Sorry everyone, ignore me, it doesn't work. (Got my test files mixed up - aargh!)

On 21 Mar 2023, at 11:06, Bruce Horrocks via ntg-context wrote:

Thanks Julian - I tried a startstop environment originally but it didn't work.

The answer turns out to be trivial - just needed to use \long\def for \stoptabulate so the following appears to work:

\def\startMyExample{\starttabulate[|r|c|l|p|]} \long\def\stopMyExample{\stoptabulate} %% long def required here \def\MyExampleItem#1#2#3{\NC #1 \NC \rightarrow \NC #2 \NC #3 \NC\NR}

\starttext Here are some examples...

\startMyExample \MyExampleItem{before}{after}{change before into after} \MyExampleItem{straw}{gold}{Rumpelstiltskin} \stoptabulate

\stoptext

...

On 21 Mar 2023, at 05:23, jbf via ntg-context wrote:

Not sure if this helps, Bruce, but there is \definestartstop

Julian

On 21/3/23 10:34, Bruce Horrocks via ntg-context wrote:

...

I have a technical manual style document that requires a lot of examples to be included.

They can easily be typeset with a table so I thought I would save myself some typing by defining macros for the various bits of a tabulate table. Thus I have:

\def\startMyExample{\starttabulate[|r|c|l|p|]} \def\stopMyExample{\stoptabulate} \def\MyExampleItem#1#2#3{\NC #1 \NC \rightarrow \NC #2 \NC #3 \NC\NR}

\starttext Here are some examples...

\startMyExample \MyExampleItem{before}{after}{change before into after} \MyExampleItem{straw}{gold}{Rumpelstiltskin} \stopMyExample %\stoptabulate

\stoptext

The problem is that \stopMyExample doesn't work - the \stoptabulate isn't recognised and I get an end of file reached error. If use a straight \stoptabulate then it works as expected. That's fine but it would be nice, from an aesthetic point of view, to have start & stop 'paired' commands in the source.

Presumably some sort of deep ConTeXt fu is going on - can anyone explain it please?

Regards, — Bruce Horrocks Hampshire, UK

— Bruce Horrocks Hampshire, UK

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— Bruce Horrocks Hampshire, UK