Re: Footnote rules

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

Berend de Boer wrote:

> What rules does context use in setting footnotes? In a \startopsomming
> .\stopopsomming I've used two footnotes. This construction is printed at
> the bottom of the page. For two footnotes doesn't seem to be enough space.
> Context moves both footnotes to the next page.
> 
> I would have expected that at least one footnote remained at the first
> page. But maybe it's more logical to have consecutive footnotes together.
> 
> Footnotes will be removed from this document (they just serve as temporary
> comments not to forget things...), but I was wondering what algorithm
> context uses.

The current mechanism is a compromis. When possible, footnotes are
treated directly, which means that they are taken into account directly,
but sometimes (e.g. in tables, they are postponed, which can lead to
assynchronous placement. Take a look at core-not for some examples. You
can also switch to local footnotes and place them local, think of
footnotes in a table, that you want to attach to a table. 

In your case, placement can interfere with the fact that breaking pages
in itemizations is optimized in a second pass (no single itemized line
at the end/top of a page).  

The main probloem is not the mechanism, but the fact that TeX lacks some
mode tests (fuzzy \ifinner etc), which we already discussed with the
etex team. 

If you run: 

  texexec --modu core-not

you get more documentation (I sent you core-mod.zip a few days back). 

Hans

-----------------------------------------------------------------
                                              Hans Hagen | PRAGMA
              Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
    tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | mail: pragma@wxs.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------