Re: [NTG-context] Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

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Henry House

12 Mar 2011 12 Mar '11

4:35 p.m.

Procházka Lukáš wrote: [...]

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5) how to better promote context to new/latex users?

For LaTeX incomers: it would be good to provide a sample setup (module?) which would make Ctx generated .pdf looking very closely to that been generated by LaTeX.

Now, if you see a .pdf document and you are familiar with LaTeX, you recognize immediately whether or not it was generated by LaTeX (Word's signature is also unmatchable).

If you create a first document with ConTeXt (moreover when migrating from LaTeX), you probably won't be satisfied with the default look (letters too big, heads not bold, spacing before/after heads too different from LaTeX's; and the LaTeX default document looks very "symphonic" in my opinion) (but also I can imagine that many Ctx defaults cannot be changed due to backward compatibility reasons).

The perfect feature of ConTeXt is that all these features may be systematically altered (often [almost] impossible in LaTeX) but you must search enough and study (and maybe ask the forum) to get the result which would fulfil your aesthetic requirements.

I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally well-commented so that it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the style of LaTeX would be helpful. The appearance of LaTeX documents isn't perfect but it produces reasonably high-quality results suitable for complex technical documents right out of the box of the box without any tweaking, whereas ConTeXt requires (at least it did for me) some trouble to set it up for the first time. To some extent this is not because of the merit of the LaTeX design itself but the fact that it is familiar and therefore highly readable to someone used to reading it. It is also the point of departure for a LaTeX user wanting to convert to using ConTeXt; hence, i would imagine many such people would prefer to tweak a LaTeX-like document appearance to better suit their needs rather than starting with something quite different. Certainly, this was the case for me; being basically satisfied with my LaTeX documents but wanting more control and the option to use the advanced features of ConTeXt. Having sample set-up code that emulated LaTeX would have eased the initial transition for me.

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Taco Hoekwater

13 Mar 13 Mar

12:54 a.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

On 03/13/2011 12:35 AM, Henry House wrote:

...

Procházka Lukáš wrote: [...]

...
...
5) how to better promote context to new/latex users?

For LaTeX incomers: it would be good to provide a sample setup (module?) which would make Ctx generated .pdf looking very closely to that been generated by LaTeX.

Now, if you see a .pdf document and you are familiar with LaTeX, you recognize immediately whether or not it was generated by LaTeX (Word's signature is also unmatchable).

If you create a first document with ConTeXt (moreover when migrating from LaTeX), you probably won't be satisfied with the default look (letters too big, heads not bold, spacing before/after heads too different from LaTeX's; and the LaTeX default document looks very "symphonic" in my opinion) (but also I can imagine that many Ctx defaults cannot be changed due to backward compatibility reasons).

The perfect feature of ConTeXt is that all these features may be systematically altered (often [almost] impossible in LaTeX) but you must search enough and study (and maybe ask the forum) to get the result which would fulfil your aesthetic requirements.

I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally well-commented so that it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the style of LaTeX would be helpful. The appearance of LaTeX documents isn't perfect but it produces reasonably high-quality results suitable for complex technical documents right out of the box of the box without any tweaking, whereas ConTeXt requires (at least it did for me) some trouble to set it up for the first time.

First, let me say that I don't agree that the default LaTeX appearance is high-quality at all. To me, it looks like crap, and IIRC Lamport actually designed it 'ugly' with to encourage people to create something better looking themselves. Of course most people don't bother (which is typical and he could have seen that coming) but still... The same applies to the default context setup: it is also too ugly to be used for real world documents, and nevertheless many people leave it as is. This means that (for both LaTeX and ConTeXt) the defaults cannot be changed any more because of portability problems in existing documents. But nothing is to stop anybody from creating a different class file for LaTeX or a different module/environment for ConTeXt that produces something 'better'. So, if the intent is to lure people away from LaTeX, why not create a set of environment files to mimic LaTeX's article/book/report and upload them to the garden? Best wishes, Taco

Thomas Schmitz

3 a.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

On Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:35:54 -0800 Henry House wrote:

...

I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally well-commented so that it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the style of LaTeX would be helpful. The appearance of LaTeX documents isn't perfect but it produces reasonably high-quality results suitable for complex technical documents right out of the box of the box without any tweaking, whereas ConTeXt requires (at least it did for me) some trouble to set it up for the first time. To some extent this is not because of the merit of the LaTeX design itself but the fact that it is familiar and therefore highly readable to someone used to reading it. It is also the point of departure for a LaTeX user wanting to convert to using ConTeXt; hence, i would imagine many such people would prefer to tweak a LaTeX-like document appearance to better suit their needs rather than starting with something quite different. Certainly, this was the case for me; being basically satisfied with my LaTeX documents but wanting more control and the option to use the advanced features of ConTeXt. Having sample set-up code that emulated LaTeX would have eased the initial transition for me.

Pardon my French, but this thread is getting less and less useful, probably because it addresses too many issues at a time. It is rapidly degenerating from a "how to restructure the garden" into a "things I wish others would do so my life becomes easier." If someone says "I added a section to the wiki which explains which ConTeXt settings will give a document equivalent to LaTeX XXX class," fine - I would consider this superfluous, but it may help some people. But even strongly agreeing that somebody else should write a tutorial isn't getting any work done. And the assumption that most or all ConTeXt users are, at their heart, LaTeX renegades is not true, I think. Many advanced users haven't used LaTeX ever or in a long time and wouldn't want to waste their time on learning it just for the sake of such a comparison. Sorry for being so blunt, but I think this will be more helpful if we stay focussed. Thomas

pmlists＠free.fr

5:43 a.m.

New subject: "latex style" (was : Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?)

Henry House writes:

...

I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally well-commented so that it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the style of LaTeX would be helpful.

If you agree, that http://pmrb.free.fr/work/OS/ConTeXt/arbeit.pdf is standard latex style (or koma-script, I don't remember...), then you could use http://pmrb.free.fr/work/OS/ConTeXt/e-phd.tex as starting point. I don't know how useful it is today, perhaps it's completely outdated... -- Peter

Aditya Mahajan

2:34 p.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

On Sat, 12 Mar 2011, Henry House wrote:

...

Procházka Lukáš wrote: [...]

...
...
5) how to better promote context to new/latex users?

For LaTeX incomers: it would be good to provide a sample setup (module?) which would make Ctx generated .pdf looking very closely to that been generated by LaTeX.

Now, if you see a .pdf document and you are familiar with LaTeX, you recognize immediately whether or not it was generated by LaTeX (Word's signature is also unmatchable).

I don't think that we should try to copy that style.

...

...
The perfect feature of ConTeXt is that all these features may be systematically altered (often [almost] impossible in LaTeX) but you must search enough and study (and maybe ask the forum) to get the result which would fulfil your aesthetic requirements.

I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally well-commented so that it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the style of LaTeX would be helpful.

A better idea will be to show how to create ConTeXt style files for well defined styles e.g., style for some journal, say AMS or IEEE, or even the style of LaTeX (if someone can point out its exact specification)

...

The appearance of LaTeX documents isn't perfect but it produces reasonably high-quality results suitable for complex technical documents right out of the box of the box without any tweaking, whereas ConTeXt requires (at least it did for me) some trouble to set it up for the first time. To some extent this is not because of the merit of the LaTeX design itself but the fact that it is familiar and therefore highly readable to someone used to reading it. It is also the point of departure for a LaTeX user wanting to convert to using ConTeXt; hence, i would imagine many such people would prefer to tweak a LaTeX-like document appearance to better suit their needs rather than starting with something quite different. Certainly, this was the case for me; being basically satisfied with my LaTeX documents but wanting more control and the option to use the advanced features of ConTeXt. Having sample set-up code that emulated LaTeX would have eased the initial transition for me.

I agree, partially. One of the difficulties in getting a good design with ConTeXt is that you should know what a good design is! It you have a pre-specified style guideline, then it is easy to reproduce it in ConTeXt. If not, you can be stuck up experimenting whether you the space above a section be twice as big the space below it or the other way round. Aditya

Alasdair McAndrew

6:07 p.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

Speaking as a raw ConTeXt beginner, I would find it very helpful to have a library of different styles: LaTeX, journal, conference and book styles. Although all the information is probably there, it is very scattered around though manuals, the wiki, and other documents, and so is in consequence not always easy to find. cheers, Alasdair On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 7:34 AM, Aditya Mahajan wrote:

...

On Sat, 12 Mar 2011, Henry House wrote:

Procházka Lukáš wrote:

...
[...]

...
5) how to better promote context to new/latex users?

...
For LaTeX incomers: it would be good to provide a sample setup (module?) which would make Ctx generated .pdf looking very closely to that been generated by LaTeX.

Now, if you see a .pdf document and you are familiar with LaTeX, you recognize immediately whether or not it was generated by LaTeX (Word's signature is also unmatchable).

I don't think that we should try to copy that style.

The perfect feature of ConTeXt is that all these features may be

...
...
systematically altered (often [almost] impossible in LaTeX) but you must search enough and study (and maybe ask the forum) to get the result which would fulfil your aesthetic requirements.

I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally well-commented so that it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the style of LaTeX would be helpful.

A better idea will be to show how to create ConTeXt style files for well defined styles e.g., style for some journal, say AMS or IEEE, or even the style of LaTeX (if someone can point out its exact specification)

The appearance of LaTeX documents isn't perfect but it

...
produces reasonably high-quality results suitable for complex technical documents right out of the box of the box without any tweaking, whereas ConTeXt requires (at least it did for me) some trouble to set it up for the first time. To some extent this is not because of the merit of the LaTeX design itself but the fact that it is familiar and therefore highly readable to someone used to reading it. It is also the point of departure for a LaTeX user wanting to convert to using ConTeXt; hence, i would imagine many such people would prefer to tweak a LaTeX-like document appearance to better suit their needs rather than starting with something quite different. Certainly, this was the case for me; being basically satisfied with my LaTeX documents but wanting more control and the option to use the advanced features of ConTeXt. Having sample set-up code that emulated LaTeX would have eased the initial transition for me.

I agree, partially. One of the difficulties in getting a good design with ConTeXt is that you should know what a good design is! It you have a pre-specified style guideline, then it is easy to reproduce it in ConTeXt. If not, you can be stuck up experimenting whether you the space above a section be twice as big the space below it or the other way round.

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 : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net

___________________________________________________________________________________

-- Blog: http://amca01.wordpress.com Web: http://bit.ly/Alasdair Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/alasdair.mcandrew

Aditya Mahajan

9:12 p.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Alasdair McAndrew wrote:

...

Speaking as a raw ConTeXt beginner, I would find it very helpful to have a library of different styles: LaTeX, journal, conference and book styles. Although all the information is probably there, it is very scattered around though manuals, the wiki, and other documents, and so is in consequence not always easy to find.

Why don't you create a wiki page with the **exact** specifications. Then others can write the ConTeXt code to show how to achieve that specification. We can perhaps have a cookbook section on the wiki, which can use these specification as exercises. Without the exact specification, it is very difficult to understand what a "journal" style or a "book" style means. Not all journals and books have the same style. Aditya

Philipp Gesang

14 Mar 14 Mar

4:42 a.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

On 2011-03-13 <23:12:36>, Aditya Mahajan wrote:

...

On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Alasdair McAndrew wrote:

...
Speaking as a raw ConTeXt beginner, I would find it very helpful to have a library of different styles: LaTeX, journal, conference and book styles. Although all the information is probably there, it is very scattered around though manuals, the wiki, and other documents, and so is in consequence not always easy to find.

Why don't you create a wiki page with the **exact** specifications. Then others can write the ConTeXt code to show how to achieve that specification.

...

We can perhaps have a cookbook section on the wiki, which can use these specification as exercise.

+1, best idea so far. Not only regarding latex-specific commonplaces but for typographical tasks in general (along the lines of “how I implemented Bringhurst’s chapter enumeration” &c.). Would it suffice to just create another wiki namespace like the command reference has? (Entries should have a date stamp and state the context version they were written for.) Philipp

...

Without the exact specification, it is very difficult to understand what a "journal" style or a "book" style means. Not all journals and books have the same style.

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 : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________

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mathew

13 Mar 13 Mar

9:32 p.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 19:07, Alasdair McAndrew wrote:

...

Speaking as a raw ConTeXt beginner, I would find it very helpful to have a library of different styles: LaTeX, journal, conference and book styles.

This is what I've been setting out to do, build a set of examples. So far I've got a custom font example (posted for comment last week) and a personal letter template. I looked at the letter package, but that's far too general. I wanted something simple and self-contained that I could take and modify, not a framework. So yes, a set of examples of layouts is exactly what I would be likely to use myself. mathew

Alasdair McAndrew

10:21 p.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

For example. the LaTeX ieee.sty is available at http://delphiwww.cern.ch/delphi$www/private/det/stc/ieee94/mp/ieee.sty and ACM styles at http://www.acm.org/publications/latex_style/. How hard would it be to emulate these in ConTeXt? -Alasdair On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 2:32 PM, mathew wrote:

...

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 19:07, Alasdair McAndrew wrote:

...
Speaking as a raw ConTeXt beginner, I would find it very helpful to have a library of different styles: LaTeX, journal, conference and book styles.

This is what I've been setting out to do, build a set of examples. So far I've got a custom font example (posted for comment last week) and a personal letter template.

I looked at the letter package, but that's far too general. I wanted something simple and self-contained that I could take and modify, not a framework.

So yes, a set of examples of layouts is exactly what I would be likely to use myself.

mathew

___________________________________________________________________________________ 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 : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net

___________________________________________________________________________________

-- Blog: http://amca01.wordpress.com Web: http://bit.ly/Alasdair Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/alasdair.mcandrew

Aditya Mahajan

10:54 p.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Alasdair McAndrew wrote:

...

For example. the LaTeX ieee.sty is available at http://delphiwww.cern.ch/delphi$www/private/det/stc/ieee94/mp/ieee.sty and ACM styles at http://www.acm.org/publications/latex_style/. How hard would it be to emulate these in ConTeXt?

The hard part is figuring out the values (font size, spaces after sections, etc) from the LaTeX code. It is difficult to look at http://mirror.hmc.edu/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/IEEEtran.cls and figure out what is the title size for a 10pt document, or how much space should come between the author block and the start of the two column text, etc. Reverse engineering these values is no fun. That is why I am saying that an *exact and complete* spec is needed. Aditya

Alasdair McAndrew

14 Mar 14 Mar

12:33 a.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

Yes, I see that would be a non-trivial problem. Maybe as a stop-gap some ConTeXt files could be provided which at least roughly emulate a few standard LaTeX styles? -Alasdair On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 3:54 PM, Aditya Mahajan wrote:

...

On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Alasdair McAndrew wrote:

For example. the LaTeX ieee.sty is available at

...
http://delphiwww.cern.ch/delphi$www/private/det/stc/ieee94/mp/ieee.styand ACM styles at http://www.acm.org/publications/latex_style/. How hard would it be to emulate these in ConTeXt?

The hard part is figuring out the values (font size, spaces after sections, etc) from the LaTeX code. It is difficult to look at http://mirror.hmc.edu/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/IEEEtran.cls and figure out what is the title size for a 10pt document, or how much space should come between the author block and the start of the two column text, etc.

Reverse engineering these values is no fun. That is why I am saying that an *exact and complete* spec is needed.

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 : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net

___________________________________________________________________________________

-- Blog: http://amca01.wordpress.com Web: http://bit.ly/Alasdair Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/alasdair.mcandrew

Henning Hraban Ramm

1:07 a.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

Am 2011-03-14 um 07:33 schrieb Alasdair McAndrew:

...

Yes, I see that would be a non-trivial problem. Maybe as a stop-gap some ConTeXt files could be provided which at least roughly emulate a few standard LaTeX styles?

Again: We senior ConTeXt users won’t look thoroughly at "a few standard LaTeX styles" just to copy their look for a few switchers. We don’t need them. We design our own styles after our needs. We don’t stick to a few "standard" styles. It’s ConTeXt, not LaTeX. If you come up with specifications, we can help you implementing them. Otherwise consider paying one of us for doing annoying, unnecessary work. Greetlings from Lake Constance! Hraban --- http://www.fiee.net/texnique/ http://wiki.contextgarden.net https://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer)

Martin Schröder

3:17 a.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

2011/3/14 Aditya Mahajan :

...

The hard part is figuring out the values (font size, spaces after sections, etc) from the LaTeX code. It is difficult to look at http://mirror.hmc.edu/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/IEEEtran.cls and figure out what is the title size for a 10pt document, or how much space should come between the author block and the start of the two column text, etc.

Erm - is that really needed? Today a typical journal's workflow should accept articles in LaTeX _markup_, convert that to XML and feed it to an XML formatter (which may well use TeX) eventually. I see ConTeXt's role there as the XML formatter. Or it could digest LaTeX markup - but then it would need more than just the layout. Best Martin

Alasdair McAndrew

4:43 a.m.

New subject: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

FWIW, specifications of standard LaTeX styles can be found herehttp://www.tug.org/texlive/devsrc/Master/texmf-dist/doc/latex/base/classes.p.... It's a closely written 66 page document. -Alasdair On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 8:17 PM, Martin Schröder wrote:

...

...
The hard part is figuring out the values (font size, spaces after

2011/3/14 Aditya Mahajan : sections,

...
etc) from the LaTeX code. It is difficult to look at http://mirror.hmc.edu/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/IEEEtran.clsand figure out what is the title size for a 10pt document, or how much space should come between the author block and the start of the two column text, etc.

Erm - is that really needed? Today a typical journal's workflow should accept articles in LaTeX _markup_, convert that to XML and feed it to an XML formatter (which may well use TeX) eventually. I see ConTeXt's role there as the XML formatter. Or it could digest LaTeX markup - but then it would need more than just the layout.

Best Martin

___________________________________________________________________________________ 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 : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net

___________________________________________________________________________________

-- Blog: http://amca01.wordpress.com Web: http://bit.ly/Alasdair Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/alasdair.mcandrew

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participants (10)

Aditya Mahajan
Alasdair McAndrew
Henning Hraban Ramm
Henry House
Martin Schröder
mathew
Philipp Gesang
pmlists＠free.fr
Taco Hoekwater
Thomas Schmitz