Re: Problems with left and right

[Matt Gushee <mgushee@havenrock.com>]

On Fri, Jul 23, 2004 at 11:26:45PM -0700, Hans Hagen Outside wrote:
> >
> >I have noticed a couple of cases where ConTeXt macros seem to have
> >confused left and right sides:

First of all, thanks for your quick reply!

> forthermore, think of right as raggedright

And left as ... raggedleft? 

Anyway, I gather you're saying that the behavior I've observed is
correct. E.g.:

     [align=left]  [align=right]

              abc  foo, bar, baz
               de  dum-da-dum-da-dummmmm
          fghijkl  tweedledee

With all due respect, I don't see how that makes any sense. In common
English usage, left-aligned means the text is set against the left edge,
and right-aligned means the text is set against the right edge. I can't
imagine Dutch or other European languages are very different in that
respect (though I've been known to guess wrong about languages).
Furthermore, this usage of 'align=<side>' is inconsistent with some
other things in ConTeXt, such as \rightaligned, which behaves as I would
expect it to. 

> 
> >2) In order to format format headers for a book so that the book title
> >   appears on the left-hand page and the section title on the right, I
> >   had to do this:
> >
> >     \setupheadertexts [] [section] [title] []
> >
> >   ... which, as I read the documentation, is in the opposite order to
> >   what it should be.
> >
> >Is this a bug in ConTeXt, or have I misconfigured something?
> > 
> >
> no, think of spreads

You mean page spreads? Like this?

     +----------------+----------------+
     |                |                |
     |   even-        |   odd-         |
     |   numbered     |   numbered     |
     |   page         |   page         |
     |                |                |
     +----------------+----------------+

That's exactly what I was already thinking of, and it doesn't make
sense:

  COMMAND:    \setupheadertexts [] [section] [title] []

  RESULT:     +--------------------+--------------------+
              | <title>            |          <section> |
              |                    |                    |
              |                    |                    |
              |                    |                    |
              |                    |                    |
              +--------------------+--------------------+

If you say there's a logical explanation for this, then I believe you. I
still maintain it's really counterintuitive and likely to cause
confusion. And if so, aren't you making extra work for yourself (because
you have to explain it)? Or is it just me?
    
-- 
Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
Englewood, Colorado, USA    Horses bear manure through
mgushee@havenrock.com           its fields;
http://www.havenrock.com/   When a nation ignores the Way,
                            Horses bear soldiers through
                                its streets.
                                
                            --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)