[NTG-context] Dropped caps, \startlines\stoplines, and indentation question

[Adrian Drury]

Radhelorn wrote:

>
> Adrian Drury wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I'm having trouble using dropped caps within \startlines\stoplines.
> > I'm trying to typeset some poetry and I'm using
> > \setuplines[space=yes]. I'd like to use dropped caps and have the
> > indented lines be additionally indented by any space at the beginning
> > of the lines.
> >
> > See the following example - the first part shows roughly the result I
> > want (but with manual formatting/spacing), the second part shows the
> > result of \DroppedCaps inside \startlines\stoplines, and the third
> > part uses the lettrine module. The lettrine module comes close, but
> > Nindent doesn't seem to affect the indented lines within
> > \startlines\stoplines.
> >
> > \usemodule[lettrine]
> > \def\MyDroppedCaps%
> > {     \DroppedCaps
> >         {} {Serif} {2\baselineskip} {2pt} {1\baselineskip} {2}
> > }
> > \setuplines[space=yes]
> >
> > \starttext
> > \MyDroppedCaps S{\sc umer} is icumen in,\crlf
> > \hbox to .6em{}Lhude sing cuccu!\crlf
> > Groweth sed, and bloweth med,\crlf
> > \hbox to .6em{}And springth the wude nu---\crlf
> > \hbox to 3.3em{}Sing cuccu!
> >
> > \startlines
> > \MyDroppedCaps S{\sc umer} is icumen in,
> >   Lhude sing cuccu!
> > Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
> >   And springth the wude nu---
> >           Sing cuccu!
> > \stoplines
> >
> > \startlines
> > \lettrine{S}{umer} is icumen in,
> >   Lhude sing cuccu!
> > Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
> >   And springth the wude nu---
> >           Sing cuccu!
> > \stoplines
> > \stoptext
> >
> > Any suggestions for how to do this? I'm a beginning ConTeXt user, so
> > if there's a better/different way to do this, I'd be happy to hear it!
> >
> > Also, I read the list in digest form. For the benefit of people using
> > threaded mail readers, is there a better way to reply to individual
> > messages than replying to the digest message and editing the Subject
> > line appropriately?
> >
> > Thanks very much,
> > Adrian Drury
> > _______________________________________________
> > ntg-context mailing list
> > ntg-context at ntg.nl
> > http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
> >
> >
>
> Try
>
> \startlines
> \vbox{\lettrine{S}{umer} is icumen in,\crlf Lhude sing cuccu!}
>   Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
>     And springth the wude nu---
>             Sing cuccu!
> \stoplines
>
> --
> Radhelorn < radhelorn at mail.ru>
>

Thank you very much for your suggestion - it does most of what I want to do.
I have a follow-up question if anybody would like to provide more help!

Because lines in \startlines\stoplines with \setuplines[space=yes] can be
indented by space characters, I want to set Nindent for the dropped cap to
(N * <width of space character>), so lines can be indented by the exact same
amount they would be with spaces in \startlines\stoplines.

Is there a way to calculate the width of some number of characters (or a
string of characters) to use as a dimension parameter? For example, a macro
that returns the width in points of 5 space characters in the current font?
I figured hardcoding the width of a space as a percentage of an em might
work, but would probably not be consistent across fonts. Is that true, or is
it really that simple?

I'd also be happy with a way to preserve spaces in the text inside the vbox
(and ignore any Nindent dimension calculation), because then I could just
add the appropriate number of spaces for indentation after the \crlf, like
this: \vbox{\lettrine{S}{umer} is icumen in,\crlf <2 spaces>Lhude sing
cuccu!}, as I do in \startlines\stoplines.

Thanks very much,
Adrian Drury
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