Who uses ConTeXt?

Who uses ConTeXt?

[Christopher Cardinale]

Now that I am getting interested in ConTeXt and an considering doing a
major project with it, I would like to know how common ConTeXt is.
Approximately how many people use ConTeXt? What industries is it
popular in? I know that LaTeX is often used in science and engineering.

Not too long ago, an individual posted a document on comp.text.tex in
ConTeXt format and many people complained that it was nonstandard and
they didn't know what to do with it. This concerns me a little, since
if people who read a TeX newsgroup are stumped, what's everyone else
going to think?

I think Mr. Hagen has created a great system and has done a great
service for authors by making it freely available. If I may be so
presumptuous I would like to draw up an agenda of what must be done to
make more ConTeXt more inviting to the public at large and allow it to
truly rival LaTeX:

1. An easy installation process. Many users are not too keen on
installing Perl and having to configure TeXexec. It should be as easy
for users of, say, MikTeX to exploit the capabilities of ConTeXt as it
is to write a LaTeX document without further ado.

2. Better documentation. Mr. Hagen has done an immense amount of work
in documenting ConTeXt, but after printing out the 330 page manual, I'd
like something a little more user friendly. It could benefit from a
more grammatical English translation and a professional editor.
Everyone needs an editor. It would also be nice to be able to buy it as
a printed book from Amazon.

3. A commercial implementation offering superior convenience and
interface. We can all agree that TeX systems like VTeX and Scientific
Word have their limitations, but they are probably the simplest way for
the less-sophisticated user to begin producing LaTeX documents. For
those who can afford them, these tools are an immense help. Even a
freeware or shareware editor that supports ConTeXt syntax coloring and
document previews would be of benefit. I am aware of the environments
created for WinEdt and Emacs. I myself use UltraEdit on the PC and have
added the commands from the appendix to the ConTeXt manual to the
wordfile in order to get syntax coloring. Our current editing tools are
better than nothing, but what I have in mind is something more
far-reaching, like what TeXnicCenter and Scientific Word do: they KNOW
the LaTeX language. The need to recall the names of different markup
tags and environments is moved out of the user's brain and into the
software, the way it should be.

4. We need a set of high-quality, robust converters for transforming
RTF, HTML, LaTeX, and other file formats into ConTeXt documents. I am
fairly impressed by the output of RTF2LaTeX2e; it should not be that
difficult to modify that program, replacing the LaTeX tags with ConTeXt
tags. The output does err closely to preserving the *appearance* of the
original RTF file rather than trying to create a structure, so in some
ways it defeats the purpose of What-you-see-is-what-you-mean.
Nevertheless, you can add that logical markup yourself. At least the
chores of fixing quote marks and & $ symbols is taken care of.

Had I the time and the skill, I would undertake these projects myself,
but as it stands I can only hope that my clever fellow users will get
some inspiration from my kvetching and create some wonderful tools.

Best,
Chris Cardinale

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Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Berend de Boer]

Christopher Cardinale <c_cardinale@yahoo.com> writes:

> major project with it, I would like to know how common ConTeXt is.
> Approximately how many people use ConTeXt? What industries is it

I don't care a **** about how popular a product is. As long as it
works for me, why bother? I hate doing Windows 9x + Visual Basic
stuff or MS Word for that matter.

Probably the people using ConTeXt is 1% or less from the TeX
community. Is that important? It hasn't been for me. If it works for
you, so why bother with other criteria?

> 2. Better documentation. Mr. Hagen has done an immense amount of work
> in documenting ConTeXt, but after printing out the 330 page manual, I'd
> like something a little more user friendly. It could benefit from a
> more grammatical English translation and a professional editor.
> Everyone needs an editor. It would also be nice to be able to buy it as
> a printed book from Amazon.

There are lots of books about LaTeX, even more pages than this one. Is
there a single book that's just right for everybody? I don't think
there is. But a printed book about ConTeXt would be nice, but I'm
afraid the market is too small for this.

> Had I the time and the skill, I would undertake these projects myself,
> but as it stands I can only hope that my clever fellow users will get
> some inspiration from my kvetching and create some wonderful tools.

If you don't do something yourself, why expect others to do something?
Nobody has time, and nobody had any skills when they arrived on this
world...

I suggest, stand up and make a difference,

Berend de Boer

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Saturday, July 6, 2002 Christopher Cardinale wrote:

CC> Now that I am getting interested in ConTeXt and an considering doing a
CC> major project with it, I would like to know how common ConTeXt is.
CC> Approximately how many people use ConTeXt? What industries is it
CC> popular in? I know that LaTeX is often used in science and engineering.

I don't know of any industries which accept ConTeXt manuscripts.

CC> Not too long ago, an individual posted a document on comp.text.tex in
CC> ConTeXt format and many people complained that it was nonstandard and
CC> they didn't know what to do with it. This concerns me a little, since
CC> if people who read a TeX newsgroup are stumped, what's everyone else
CC> going to think?

People reading the TeX groups should at least, uhm, _read_ the TeX
groups. It was clearly stated in the message that the document was
written in ConTeXt and that to compile it one needed to use
texexec filename.

CC> I think Mr. Hagen has created a great system and has done a great
CC> service for authors by making it freely available. If I may be so
CC> presumptuous I would like to draw up an agenda of what must be done to
CC> make more ConTeXt more inviting to the public at large and allow it to
CC> truly rival LaTeX:

Not that I think ConTeXt has any "competitive" intentions over
LaTeX. And it surely misses the AMS power to be of any "real"
competition to LaTeX. Anyway:

CC> 1. An easy installation process. Many users are not too keen on
CC> installing Perl and having to configure TeXexec. It should be as easy
CC> for users of, say, MikTeX to exploit the capabilities of ConTeXt as it
CC> is to write a LaTeX document without further ado.

This thing *must* rely in the hands of the distribution developer.
For example, 100% of the Italian LaTeX users had to edit
language.dat by hand and then recreate the format files, before
being able to use LaTeX to produce Italian document with correct
hyphenation. Now MiKTeX has a Language tab with an easy interface
to do the job.

ConTeXt support in MiKTeX has been greatly improved in the last
few releases. I will now file an enhancement request for a tab to
edit the TeXexec file from within MiKTeX Options.

As for Perl, this is again a distribution matter. IIRC, fpTeX will
come with pre-compiled versions of the Perl scripts, thus reducing
the need for Perl. Of course any new release of ConTeXt with
updated Perl scripts would thus require a new compilation etc.
More job for the distributors (ok, this can probably be automated
so it shouldn't be much of a problem).

CC> 2. Better documentation. Mr. Hagen has done an immense amount of work
CC> in documenting ConTeXt, but after printing out the 330 page manual, I'd
CC> like something a little more user friendly. It could benefit from a
CC> more grammatical English translation and a professional editor.
CC> Everyone needs an editor. It would also be nice to be able to buy it as
CC> a printed book from Amazon.

This is a typical problem of most if not all free (as in libre)
projects: resources used in documenting the product are taken from
developers' resources, unless the person(s) writing the
documentation are different in which case one cannot be sure that
documentation and implementations match.

I find that the ConTeXt manual (esp. in the electronic form) is
(or rather has been) extremely helpful. The problem is that
it's getting way outdated (and yes, it's full of typos :> ok I
could correct the typos myself, and possibly do other checking,
but I'm not sure I could improve the documentation more than that
...)

CC> 3. A commercial implementation offering superior convenience and
CC> interface. We can all agree that TeX systems like VTeX and Scientific
CC> Word have their limitations, but they are probably the simplest way for
CC> the less-sophisticated user to begin producing LaTeX documents. For
CC> those who can afford them, these tools are an immense help. Even a
CC> freeware or shareware editor that supports ConTeXt syntax coloring and
CC> document previews would be of benefit. I am aware of the environments
CC> created for WinEdt and Emacs. I myself use UltraEdit on the PC and have
CC> added the commands from the appendix to the ConTeXt manual to the
CC> wordfile in order to get syntax coloring. Our current editing tools are
CC> better than nothing, but what I have in mind is something more
CC> far-reaching, like what TeXnicCenter and Scientific Word do: they KNOW
CC> the LaTeX language. The need to recall the names of different markup
CC> tags and environments is moved out of the user's brain and into the
CC> software, the way it should be.

Hans is working on a ConTeXt-specific editor. It would be nice if
he put it out at least in the beta pages, indeed. I'm eagerly
waiting to put my hands on it :)

Commercial implementation? Hm. ConTeXt is "just" a TeX format.
It's up to the (commercial or not) distributor to decide whether
to support ConTeXt or not. Contact VTeX, TrueTeX, SW and whoever
else and tell them to support ConTeXt is up to the users of those
distributions.

CC> 4. We need a set of high-quality, robust converters for transforming
CC> RTF, HTML, LaTeX, and other file formats into ConTeXt documents. I am
CC> fairly impressed by the output of RTF2LaTeX2e; it should not be that
CC> difficult to modify that program, replacing the LaTeX tags with ConTeXt
CC> tags. The output does err closely to preserving the *appearance* of the
CC> original RTF file rather than trying to create a structure, so in some
CC> ways it defeats the purpose of What-you-see-is-what-you-mean.
CC> Nevertheless, you can add that logical markup yourself. At least the
CC> chores of fixing quote marks and & $ symbols is taken care of.

HTML can be parsed by ConTeXt directly. I wonder if some kind of
CSS support in ConTeXt could be implemented as well, yes.

As for RTF, I have been thinking more than once about contacting
the wp2latex developer(s) and possibly give them a hand to add
ConTeXt as an output filters. (WP2LaTeX converts FROM WP, HTML and
RTF TO LaTeX).

You could possibly do the same with, say, wvWare developers who
have a generic Word2<various-formats> converter.

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Idris S Hamid]

> Not that I think ConTeXt has any "competitive" intentions over
> LaTeX. And it surely misses the AMS power to be of any "real"
> competition to LaTeX. 

Over here in the humanities I think ConTeXt makes _much_ more sense than LaTeX  
and I hope it does actually compete in that arena. 

> CC> 2. Better documentation. Mr. Hagen has done an immense amount of work
> CC> in documenting ConTeXt, but after printing out the 330 page manual, I'd
> CC> like something a little more user friendly. It could benefit from a
> CC> more grammatical English translation and a professional editor.
> CC> Everyone needs an editor. It would also be nice to be able to buy it as
> CC> a printed book from Amazon.

I agree that the ConTeXt manual is quite obscure in places. I for one would 
love to see a "ConTeXt Unbound" or "ConTeXt Companion" for the masses. I 
might try to contribute to such a project one day ()... 

Berend is not sure that there is a market for such a text but I say, let's 
_make_ a market for it. If ConTeXt is (or can be) the best DTP tool around, 
let's spread the Gospel! 

> CC> 3. A commercial implementation offering superior convenience and
> CC> interface. 

Rather than a commercial interface I'd like to see a crossplatform interface 
along the lines of what I rambled about in the course of a ctt discussion:
Message-ID: <K3jV8.93576$Uu2.15094@sccrnsc03>

This _is_ the 21st century folks:->

> Hans is working on a ConTeXt-specific editor. It would be nice if
> he put it out at least in the beta pages, indeed. I'm eagerly
> waiting to put my hands on it :)

Ditto!
I hope it's cross-platform (since I just switched to Linux)!

Best wishes
Idris
-- 
Dr. Idris S Hamid
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80526

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[John Culleton]

On Saturday 06 July 2002 05:47 am, Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:
> Saturday, July 6, 2002 Christopher Cardinale wrote:
>
> CC> Now that I am getting interested in ConTeXt and an considering doing a
> CC> major project with it, I would like to know how common ConTeXt is.
> CC> Approximately how many people use ConTeXt? What industries is it
> CC> popular in? I know that LaTeX is often used in science and engineering.

As I see it, plain tex was the past, LaTeX is the present, and Context is the
future. Like LateX Context is highly structured and very complete. Unlike
LaTeX it is monolithic. You don't chase your tail trying to find the right
sty to do a particular thing. 

I agree that the documentation needs to catch up with the reality. But be 
aware that this is almost a one-man effort and he is pushing the system
forward by leaps and bounds. You need all the manuals, plus a file of
correspondence from this group, to work in Context.  Things will only get 
better.

I work in plain tex or Context exclusively, unless someone pays me to untangle
some LaTeX, which happens now and then. LaTeX just doesn't have the
appeal of Context.

The PdfTeX manual is actually written in Context and is available in source 
form. So it is a good example but not a complete one. 

HTH John Culleton 

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Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[K.H. Wesseling]

Dear Christopher,

I have done two big projects and many smaller ones in context. Since 
the users I did these projects for are only interested in the 
interactive and printed versions of the 'book's, in other words the 
PDF files, I felt free to use Context and get all its advantages. 
Even in the case that someone else had to maintain my documents, not 
knowing context or tex, once the structure is there and with a few 
simple operating instructions (in my case in batch files and one 
typewritten page), this someone else could do the maintenance. I 
tried this once. So, therefore, as long as my system (the software 
system running on this PC) exists in tact I couldn't care less how 
big the user's base.

But in general systems need maintenance and whatever the reason for 
maintenance (commercial profit making or personal) it is always 
uncertain. The larger the installed base, however, the greater the 
chances are for continuity in the long term. Thus, I tend to agree 
with you that installed base is important. When I recently asked the 
question: "how many TeX users are there world wide?" this question 
proved unanswerable. In the millions is the largest number I heard. 

In my humble view as a plain context user I agree that at least one 
book at a beginners level needs to be published about Context and one 
about Metafun. With an editorial board reviewing the outcome. Since 
the foundation for these books has already been laid I am certain 
that they will see the light within a small number of years. 

For now, it does take a little more effort to get started with both 
these systems but there are manuals full of examples written in an 
enthousiastic style with the English checked by native english 
speaking persons. Consider that not only the languages but also these 
manuals are written by a single person with help from only a single 
colleague and a small group of initial users among them Berend whom I 
owe the conversion manual from latex to context. It's an incredible 
accomplishment and all's given away for free. What's more, even 
stupid beginner's question get a mostly one day reply, sometimes 
replies are so fast that it appears that the reply reaches my machine 
before the question is posed, from a fast growing of community of 
Context users. Plus, Context is so simple it does not require you go 
to three week courses at thousands of dollars cost. When Louis 
Armstrong sang "it's a wonderful for world" for Heineken he must not 
have known about TeX. The TeX world is the most wonderful world I 
have been in. 

By the way, try and become a member of a TUG somewhere, the Dutch NTG 
probably being the most suited given your context interests. Their 
MAPS publish a lot of stuff on context.

With best wishes...Karel.

On 5 Jul 2002, at 22:29, Christopher Cardinale wrote:

> Now that I am getting interested in ConTeXt and an considering doing a
> major project with it, I would like to know how common ConTeXt is.
> Approximately how many people use ConTeXt? What industries is it
> popular in? I know that LaTeX is often used in science and engineering.
> 

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Hans Hagen]

At 11:47 AM 7/6/2002 +0200, you wrote:

>Saturday, July 6, 2002 Christopher Cardinale wrote:
>
>CC> Now that I am getting interested in ConTeXt and an considering doing a
>CC> major project with it, I would like to know how common ConTeXt is.
>CC> Approximately how many people use ConTeXt? What industries is it
>CC> popular in? I know that LaTeX is often used in science and engineering.
>
>I don't know of any industries which accept ConTeXt manuscripts.

it depends on how you look at it: we happen to work for (educational) 
publishers who do -)

also, keep in mind that most of the latex that authors send to sci 
publishers is either converted to xml or cleaned up to a large extent 
(often without authors being aware of it); in th eend publishers go xml, 
not some kind of tex

also, given proper coding, anothing can be converted to anything and then 
context can act as backend

>CC> I think Mr. Hagen has created a great system and has done a great
>CC> service for authors by making it freely available. If I may be so
>CC> presumptuous I would like to draw up an agenda of what must be done to
>CC> make more ConTeXt more inviting to the public at large and allow it to
>CC> truly rival LaTeX:
>
>Not that I think ConTeXt has any "competitive" intentions over
>LaTeX. And it surely misses the AMS power to be of any "real"
>competition to LaTeX. Anyway:

You're talking math now? Actually i'm working on some math now (big inline 
math grid snapping) and as a few other math things it's not ams, (although 
i sometimes wonder what 's the magic about that). It is no problem to 
support ams like math features (soem are already there and taco's math 
module implements ams math breaking) but only those that are really used 
(and useful). Context for instance has user definable math environments, 
and more stuff like that is being added.

Hans
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                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
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Re[2]: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Saturday, July 6, 2002 Idris S Hamid wrote:

>> Not that I think ConTeXt has any "competitive" intentions over
>> LaTeX. And it surely misses the AMS power to be of any "real"
>> competition to LaTeX. 

ISH> Over here in the humanities I think ConTeXt makes _much_ more sense than LaTeX  
ISH> and I hope it does actually compete in that arena. 

Over there in the humanities LaTeX is simply not fit :) ConTeXt is
the best thing you can have there, LaTeX is barely useable unless
you overload any class with thousands of pages (ok, at least it
was like this until the memoir class popped up).

>> Hans is working on a ConTeXt-specific editor. It would be nice if
>> he put it out at least in the beta pages, indeed. I'm eagerly
>> waiting to put my hands on it :)

ISH> Ditto!
ISH> I hope it's cross-platform (since I just switched to Linux)!

AFAIK it's in Perl so it should be cross-platform (or easily made
so).

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Johannes Hüsing]

On Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 10:47:45PM +0200, K.H. Wesseling wrote:
[...]
> 
> In my humble view as a plain context user I agree that at least one 
> book at a beginners level needs to be published about Context and one 
> about Metafun. With an editorial board reviewing the outcome. Since 
> the foundation for these books has already been laid I am certain 
> that they will see the light within a small number of years. 
> 

[...]

Wouldn't it make sense for us to be the editorial board? Among us, there
are people deeply associated with the publishing business, and some
editing expertise might therefore be there. I view it as a given that 
our expertise of the subject matter exceeds that of any professional
editor. (Take this as a very collective sense of "our" -- I am very 
boldly putting myself in line with the real experts here where my only
merit is being a subscriber.)

So my suggestion is to put cont-en[i|p] and metafun-[s|p] on the Bugzilla
tracking system, where everyone may report typos, native speaker fixes 
for not-quite-English sounding phrases, and reformulations of Hans'
helpful answers on undocumented stuff in a textbook-ready kind of form.

Schönen Gruß

Johannes
-- 
Johannes Hüsing   There is something fascinating about science. One gets
hannes@ruhrau.de  such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a 
                  trifling investment of fact.                Mark Twain

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Frans Goddijn]

Looks good on first sight, but it must be a nightmare job for any editor to
collect and organize many remarks, suggestions, typo reports and other
comments, which are guaranteed to be contradictory in a certain percentage,
and make time to use these as input for an editing job...

So (unless I overestimate the job) until a publisher with time and money to
spend decides to put one editor to work on one ConTeXt book at a time, we'll
have to wait for Hans finding time to produce new versions. As they are, the
manuals look great. If I think about the amount of work in them... how can
anyone write these manuals als also have time to pogram the work that the
books are about, and make a living in the remaining time? Groet, Frans

> So my suggestion is to put cont-en[i|p] and
> metafun-[s|p] on the Bugzilla tracking system,
> where everyone may report typos, native
> speaker fixes  for not-quite-English sounding
> phrases, and reformulations of Hans'
> helpful answers on undocumented stuff in a
> textbook-ready kind of form.

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Axel Rose]

I would be quite handy to have some documentation for converts.

Doing ... in LaTeX would mean ... in ConTeXt.

e.g.
geometry
fancyhdr
tabbing
longtable
eso-pic
familydefault

to name just a few things I need to transform into equivalent
constructs. Of course this can never be complete. 

This would make live much easier for those who want to replace
old LaTeX code with IMHO something much clearer thereby in-
creasing usage of ConTeXt.

just my two euro-cents,
Axel.

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Hans Hagen]

At 11:05 PM 7/7/2002 +0200, Axel Rose wrote:
>I would be quite handy to have some documentation for converts.
>
>Doing ... in LaTeX would mean ... in ConTeXt.
>
>e.g.
>geometry
>fancyhdr
>tabbing
>longtable
>eso-pic
>familydefault
>
>to name just a few things I need to transform into equivalent
>constructs. Of course this can never be complete.

this is up to users who are familiar with the latex things

One thing that we can do is to set up a kind of electronic context journal 
where users can submit tips tricks and how to's. I can make a style for 
that but it's up to others to manage/edit it.

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Axel Rose]

At 9:42 Uhr +0200 08.07.2002, Hans Hagen wrote:
>One thing that we can do is to set up a kind of electronic context journal where users can submit tips tricks and how to's. I can make a style for that but it's up to others to manage/edit it.

This would be a good starting point.
As soon as there are enough answers one could compile a
"ConTeXt for LaTeX users" documentation. It is really hard
for beginners like me to find the proper transformation for
used LaTeX constructs (which themselves were tricky to get
right).

What I have in mind is something like the sections for Java,
C++, ..., programmers in Damian Conways Perl OO book.

Axel

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Randall Skelton]

I've been following this thread and I must first say to Hans, you have 
done an incredible job with ConTeXt.  It certainly isn't said/written 
often enough; thank you for all your hard work!

I am a relatively new user to ConTeXt and I am just in the process of
writing some formats/templates for my thesis.  I am a 5+ year TeX/LaTeX
user (mostly writing scientific/mathematical papers and presentations) and
I am getting familiar with ConTeXt.  I do wish that I spoke more Dutch 
at times =)

I tend to agree that if there is one single, critical document missing
from the ConTeXt manuals it is a 'ConTeXt Cookbook' of sorts. I often find
that my Perl Cookbook is more useful than my Perl Programming book as I
generally prefer to learn by example and hate re-inventing the wheel.  An
online, searchable collection of ConTeXt example documents, and code
snipits would be an excellent resource and may ease the rather steep 
learning curve.

Cheers and keep up the great work!
Randall

On Mon, 8 Jul 2002, Axel Rose wrote:

> At 9:42 Uhr +0200 08.07.2002, Hans Hagen wrote:
> >One thing that we can do is to set up a kind of electronic context journal where users can submit tips tricks and how to's. I can make a style for that but it's up to others to manage/edit it.
> 
> This would be a good starting point.
> As soon as there are enough answers one could compile a
> "ConTeXt for LaTeX users" documentation. It is really hard
> for beginners like me to find the proper transformation for
> used LaTeX constructs (which themselves were tricky to get
> right).
> 
> What I have in mind is something like the sections for Java,
> C++, ..., programmers in Damian Conways Perl OO book.
> 
> 
> Axel
> 

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Berend de Boer]

Axel Rose <rose@sj.com> writes:

> This would be a good starting point.
> As soon as there are enough answers one could compile a
> "ConTeXt for LaTeX users" documentation. It is really hard
> for beginners like me to find the proper transformation for
> used LaTeX constructs (which themselves were tricky to get
> right).

What about:

        http://www.pobox.com/~berend/tex

You find exactly what you want.

-- 
Live long and prosper,

Berend de Boer

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Johannes Hüsing]

On Mon, Jul 08, 2002 at 12:28:15PM +0200, Axel Rose wrote:
> At 9:42 Uhr +0200 08.07.2002, Hans Hagen wrote:
> >One thing that we can do is to set up a kind of electronic context journal where users can submit tips tricks and how to's. I can make a style for that but it's up to others to manage/edit it.
> 
> This would be a good starting point.
> As soon as there are enough answers one could compile a
> "ConTeXt for LaTeX users" documentation. 

Like the one begun by Berend, you mean?

Greetings

Johannes
-- 
Johannes Hüsing   There is something fascinating about science. One gets
hannes@ruhrau.de  such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a 
                  trifling investment of fact.                Mark Twain

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[K.H. Wesseling]

Berend de Boer: "Latex in proper Context", MAPS 24 (2000) p65-92 
(81kB)

This is on the NTG MAPS CDROM and probably also on the ntg web site.

Beste wishes...Karel.

On 8 Jul 2002, at 21:31, Johannes Hüsing wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 08, 2002 at 12:28:15PM +0200, Axel Rose wrote:
> > At 9:42 Uhr +0200 08.07.2002, Hans Hagen wrote:
> > >One thing that we can do is to set up a kind of electronic context journal where users can submit tips tricks and how to's. I can make a style for that but it's up to others to manage/edit it.
> > 
> > This would be a good starting point.
> > As soon as there are enough answers one could compile a
> > "ConTeXt for LaTeX users" documentation. 
> 
> Like the one begun by Berend, you mean?
> 
> Greetings
> 
> 
> Johannes
> -- 
> Johannes Hüsing   There is something fascinating about science. One gets
> hannes@ruhrau.de  such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a 
>                   trifling investment of fact.                Mark Twain
> 

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Frans Goddijn]

> This is on the NTG MAPS CDROM and probably also on the ntg web site.

That's in Maps 24 and on http://www.ntg.nl/maps/electromaps.html you find
the publication until 23... I am planning to expand the xml bibliographies
of the ones after 23 so someone else can regenerate the indexes for the
website.

Meanwhile, Taco might have version 23 of the MAPS in PDF for anyone
interested.

Groet,

Frans

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Hans Hagen]

At 07:39 PM 7/6/2002 +0200, Johannes Hüsing wrote:
>
>It was wonderful, but now it's gone ...

You mean the bulky dutch one?

  3,072,378  ms-cb-nl.pdf
11,993,498  ms-co-nl.pdf

once the big manual is redone i can generate something like that again 
(although today most examples in the manual are made using buffers which 
mean that the code used for examples equals the examples -)

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Johannes Hüsing]

On Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 06:55:01PM +0200, Frans Goddijn wrote:
> The "wish lists" are a good idea, and since I don't have the time and the
> brains, it would be very convenient if a couple of superintelligent and lazy
> guys with way too much time on their hands would get off their easy chairs
> to start working hard and get us all these goodies...
> 
> Yeah right... as if :-)
> 

I agree with Frans and Berend on that one.

> But maybe an idea would be for users here to contribute their example files
> (if they are independent of special personal files, fonts et cetera) and
> post these were we all can find them and learn/copy from these.
> 

I remember there was a rather extensive documentation file which was organized 
in a parallel fashion, so you could skip between the source and output.

It was wonderful, but now it's gone ...

Groet

Johannes
-- 
Johannes Hüsing   There is something fascinating about science. One gets
hannes@ruhrau.de  such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a 
                  trifling investment of fact.                Mark Twain

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Frans Goddijn]

The "wish lists" are a good idea, and since I don't have the time and the
brains, it would be very convenient if a couple of superintelligent and lazy
guys with way too much time on their hands would get off their easy chairs
to start working hard and get us all these goodies...

Yeah right... as if :-)

But maybe an idea would be for users here to contribute their example files
(if they are independent of special personal files, fonts et cetera) and
post these were we all can find them and learn/copy from these.

Regards,

Frans

Re: Who uses ConTeXt?

[Bruce D'Arcus]

Christopher Cardinale wrote:
>2. Better documentation. Mr. Hagen has done an immense amount of work
>in documenting ConTeXt, but after printing out the 330 page manual, I'd
>like something a little more user friendly. It could benefit from a
>more grammatical English translation and a professional editor.
>Everyone needs an editor. It would also be nice to be able to buy it as
>a printed book from Amazon.

I think the documentation is fine as far as it goes, but I would really 
like more extensive example documents.  The ONLY sample docs I have 
found (though please correct me if I am wrong) is the third-party 
package on the ConTeXt site.  This is helpful as a beginning, but I'd 
like some more extensive examples.

Why not make the source to a few of the shorter manuals available, for 
example (both screen and print versions)?

>4. We need a set of high-quality, robust converters for transforming
>RTF, HTML, LaTeX, and other file formats into ConTeXt documents...

I agree, but the xml support makes this less important to me.  It would 
be nice if pdftex supported "tagged pdf", such that the pdf files 
ConTeXt produces had their structure embedded in them.  If I understand 
right, this would allow easier translation to other formats that 
publishers in my field--a social science--generally insist on.  

I should say I am just experimenting with ConTeXt at this point...

Bruce