Re: importing figures in metapost

[Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com>]

andrea valle wrote:
> Thanks Mojca,
> (I put again the discussion on the list)
> 
>> andrea valle wrote:
> It seems to me that this:

Btw: take a look at the thread "MetaFun questions" in ConTeXt archive 
and at the command naturalfigure(expr name) defined in mp-figs.mp.

> externalfigure "mptext.pdf"
>     xyscaled (10cm, 8cm);
> 
> and
> 
> externalfigure "mptext.pdf"
>     xyscaled (10cm, 8cm)
>     shifted (3cm, 6cm);
> 
> ...have the same results.

Of course they do. Metapost is clever enough to calculate the proper 
bounding box. If you "draw origin" or "draw origin shifted 
anypointyoucanthinkof" and if that is the only thing you draw, than both 
figures will be identical.

If you would like the figure to be different, you can set the bounding 
box explicitely with:

setbounds currentpicture to unitsquare xyscaled ... shifted ...;

If you want your graphic to appear somewhere else on the page than you 
have to handle that with plain TeX/ConTeXt commands to achieve the 
desired placing ... or using layers in MetaFun.

> So, how do I know all the options I can use? Simply I can't?

The command externalfigure in MetaFun has no additional 
options/parameters. The best place to learn metafont/post/fun is:
- take The METAPOSTBook in a library (not necessary)
- metapost manual: http://www.tug.org/tutorials/mp/mpman.pdf
- MetaFun manual: http://www.pragma-ade.com/general/manuals/metafun-s.pdf
- sources: go to http://source.contextgarden.net/ and search for 
externalfigure for example

I usually use the metapost and metafun manual and simply the search 
function in Adobe Acrobat fo find what I'm looking for. Reading the 
whole metafun manual is no bad idea anyway.

If you're looking for ConTeXt documentation: well, yes, than you start 
reading one manual after another, keep looking into the source code and 
search through the mailing list archive & contribute to Wiki. I'm 
affraid there's no other way for the moment.

Mojca