with AUCTeX 11.84. Well, although it *works*, it is by no means convenient - at least not that convenient as an emacs should be;).
Hello Marcin,
What are the problems with emacs?
Here is the (unordered) list of what I remember at the moment.
* It almost never knows when to launch "View"; it almost always offers me to "ConTeXt" the file.
* (This is probably related to the previous one.) When finished compilation, it says "ConTeXt: problems after {1} page." or something like this.
* When finding files, it offers me to find not only the .tex file, but also all the .tui, .tuo stuff etc. by default, which is rather inconvenient.
* It has no idea about most of ConTeXt commands, e.g., it tries to insert {} after ConTeXt commands put by C-c C-m.
* Unlike when editing LaTeX files, it does not insert an \item when doing C-c C-e itemize. I use itemizations a lot and this is a bit annoying, especially that I got used to its behaior when doing LaTeX. Also, having C-c C-j asking about the (optional) label all the time is also tiring, I would prefer to be asked for it only with C-u C-c C-j.
* Only recently I discovered the --arrange parameter for texexec, and the fact that AUCTeX does not know about it.
* By default, being in dvi or pdf mode doesn't matter: you always end up with a pdf file. This is fine when you have a fast computer, but on low-end, older ones (like mine;)) xdvi is *a lot* faster than xpdf.
I use the emacs & AUCTeX shipped with ubuntu 8.04. It seems that emacs comes preconfigured in this system in a rather stupid way, e.g., transient-mark-mode is on by default, which is not what I was used to. A skim through the initialization files shows, however, that the ubuntu people messed with almost everything but ConTeXt support, so this seems to be a general AUCTeX issue.
I know that these are not *serious* problems; but the UX is poor with them... I plan to learn emacs lisp a bit in my spare time (though I almost forgot what "spare time" means;P), but I certainly won't do any serious hacking there.
Cheers, Peter
Greets
"Marcin" == Marcin Borkowski mbork@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl writes:
Marcin> I know that these are not *serious* problems; but the UX is poor Marcin> with them...
I agree :-/
Marcin> I plan to learn emacs lisp a bit in my spare time (though I Marcin> almost forgot what "spare time" means;P), but I certainly won't Marcin> do any serious hacking there.
Same here...when I learn about 'spare time', I'll join you ;)
For now, I'm simply writing in *.rst (restructured text) hoping that Pandoc will get full* parser for it so that one will be able to convert to ConTeXt :-)
* atm there is only partial support for rst markup.
Sincerely, Gour
On Wed, Oct 22 2008, Marcin Borkowski wrote:
What are the problems with emacs?
Here is the (unordered) list of what I remember at the moment.
- It almost never knows when to launch "View"; it almost always offers me to "ConTeXt" the file.
Hello Marcin,
Right, this is a bug. I could make a bug report for that issue. I haven't done this before, because I don't really need this feature: - I open a ConTeXt file - then I begin with the View command to open an xpdf window - then I only need ConTeXt commands, that refresh automatically the xpdf window (C-c C-c return)
Customization code for TeX-command-list: ("ConTeXt" "context --once --nonstopmode %t; xpdfcheck "%s" && xpdf -remote "%s" -reload" TeX-run-TeX nil (context-mode) :help "Run ConTeXt once") ("ConTeXt Full" "context --nonstopmode %t; xpdfcheck "%s" && xpdf -remote "%s" -reload" TeX-run-TeX nil (context-mode) :help "Run ConTeXt until completion")
This is xpdfcheck.c :
#include <stdio.h> #include <X11/Xlib.h> int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { Display *display; Atom remoteAtom; char remoteName[256]; if(argc != 2){ fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <remote-name>\n", argv[0]); return 1; } snprintf(remoteName, sizeof(remoteName), "xpdf_%s", argv[1]); if(!(display = XOpenDisplay(NULL))) return 1; remoteAtom = XInternAtom(display, remoteName, False); return !XGetSelectionOwner(display, remoteAtom); }
- (This is probably related to the previous one.) When finished compilation, it says "ConTeXt: problems after {1} page." or something like this.
Indeed, this should be mentioned in the bug report.
- When finding files, it offers me to find not only the .tex file, but also all the .tui, .tuo stuff etc. by default, which is rather inconvenient.
(setq completion-ignored-extensions (append completion-ignored-extensions '(".tui" ".tuo")))
- It has no idea about most of ConTeXt commands, e.g., it tries to insert {} after ConTeXt commands put by C-c C-m.
Don't know about this one, I just type the command (often with the help of "dabbrev-expand").
- Unlike when editing LaTeX files, it does not insert an \item when doing C-c C-e itemize. I use itemizations a lot and this is a bit annoying, especially that I got used to its behaior when doing LaTeX. Also, having C-c C-j asking about the (optional) label all the time is also tiring, I would prefer to be asked for it only with C-u C-c C-j.
This is also annoying to me. I'll try to solve this, should no be too complicated I think (only problem I have, is no spare time, just like you...).
- By default, being in dvi or pdf mode doesn't matter: you always end up with a pdf file. This is fine when you have a fast computer, but on low-end, older ones (like mine;)) xdvi is *a lot* faster than xpdf.
Start xpdf just once, then use only "xpdf -reload". Besides, there are more and more issues with dvi, since it's no more supported by ConTeXt (clipping of figures, protrusion with TTF and perhaps a lot more). So I consider dvi as obsolete.
Cheers, Peter
Dnia Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 11:08:20PM +0200, Peter Münster napisał(a):
On Wed, Oct 22 2008, Marcin Borkowski wrote:
What are the problems with emacs?
Here is the (unordered) list of what I remember at the moment.
- It almost never knows when to launch "View"; it almost always offers me to "ConTeXt" the file.
Hello Marcin,
Right, this is a bug. I could make a bug report for that issue. I haven't done this before, because I don't really need this feature:
- I open a ConTeXt file
- then I begin with the View command to open an xpdf window
- then I only need ConTeXt commands, that refresh automatically the xpdf window (C-c C-c return)
The same I do, but if I work on a few files simultaneously, or just want to jump into a new file (to check something or so) the current behavior is a bit inconvenient.
Customization code for TeX-command-list: ("ConTeXt" "context --once --nonstopmode %t; xpdfcheck "%s" && xpdf -remote "%s" -reload" TeX-run-TeX nil (context-mode) :help "Run ConTeXt once") ("ConTeXt Full" "context --nonstopmode %t; xpdfcheck "%s" && xpdf -remote "%s" -reload" TeX-run-TeX nil (context-mode) :help "Run ConTeXt until completion")
This is xpdfcheck.c :
#include <stdio.h> #include <X11/Xlib.h> int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { Display *display; Atom remoteAtom; char remoteName[256]; if(argc != 2){ fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <remote-name>\n", argv[0]); return 1; } snprintf(remoteName, sizeof(remoteName), "xpdf_%s", argv[1]); if(!(display = XOpenDisplay(NULL))) return 1; remoteAtom = XInternAtom(display, remoteName, False); return !XGetSelectionOwner(display, remoteAtom); }
Wow, thanks! I'll try it (but not today;))!
- (This is probably related to the previous one.) When finished compilation, it says "ConTeXt: problems after {1} page." or something like this.
Indeed, this should be mentioned in the bug report.
- When finding files, it offers me to find not only the .tex file, but also all the .tui, .tuo stuff etc. by default, which is rather inconvenient.
(setq completion-ignored-extensions (append completion-ignored-extensions '(".tui" ".tuo")))
Thanks! I'll have it added together with .aux;).
Edit: it was there already. Emacs, I'm scared of you.
- It has no idea about most of ConTeXt commands, e.g., it tries to insert {} after ConTeXt commands put by C-c C-m.
Don't know about this one, I just type the command (often with the help of "dabbrev-expand").
Well, in case of LaTeX-mode, it's very useful, since it knows about the usage of many standard commands and asks for the arguments.
- Unlike when editing LaTeX files, it does not insert an \item when doing C-c C-e itemize. I use itemizations a lot and this is a bit annoying, especially that I got used to its behaior when doing LaTeX. Also, having C-c C-j asking about the (optional) label all the time is also tiring, I would prefer to be asked for it only with C-u C-c C-j.
This is also annoying to me. I'll try to solve this, should no be too complicated I think (only problem I have, is no spare time, just like you...).
That would be great, also from the point of view of learning elisp...
- By default, being in dvi or pdf mode doesn't matter: you always end up with a pdf file. This is fine when you have a fast computer, but on low-end, older ones (like mine;)) xdvi is *a lot* faster than xpdf.
Start xpdf just once, then use only "xpdf -reload". Besides, there are more and more issues with dvi, since it's no more supported by ConTeXt (clipping of figures, protrusion with TTF and perhaps a lot more). So I consider dvi as obsolete.
I know, but I edit mostly rather simple files (no figures, no non-type1 fonts, no rotation etc...) and then uses xdvi a lot (when using LaTeX).
Cheers, Peter
Thanks, greets!
PS. I visited your homepage. Loved the M$ jokes; the essay on viruses on linux was also *very* interesting.
On Fri, 24 Oct 2008, Marcin Borkowski wrote:
- Unlike when editing LaTeX files, it does not insert an \item when doing C-c C-e itemize. I use itemizations a lot and this is a bit annoying, especially that I got used to its behaior when doing LaTeX. Also, having C-c C-j asking about the (optional) label all the time is also tiring, I would prefer to be asked for it only with C-u C-c C-j.
This is also annoying to me. I'll try to solve this, should no be too complicated I think (only problem I have, is no spare time, just like you...).
That would be great, also from the point of view of learning elisp...
Hello,
Here some code that you can attach to your .emacs file (just a copy from auctex with minor modifications):
(require 'context-en)
(defun ConTeXt-en-mode-initialization () "ConTeXt english interface specific initialization." (mapcar 'ConTeXt-add-environments (reverse ConTeXt-environment-list-en)) (TeX-add-symbols '("but" ConTeXt-arg-define-ref (TeX-arg-literal " ")) '("item" (TeX-arg-literal " ")) '("items" [ConTeXt-arg-setup] (TeX-arg-string "Comma separated list")) '("its" ConTeXt-arg-define-ref (TeX-arg-literal " ")) '("nop" (TeX-arg-literal " ")) '("ran" TeX-arg-string (TeX-arg-literal " ")) '("sub" ConTeXt-arg-define-ref (TeX-arg-literal " ")) '("sym" (TeX-arg-string "Symbol") (TeX-arg-literal " "))))
(defun ConTeXt-insert-environment (environment &optional extra) "Insert ENVIRONMENT, with optional argument EXTRA." (if (and (TeX-active-mark) (not (eq (mark) (point)))) (save-excursion (if (< (mark) (point)) (exchange-point-and-mark)) (insert TeX-esc (ConTeXt-environment-start-name) environment) (newline) (forward-line -1) (indent-according-to-mode) (if extra (insert extra)) (goto-char (mark)) (or (TeX-looking-at-backward "^[ \t]*") (newline)) (insert TeX-esc (ConTeXt-environment-stop-name) environment) (newline) (forward-line -1) (indent-according-to-mode) ;;(goto-char (point)) ) (or (TeX-looking-at-backward "^[ \t]*") (newline)) (insert TeX-esc (ConTeXt-environment-start-name) environment) (indent-according-to-mode) (if extra (insert extra)) (end-of-line) (newline-and-indent) (if (string-equal environment "itemize") (ConTeXt-insert-item)) (newline) (insert TeX-esc (ConTeXt-environment-stop-name) environment) (or (looking-at "[ \t]*$") (save-excursion (newline-and-indent))) (indent-according-to-mode) (end-of-line 0)))
Cheers, Peter
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 4:06 PM, Peter Münster pmlists@free.fr wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2008, Marcin Borkowski wrote:
- Unlike when editing LaTeX files, it does not insert an \item when doing C-c C-e itemize. I use itemizations a lot and this is a bit annoying, especially that I got used to its behaior when doing
LaTeX.
Also, having C-c C-j asking about the (optional) label all the time
is
also tiring, I would prefer to be asked for it only with C-u C-c
C-j.
This is also annoying to me. I'll try to solve this, should no be too complicated I think (only problem I have, is no spare time, just like you...).
That would be great, also from the point of view of learning elisp...
Hello,
Here some code that you can attach to your .emacs file (just a copy from auctex with minor modifications):
Peter, can you put it into wiki ?
On Thu, 5 Feb 2009, luigi scarso wrote:
Here some code that you can attach to your .emacs file (just a copy from auctex with minor modifications):
Peter, can you put it into wiki ?
Of course, just as everybody else can do it ;)
But this is only a quick workaround. It would be nicer, if a clean solution could be integrated into auctex.
Cheers, Peter
Hi all,
please have a look to the following small table with its own footnotes:
\setupoutput[pdftex] \starttext \startlocalfootnotes[n=0,conversion=characters] \placetable[here][]{} \placelegend { \tfx \setupTABLE [frame=off] \bTABLE \bTR\bTD 1990 \eTD\bTD 1991 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 2.\footnote[foot:a]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Gesamtbevoelkerung} \eTD\bTD 19.0 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 3.\footnote[foot:b]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Stadtbevoelkerung} \eTD\bTD 26.1 \eTD\eTR \eTABLE } {\placelocalfootnotes} \stoplocalfootnotes \stoptext
The problem is that the footnotes are printed centered over a very small linewidth. To avoid this I can put every footnote text in a \hbox and then use \leftaligned{\placelocalfootnotes}}, but this is rather cumbersome. Has anyone a better solution?
With many thanks in advance, Albrecht
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl [mailto:ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl] Im Auftrag von Albrecht Kauffmann Gesendet: Mittwoch, 11. Februar 2009 16:35 An: mailing list for ConTeXt users Betreff: [NTG-context] local footnotes
Hi all,
please have a look to the following small table with its own footnotes:
\setupoutput[pdftex] \starttext \startlocalfootnotes[n=0,conversion=characters] \placetable[here][]{} \placelegend { \tfx \setupTABLE [frame=off] \bTABLE \bTR\bTD 1990 \eTD\bTD 1991 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 2.\footnote[foot:a]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Gesamtbevoelkerung} \eTD\bTD 19.0 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 3.\footnote[foot:b]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Stadtbevoelkerung} \eTD\bTD 26.1 \eTD\eTR \eTABLE } {\placelocalfootnotes} \stoplocalfootnotes \stoptext
The problem is that the footnotes are printed centered over a very small linewidth. To avoid this I can put every footnote text in a \hbox and then use \leftaligned{\placelocalfootnotes}}, but this is rather cumbersome. Has anyone a better solution?
With many thanks in advance, Albrecht
Hi,
maybe like this:
\setupoutput[pdftex] \starttext \startlocalfootnotes[n=0,conversion=characters] \placetable[here][]{} % \placelegend { \tfx \setupTABLE [frame=off] \bTABLE \bTR\bTD 1990 \eTD\bTD 1991 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 2.\note[foot:a] \eTD\bTD 19.0 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 3.\note[foot:b] \eTD\bTD 26.1 \eTD\eTR \eTABLE } \footnotetext[foot:a]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Gesamtbevoelkerung} \footnotetext[foot:b]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Stadtbevoelkerung} {\placelocalfootnotes} \stoplocalfootnotes \stoptext
This gives footnotes at textwidth.
Greetings
Thomas ____________________________________________________________________________ _______ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ____________________________________________________________________________ _______
Hi all,
please have a look to the following small table with its own footnotes:
\setupoutput[pdftex] \starttext \startlocalfootnotes[n=0,conversion=characters] \placetable[here][]{} \placelegend { \tfx \setupTABLE [frame=off] \bTABLE \bTR\bTD 1990 \eTD\bTD 1991 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 2.\footnote[foot:a]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Gesamtbevoelkerung} \eTD\bTD 19.0 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 3.\footnote[foot:b]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Stadtbevoelkerung} \eTD\bTD 26.1 \eTD\eTR \eTABLE } {\placelocalfootnotes} \stoplocalfootnotes \stoptext
The problem is that the footnotes are printed centered over a very small linewidth. To avoid this I can put every footnote text in a \hbox and then use \leftaligned{\placelocalfootnotes}}, but this is rather cumbersome. Has anyone a better solution?
With many thanks in advance, Albrecht
Hi Albrecht,
have you tried my proposal from 13.2.08? (http://archive.contextgarden.net/message/20090213.144419.432c095e.en.html)
Maybe there is a better solution (?) but with my context installation and mkII it just works fine this way.
Greetings Thomas
\setupoutput[pdftex] \starttext \startlocalfootnotes[n=0,conversion=characters] \placetable[here][]{} % \placelegend { \tfx \setupTABLE [frame=off] \bTABLE \bTR\bTD 1990 \eTD\bTD 1991 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 2.\note[foot:a] \eTD\bTD 19.0 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 3.\note[foot:b] \eTD\bTD 26.1 \eTD\eTR \eTABLE } \footnotetext[foot:a]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Gesamtbevoelkerung} \footnotetext[foot:b]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Stadtbevoelkerung} {\placelocalfootnotes} \stoplocalfootnotes \stoptext
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl [mailto:ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl] Im Auftrag von Albrecht Kauffmann Gesendet: Freitag, 20. Februar 2009 09:18 An: mailing list for ConTeXt users Betreff: [NTG-context] local footnotes
Hi all,
please have a look to the following small table with its own footnotes:
\setupoutput[pdftex] \starttext \startlocalfootnotes[n=0,conversion=characters] \placetable[here][]{} \placelegend { \tfx \setupTABLE [frame=off] \bTABLE \bTR\bTD 1990 \eTD\bTD 1991 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 2.\footnote[foot:a]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Gesamtbevoelkerung} \eTD\bTD 19.0 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 3.\footnote[foot:b]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Stadtbevoelkerung} \eTD\bTD 26.1 \eTD\eTR \eTABLE } {\placelocalfootnotes} \stoplocalfootnotes \stoptext
The problem is that the footnotes are printed centered over a very small linewidth. To avoid this I can put every footnote text in a \hbox and then use \leftaligned{\placelocalfootnotes}}, but this is rather cumbersome. Has anyone a better solution?
With many thanks in advance, Albrecht
____________________________________________________________________________ _______ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ____________________________________________________________________________ _______
Hi Thomas,
thank you very much, this works fine. But, something must have been changed, that my old program settings suddenly didn't work.
Greetings Albrecht
On Fri, 20 Feb 2009, Thomas Floeren wrote:
Hi Albrecht,
have you tried my proposal from 13.2.08? (http://archive.contextgarden.net/message/20090213.144419.432c095e.en.html)
Maybe there is a better solution (?) but with my context installation and mkII it just works fine this way.
Greetings Thomas
\setupoutput[pdftex] \starttext \startlocalfootnotes[n=0,conversion=characters] \placetable[here][]{} % \placelegend { \tfx \setupTABLE [frame=off] \bTABLE \bTR\bTD 1990 \eTD\bTD 1991 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 2.\note[foot:a] \eTD\bTD 19.0 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 3.\note[foot:b] \eTD\bTD 26.1 \eTD\eTR \eTABLE } \footnotetext[foot:a]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Gesamtbevoelkerung} \footnotetext[foot:b]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Stadtbevoelkerung} {\placelocalfootnotes} \stoplocalfootnotes \stoptext
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl [mailto:ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl] Im Auftrag von Albrecht Kauffmann Gesendet: Freitag, 20. Februar 2009 09:18 An: mailing list for ConTeXt users Betreff: [NTG-context] local footnotes
Hi all,
please have a look to the following small table with its own footnotes:
\setupoutput[pdftex] \starttext \startlocalfootnotes[n=0,conversion=characters] \placetable[here][]{} \placelegend { \tfx \setupTABLE [frame=off] \bTABLE \bTR\bTD 1990 \eTD\bTD 1991 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 2.\footnote[foot:a]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Gesamtbevoelkerung} \eTD\bTD 19.0 \eTD\eTR
\bTR\bTD 3.\footnote[foot:b]{Bezogen auf das Jahresmittel der Stadtbevoelkerung} \eTD\bTD 26.1 \eTD\eTR \eTABLE } {\placelocalfootnotes} \stoplocalfootnotes \stoptext
The problem is that the footnotes are printed centered over a very small linewidth. To avoid this I can put every footnote text in a \hbox and then use \leftaligned{\placelocalfootnotes}}, but this is rather cumbersome. Has anyone a better solution?
With many thanks in advance, Albrecht
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ____________________________________________________________________________ _______
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
Hi all,
I have a question regarding natural tables: Would it be able to set the rulethickness parameter for one (e.g. the right) side of selected columns separately (e.g. "rulethickness_right=2pt")?
With many thanks for any hint, Albrecht
On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 20:28, Albrecht Kauffmann wrote:
Hi all,
I have a question regarding natural tables: Would it be able to set the rulethickness parameter for one (e.g. the right) side of selected columns separately (e.g. "rulethickness_right=2pt")?
Not directly. One can misuse an empty column or use metafun to draw the background separately.
See http://www.vim.org/sponsor/vote_results.php
If there was something similar for ConTeXt, I would vote for this feature immediately :)
Mojca
Mojca Miklavec wrote:
On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 20:28, Albrecht Kauffmann wrote:
Hi all,
I have a question regarding natural tables: Would it be able to set the rulethickness parameter for one (e.g. the right) side of selected columns separately (e.g. "rulethickness_right=2pt")?
Not directly. One can misuse an empty column or use metafun to draw the background separately.
See http://www.vim.org/sponsor/vote_results.php
If there was something similar for ConTeXt, I would vote for this feature immediately :)
hm, yet another thing then to track ... also, having such a system would disable your private hot-line-get-me-this-feature priveliges so you'd better think twice
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 -----------------------------------------------------------------
On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Mojca Miklavec mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com wrote:
I have a question regarding natural tables: Would it be able to set the rulethickness parameter for one (e.g. the right) side of selected columns separately (e.g. "rulethickness_right=2pt")?
Not directly. One can misuse an empty column or use metafun to draw the background separately.
See http://www.vim.org/sponsor/vote_results.php
If there was something similar for ConTeXt, I would vote for this feature immediately :)
I would set offset parameters for all four margins before rule values but will us Hans ever grant this wish, it's been on the list from a lot of us for years.
Wolfgang
Wolfgang Schuster wrote:
On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Mojca Miklavec mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com wrote:
I have a question regarding natural tables: Would it be able to set the rulethickness parameter for one (e.g. the right) side of selected columns separately (e.g. "rulethickness_right=2pt")?
Not directly. One can misuse an empty column or use metafun to draw the background separately.
See http://www.vim.org/sponsor/vote_results.php
If there was something similar for ConTeXt, I would vote for this feature immediately :)
I would set offset parameters for all four margins before rule values but will us Hans ever grant this wish, it's been on the list from a lot of us for years.
indeed, but only because it has a speed penalty; maybe some day in mkiv only
----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------
Am 02.03.2009 um 11:41 schrieb Hans Hagen:
I would set offset parameters for all four margins before rule values but will us Hans ever grant this wish, it's been on the list from a lot of us for years.
indeed, but only because it has a speed penalty; maybe some day in mkiv only
Test file with 10.000 simple frames.
Unmodified \framed:
Output written on rul-test-5.pdf (1250 pages, 730030 bytes). Transcript written on rul-test-5.log. TeXExec | runtime: 10.023787
Modified \framed:
Output written on rul-test-5.pdf (1250 pages, 730030 bytes). Transcript written on rul-test-5.log. TeXExec | runtime: 10.524815
If you won't change the MkII version I can live with this but what speaks against a modification of the MkIV version. Don't say performance, MkIV is in many parts slower than MkII (e.g. buffers) but people who use don't care about this.
Wolfgang
On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 2:25 AM, Wolfgang Schuster schuster.wolfgang@googlemail.com wrote:
Am 02.03.2009 um 11:41 schrieb Hans Hagen:
I would set offset parameters for all four margins before rule values but will us Hans ever grant this wish, it's been on the list from a lot of us for years.
indeed, but only because it has a speed penalty; maybe some day in mkiv only
Test file with 10.000 simple frames.
Unmodified \framed:
Output written on rul-test-5.pdf (1250 pages, 730030 bytes). Transcript written on rul-test-5.log. TeXExec | runtime: 10.023787
Modified \framed:
Output written on rul-test-5.pdf (1250 pages, 730030 bytes). Transcript written on rul-test-5.log. TeXExec | runtime: 10.524815
If you won't change the MkII version I can live with this but what speaks against a modification of the MkIV version. Don't say performance, MkIV is in many parts slower than MkII (e.g. buffers) but people who use don't care about this.
And here are the times for MkIV.
Original core-rul: mkiv lua stats : runtime - 20.242 seconds, 1250 processed pages, 1250 shipped pages, 61.753 pages/second
Modified core-rul: mkiv lua stats : runtime - 22.108 seconds, 1250 processed pages, 1250 shipped pages, 56.541 pages/second
Wolfgang
Wolfgang Schuster wrote:
If you won't change the MkII version I can live with this but what speaks against a modification of the MkIV version. Don't say performance, MkIV is in many parts slower than MkII (e.g. buffers) but people who use don't care about this.
are you sure that it's slower with buffer? after all, we don't use files for buffers in mkiv
And here are the times for MkIV.
Original core-rul: mkiv lua stats : runtime - 20.242 seconds, 1250 processed pages, 1250 shipped pages, 61.753 pages/second
Modified core-rul: mkiv lua stats : runtime - 22.108 seconds, 1250 processed pages, 1250 shipped pages, 56.541 pages/second
Wolfgang ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Hans Hagen pragma@wxs.nl wrote:
If you won't change the MkII version I can live with this but what speaks against a modification of the MkIV version. Don't say performance, MkIV is in many parts slower than MkII (e.g. buffers) but people who use don't care about this.
are you sure that it's slower with buffer? after all, we don't use files for buffers in mkiv
Not really, I can't find my old test files and it can be a side effect of my test method.
Wolfgang
Wolfgang Schuster wrote:
On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 2:25 AM, Wolfgang Schuster schuster.wolfgang@googlemail.com wrote:
Am 02.03.2009 um 11:41 schrieb Hans Hagen:
I would set offset parameters for all four margins before rule values but will us Hans ever grant this wish, it's been on the list from a lot of us for years.
indeed, but only because it has a speed penalty; maybe some day in mkiv only
Test file with 10.000 simple frames.
Unmodified \framed:
Output written on rul-test-5.pdf (1250 pages, 730030 bytes). Transcript written on rul-test-5.log. TeXExec | runtime: 10.023787
Modified \framed:
Output written on rul-test-5.pdf (1250 pages, 730030 bytes). Transcript written on rul-test-5.log. TeXExec | runtime: 10.524815
If you won't change the MkII version I can live with this but what speaks against a modification of the MkIV version. Don't say performance, MkIV is in many parts slower than MkII (e.g. buffers) but people who use don't care about this.
And here are the times for MkIV.
Original core-rul: mkiv lua stats : runtime - 20.242 seconds, 1250 processed pages, 1250 shipped pages, 61.753 pages/second
Modified core-rul: mkiv lua stats : runtime - 22.108 seconds, 1250 processed pages, 1250 shipped pages, 56.541 pages/second
how did your test file + core-rul patch look (keep in mind that in official mkiv we use a different core-rul)
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 -----------------------------------------------------------------
On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 7:29 PM, Hans Hagen pragma@wxs.nl wrote:
how did your test file + core-rul patch look (keep in mind that in official mkiv we use a different core-rul)
Take a look at my files.
- rul-test-1 is used to show the different offset/rulethickness parameters - rul-test-5 calls just 10000 frames
I adapted my code slightly to work with MkIV.
Wolfgang
On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 20:28, Albrecht Kauffmann wrote:
Hi all,
I have a question regarding natural tables: Would it be able to set the rulethickness parameter for one (e.g. the right) side of selected columns separately (e.g. "rulethickness_right=2pt")?
You may try the attachment. It's a bit suboptimal, but kind-of-works. I don't know why the borders are not finished properly on edges.
Mojca
Mojca Miklavec schrieb:
On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 20:28, Albrecht Kauffmann wrote:
Hi all,
I have a question regarding natural tables: Would it be able to set the rulethickness parameter for one (e.g. the right) side of selected columns separately (e.g. "rulethickness_right=2pt")?
You may try the attachment. It's a bit suboptimal, but kind-of-works. I don't know why the borders are not finished properly on edges.
Just give the TABLE macro a chance to calculate the right total sizes.... :)
\setupTABLE[c][1,6][width=2pt,offset=overlay,rulethickness=2pt] \setupTABLE[r][1,3,6][height=2pt,offset=overlay,rulethickness=2pt]
Best wishes,
Peter
Mojca
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 7:56 PM, Piotr wrote:
For now I had quite some difficulties to find that proper Latex distribution
You only have MikTeX and TeX Live. (I used to be a big MikTeX fan. Not much difference, but MikTeX is more "user friendly" for my biased taste; sadly lacking ConTeXt at the moment.)
- a problem that actually led me to the existence of
ConTeXt. I am wondering which latex distribution I should choose in order to work with ConTeXt?
I like the wording a lot (which *LaTeX* distribution to choose) :) :) :)
There are three options: a) TeX Live b) MikTeX, but you need quite some manual tweaking and non-trivial settings to make ConTeXt run c) ConTeXt minimals (you can have them installed in addition to the other distribution), no LaTeX, but (almost) no GUI, frequent updates
Is there any point to have latex installed, when context can do the trick?
If you plan to use ConTeXt exclusively, you don't need to have LaTeX installed unless you compile other people's documents.
Or lets ask the devils advocate the other way around: What is the point of installing context, when latex could do the trick?
If LaTeX can do what you need, none ;) And I seriously mean it.
Apart that I have to re-learn latex anyway.. what is better with Context?
(others have answered rather well)
There was a mention of Latex beeing designed for mathematic purposes, while ConTeXt was said to be better suited for the intergration of graphics or larger/more complex layout changes.
Speaking with a bit of irony & highly biased:
In LaTeX you accept the fact that you cannot do any complex layout modifications. Consequently you don't even try to adapt anything, so you can devote more time to contents and don't need to fight with bugs (unless you start including > 5 packages :)
In ConTeXt it's easy to be more creative with layouts, easy to reach the limits of what's possible, but also possible to ask for adding some missing functionality and some bugs\footnote{also possible to ask to remove them of course} :) :) :) If you need some creative distraction while writing your thesis, you have just arrived to the perfect place :)
Mojca
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008, Piotr wrote:
Hello,
I have spent some time with google in order to find an answer to the following questions. Unfortunatly, I was not satisfied with the answers, which I now hope to find here.
It is my plan not to use the MS Office suite for the production of my PhD thesis (in chemistry). I have used Miktex some years ago during my studies for some project reports, and I remember beeing quite satisfied with the results. My Master thesis, on the other hand, I wrote in word.. and although I remember not having too many difficulties, there were some nasty obstacles to be overcome. Obstacles which I simply do not want to risk having repeated a second time on a much bigger scale. I this mailing list I read several reports of people who either had written their thesis in Latex or ConTeXt. There was a mention of Latex beeing designed for mathematic purposes, while ConTeXt was said to be better suited for the intergration of graphics or larger/more complex layout changes.
- Finding the right context
For now I had quite some difficulties to find that proper Latex distribution - a problem that actually led me to the existence of ConTeXt. I am wondering which latex distribution I should choose in order to work with ConTeXt? I am running Windows Vista (64-bit). Or is there a ConTeXt stand alone package that will absolutely satisfy my me in my needs? In principle, all I need is
- The right editor
What is the preferred editor for ConTeXt? for such a project? Is there any loss in functionality when using Texniccenter with ConTeXt than with MikTex instead?
Depends on what functions you need. There are a few editors which have basic support for ConTeXt (compile document, view pdf, jump to error, etc.). Hans uses Scite and includes a context enabled scite in the windows distribution available on prama-ade.com. Irdis has written support for Notepad++. Vim and emacs have some basic support. I do not know what features texniccenter and winedit provide for context.
- I have seen some thesis templates/examples in this mailinglist. Can
anyone point me to additional sources regarding the creation of a PhD Thesis with ConTeXt?
Each institute has different requirements for phd thesis, so one template is not going to fit the bill. I did my thesis in context, and you can have a look at the sources and the output:
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~adityam/publications/thesis/thesis.pdf http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~adityam/publications/thesis/thesis.tar.gz
The easier way to go about this will be to look at the formatting specifications of the thesis, and try to understand how to implement them in context one by one.
What is the advantage over Latex, what are the disadvantages? Is there a win-win distribution somewhere on the table?
Advantage: In most cases, others have written a style for what you want, so you don't have to create a style on your own.
Disadvantage: When you do have to create a style on your own, it can be difficult, even in packages which are supposed to be easy to configure
- Has anyone used a typesetting suite like ContTeXt with CVS?
As others have said, the source files are simply text files. So you can use any version control that you want.
- Is the ConTeXt reference system compatible with Endnote?
I have no experience with endnote. I have seen endnote to bibtex converters. If you can convert to bibtex, then using the references with context is relatively easy.
Is there any point to have latex installed, when context can do the trick?
As Mojca said, you may want to submit something to a journal which accepts latex files.
Or lets ask the devils advocate the other way around: What is the point of installing context, when latex could do the trick?
Again I agree with what Mojca said. If latex can do the job, use it. If you are happy with one of the defaul latex styles, do not use too many figures in your document, do not want text wrapping around figures, use latex.
Apart that I have to re-learn latex anyway.. what is better with Context?
Context has a more consistent interface to all the commands. This makes it easier to remember how to configure things.
Aditya
Hi Aditya,
I've tried compiling your thesis. It failed with;
texmfstart texexec "thesis.tex" TeXExec | processing document 'thesis.tex' TeXExec | no ctx file found TeXExec | tex processing method: context TeXExec | TeX run 1 TeXExec | writing option file thesis.top TeXExec | using randomseed 104 TeXExec | tex engine: luatex TeXExec | tex format: cont-en (thesis.tex
ConTeXt ver: 2008.09.16 15:06 MKIV fmt: 2008.9.16 int: english/english
language : language en is active system : cont-new loaded (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/cont-new.tex systems : beware: some patches loaded from cont-new.tex (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/cont-new.mkiv lua : used config path - C:/context/tex/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf lua : used cache path - C:/context/tex/texmf-cache/luatex-cache/context/2fea56f92e5267d7cc9662e4d5f52e1e ) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/cont-mtx.tex)) system : cont-old loaded (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/cont-old.tex loading : Context Old Macros ) system : cont-fil loaded (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/cont-fil.tex loading : Context File Synonyms ) system : cont-sys loaded (C:/context/tex/texmf-context/tex/context/user/cont-sys.tex (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-tmf.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-siz.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-otf.tex)) bodyfont : 12pt rm is loaded specials : tex loaded system : thesis.top loaded (thesis.top specials : loading definition file tpd (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/spec-tpd.tex specials : loading definition file fdf (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/spec-fdf.tex (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/spec-fdf.mkiv)) specials : fdf loaded (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/spec-tpd.mkiv)) specials : fdf loaded ) (thesis.tuo) (thesis.tuo) systems : begin file thesis at line 2 systems : begin file env-thesis at line 4 (env-thesis.tex system : module abr-aditya not found system : module bib loaded (t-bib.tex publications : loading formatting style from bibl-apa (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/bib/bibl-apa.tex) publications : loading database from thesis.bbl (thesis.bbl)) system : module ctags not found publications : loading formatting style from bibl-ssa (bibl-ssa.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-tmf.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-siz.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-otf.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-tmf.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-siz.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-otf.tex) (delicious.tex (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-tmf.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-siz.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-otf.tex) (delicious.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-tmf.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-siz.tex) (C:/context/tex/texmf-local/tex/context/base/type-otf.tex) (delicious.tex)) system : module mathsets not found ! Undefined control sequence. <recently read> \definemathset
l.377 \definemathset [EXP] [text={\doublestroke{E}}] ?
I removed the following from env-thesis.tex;
\definetypeface [mainface] [rm] [serif] [palatino] [default] [features=default] \definetypeface [mainface] [ss] [sans] [delicious] [default] [features=default, rscale=1.1] \definetypeface [mainface] [tt] [mono] [modern] [default] [features=default, rscale=1.1] \definetypeface [mainface] [mm] [math] [palatino] [default] [encoding=texnansi] %\definetypeface [mainface] [mm] [math] [euler] [euler] [encoding=texnansi, rscale=1.03]
\setupbodyfont[mainface,12pt]
Thanks Mohamed
Aditya Mahajan wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008, Piotr wrote:
Hello,
I have spent some time with google in order to find an answer to the following questions. Unfortunatly, I was not satisfied with the answers, which I now hope to find here.
It is my plan not to use the MS Office suite for the production of my PhD thesis (in chemistry). I have used Miktex some years ago during my studies for some project reports, and I remember beeing quite satisfied with the results. My Master thesis, on the other hand, I wrote in word.. and although I remember not having too many difficulties, there were some nasty obstacles to be overcome. Obstacles which I simply do not want to risk having repeated a second time on a much bigger scale. I this mailing list I read several reports of people who either had written their thesis in Latex or ConTeXt. There was a mention of Latex beeing designed for mathematic purposes, while ConTeXt was said to be better suited for the intergration of graphics or larger/more complex layout changes.
- Finding the right context
For now I had quite some difficulties to find that proper Latex distribution - a problem that actually led me to the existence of ConTeXt. I am wondering which latex distribution I should choose in order to work with ConTeXt? I am running Windows Vista (64-bit). Or is there a ConTeXt stand alone package that will absolutely satisfy my me in my needs? In principle, all I need is
- The right editor
What is the preferred editor for ConTeXt? for such a project? Is there any loss in functionality when using Texniccenter with ConTeXt than with MikTex instead?
Depends on what functions you need. There are a few editors which have basic support for ConTeXt (compile document, view pdf, jump to error, etc.). Hans uses Scite and includes a context enabled scite in the windows distribution available on prama-ade.com. Irdis has written support for Notepad++. Vim and emacs have some basic support. I do not know what features texniccenter and winedit provide for context.
- I have seen some thesis templates/examples in this mailinglist. Can
anyone point me to additional sources regarding the creation of a PhD Thesis with ConTeXt?
Each institute has different requirements for phd thesis, so one template is not going to fit the bill. I did my thesis in context, and you can have a look at the sources and the output:
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~adityam/publications/thesis/thesis.pdf http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~adityam/publications/thesis/thesis.tar.gz
The easier way to go about this will be to look at the formatting specifications of the thesis, and try to understand how to implement them in context one by one.
What is the advantage over Latex, what are the disadvantages? Is there a win-win distribution somewhere on the table?
Advantage: In most cases, others have written a style for what you want, so you don't have to create a style on your own.
Disadvantage: When you do have to create a style on your own, it can be difficult, even in packages which are supposed to be easy to configure
- Has anyone used a typesetting suite like ContTeXt with CVS?
As others have said, the source files are simply text files. So you can use any version control that you want.
- Is the ConTeXt reference system compatible with Endnote?
I have no experience with endnote. I have seen endnote to bibtex converters. If you can convert to bibtex, then using the references with context is relatively easy.
Is there any point to have latex installed, when context can do the trick?
As Mojca said, you may want to submit something to a journal which accepts latex files.
Or lets ask the devils advocate the other way around: What is the point of installing context, when latex could do the trick?
Again I agree with what Mojca said. If latex can do the job, use it. If you are happy with one of the defaul latex styles, do not use too many figures in your document, do not want text wrapping around figures, use latex.
Apart that I have to re-learn latex anyway.. what is better with Context?
Context has a more consistent interface to all the commands. This makes it easier to remember how to configure things.
Aditya ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
On Tue, 28 Oct 2008, Mohamed Bana wrote:
Hi Aditya,
I've tried compiling your thesis. It failed with;
There were a few modules which were missings from the zip file. I have created a new zip file with these files. I hope that everything should compile now.
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~adityam/publications/thesis/thesis.tar.gz
texmfstart texexec "thesis.tex"
system : module abr-aditya not found
I have added this
system : module ctags not found
This is harmless. A module that I wrote to write tag files for vim, but it does not work with MKIV.
system : module mathsets not found
I have added this. You can also download it from modules.contextgarden.net/mathsets.
Aditya
Aditya Mahajan wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008, Piotr wrote:
Hello,
I have spent some time with google in order to find an answer to the following questions. Unfortunatly, I was not satisfied with the answers, which I now hope to find here.
It is my plan not to use the MS Office suite for the production of my PhD thesis (in chemistry). I have used Miktex some years ago during my studies for some project reports, and I remember beeing quite satisfied with the results. My Master thesis, on the other hand, I wrote in word.. and although I remember not having too many difficulties, there were some nasty obstacles to be overcome. Obstacles which I simply do not want to risk having repeated a second time on a much bigger scale. I this mailing list I read several reports of people who either had written their thesis in Latex or ConTeXt. There was a mention of Latex beeing designed for mathematic purposes, while ConTeXt was said to be better suited for the intergration of graphics or larger/more complex layout changes.
- Finding the right context
For now I had quite some difficulties to find that proper Latex distribution - a problem that actually led me to the existence of ConTeXt. I am wondering which latex distribution I should choose in order to work with ConTeXt? I am running Windows Vista (64-bit). Or is there a ConTeXt stand alone package that will absolutely satisfy my me in my needs? In principle, all I need is
- The right editor
What is the preferred editor for ConTeXt? for such a project? Is there any loss in functionality when using Texniccenter with ConTeXt than with MikTex instead?
Depends on what functions you need. There are a few editors which have basic support for ConTeXt (compile document, view pdf, jump to error, etc.). Hans uses Scite and includes a context enabled scite in the windows distribution available on prama-ade.com. Irdis has written support for Notepad++. Vim and emacs have some basic support. I do not know what features texniccenter and winedit provide for context.
- I have seen some thesis templates/examples in this mailinglist. Can
anyone point me to additional sources regarding the creation of a PhD Thesis with ConTeXt?
Each institute has different requirements for phd thesis, so one template is not going to fit the bill. I did my thesis in context, and you can have a look at the sources and the output:
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~adityam/publications/thesis/thesis.pdf http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~adityam/publications/thesis/thesis.tar.gz
The easier way to go about this will be to look at the formatting specifications of the thesis, and try to understand how to implement them in context one by one.
What is the advantage over Latex, what are the disadvantages? Is there a win-win distribution somewhere on the table?
Advantage: In most cases, others have written a style for what you want, so you don't have to create a style on your own.
Disadvantage: When you do have to create a style on your own, it can be difficult, even in packages which are supposed to be easy to configure
- Has anyone used a typesetting suite like ContTeXt with CVS?
As others have said, the source files are simply text files. So you can use any version control that you want.
- Is the ConTeXt reference system compatible with Endnote?
I have no experience with endnote. I have seen endnote to bibtex converters. If you can convert to bibtex, then using the references with context is relatively easy.
Is there any point to have latex installed, when context can do the trick?
As Mojca said, you may want to submit something to a journal which accepts latex files.
Or lets ask the devils advocate the other way around: What is the point of installing context, when latex could do the trick?
Again I agree with what Mojca said. If latex can do the job, use it. If you are happy with one of the defaul latex styles, do not use too many figures in your document, do not want text wrapping around figures, use latex.
Apart that I have to re-learn latex anyway.. what is better with Context?
Context has a more consistent interface to all the commands. This makes it easier to remember how to configure things.
Aditya ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
As all the experts have answered your question, let a non-expert join in.
The single frustrating element of context is the documentation. I use context now for many years (not on a daily basis though) for writing journal papers, posters, presentations etc. I think it is a great package. and the community is very active in helping solving problems. But documentation is scattered in differnt pdf files, in different places. I am aware that writing good documentation (complete and self consistent) is time consuming and on first sight not rewarding.
Still the power of easy access to simple examples, templates, documentation (books or otherwise) is over whelming. One reach out to people like me who has no interest in hacking. And just wants to start with a some simple example that works and take it from there or have a book which explains. I am a a little disappointed that not more effort is put in making this available. I understand that when there is a bug it needs to be fixed, but it looks sometimes as if the next release is more important than training the novice. Remember, the enemy of a good package is a perfect one.
As I read yesterday in the list, if you as a dwarf can stand on the shoulders of giants you can look beyond what a giant can see. However, this assumes that you can look. And simple people like me needs to be guided by the giants first in order to be able to look.
so the bottom line: for me availability of lots of documentation (package documentation, books, white papers etc on different subjects by different authors), templates etc etc is the value of Latex over context.
But I am hope that soon this observations is obsolete.
cheers
stephen
Piotr wuscheln@googlemail.com 21/10/2008 19:56 >>>
Hello,
I have spent some time with google in order to find an answer to the following questions. Unfortunatly, I was not satisfied with the answers, which I now hope to find here.
It is my plan not to use the MS Office suite for the production of my PhD thesis (in chemistry). I have used Miktex some years ago during my studies for some project reports, and I remember beeing quite satisfied with the results. My Master thesis, on the other hand, I wrote in word.. and although I remember not having too many difficulties, there were some nasty obstacles to be overcome. Obstacles which I simply do not want to risk having repeated a second time on a much bigger scale. I this mailing list I read several reports of people who either had written their thesis in Latex or ConTeXt. There was a mention of Latex beeing designed for mathematic purposes, while ConTeXt was said to be better suited for the intergration of graphics or larger/more complex layout changes.
1) Finding the right context For now I had quite some difficulties to find that proper Latex distribution - a problem that actually led me to the existence of ConTeXt. I am wondering which latex distribution I should choose in order to work with ConTeXt? I am running Windows Vista (64-bit). Or is there a ConTeXt stand alone package that will absolutely satisfy my me in my needs? In principle, all I need is
2) The right editor What is the preferred editor for ConTeXt? for such a project? Is there any loss in functionality when using Texniccenter with ConTeXt than with MikTex instead?
3) I have seen some thesis templates/examples in this mailinglist. Can anyone point me to additional sources regarding the creation of a PhD Thesis with ConTeXt? What is the advantage over Latex, what are the disadvantages? Is there a win-win distribution somewhere on the table?
4) Has anyone used a typesetting suite like ContTeXt with CVS?
5) Is the ConTeXt reference system compatible with Endnote?
Is there any point to have latex installed, when context can do the trick? Or lets ask the devils advocate the other way around: What is the point of installing context, when latex could do the trick? Apart that I have to re-learn latex anyway.. what is better with Context?
Regards,
Piotr Jakubowicz ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
Am 22.10.2008 um 09:13 schrieb Stephen A. Tjemkes:
As all the experts have answered your question, let a non-expert join in.
The single frustrating element of context is the documentation. I use context now for many years (not on a daily basis though) for writing journal papers, posters, presentations etc. I think it is a great package. and the community is very active in helping solving problems. But documentation is scattered in differnt pdf files, in different places.
Either there are secret goodies that I don't know or you are just wrong!
You can have it all by using one adress (how can this be more comfortable with LaTeX?):
That's it.
Here you can get further to ...
- all manuals authored by PRAGMA: http://wiki.contextgarden.net/The_ConTeXt_Way -> http://www.pragma-ade.com/show-mag-1.htm - all docs written by Hans: http://wiki.contextgarden.net/This_Way - all doc written by users: http://wiki.contextgarden.net/My_Way - all the email ever written on this list: http://archive.contextgarden.net/splash/index.html - all the source ConTeXt is: http://source.contextgarden.net/
Think of contextgarden being the documentation and these above being chapters.
You only have to turn the pages by yourself ... is this asked too much?!
Steffen
Steffen Wolfrum context@st.estfiles.de writes:
Am 22.10.2008 um 09:13 schrieb Stephen A. Tjemkes:
As all the experts have answered your question, let a non-expert join in.
The single frustrating element of context is the documentation. I use context now for many years (not on a daily basis though) for writing journal papers, posters, presentations etc. I think it is a great package. and the community is very active in helping solving problems. But documentation is scattered in differnt pdf files, in different places.
Either there are secret goodies that I don't know or you are just wrong!
You can have it all by using one adress (how can this be more comfortable with LaTeX?):
That's it.
Here you can get further to ...
- all manuals authored by PRAGMA: http://wiki.contextgarden.net/The_ConTeXt_Way -> http://www.pragma-ade.com/show-mag-1.htm
- all docs written by Hans: http://wiki.contextgarden.net/This_Way
- all doc written by users: http://wiki.contextgarden.net/My_Way
- all the email ever written on this list: http://archive.contextgarden.net/splash/index.html
- all the source ConTeXt is: http://source.contextgarden.net/
Think of contextgarden being the documentation and these above being chapters.
You only have to turn the pages by yourself ... is this asked too much?!
I am a happy context user for several years and have read all the documentation.
But one thing I still find is that the documentation for a command (when it exists at all) can list 20 parameters, of which only a couple are explained. I often still have no idea what the others do. The meaning may be obvious to typography or tex professionals, but not to me unfortunately. If they have standard meanings perhaps they could be hyperlinked to an explanation page?
On Wed, Oct 22 2008, John Devereux wrote:
But one thing I still find is that the documentation for a command (when it exists at all) can list 20 parameters, of which only a couple are explained. I often still have no idea what the others do. The meaning may be obvious to typography or tex professionals, but not to me unfortunately. If they have standard meanings perhaps they could be hyperlinked to an explanation page?
Indeed. One thing is still missing: the complete ConTeXt reference manual, in other words "texshow" in form of a book and complete. Complete means: - description of every command - description of every parameter - description of every possible value for a parameter - examples
This is work in progress: http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextman
Cheers, Peter
On Wednesday 22 October 2008 09:13:20 Stephen A. Tjemkes wrote:
The single frustrating element of context is the documentation. I use context now for many years (not on a daily basis though) for writing journal papers, posters, presentations etc. I think it is a great package. and the community is very active in helping solving problems. But documentation is scattered in differnt pdf files, in different places. I am aware that writing good documentation (complete and self consistent) is time consuming and on first sight not rewarding.
The context manuals need to be updated and completed. The wiki is a good (dynamic) source of information, but this lacks the structuring of written manuals. I believe that people are working on this, both trying to structure the wiki as well as to revise the manuals, unless I am mistaken. Good documentation is a lot of work, but I believe that it is (almost) as important as good programming...
My question to the mailing list: is this task structured? Is this being managed by anyone?
Perhaps this was discussed at the User Meeting last August. I would have liked to participate (had I been available)...
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, Alan BRASLAU wrote:
My question to the mailing list: is this task structured? Is this being managed by anyone?
Unfortunately, not. Taco started working on the documentation and spent more than a month rewriting the font documentation. Most of the old manual is now under svn with a open documentation license, so anyone can contribute. See http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextman/ for details. But, Taco is busy with luatex, and no one else has contributed much (note to self: look at the documentation again).
I had decided to work on the wiki, but only thing that I have done so far is reorganize the front page. I have been thinking about working on the installation page, but ... (insert favorite excuse)
Perhaps this was discussed at the User Meeting last August. I would have liked to participate (had I been available)...
It was discussed extensively. From what I understood, the conclusion was that someone from the community needs to take the initiative to *maintain* the manuals. Take the big manual for example. It is fairly complete, but some of the documentation is outdated (e.g., it recommends \setupindenting[big] instead of \setupindenting[big,yes], there are a few more options that have been added to itemize, descriptions, enumerations, etc.). So, in most cases, only minor corrections are needed to bring it up to date.
We need someone to go through the manual, point out which parts are not clear and check if all the commands work as presented. And try to correct things if possible, or ask on the mailing list for someone else to correct certain sections. Someone needs to manage the whole process. Hans and Taco do not have the time to maintain the documentation. So far, no one has taken this responsibility. One does not have to be a context expert to do this. Just be able to devote some time to the documentation every other week or so.
I feel that one area where context documentation is lacking is that most of the documentation is by Hans. In Latex, there are many introductory documentations by different authors. This is useful, because everyone has a different style of presentation, and different users may find some styles easier to understand than others. Right now, if someone does not like Hans's style of writing, he/she is stuck. We need more people to write about ConTeXt.
Aditya
Hi,
Aditya Mahajan wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, Alan BRASLAU wrote:
My question to the mailing list: is this task structured? Is this being managed by anyone?
Unfortunately, not.
Aditya's reply sums it up pretty well. I just want to add a quick note.
After at least half a dozen reiterations of this discussion (and it is indeed always exactly the same discussion), I have now reached the point where I no longer feel the slightest need to take any action any more. From where I stand, it seems that the unhappy people just want to complain about, but are not willing to help improve the existing documentation, and that the happy people just want to post pointers but fail to see a real need to improve anything.
I myself would be much more willing to spend time on (managing|writing) the manual if there were any people showing an active interest in it.
Best wishes, Taco
Taco Hoekwater taco@elvenkind.com writes:
Hi,
Aditya Mahajan wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, Alan BRASLAU wrote:
My question to the mailing list: is this task structured? Is this being managed by anyone?
Unfortunately, not.
Aditya's reply sums it up pretty well. I just want to add a quick note.
After at least half a dozen reiterations of this discussion (and it is indeed always exactly the same discussion), I have now reached the point where I no longer feel the slightest need to take any action any more. From where I stand, it seems that the unhappy people just want to complain about, but are not willing to help improve the existing documentation, and that the happy people just want to post pointers but fail to see a real need to improve anything.
I myself would be much more willing to spend time on (managing|writing) the manual if there were any people showing an active interest in it.
I myself am very interested in *reading* it - I was delighted to see the new fonts chapter and the new documention project in general. But I am not sure I can contribute much. I am much more of a "consumer" than a "producer", of accurate information. Partly due to lack of time, but also lack of knowledge :)
Hi,
John Devereux wrote:
I myself am very interested in *reading* it - I was delighted to see the new fonts chapter and the new documention project in general. But I am not sure I can contribute much. I am much more of a "consumer" than a "producer", of accurate information. Partly due to lack of time, but also lack of knowledge :)
There actually is something you (and everybody else) can do: provide feedback on the current version of the manual(s). For example, it would be nice to know whether there are errors or unclarities in it (or omissions, but that actually does require knowledge).
For an easy start, the two pdfs of the "typography" and "fonts" chapters are on-line:
http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en/co-typography.... http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en/co-fonts.pdf
The other chapters are a bit harder to comment on because (currently) you have to be able to compile the manual yourself to read the pdfs. Anyway, in and below the same folder are all needed sources:
http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en
(Maybe someone could put the current full pdf online somewhere?)
There also is a mailing list specifically about the new manual:
http://lists.foundry.supelec.fr/mailman/listinfo/contextman-reference
Best wishes, Taco
Hi,
Taco Hoekwater wrote:
Hi,
John Devereux wrote:
There actually is something you (and everybody else) can do: provide feedback on the current version of the manual(s). For example, it would be nice to know whether there are errors or unclarities in it (or omissions, but that actually does require knowledge).
I am very much a ConTeXt beginner and so I don't feel capable of reading the documentation to find ConTeXt-related errors or omissions. However, I would be glad to help by looking for typos, spelling errors, etc. (Actually, I rarely find spelling errors in the documentation but sometimes I see phrasing and grammar that isn't wrong, but "sounds funny" to a native English speaker.)
Due to a long commute on the train I find myself with plenty of time for reading, so I'd be glad to help in any way I can. I am sorry that you have felt unsupported in your efforts to update the documentation; I am one of the users who (silently) wishes for more up to date documents but has done nothing to help.
For an easy start, the two pdfs of the "typography" and "fonts" chapters are on-line:
http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en/co-typography.... http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en/co-fonts.pdf
I will start with these.
The other chapters are a bit harder to comment on because (currently) you have to be able to compile the manual yourself to read the pdfs.
Perhaps someone who is able to compile the manual could upload pdf copies?
Best wishes, Taco
Thanks for all your work on ConTeXt, Taco (and Hans of course, along with Aditya, Wolfgang, et al.)
Rory
Dnia Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 05:38:44PM +0200, Taco Hoekwater napisał(a):
Hi,
John Devereux wrote:
I myself am very interested in *reading* it - I was delighted to see the new fonts chapter and the new documention project in general. But I am not sure I can contribute much. I am much more of a "consumer" than a "producer", of accurate information. Partly due to lack of time, but also lack of knowledge :)
There actually is something you (and everybody else) can do: provide feedback on the current version of the manual(s). For example, it would be nice to know whether there are errors or unclarities in it (or omissions, but that actually does require knowledge).
For an easy start, the two pdfs of the "typography" and "fonts" chapters are on-line:
http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en/co-typography.... http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en/co-fonts.pdf
The other chapters are a bit harder to comment on because (currently) you have to be able to compile the manual yourself to read the pdfs. Anyway, in and below the same folder are all needed sources:
http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en
(Maybe someone could put the current full pdf online somewhere?)
There also is a mailing list specifically about the new manual:
http://lists.foundry.supelec.fr/mailman/listinfo/contextman-reference
Best wishes, Taco
Wow! You've answered my questions even before I asked them!!!
//TeX hacking is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be, ekhm, unnatural.//
(Not really a SW fan, but I just couldn't resist;).)
On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 12:30 AM, Marcin Borkowski < mbork@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
Dnia Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 05:38:44PM +0200, Taco Hoekwater napisał(a):
Hi,
John Devereux wrote:
I myself am very interested in *reading* it - I was delighted to see the new fonts chapter and the new documention project in general. But I am not sure I can contribute much. I am much more of a "consumer" than a "producer", of accurate information. Partly due to lack of time, but also lack of knowledge :)
There actually is something you (and everybody else) can do: provide feedback on the current version of the manual(s). For example, it would be nice to know whether there are errors or unclarities in it (or omissions, but that actually does require knowledge).
For an easy start, the two pdfs of the "typography" and "fonts" chapters are on-line:
http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en/co-typography....
http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en/co-fonts.pdf
Also see http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2008/talks/2008-08-24-taco-typescripts/libe...
I like the manuals very much (!), yet I have found that I must also turn to the wiki, google, browsing the source code or this mailing list to answer some of my questions. I have now reached a point on the learning curve were I really appreciate the careful design that has gone into context, and would really like to see the manuals updated. I did not contribute to this discussion to complain and would be willing to participate (modestly, with the little time available, as is the case for everyone!).
Taco has gotten to the point that someone must manage the rewriting of the documentation, but other help is also needed. Once I learn how to download and compile the complete sources, I will then see where I feel that I might have enough knowledge to do (a little) something...
Alan
On Thursday 23 October 2008 16:37:23 Taco Hoekwater wrote:
Hi,
Aditya Mahajan wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, Alan BRASLAU wrote:
My question to the mailing list: is this task structured? Is this being managed by anyone?
Unfortunately, not.
Aditya's reply sums it up pretty well. I just want to add a quick note.
After at least half a dozen reiterations of this discussion (and it is indeed always exactly the same discussion), I have now reached the point where I no longer feel the slightest need to take any action any more. From where I stand, it seems that the unhappy people just want to complain about, but are not willing to help improve the existing documentation, and that the happy people just want to post pointers but fail to see a real need to improve anything.
I myself would be much more willing to spend time on (managing|writing) the manual if there were any people showing an active interest in it.
Best wishes, Taco
Dnia Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 04:37:23PM +0200, Taco Hoekwater napisał(a):
Hi,
Aditya Mahajan wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, Alan BRASLAU wrote:
My question to the mailing list: is this task structured? Is this being managed by anyone?
Unfortunately, not.
Aditya's reply sums it up pretty well. I just want to add a quick note.
After at least half a dozen reiterations of this discussion (and it is indeed always exactly the same discussion), I have now reached the point where I no longer feel the slightest need to take any action any more. From where I stand, it seems that the unhappy people just want to complain about, but are not willing to help improve the existing documentation, and that the happy people just want to post pointers but fail to see a real need to improve anything.
I'm (relatively) new here (I've been subscribed to the list for a few years, but only recently started to use ConTeXt more seriously), but I'd like to take the risk and add my point of view.
I miss a good documentation *a lot*. OTOH, if I were to choose among the uber-community and uber-manual, I'd prefer the first one (maybe that's why people prefer the status quo;)).
I would love to help improve the existing docs, though. Having uber-manuals *and* uber-community would smash this poor LaTeX-thing out of the market;P.
The question is: what do I do? I post something to the wiki from time to time, but I don't want to engage myself too much - I'm currently involved in at least one *big* project (which is, btw, connected with writing some LaTeX document classes); together with my work (doing and teaching mathematics) this takes *a lot* of time... What's more, I can't really help writing manuals for something I don't completely understand...
I myself would be much more willing to spend time on (managing|writing) the manual if there were any people showing an active interest in it.
Assume that I finally learn how to use that SVN thing and that I try (in some indefinite time, though) post my remarks on the existing docs, my examples of files so that they could be either introduced into the manuals or deemed non-ConTeXt-esque enough;) or my suggestions of rewriting something: would this help?
And a general remark: of course, my point is not to wipe out LaTeX. It has its place. But popularizing ConTeXt would be great (and I'm doing it all the time among my friends!). And good manuals are a *must* then... Obviously, writing a good manual takes really much time (and from some point of view is harder than actually writing code, I guess - it's very similar in maths, when it's way easier to jot down some notes for yourself than to prepare some proof for actual publication...) As I said before (in another post), it's completely obvious for me that neither Hans nor you, Taco, have time for writing a good documentation...
Best wishes, Taco
Best,
-
Aditya Mahajan -
Alan BRASLAU -
Albrecht Kauffmann -
Diego Depaoli -
Gour -
Hans Hagen -
Henning Hraban Ramm -
Jeff Smith -
John Devereux -
luigi scarso -
Marcin Borkowski -
Mohamed Bana -
Mojca Miklavec -
Peter Münster -
Peter Rolf -
Piotr -
Rory Molinari -
Steffen Wolfrum -
Stephen A. Tjemkes -
Taco Hoekwater -
Thomas Floeren -
Wolfgang Schuster