New Member Introductory Rant

New Member Introductory Rant

[Corin Royal Drummond]

Hello ConTeXt Users,

I have become obsessed with ConTeXt since I found out about it while 
browsing through the TeX related software on my Ubuntu Linux box.  I've 
been teaching myself web development in XHTML/CSS over the last couple 
years, and developed a passion for structured documents that separate 
presentation as much as possible.  I'm starting to setup Drupal CMS 
installations for some friends in preparation for doing web publishing 
work for clients.  It's been fun to learn, but so frustrating and 
difficult for my poor mind. 

I've long been curious about TeX but it seemed too ossified, fragmented, 
inflexible, and hard to learn.  Later I discovered LyX and understood 
implicitly the style based markup idea, and it's power.  I've always 
hated things like word, open office, and DTP programs.  I'm fine doing 
the GUI for PhotoShop, but somehow I feel I should be able to just type 
text, and have it come out all pretty.  ConTeXt seems to share that 
philosophy, so I'm giddy about it.  I suppose I should learn InDesign 
too, but I don't really want to.  I use a text editor for my web coding 
rather than dragging boxes around in DreamWeaver.  I like that I can 
just cut & paste other people's code and learn what they did.  GUI 
programs are harder to learn in that way since someone has to write a 
whole step-by-step tutorial rather than just show you their commented 
code. 

I've been working my way through the documentation, ConTeXt Garden, and 
whatever I can find on Google searches.  I've worked my way up to making 
a letter head with my address, a graphic logo, and couple of font 
switches, and some hanging punctuation.  I made another version for my 
journal with two columns under each section heading.  I'm using Scite as 
my editor, but I haven't set it up anyway special.  Kile didn't seem to 
like ConTeXt much, and it's command completion facility kept spitting 
out LaTeX code as I typed.  I like Scite as it starts fast, has nice 
colors, and is easy to get around. 

TexFont doesn't work on Ubuntu.  It craps out saying it can't find it's 
TeX root.  Even when I set the FontRoot with the command line switch, it 
fails to find it's map files.  I filed a bug with Ubuntu about it as it 
seems like some files like the font maps got put in /var/lib.  So I'm 
completely frustrated by the font situation.  Don't understand why I 
can't just point TexFont at my directory of OTF, TTF, and PFB fonts and 
have it suck up every last glyph and variant like Scribus, InkScape, and 
InDesign do.  It should configure a reasonable set of typescripts, and 
tell me what's available.  All the other TeX fonts should just work out 
of the box.  Why do I have to wrestle so vainly just to get the damn 
fonts to be available. 

Also, I can't for the life of me figure out how to change typefaces in 
headers and footers.  I can change to italics, or sizes with style=\it\x 
but have no clue how to switch a header to say the Zaph Chancery 
caligraphic.  I can switch the body font to it, so I'm part way there. 

I'm pretty pissed off about the state of the documentation for ConTeXt.  
Out of date docs, that were never finished, and full of holes.  Small 
set of MyWay articles, old dead links on the wiki, no roadmap, no bug 
database.  It's 2008, there's things like SourceForge, and LaunchPad for 
these sort of things.  I don't understand why Pragma can't sell support 
for ConTeXt like other open source projects.  That way Hans can afford a 
staff to handle people's questions, he can focus on building what he 
likes (and we all love), new users can be brought in, and a virtuous 
cycle of new contributors, new features, and new users. 

TexShow is missing tons of commands I've read about in the manual, and 
doesn't bother to explain what any command or option does.  Nor do I 
understand how options are chained or structured into more than simple 
switches.  Where are the screencasts of gurus showing off how to do cool 
things?  Where are the tutorials?  Where are the contributed templates, 
so I can read other people's code to learn from?  You'd think that 
people who make structured document typesetting systems would spend some 
more time on their documentation. 

I'd be glad to help, but first I'd need to learn the system.  Since the 
docs are so incomplete, I'm not sure how I'd do that.  Catch 22. 

I've gotten as far as letter writing, and I'm pretty happy with that.  
My goal is to typeset my housemate's pirate novel that she's writing.  
I'm going to stick it out and see how far I can get.  I hope I don't 
have to go running back to LyX and the memoir class.  I'm home sick with 
Hepatitis and Diabetes so I've got some quality time with my six year 
old Ubuntu laptop. 

If there are any Bay Area ConTeXt users around, I'd love to meet you.  
And if any one wants help setting up a better community website, I could 
help with that, knowing Drupal. 

Hope to speak with some of you soon.

Regards,

Corin Royal Drummond
San Francisco, California
corin@studiochango.com


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Re: New Member Introductory Rant

[Idris Samawi Hamid]

Hi Corin,

Welcome. I will offer some brief comments, and maybe others will elaborate  
on things I skip, pass over, or inadequately discuss:

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:01:30 -0600, Corin Royal Drummond  
<corin@studiochango.com> wrote:

> I've long been curious about TeX but it seemed too

> ossified,

No, see the luatex project, developed and supported mostly (though not  
exclusively) by the ConTeXt community.

> fragmented,

engines: pdfTeX is standard, luaTeX (experimental) will one day be its  
successor, and xeTeX is is also available for special script needs (an  
area where luaTeX also shines). Other TeX versions are deprecated or  
obsolete. In the next three years only luaTeX and xetex will be relavant.

formats: ConTeXt and LaTeX.

So: you have two/three engines to choose from (depending on your needs)  
and two formats.

> inflexible,

This is simply not the case. Indeed, I am not aware of any foundation for  
typography and typesetting that is more flexible than TeX. And you have a  
variety of options depending on your needs, as I just explained above.

> and hard to learn.

That is true, to an extent. OTOH ConTeXt has a very consistent interface,  
much more so than LaTeX's (including its package system).

> Later I discovered LyX and understood
> implicitly the style based markup idea, and it's power.

LyX, now THAT's inflexible ;-)

> I've always
> hated things like word, open office, and DTP programs.  I'm fine doing
> the GUI for PhotoShop, but somehow I feel I should be able to just type
> text, and have it come out all pretty.  ConTeXt seems to share that
> philosophy, so I'm giddy about it.  I suppose I should learn InDesign
> too, but I don't really want to.

For structured elements that require automated processing ConTeXt is way  
ahead of InDesign AKAIK.

> I've been working my way through the documentation, ConTeXt Garden, and
> whatever I can find on Google searches.  I've worked my way up to making
> a letter head with my address, a graphic logo, and couple of font
> switches, and some hanging punctuation.  I made another version for my
> journal with two columns under each section heading.  I'm using Scite as
> my editor, but I haven't set it up anyway special.

There is a ConTeXt-enabled version of scite that is distributed by Pragma.

> Kile didn't seem to
> like ConTeXt much, and it's command completion facility kept spitting
> out LaTeX code as I typed.  I like Scite as it starts fast, has nice
> colors, and is easy to get around.

See the wiki

http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Main_Page

and search for the text editors page.

For what follows, I will make a comment or two, but note the following:

1. There are people here more than happy to help you with any problems you  
may be experiencing.

2. In general, try to focus on one problem per email subject.

3. When possible, always give the smallest sample context file that  
illustrates the problem.

> TexFont doesn't work on Ubuntu.  It craps out saying it can't find it's
> TeX root.  Even when I set the FontRoot with the command line switch, it
> fails to find it's map files.  I filed a bug with Ubuntu about it as it
> seems like some files like the font maps got put in /var/lib.  So I'm
> completely frustrated by the font situation.  Don't understand why I
> can't just point TexFont at my directory of OTF, TTF, and PFB fonts and
> have it suck up every last glyph and variant like Scribus, InkScape, and
> InDesign do.  It should configure a reasonable set of typescripts, and
> tell me what's available.  All the other TeX fonts should just work out
> of the box.  Why do I have to wrestle so vainly just to get the damn
> fonts to be available.

ConTeXt is extraordinarily flexible when it comes to fonts, and this  
inevitably involves much user configuration. With luaTeX and mkiv (next  
generation context) things will become streamlined in ways but you will  
have to learn to manipulate fonts the context way. There are lots of  
tutorials out there (see the wiki). AKAIK pdfTeX+mkii (which I presume you  
are using) has pretty much stabilized so bring your problems here and  
there is probably an easy fix.

About Ubuntu, I know nothing. Make sure you have installed the latest  
context and are not using an old version.

> Also, I can't for the life of me figure out how to change typefaces in
> headers and footers.  I can change to italics, or sizes with style=\it\x
> but have no clue how to switch a header to say the Zaph Chancery
> caligraphic.  I can switch the body font to it, so I'm part way there.

Send a separate email illustrating the problem (this one's easy btw:  
\switchtotypeface, \switchtobodyfont).

> I'm pretty pissed off about the state of the documentation for ConTeXt.
> Out of date docs, that were never finished, and full of holes.

Actually, given the size of ConTeXt and the number of developers, it's  
amazing how much documentation there is. Look at the cup as half-full, not  
half-empty.

> Small
> set of MyWay articles, old dead links on the wiki, no roadmap, no bug
> database.

Get involved! This mailing list is the place to start, then the wiki. See  
also the list archives.

We hope to get a major ConTeXt book out in a couple of years or so...

> It's 2008, there's things like SourceForge, and LaunchPad for
> these sort of things.  I don't understand why Pragma can't sell support
> for ConTeXt like other open source projects.  That way Hans can afford a
> staff to handle people's questions, he can focus on building what he
> likes (and we all love), new users can be brought in, and a virtuous
> cycle of new contributors, new features, and new users.

I am sure Hans will be happy to have you as a paying customer. Hang around  
the list for awhile, ask specific questions, get familiar with the  
community, then revisit this issue.

> TexShow is missing tons of commands I've read about in the manual, and
> doesn't bother to explain what any command or option does.  Nor do I
> understand how options are chained or structured into more than simple
> switches.  Where are the screencasts of gurus showing off how to do cool
> things?  Where are the tutorials?  Where are the contributed templates,
> so I can read other people's code to learn from?  You'd think that
> people who make structured document typesetting systems would spend some
> more time on their documentation.

A lot of what you are looking for is there: see the archives, send  
distinct emails each with a distinct subject matter.

Others (Mojca, Luigi) can answer this question in more detail.

> I'd be glad to help, but first I'd need to learn the system.  Since the
> docs are so incomplete, I'm not sure how I'd do that.  Catch 22.

 From your comments above it seems you've made a lot of progress already.  
Just follow the protocol I've outlined above.

> I've gotten as far as letter writing, and I'm pretty happy with that.
> My goal is to typeset my housemate's pirate novel that she's writing.
> I'm going to stick it out and see how far I can get.  I hope I don't
> have to go running back to LyX and the memoir class.

You won't have to ;-) ConTeXt is in a whole other league.

> I'm home sick with
> Hepatitis and Diabetes so I've got some quality time with my six year
> old Ubuntu laptop.

Wishing you good health!

> If there are any Bay Area ConTeXt users around, I'd love to meet you.
> And if any one wants help setting up a better community website, I could
> help with that, knowing Drupal.

Mojca is probably the main point person. Welcome again to ConTeXt and

Best wishes
Idris

-- 
Professor Idris Samawi Hamid, Editor-in-Chief
International Journal of Shi`i Studies
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
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Re: New Member Introductory Rant

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Corin Royal Drummond wrote:
> Hello ConTeXt Users,
>
>  I have become obsessed with ConTeXt since I found out about it while
>  browsing through the TeX related software on my Ubuntu Linux box.  I've
>  been teaching myself web development in XHTML/CSS over the last couple
>  years, and developed a passion for structured documents that separate
>  presentation as much as possible.  I'm starting to setup Drupal CMS
>  installations for some friends in preparation for doing web publishing
>  work for clients.  It's been fun to learn, but so frustrating and
>  difficult for my poor mind.
>
>  I've long been curious about TeX but it seemed too ossified, fragmented,
>  inflexible, and hard to learn.  Later I discovered LyX and understood
>  implicitly the style based markup idea, and it's power.  I've always
>  hated things like word, open office, and DTP programs.  I'm fine doing
>  the GUI for PhotoShop, but somehow I feel I should be able to just type
>  text, and have it come out all pretty.  ConTeXt seems to share that
>  philosophy, so I'm giddy about it.  I suppose I should learn InDesign
>  too, but I don't really want to.  I use a text editor for my web coding
>  rather than dragging boxes around in DreamWeaver.  I like that I can
>  just cut & paste other people's code and learn what they did.  GUI
>  programs are harder to learn in that way since someone has to write a
>  whole step-by-step tutorial rather than just show you their commented
>  code.
>
>  I'm using Scite as my editor, but I haven't set it up anyway special.

Hans has a relatively good Scite setup on Windows that is probably not
included into standard Scite, and probably not available anywhere as a
separate package either. (If you want, you can take a look at
http://www.pragma-ade.com/context/install/mswincontext.zip. There are
quite some files for better Scite support, you only need to figure out
which files you need. In case that you do that, please share your
experience with others.)

>  Kile didn't seem to
>  like ConTeXt much, and it's command completion facility kept spitting
>  out LaTeX code as I typed.  I like Scite as it starts fast, has nice
>  colors, and is easy to get around.

A few months ago some ConTeXt support has been added to Kile. Maybe
upgrading would help (But I never use Kile, so I cannot say for sure).

>  TexFont doesn't work on Ubuntu.  It craps out saying it can't find it's
>  TeX root.  Even when I set the FontRoot with the command line switch, it
>  fails to find it's map files.  I filed a bug with Ubuntu about it as it
>  seems like some files like the font maps got put in /var/lib.  So I'm
>  completely frustrated by the font situation.  Don't understand why I
>  can't just point TexFont at my directory of OTF, TTF, and PFB fonts and
>  have it suck up every last glyph and variant like Scribus, InkScape, and
>  InDesign do.  It should configure a reasonable set of typescripts, and
>  tell me what's available.  All the other TeX fonts should just work out
>  of the box.  Why do I have to wrestle so vainly just to get the damn
>  fonts to be available.

TeXFont is full of "non-heavily-tested-functionality", which means
that it sometimes works on one platform, but fails on the other. I
have tried to use it in past, but then I gave up.
The problem is that even though it might need fixes, it is now
obsolete since the arrival of LuaTeX. I don't want to say that it's
useless, just that Hans probably prefers to spend his time improving
LuaTeX support than keeping that old stuff work.

TexFont is written in Perl - if you have some fixes to suggest (in
form of patches), go ahead.

But I would rather suggest to switch to XeTeX or LuaTeX if you need
more advanced fonts. It will make your life much easier.

>  Also, I can't for the life of me figure out how to change typefaces in
>  headers and footers.  I can change to italics, or sizes with style=\it\x
>  but have no clue how to switch a header to say the Zaph Chancery
>  caligraphic.  I can switch the body font to it, so I'm part way there.

Use
    style={\switchtobodyfont[...]}
... = the same name & size as you use in \setupbodyfont[...]

>  I'm pretty pissed off about the state of the documentation for ConTeXt.
>  Out of date docs, that were never finished, and full of holes.  Small
>  set of MyWay articles,

Waiting for others to make new ones ... :)

>  old dead links on the wiki,

Just send a list of them (if you don't know where they should point)
or simply fix them ... That's why wiki is there for.

>  no roadmap,

There might be no roadmap written anywhere explicitly, but Hans has a
more clear vision in his head than 95% of any other open-source
developers. The fact that it is not written anywhere (take a look at
mk.pdf on Pragma or LuaTeX roadmap or mplib ideas) doesn't mean that
there is none. Hans's and Taco's conference talks always have
something impressive ideas to show even for those who follow the
development closely.

Most open source programs write a roadmap and then you see statements
like "we plan to write utf-8 support" standing on their web pages
forever. Hans simply *does* everything, often "hidden" form users'
eyes. (In the sense "users should not bother", rather than "user
should not see".) So you wouldn't even notice that things have changed
apart from the fact that ConTeXt documents compile ten times faster
than they did several years ago, and that you can now use OpenType
fonts without any problem ... any many other little details.

Omega had a clear roadmap and clear idea what it wanted to achieve.
However, the ideas have remained on paper.

> no bug database.

There has been one, but it turned out that resolving bugs through the
mailing list has been more efficient, and Hans never took time to
browse through that database. Moreover, when someone reports a bug,
it's great if he can test if it works OK again. In the bug database
authors usually get lost. I don't say that bug database is a bad
thing. But a volunteer to maintain it is needed. (That used to be Taco
for some time.)

Also, a "stable version of ConTeXt" is needed. However, unlikely that
Hans is going to make one. If there was some volunteer to:
- take some version of ConTeXt once or twice per year
- check new versions of ConTeXt and then check for every change if
it's a new feature or a bugfix
- only apply bugfixes to the "stable" version
- or even simply check every change if it's safe or not, and prepare
some test documents to check them
then this would be a welcome contribution.

>  It's 2008, there's things like SourceForge,

Yesterday I have heard an interesting thought:
    "When projects are put on SourceForge, that's usually the first
step towards their death." (When people star thinking that putting
their projects on SourceForge will simplify others contributing to it
as they have less time for development.)

Even though it's not connected to the question you had, the sentence
above might not be so far away from truth in many cases (not all of
them of course).

>  and LaunchPad for
>  these sort of things.  I don't understand why Pragma can't sell support
>  for ConTeXt like other open source projects.  That way Hans can afford a
>  staff to handle people's questions,

In case that you need professional support from Pragma, simply contact
Hans. He already works on different projects for different clients. If
it would turn out that more people are needed, he would probably
already hire more people, but Hans is a multi-threading, super-machine
who can program several times faster than others, and he can still
cope with what he has now.

In contrast to OpenOffice or Firefox, ConTeXt has a much smaller user
base. If there was some usable user-interface behind (in front of)
TeX, it would have probably been another story.

>  he can focus on building what he likes (and we all love),

He already does that :)

>  new users can be brought in, and a virtuous
>  cycle of new contributors, new features, and new users.

New users already have this mailing list and new features more often
come from Hans than from external contributors. People come to TeX for
many different reasons, but most of them are not willing to pay for it
(or at least come to TeX exactly for that reason - because it's both
free and enables high-quality typesetting).

Those who are willing to pay for support can always make a contract with Pragma.

>  TexShow is missing tons of commands I've read about in the manual,

It will get improved in a foreseeable future.

>  and
>  doesn't bother to explain what any command or option does.

Someone has to explain that. There is texshow.contextgarden.net
waiting for people to fill in the descriptions. The current version is
a bit buggy, but will be improved soon.

>  Nor do I
>  understand how options are chained or structured into more than simple
>  switches.

What exactly do you mean? Many options are a bit tricky indeed, but
after reading the manual, one can get some feeling of what is
possible.

>  Where are the screencasts of gurus showing off how to do cool
>  things?

Hans's manuals are in svn repository (I forgot the location, but can check).
There is no showcase, making one would be nice.

>  Where are the tutorials?  Where are the contributed templates,
>  so I can read other people's code to learn from?  You'd think that
>  people who make structured document typesetting systems would spend some
>  more time on their documentation.

I don't know the English version of it (there must be one - if anyone
knows it, I would be glad to hear it), but we have a nice saying,
literally translated as:
    "Farrier's own mare is always barefoot."

>  I'd be glad to help, but first I'd need to learn the system.  Since the
>  docs are so incomplete, I'm not sure how I'd do that.  Catch 22.

By reading the source :)
Joking of course ... but not entirely.

>  And if any one wants help setting up a better community website, I could
>  help with that, knowing Drupal.

What exactly do you have in mind? What's your plan? Things can be put
on contextgarden (once I get the licence to login again :) if needed.
Ideas are welcome :)
There is wiki, but it has been sleeping for quite some time now. If
you have ideas how to make more people into contributing, we would all
be more than happy.

Mojca
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Re: New Member Introductory Rant

[David]

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:50:59 +0200, Mojca Miklavec wrote:

> 
> I don't know the English version of it (there must be one - if anyone
> knows it, I would be glad to hear it), but we have a nice saying,
> literally translated as:
>     "Farrier's own mare is always barefoot."


(In English it's almost exactly the same, except we usually use the 
shoemaker's children instead of the farrier's mare.)

David
___________________________________________________________________________________
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Re: New Member Introductory Rant

[Andrea Valle]

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>
> By reading the source :)
> Joking of course ... but not entirely.
>



Yes, that's an important point. Many times the options I'm searching  
for are not documented: so, or I'm able to find an example in wiki/ 
mailing list or probably it would be easy to take a look to the  
sources, I guess.
I know it's far from being polite, but really I'd like to have a "How- 
to-find-your-way-thru-the-source Tutorial for total newbie". On my  
mac, they are hidden: so, first step, change your visualization  
preferences thru a googled script form Terminal. Second, the (in) 
famous tex tree structure is far from being clear for me. Third, and  
most important, how to extract infos from sources?

This is my main (only) frustration with ConTeXt,

Just 2c

Best

-a-
--------------------------------------------------
Andrea Valle
--------------------------------------------------
CIRMA - DAMS
Università degli Studi di Torino
--> http://www.cirma.unito.it/andrea/
--> http://www.myspace.com/andreavalle
--> andrea.valle@unito.it
--------------------------------------------------


I did this interview where I just mentioned that I read Foucault. Who  
doesn't in university, right? I was in this strip club giving this  
guy a lap dance and all he wanted to do was to discuss Foucault with  
me. Well, I can stand naked and do my little dance, or I can discuss  
Foucault, but not at the same time; too much information.
(Annabel Chong)




--------------------------------------------------
Andrea Valle
--------------------------------------------------
CIRMA - DAMS
Università degli Studi di Torino
--> http://www.cirma.unito.it/andrea/
--> http://www.myspace.com/andreavalle
--> andrea.valle@unito.it
--------------------------------------------------


"
Think of it as seasoning
. noise [salt] is boring
. F(blah) [food without salt] can be boring
. F(noise, blah) can be really tasty
"
(Ken Perlin on noise)






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___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: proverb (was: New Member Introductory Rant)

[Marcin Borkowski]

Dnia Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 02:03:49PM -0700, David napisał(a):
> On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:50:59 +0200, Mojca Miklavec wrote:
> 
> > 
> > I don't know the English version of it (there must be one - if anyone
> > knows it, I would be glad to hear it), but we have a nice saying,
> > literally translated as:
> >     "Farrier's own mare is always barefoot."
> 
> 
> (In English it's almost exactly the same, except we usually use the 
> shoemaker's children instead of the farrier's mare.)

BTW, in Polish it's similar, although without the children/mare stuff:

"A shoemaker walks barefoot."

> 
> David

-- 
Marcin Borkowski (http://mbork.faculty.fmcs.amu.edu.pl)

___________________________________________________________________________________
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Re: New Member Introductory Rant

[Aditya Mahajan]

On Mon, 31 Mar 2008, Andrea Valle wrote:

>> 
>> By reading the source :)
>> Joking of course ... but not entirely.
>> 
>
>
>
> Yes, that's an important point. Many times the options I'm searching for are 
> not documented: so, or I'm able to find an example in wiki/mailing list or 
> probably it would be easy to take a look to the sources, I guess.
> I know it's far from being polite, but really I'd like to have a 
> "How-to-find-your-way-thru-the-source Tutorial for total newbie".

The first thing that you need to know is the file where a particular 
command is defined. You can search the source tree on contextgarden; or 
grep the files in your computer. After a while you will remember which 
file defines a particular command.

> On my mac, 
> they are hidden: so, first step, change your visualization preferences thru a 
> googled script form Terminal.

Sorry, I have no idea of how things work on a Mac, but it seems strange to 
hide the entire tex tree.

> Second, the (in)famous tex tree structure is 
> far from being clear for me.

Almost all of ConTeXt files are in $TEXMF/tex/context/base (fonts, are of 
course a different issue)

> Third, and most important, how to extract infos 
> from sources?

This is the easiest. Most of ConTeXt commands are written in a consistent 
manner. Hans uses verbose variable names, which makes it easy to "read" 
the code. Also in most cases the source files have lot of comments.

Aditya
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Re: New Member Introductory Rant

[Andrea Valle]

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Thanks Aditya

> Sorry, I have no idea of how things work on a Mac, but it seems  
> strange to
> hide the entire tex tree

simply, the whole usr folder is hidden

Ok, I'll take a look an in case come back to the list
Best

-a-


--------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
Andrea Valle
--------------------------------------------------
CIRMA - DAMS
Università degli Studi di Torino
--> http://www.cirma.unito.it/andrea/
--> http://www.myspace.com/andreavalle
--> andrea.valle@unito.it
--------------------------------------------------


"
Think of it as seasoning
. noise [salt] is boring
. F(blah) [food without salt] can be boring
. F(noise, blah) can be really tasty
"
(Ken Perlin on noise)






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Re: New Member Introductory Rant

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am 2008-03-31 um 17:33 schrieb Aditya Mahajan:
>>
>> "How-to-find-your-way-thru-the-source Tutorial for total newbie".
> The first thing that you need to know is the file where a particular
> command is defined. You can search the source tree on  
> contextgarden; or
> grep the files in your computer. After a while you will remember which
> file defines a particular command.

In case someone overread this:

"You can search the source tree on contextgarden"
http://source.contextgarden.net/

And besides the wiki pages, a lot of command documentation is in  
texshow-web:
http://texshow.contextgarden.net/
(Even if unfortunately some groups of commands are missing completely.)

>> On my mac,
>> they are hidden: so, first step, change your visualization  
>> preferences thru a
>> googled script form Terminal.
> Sorry, I have no idea of how things work on a Mac, but it seems  
> strange to
> hide the entire tex tree.

MacOS X hides most of its UNIX stuff from a normal user.
But you can just e.g. "open /usr/" in Terminal and continue to browse  
in Finder.

>>
>> Third, and most important, how to extract infos
>> from sources?
> This is the easiest. Most of ConTeXt commands are written in a  
> consistent
> manner. Hans uses verbose variable names, which makes it easy to  
> "read"
> the code. Also in most cases the source files have lot of comments.

And I guess the ConTeXt sources are the only place where the Dodo  
survived.
(At least every Dodo would feel at home between all those dodododos.)
;-)

Greetlings from Lake Constance!
Hraban
---
http://www.fiee.net/texnique/
http://wiki.contextgarden.net
https://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer)

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Re: New Member Introductory Rant

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:46 PM, Andrea Valle wrote:
>  Thanks Aditya
>
>
>
> Sorry, I have no idea of how things work on a Mac, but it seems strange to
> hide the entire tex tree
>
> simply, the whole usr folder is hidden

OK, but when you install Windows, the whole C:\ directory is hidden as
well if I recall it correctly. You have to keep in mind that most
users should not bother about things under /usr. For the rest, there
is Terminal.

Mojca
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Re: New Member Introductory Rant

[Andrea Valle]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1995 bytes --]

Of course, every problem can be solved.
There's Terminal, indeed. Not so often, but sometimes I like GUI:  
e.g. in order to browse a folder structure.
Also, it would not be bad to have spotlight working for all your hard  
disk content (at least setting by a preference)
In any case, you can do from Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

and relaunch Finder.

Best

-a-


On 1 Apr 2008, at 02:29, Mojca Miklavec wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:46 PM, Andrea Valle wrote:
>>  Thanks Aditya
>>
>>
>>
>> Sorry, I have no idea of how things work on a Mac, but it seems  
>> strange to
>> hide the entire tex tree
>>
>> simply, the whole usr folder is hidden
>
> OK, but when you install Windows, the whole C:\ directory is hidden as
> well if I recall it correctly. You have to keep in mind that most
> users should not bother about things under /usr. For the rest, there
> is Terminal.
>
> Mojca
> ______________________________________________________________________ 
> _____________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an  
> entry to the Wiki!
>
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ 
> ntg-context
> webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
> archive  : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
> wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
> ______________________________________________________________________ 
> _____________

--------------------------------------------------
Andrea Valle
--------------------------------------------------
CIRMA - DAMS
Università degli Studi di Torino
--> http://www.cirma.unito.it/andrea/
--> http://www.myspace.com/andreavalle
--> andrea.valle@unito.it
--------------------------------------------------


"
Think of it as seasoning
. noise [salt] is boring
. F(blah) [food without salt] can be boring
. F(noise, blah) can be really tasty
"
(Ken Perlin on noise)






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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: New Member Introductory Rant

[Hans Hagen]

Mojca Miklavec wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:46 PM, Andrea Valle wrote:
>>  Thanks Aditya
>>
>>
>>
>> Sorry, I have no idea of how things work on a Mac, but it seems strange to
>> hide the entire tex tree
>>
>> simply, the whole usr folder is hidden
> 
> OK, but when you install Windows, the whole C:\ directory is hidden as
> well if I recall it correctly. You have to keep in mind that most
> users should not bother about things under /usr. For the rest, there
> is Terminal.

c: is not hidden, some system paths are semi hidden, i.e. the file 
manager does not show their content unless explicitely told to do

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