When to migrate from MKII to MKIV?

When to migrate from MKII to MKIV?

[Dave]

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Hi all,
I've been using ConTeXt for a few years and I'm curious about whether it is
worth migrating to MKIV (I've just re-read the mk.pdf document).  Here are
the features I often use:

  - Postscript fonts... I have typescripts setup for the fonts I bought
(full versions of Utopia, Minion, Warnock, and a few compatible sans fonts).
 I believe I can get these as open-type as well if needed.
  - Bibliography via \usemodule[bib]
  - Chemistry via \usemodule[chemic]
  - Inclusion of PDF figures using an XML Figure database, i.e.
\usemodule[fig-base]
  - Equations (with the multiline and alignment macros) using Fourier/Utopia
including the bold math modifications in the MyWay document.
  - Tables (tabulate, natural, linetable)

The questions I have:
  1) Do all of the above work in MKIV?
  2) How much of a pain is it to switch to MKIV?  Do I need to rework my
fonts/typescripts?  Will all my current environments (setups, macros and
one-line definitions) work?
  3) Beyond speed and better font support, does it offer anything else to
me?

For the most part, I'm content with MKII and wonder if it is really worth
the effort to move to MKIV.  Perhaps the sample is skewed, but after reading
the mailing list I get the impression that the current experimental/beta
MKIV has a number of bugs and is not particularly feature complete when
compared to MKII.

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Re: When to migrate from MKII to MKIV?

[Aditya Mahajan]

On Tue, 3 Feb 2009, Dave wrote:

> Hi all,
> I've been using ConTeXt for a few years and I'm curious about whether it is
> worth migrating to MKIV (I've just re-read the mk.pdf document).  Here are
> the features I often use:
>
>  - Postscript fonts... I have typescripts setup for the fonts I bought
> (full versions of Utopia, Minion, Warnock, and a few compatible sans fonts).
> I believe I can get these as open-type as well if needed.
>  - Bibliography via \usemodule[bib]
>  - Chemistry via \usemodule[chemic]
>  - Inclusion of PDF figures using an XML Figure database, i.e.
> \usemodule[fig-base]
>  - Equations (with the multiline and alignment macros) using Fourier/Utopia
> including the bold math modifications in the MyWay document.
>  - Tables (tabulate, natural, linetable)
>
> The questions I have:
>  1) Do all of the above work in MKIV?

In principle they should. Font support for latin script in MKIV is quite 
stable now. Writing typescripts for both postscript and opentype fonts in 
MKIV is much easier than in MKII.

The bibliography module works fine, equation and math alignment is 
currently the same as in MKII. Math font support is being reworked, so 
using bold fonts will eventually be much easier in MKIV. I personally do 
not use chemic, figbases, and complicated tables, so cannot comment on 
those.

>  2) How much of a pain is it to switch to MKIV?  Do I need to rework my
> fonts/typescripts?  Will all my current environments (setups, macros and
> one-line definitions) work?

You may need to rework your typescripts, but they are much easier in MKIV. 
User interface for other things have not changed.

>  3) Beyond speed and better font support, does it offer anything else to
> me?

Depends on how complicated macros you write. In MKIV, you can harness a 
proper programming language (lua) to write macros, so if you do anything 
complicated, it is a big help.

> For the most part, I'm content with MKII and wonder if it is really worth
> the effort to move to MKIV.  Perhaps the sample is skewed, but after reading
> the mailing list I get the impression that the current experimental/beta
> MKIV has a number of bugs and is not particularly feature complete when
> compared to MKII.

My current suggestion is that if you find MKII adequate for you use, do 
not switch now. Wait until things stablize a bit, or you need an exotic 
feature for which is only availble in MKIV, or you want to help with 
testing MKIV.

Aditya
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Re: When to migrate from MKII to MKIV?

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:57 PM, Dave wrote:
> I've been using ConTeXt for a few years and I'm curious about whether it is
> worth migrating to MKIV

This question and an answer should be linked to from the first page of wiki.

Mojca
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Re: When to migrate from MKII to MKIV?

[Dave]

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On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 5:14 PM, Mojca Miklavec <
mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com> wrote:

> If you neglect the bugs and problems, transition should be painless -
> only typescripts need to be updated, but once you do that, your
> documents could even work with both mkii and mkiv.


I recall that it took me a good week of work in the evenings to get my
regular and math typescripts to work correctly with MKII.  I'm happy with
the PDF output of the papers/notes, lecture notes I write for work but I
will need to switch to OTF in the not-too distant future.  My university has
a site license for various Adobe pro fonts but they are only being
distributed in OTF now.  The ones I currently use were derived
from manipulating a set of multiple-masters a few years ago.


> Btw: math is a big mess at the moment; you can expect any kind of bugs
> related to maths with next beta version, but you can become a beta
> tester :)
>

I do physics/chemistry with a lot of equations so incomplete math support is
really a deal breaker for me.  I recall there being issues with some aspects
of bibliography support and a lack of fonts when I last tried the Minimal
package.  Again, deal breakers for me so I reverted to the ConTeXt included
in the 2008 version of texlive with a few bug-fixes from a more recent beta.

I think it would be very helpful to most ConTeXt 'users' if there were a
wiki page that spelled out the current status of MKIV exactly and listed
which features of MKII work, which are buggy, and which are work in
progress.  Something a little more high-level than the release notes and
this mailing list ;)

Thank you to everyone who contribute here.  I often find myself amazed at
the speed at which ConTeXt develops and very much look forward to the end of
font voodoo as promised by MKIV.

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Re: When to migrate from MKII to MKIV?

[Hans Hagen]

Dave wrote:

> I think it would be very helpful to most ConTeXt 'users' if there were a
> wiki page that spelled out the current status of MKIV exactly and listed
> which features of MKII work, which are buggy, and which are work in
> progress.  Something a little more high-level than the release notes and
> this mailing list ;)

well, we already have too much on our plate so someone else has to do that

concerning math ... we're in the middle of a transition to new math in 
mkiv (much works already but some things hav to wait till luatex itself 
is ready for it); it will probably be useable end of this month

Hans

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Re: When to migrate from MKII to MKIV?

[Arthur Reutenauer]

> I do physics/chemistry with a lot of equations so incomplete math support is
> really a deal breaker for me.

  You realize all the recent discussions on math support are concerned
with *OpenType* math, right?  The legacy support coming from Knuth's
TeX, which is the only one you have available in Mark II, is completely
mature and won't change.

	Arthur
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Re: When to migrate from MKII to MKIV?

[Alan BRASLAU]

On Tuesday 03 February 2009 22:34:24 Aditya Mahajan wrote:
>  I personally do 
> not use chemic, figbases, and complicated tables, so cannot comment on 
> those.

Chemic seems to work with apparently the same results in mkii and mkiv.
I am using this with mkiv without being too demanding for the moment...
This package may have a small user base, but it appears to be rather
unique. In order to progress, it must not sleep but be put to use.
Note, however, that I am not a chemist and so do not write very many
chemical structures and formulae.

The big problem for scientific writers is that publishers
at very best will accept plain LaTeX. A notable exception
is the American Physical Society who developed revTeX,
a LaTeX package well suited to their publishing style.
The American Chemical Society will accept plain LaTeX.
Often, other scientific publishers as for Word!

Also, we need to contribute more pages like
http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Posting_on_arxiv.org
Indeed, I had terrible problems submitting texts to arxiv
as their system identifies the source as TeX but fails
to process it.

Alan
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Re: When to migrate from MKII to MKIV?

[Joseph Wright]

Alan BRASLAU wrote:
> The big problem for scientific writers is that publishers
> at very best will accept plain LaTeX. A notable exception
> is the American Physical Society who developed revTeX,
> a LaTeX package well suited to their publishing style.
> The American Chemical Society will accept plain LaTeX.
> Often, other scientific publishers as for Word!

Rather off-topic, but as I am a chemist (and also write the "achemso"
LaTeX package for the ACS), I'd point out that many more "physical"
chemistry journals will accept LaTeX material.  The ACS will also take
"author generated" PDFs, so I assume ConTeXt/LaTeX/plain/whatever.

The thing with chemical formulae is that while in-line ones are okay as
text ("CH2=CH2 + H2O -> CH3-CH2OH"), complex structures are really a
pain to enter in TeX (despite many valiant efforts).  So most synthetic
chemists use ChemDraw.
-- 
Joseph Wright
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Re: When to migrate from MKII to MKIV?

[luigi scarso]

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>
> For the most part, I'm content with MKII and wonder if it is really worth
>> the effort to move to MKIV.  Perhaps the sample is skewed, but after
>> reading
>> the mailing list I get the impression that the current experimental/beta
>> MKIV has a number of bugs and is not particularly feature complete when
>> compared to MKII.
>>
>
> My current suggestion is that if you find MKII adequate for you use, do not
> switch now. Wait until things stablize a bit, or you need an exotic feature
> for which is only availble in MKIV, or you want to help with testing MKIV.
>

My experience said that one should switch now.
Luatex+mkiv was and is a big change for me .

-- 
luigi

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