Re: Sidebars and versals Oh my!

[John Culleton <john@wexfordpress.com>]

On Monday 27 December 2004 06:33, Adam Lindsay wrote:
> h h extern said this at Sun, 26 Dec 2004 21:33:44 +0100:
> >> Context already has mechanisms for flowing or wrapping text around a
> >
> >graphic.
> >
> >> How well the wraparound feature works when more than one short
>
> paragraph is
>
> >> involved I have not tested yet.
> >
> >the mp based background mechanism can handle that: see plus-rul.tex
> >

> >(there is also another mechanism available which permits rather nasty
> >variants
> >but i still had no time to document it, so it's currently a hidden
> > feature)
>
> plus-rul is interesting, but I'm 98% certain that when John talks about
> sidebars, he means what you call intermezzos. My interpretation, using
> the things I do know (or figured out this morning):

Adam is right. Think of an "intermezzo" with a gray background but either in 
the margin,or placed in the outer part of the text block like an 
illustration, or protruding from the text block. The term "sidebar" is 
American magazine usage.  Generally a sidebar in this sense contains a 
summary of the contents of the page or repeats an important point.

 Bill McClain in his tutorial covers an in margin sidebar but without the gray 
background which can be tricky.  The Context Manual gives examples of 
graphics in the text block with text flowing around them.  The Details Manual 
shows graphics protruding into the margin, but I would envision protruding no 
more than 50% of the width of the inserted item.

I will play with the code below to see what luck I have. 
>
> \setupfloat [intermezzo]
>    [leftmargindistance=-\outercombitotal,
>     rightmargindistance=-\outercombitotal,
>     default=outer]
> \setupcaption[intermezzo][location=none]
> \starttext
> \showframe
> \input ward
> \placeintermezzo{}{\framedtext[width=7cm]{\tfx\input dawkins }}
> \dorecurse{3}{\input knuth \par}
> \stoptext
>
> What I don't know, however, is: 1) how to force a width on flowed text
> within a float without resorting to the internal \framedtext, or 2) how
> to use this with \splitfloat, which is what I suspect people who think
> about sidebars (intermezzo texts) are going to be worried about in a
> batch-based system.

-- 
John Culleton

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