Vyatcheslav Yatskovsky wrote:

Hi Wolfgang,

...

\startmakeup is the internal command for \startstandardmakeup which is created with \definemakup[standard].

Thank you for making this more clear.

1) \startstandardmakeup is extensively used but not found in the wiki command reference. Why?

Because it is a derived command, and most/all of those are not in the command reference yet (for example, neither is \startitemize, which is derived from \defineitemgroup).

2) What \startstandardmakeup do then? And what is the purpose of defining custom makeups?

From the source (and I am positive this is also mentioned in the big manual): %D A makeup is a separate page, like a title page or colofon. %D There is one standard makeup page, but you can define more %D if needed. As can be seen in http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Reference/en/setupmakeup it is a page type with a special layout / header & footer sections that last only temporarily. The key point is that such a page does not (have to) rely on the current page layout style, which is especially useful for title pages. Best wishes, Taco