Re: newbie questions

[Marco <netuse@lavabit.com>]

On 2011-05-31 "Sanja C." <sanjac@rocketmail.com> wrote:

> a) Is the ConTeXt project alive?

Yes

> The newest  PDF documentation I  could find seems  to be
> from 2007; most of it is dated 2003 or older.

http://pmrb.free.fr/contextref.pdf is from 2011-03-25

> b) Do you think that  ConTeXt is an appropriate tool for
> the  use case  I  described (be  honest please  ;-)),and
> easy  enough  to  learn   for  someone  with  almost  no
> TeX  experience? The  requirements  are:  - Support  for
> elaborate,  colorful,  graphics-heavy  design,  which  I
> would preferably  create in Inkscape and  then export as
> vector  graphics  (or  port to  ConTeXt's  own  graphics
> language) as necessary.

Context is  well suited for good  typography and technical
graphics. It's  maybe not  the perfect  tool for  DTP like
magazines with very fancy  layout. However it's no problem
to  include the  graphics you  create with  inkscape, etc.

Check
http://www.pragma-ade.com/general/manuals/metafun-s.pdf
for graphics related stuff.

>  -  Ability to  write  a style  *once* (with  reasonable
> effort),  and "outsource"  it  to an  external file  (or
> files), so that for each  new release of the newsletter,
> only a simple  content TeX file (or  files) with minimal
> amount  of  markup  is   required  (which  e.g.  even  a
> non-tech-savvy writer/editor could edit)

Yes

>  - Ability  to easily  include pictures in  the content,
> and  let the  typesetting engine  automatically position
> them (either  in the main  text area with  text floating
> around them, or in special margin areas).

Yes

> c) Are there any  full-featured examples of design-heavy
> booklets/magazines/etc created with  ConTeXt., for which
> the full source code is publicly available?

I don't know about magazines created with ConTeXt. But you
can check the manuals at

http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Official_ConTeXt_Documentation

there's also a link to the sources.

Marco


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