On 2006 Dec 28, at 5:00 PM, Aditya Mahajan indited:

On Thu, 28 Dec 2006, Douglas Philips wrote:

...

cont-eni.pdf (ConTeXt the manual by Hans Hagen, November 12th, 2001).

That is the most up to date manual and should get you started for most of the basic features. The features that are not in the manual are mostly related to specific needs, so you can get around even if you do not know about them. Some My Ways discuss some of these undocumented features.

The undocumented features are documented in My Ways? :-) I found a few of those also, and it is very confusing to a newbie (such as myself) to figure out what is old and valid and what is old and not-so-valid...

Just give it a shot. The is "Latex in proper context" by Berend de Boer which can help in the transition. The general information on http://wiki.contextgarden.net/From_LaTeX_to_ConTeXt is also useful.

Cool, thanks!

Context is very stable, and much better documented than latex. You can start with small documents in context to get comfortable with it. The best documents to start are those where you do not have a strict formatting requirement, so that you do not need to worry if you can not get something working.

:-) That would be ideal. However, I'm looking to change horses because the documents I am already producing (newsletters for local groups (all volunteer)) are straining at what LaTeX wants me to do. So, I've been contemplating whether I should move "up" the abstraction ladder to ConTeXt or "down" to plain TeX and really learn to build the world from boxes and glue. :-) I'd rather move up. :-) :-)

...

(IIRC, Hans is also a core team member of LuaTeX, so perhaps I should just suck it up with LaTeX until LuaTeX is viable?)

LuaTeX is not a replacement for LaTeX. It is a replacement for pdfTeX. ... pending feature requests getting implemented. So, if you are planning on switching to context, there is no real need to wait for luatex.

OK. Wasn't sure...

HTH, Aditya

Yes, it did/does, thank you!

--Doug

On 2006 Dec 29, at 10:04 PM, Mojca Miklavec indited:

On 12/29/06, Douglas Philips wrote:

...

The undocumented features are documented in My Ways? :-)

Esp. the two MyWay's written by the author who mentioned that ;)

:-)

I see you also have one... all of which are next up on my Sunday afternoon reading!

See http://wiki.contextgarden.net/My_Way

Thanks!

Most other MyWay's deal with fonts.

Arg. My bane. Fonts. The one thing that pulls me ever so slightly to using Pages... Not because I want a garish mix of goofball junk fonts, but because I love Palatino for newletters and Papyrus for cards and short notes... I figured out how to get Palatino into LaTeX, but use other programs (so far) to get Papyrus...

...

I found a few of those also, and it is very confusing to a newbie (such as myself) to figure out what is old and valid and what is old and not-so-valid...

I don't have a good overview, but I don't know that many "not-so-valid" things.

Thanks, that is good to know...

Old things are still valid, there might only be some new things that you might not know about once you've read the manual. (plain) TeX is about 25 and still "valid". Only that there are "a few commands available out there" which can simplify things.

The more I look into it, the more I feel that ConTeXt is going in a direction more helpful to me than LaTeX. No comment intended on the "correctness" of either direction, just on the harmony with where I am going.

--Doug

So, I've been contemplating whether I should move "up" the abstraction ladder to ConTeXt or "down" to plain TeX and really learn to build the world from boxes and glue. :-)

I wrote my dissertation using plain TeX plus eplain, and spent several days learning about insertions so that I could float figures in the margin. It looked decent, but I got tired of maintaining and improving the macro hackery, so I decided to leap over LaTeX to ConTeXt. I use LaTeX under duress (e.g. journal gives you a style file). But for any document where I decide the layout, I use ConTeXt, and I'm very happy with the decision to leap.

Here is a hello-world template that I just wrote. It contains many of the ConTeXt commands that I use most frequently. Maybe it should go on the wiki?

-Sanjoy

% "Hello world!" document for the ConTeXt typesetting system % % === History === % 2006-12-29 Sanjoy Mahajan sanjoy@mit.edu % * Created % % This document is the public domain (no copyright).

\setupcolors[state=start] % otherwise you get greyscale \definecolor[headingcolor][r=1,b=0.4]

% for the document info/catalog (reported by 'pdfinfo', for example) \setupinteraction[state=start, % make hyperlinks active, etc. title={Hello world!}, subtitle={A ConTeXt template}, author={Sanjoy Mahajan}, keyword={template}]

% useful urls \useURL[author-email][mailto:a.u.thor@somewhere.edu][][a.u.thor@somewhere.edu] \useURL[wiki][http://wiki.contextgarden.net%5D%5B%5D%5B%5CConTeXt%5C wiki] \useURL[sanjoy][mailto:sanjoy@mit.edu][][sanjoy@mit.edu]

% for US paper; the sensible default is [A4][A4] (A4 typesetting, % printed on A4 paper) \setuppapersize[letter][letter] \setuplayout[topspace=0.5in, backspace=1in, header=24pt, footer=36pt, height=middle, width=middle] % uncomment the next line to see the layout % \showframe

% headers and footers \setupfooter[style=\it] \setupfootertexts[\date\hfill \ConTeXt\ template] \setuppagenumbering[location={header,right}, style=bold]

\setupbodyfont[11pt] % default is 12pt

\setuphead[section,chapter,subject][color=headingcolor] \setuphead[section,subject][style={\ss\bfa}, before={\bigskip\bigskip}, after={}] \setuphead[chapter][style={\ss\bfd}] \setuphead[title][style={\ss\bfd}, before={\begingroup\setupbodyfont[14.4pt]}, after={\leftline{\ss\tfa A. U. Thor $\langle$\from[author-email]$\rangle$} \bigskip\bigskip\endgroup}]

\setupitemize[inbetween={}, style=bold]

% set inter-paragraph spacing \setupwhitespace[medium] % comment the next line to not indent paragraphs \setupindenting[medium, yes]

\starttext

\title{Hello, world!}

Here is a hello-world template document to illustrates a few \ConTeXt\ features. Have fun. You can find a lot more information at \from[wiki]; the preceding text should be colored and clickable, and clicking it should take you to the wiki.

\subject{A list}

Here is an example of a list.

\startitemize[a] % tags are lowercase letters \item first \item second \item third \stopitemize

\subject{Math}

An equation can be typeset inline like $e^{\pi i}+1=0$, or as a displayed formula: \startformula \int_0^\infty t^4 e^{-t},dt = 24. \stopformula % don't use $$...$$ (the plain TeX equivalent) You can also have numbered equations: \placeformula[eq:factorial-example]\startformula \int_0^\infty t^5 e^{-t},dt = 120. \stopformula And you can refer to them by name. I called the previous equation {\tt factorial-example}, and it is equation \in[eq:factorial-example]. \ConTeXt\ figures out the number for you. And with interaction turned on, you can click on the equation number to get to the equation.

\subject{Text with figures}

Now text with a few figures. The first figure goes on the right, with the paragraph flowing around it.

\placefigure[right,none]{}{\externalfigure[dummy]}

\input tufte

The next figure will go inline, like a displayed formula: \placefigure[here,none]{}{\externalfigure[dummy]} \input tufte

Here's another reference to the numbered equation -- equation \in[eq:factorial-example] on \at{page}[eq:factorial-example], so that you can test clicking on it or on the page reference.

% most plain TeX commands work \vfill

\noindent \framed[corner=round, width=\textwidth,height=1in, backgroundcolor=gray,background=color] {This document is in the public domain, so that you can improve it, share it, and otherwise do what you want with it. Suggestions are welcome. You can send them to me at \from[sanjoy] (Sanjoy Mahajan).}

\stoptext

On 30. des. 2006, at 6:47, Sanjoy Mahajan wrote:

\setupindenting[medium, yes]

ConTeXt seems to choke on the "yes" here.

On 30. des. 2006, at 7:38, Sanjoy Mahajan wrote:

Rolf Lindgren writes:

...

...

\setupindenting[medium, yes]

ConTeXt seems to choke on the "yes" here.

Hmm, texshow says lists 'yes' and 'medium' as valid keywords. What ConTeXt version are you using? Can you post the error log? I had no problems running the whole hello-world file through the 2006.12.27 ConTeXt (Linux, i386).

never mind, I use the

ConTeXt ver: 2005.01.31 fmt: 2006.12.26 int: english mes: english

which comes with a collection of Linux ports for the Mac. methinks it needs to be updated.

On Thursday 28 December 2006 19:43, Mojca Miklavec wrote: then I finally discovered PSTricks which became

kind-of-obsolete with pdfTeX or XeTeX. The same story with just about any package for creating slides or changing page layout, headers, footers (and they all took a lot of time to learn how to use them), not to mention the changes in base LaTeX (documentstyle -> documentclass{article} -> Komma script) and the fact that most packages become unmaintained after they have been written.

Jut FYI PSTricks (which runs on Plain TeX as well as LaTeX) can be run as part of Context. It requires loading a module and an extra pass. Like many of the "undocumented" modules there is actually documentation in the module itself. I suspect that if all the documentation in the source code were collected and organized in some way we would have a new Context Manual.

...

And so I am wondering if ConTeXt is still too fresh...

If I have a simple job I use pdftex. If the layout gets complicated at all, or I need to impose a smaller page on a full size page, or anything else like that I turn to Context.

It's always full of surprizes. But what do you mean with "too fresh"? If you're worried that your colleagues don't have the latest version of ConTeXt installed (and thus won't be able to compile your code) then you're probably right. (But if you want to use the latest packeg from LaTeX, there's even more chance that they won't have it. In ConTeXt you know at least that downloading one thing should suffice.)

The bad thing about Context is that many errors in parameters etc. are simply not reported when you compile a document. One of the many good things is that the elaborate structure is there but not required. Most plain TeX (the old stuff) documents will run under Context. Make a file with:

Hello world \bye

and run it through Context. It will work. But with LaTeX you must have a LaTeX specific statement or two or it won't work.

...

and if I'll have any chance of figuring out what/how to use it without having been on this list for the past 4+ years...

I store all messages on this list forever in a directory. It is more convenient for me to search that directory than on the wiki. My earliest is dated in April 2002.

Font handling is a bear but font handling in any version of TeX more complex than plain is a bear.

On 2006 Dec 28, at 7:43 PM, Mojca Miklavec indited:

Well, the ConTeXt manual is one of the most stable components of ConTeXt indeed ;)

:-)

But consider it from the bright side: yes, it's still fully usable (after two years of using ConTeXt it's still hard to do anything without using it), everything mentioned there should still work (unless there has been some bug introduced in the mean time) and the major functionality has been there at that time already.

Thanks, that is reassuring to hear.

That's surely no excuse for not refreshing the manual, but there's no excuse for not sharing your experience on the wiki or web version of texshow either.

:-) Keeping the manuals up to date is hard work, which is a lot of why there is a push (in general) to have source generated docs, but that isn't easy either... I know.

not to mention the changes in base LaTeX (documentstyle -> documentclass{article} -> Komma script) and the fact that most packages become unmaintained after they have been written.

True. And the worst part of it (having used LaTeX, and still on the precipice of using ConTeXt) is the incompatibilities and the lack of "ok, so which of these packages works with which others?" annoyance (which oft becomes frustration).

...

And so I am wondering if ConTeXt is still too fresh...

It's always full of surprizes. But what do you mean with "too fresh"? If you're worried that your colleagues don't have the latest version of ConTeXt installed (and thus won't be able to compile your code) then you're probably right. (But if you want to use the latest packeg from LaTeX, there's even more chance that they won't have it. In ConTeXt you know at least that downloading one thing should suffice.)

Fair enough. I'm not sure, however, how that all plays out when it comes to using something like TeXLive (on a Mac, as if that matters) and the meta-issue of keeping a working TeX install coherent (and working)...

Take it from the bright side: even if you were on the list, you wouldn't have time to follow it unless you were a student ;)

:-) !!!

And take it from the bright side again: tetex on most linux distributions is just as old as the manual, so you wouldn't be missing much ;)

Well, that is an interesting argument. Fortunately my TeX and LaTeX usage has been such that I haven't run into a lot of bugs, so the drumbeat of upgrade-upgrade-upgrade-upgrade has been too soft to hear. Usually what drives a change is wanting to use a layout which doesn't fit the LaTeX direction. I don't make books or academic papers, so I'm not in the center of the fairway, heck, I'm not even in the weeds, I'm in a bowling alley! :-)

In my opinion "It makes no sense to wait for solar-energy car before you start doing your driver's licence. Unless you intend to design or produce cars, you shouldn't even notice the difference."

Thanks I deeply wish to not notice the difference!

--Doug

On 2006 Dec 29, at 2:22 PM, andrea valle indited:

Well, maybe I'm missing something. But if you need to use ConTeXt on a mac you can use Gerben's distro, which also set up a crontab for you, and when you update it simply does all the boring stuff for you (I hate TeX tree structure ...)

Gerben has announced end-of-life for his distro system. Well, end of support... except for ConTeXt because of the automation that ConTeXt provides for his packaging needs.

Perhaps that would "play well" with TeX Live '06...

--Doug

On 2006 Dec 29, at 12:38 PM, plink indited:

Mojca Miklavec wrote:

...

Well, the ConTeXt manual is one of the most stable components of ConTeXt indeed ;)

;-)

should be wikified ...

Probably, but it'd be sad to lose the ability to download and print it for offline reading (I may be in a small minority of people who like to read reference manuals though)... I'm also not familiar enough with the wiki being used to know if there is anyway for it to agregate a bunch of pages into a reasonably printable form....

--Doug