Some questions on float combinations

Some questions on float combinations

[Alexey Kryukov]

Hi all,

recently I finished typesetting a block of inset illustrations for a
journal on history, which I first implemented in LaTeX and then moved
to ConTeXt (I am using a version from TeXLive 2013 packaged with
openSUSE 13.1). Basically I am greatly satisfied with the result, as the
code looks much clearer now. However, I still see some things
which can be done in LaTeX by a more natural way.

First of all, is there a dedicated method to rotate an entire
combination or floatcombination by 90 degrees? I see floats have a
special option to control this, but float combinations don't (am I
right here?). And if I enclose a float combination into a \rotate
command, then the height of the rotated block seems to be incorrectly
calculated, so that about a half of the block goes outside of the upper
page boundary.

Second, not all image combinations can be described by a simple matrix,
and the documentation doesn't explain what to do in such more complex
cases (nor the Wiki does). For example, in my document some pages have
three images ordered in two columns: one relatively tall image
side-by-side with two smaller ones. To make the things worse such
combinations are usually placed on landscape pages. The obvious solution
here seems to be to somewhow group two smaller images and then put them
into a float combination. Unfortunately, this doesn't work, as
floatcombination seems to ignore all enclosed boxing
commands/environments and even nested float combinations.

Finally I managed to achieve the desired layout by defining a set of
parallel paragraphs, which fortunately worked even inside a \rotate
command (columns and columnsets with embedded floats didn't). Still it
would be nice to have a special interface allowing to combine floats
and float combinations into larger blocks.

-- 
Regards,
Alexey Kryukov <anagnost at yandex dot ru>

Moscow State University
Faculty of History
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Re: Some questions on float combinations

[Hans Hagen]

On 1/3/2014 8:17 PM, Alexey Kryukov wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> recently I finished typesetting a block of inset illustrations for a
> journal on history, which I first implemented in LaTeX and then moved
> to ConTeXt (I am using a version from TeXLive 2013 packaged with
> openSUSE 13.1). Basically I am greatly satisfied with the result, as the
> code looks much clearer now. However, I still see some things
> which can be done in LaTeX by a more natural way.
>
> First of all, is there a dedicated method to rotate an entire
> combination or floatcombination by 90 degrees? I see floats have a
> special option to control this, but float combinations don't (am I
> right here?). And if I enclose a float combination into a \rotate
> command, then the height of the rotated block seems to be incorrectly
> calculated, so that about a half of the block goes outside of the upper
> page boundary.
>
> Second, not all image combinations can be described by a simple matrix,
> and the documentation doesn't explain what to do in such more complex
> cases (nor the Wiki does). For example, in my document some pages have
> three images ordered in two columns: one relatively tall image
> side-by-side with two smaller ones. To make the things worse such
> combinations are usually placed on landscape pages. The obvious solution
> here seems to be to somewhow group two smaller images and then put them
> into a float combination. Unfortunately, this doesn't work, as
> floatcombination seems to ignore all enclosed boxing
> commands/environments and even nested float combinations.
>
> Finally I managed to achieve the desired layout by defining a set of
> parallel paragraphs, which fortunately worked even inside a \rotate
> command (columns and columnsets with embedded floats didn't). Still it
> would be nice to have a special interface allowing to combine floats
> and float combinations into larger blocks.

It all depends on it being floats or not (floatign indeed). One option 
is to package a set of floats in a bTABLE .. eTABLE and put a..z 
subcaptions under it that way and then have the whole as a float

anyway ... you have more chance onan answer if you provide small examples

Hans


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Re: Some questions on float combinations

[Alexey Kryukov]

On Mon, 06 Jan 2014 11:43:51 +0100
Hans Hagen wrote:

> It all depends on it being floats or not (floatign indeed). One
> option is to package a set of floats in a bTABLE .. eTABLE and put
> a..z subcaptions under it that way and then have the whole as a float

Well, I actually don't need floats, because each image has a fixed
position. However the problem is to get captions properly formatted and
numbered. Again, in LaTeX it would be easy to output captions
separately from the corresponding images, but I haven't found how to do
that in ConTeXt. That's what causes me to use floats (and pack them
into floatcombinations if necessary).

> anyway ... you have more chance onan answer if you provide small
> examples

My code currently looks like the following:

\defineparagraphs[DoubleL][n=2]

\starttext

\centerline{\rotate[rotation=90]{
  \startDoubleL
    \placefigure[force]
      {My first caption}
      {\externalfigure[dummy][width=1in,height=3in]}
  \nextDoubleL
    \placefigure[force]
      {My second caption}
      {\externalfigure[dummy][width=1in,height=1in]}
    \placefigure[force]
      {My third caption}
      {\externalfigure[dummy][width=1in,height=1in]}
  \stopDoubleL
}}

\stoptext

As I have explained, this works, but it would prefer to use a
floatcombination syntax to describe this type of layout just like I
would use it for two images placed side-by-side. I. e. it would be nice
if ConTeXt supported something like the following:

\startfloatcombination[2*1]
   \placefigure[force]
      {My first caption}
      {\externalfigure[dummy][width=1in,height=3in]}
  \startfloatcombination[1*2]
    \placefigure[force]
      {My second caption}
      {\externalfigure[dummy][width=1in,height=1in]}
    \placefigure[force]
      {My third caption}
      {\externalfigure[dummy][width=1in,height=1in]}
  \stopfloatcombination
\stopfloatcombination

Another small problem is that combinations and floatcombinations,
unlike single floats, have no 'rotation' parameter, so that I have to
embed them into a rotation command. This seems just a bit inconsistent.

-- 
Regards,
Alexey Kryukov <anagnost at yandex dot ru>

Moscow State University
Faculty of History
___________________________________________________________________________________
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  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________