[dev-context] new mp feature

[Mojca Miklavec]

Not that I would really need to type in the following example, but if
I didn't find something interesting, Hans would accuse me of not
taking a look at it at all ;)

\startMPpage
draw (0,0)--(5cm,0);
draw (0,0)--(5cm,5cm);

picture p;
p := \sometxt{\bTABLE
	\bTR\bTD abc\eTD\bTD xyz\eTD\eTR
	\bTR\bTD abc\eTD\bTD xyz\eTD\eTR
	\bTR\bTD abc\eTD\bTD xyz\eTD\eTR
	\eTABLE}; % or withcolor here

draw p withcolor transparent(1,.5,red);
\stopMPpage

(To be honest I wanted to send the following example, but I didn't
want to torture:
%\startMPpage
%draw \sometxt{
%   \startCSV
%   a b c
%   \stopCSV
%   } ;
%\stopMPpage
)


General opinion: AMAZING speed, amazing feature! I love the fact that
the labels are typest in the flow of the current document, so now
macros defined earlier in the document may be used for labels as well.
That's simply great! Also because of the fact that \def's refused to
work inside of metafun graphics and no additional runs are needed.

That's far more elegant and way more efficient that the way I would
have to go for separating labels from \MPfigs

Hans, that's marvellous! Thanks a lot!

Mojca


Just a side note: I noticed the new database module already in the
beta, but the first Hans's fix (before Taco has touched it) introduced
a new "tab-bug" which hasn't been quite resolved yet. If
"separator=tab", it should trigger catcode change of tab to a "normal
letter" and use that one for separating columns. Well, indeed it seems
that the catcode is changed, but then I get the letter number 9 in EC
font (macron) instead of going to new column.

I'm now asking for impossible again, but: any simple/reasonable way to
control the baseline/general positioning of the labels? (textext
included text with baseline at y=0 by default, the new mechanism
simply puts the lower corner to the baseline)