How to add your own modules?

How to add your own modules?

[Matt Gushee]

Hi, Folks--

I'm new to this list--and to ConTeXt. Just a bit of background for those
who care about such things: I have been working intensively with XML and
SGML for several years, and lately I have been looking for a good way to
produce printed documents from XML. I find FOP very disappointing, but
I'm not very concerned about buzzword-compliance; I insist on quality
output. ConTeXt looks very promising for XML as well as other
inputs--and having some previous TeX experience, I find it easy to use.

Anyway, I'm puzzled about how to add my own customized modules to the
system. Last month I used ConTeXt to create a PDF slideshow for a
presentation, but I wanted to use a modified version of one of the
Pragma presentation styles. I tried putting my customized module, oh, I
think in a directory under /usr/local/share/texmf, where my teTeX
installation is supposed to be able to find files, but I was unable to
make this work. I eventually gave up and just modified the original file
in /usr/share/texmf/tex/context/base (by the way, according to my
reading of the license it is okay to do that for personal use, but if
that's not the case, please tell me and I won't do it again).

I have browsed through several manuals trying to find out how to do
this, but haven't found any answers. Is there some documentation that
explains how to customize the system?

-- 
Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
Englewood, Colorado, USA    Horses bear manure through
mgushee@havenrock.com           its fields;
http://www.havenrock.com/   When a nation ignores the Way,
                            Horses bear soldiers through
                                its streets.
                                
                            --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)

Re: How to add your own modules?

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am Freitag, 18. Oktober 2002 22:36 schrieb Matt Gushee:
> Is there some documentation that
> explains how to customize the system?

Not really.
Your own modules should go into (texmf-var or so)/tex/context/user
and you should name them t-somewhat.tex (t for "third-party module").
Then you can address them with \usemodule[somewhat] (without t-).

You can find my two presentation styles at the link below (mostly in 
german...). One is a "translation" of the PowerPoint company style of my 
employer, the other my own "corporate" style. They are not sophisticated, but 
useful.

Grüßlis vom Hraban!
-- 
http://www.fiee.net/texnique/  (ConTeXt sources and links)
http://www.ramm.ch/context/  (ConTeXt cookbook = FAQ)
---

[NTG-context] Re: How to add your own modules?

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Friday, October 18, 2002 Matt Gushee wrote:

MG> I have browsed through several manuals trying to find out how to do
MG> this, but haven't found any answers. Is there some documentation that
MG> explains how to customize the system?

User modules go to <path-to-context>/user and should be called
t-<name>.tex where name is the name of the module (t- stands for
"third party").

You may want to consider using "environments", though, rather than
modules, if all you want to do is "tweak" a pre-exisiting module.
(I don't know where environment files go, though; I keep them in
the root of my ConTeXt document tree, since ConTeXt looks up to
two levels up to find environments.)

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

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Re: [NTG-context] Re: How to add your own modules?

[Hans Hagen]

At 11:28 PM 10/18/2002 +0200, Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:

>Friday, October 18, 2002 Matt Gushee wrote:
>
>MG> I have browsed through several manuals trying to find out how to do
>MG> this, but haven't found any answers. Is there some documentation that
>MG> explains how to customize the system?
>
>User modules go to <path-to-context>/user and should be called
>t-<name>.tex where name is the name of the module (t- stands for
>"third party").
>
>You may want to consider using "environments", though, rather than
>modules, if all you want to do is "tweak" a pre-exisiting module.
>(I don't know where environment files go, though; I keep them in
>the root of my ConTeXt document tree, since ConTeXt looks up to
>two levels up to find environments.)

let's not end up in thousands of modules; the m- s- p- x- prefixes are used 
for the core distrubution, the t- is for users, but then you should be 
aware of potential name clashes with other third party modules; if possible 
follow GB's suggestion to use environments

Hans
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                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
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Re: How to add your own modules?

[Matt Gushee]

Thank you all for the suggestions.

On Fri, Oct 18, 2002 at 10:53:38PM +0200, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

> Not really.
> Your own modules should go into (texmf-var or so)/tex/context/user
> and you should name them t-somewhat.tex (t for "third-party module").
> Then you can address them with \usemodule[somewhat] (without t-).

Is that all you need to do? I have tried that and it's not working. Do
you need to somehow "register" your module with the system or perhaps
generate a format file before using it?

> You can find my two presentation styles at the link below (mostly in 
> german...). One is a "translation" of the PowerPoint company style of my 
> employer, the other my own "corporate" style. They are not sophisticated, but 
> useful.

Thank you. I'll take a look at them.

On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 06:54:53PM +0200, Hans Hagen wrote:
> At 11:28 PM 10/18/2002 +0200, Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:
> >
> >You may want to consider using "environments", though, rather than
> >modules, if all you want to do is "tweak" a pre-exisiting module.
> >(I don't know where environment files go, though; I keep them in
> >the root of my ConTeXt document tree, since ConTeXt looks up to
> >two levels up to find environments.)
> 
> let's not end up in thousands of modules; the m- s- p- x- prefixes are used 
> for the core distrubution, the t- is for users, but then you should be 
> aware of potential name clashes with other third party modules; if possible 
> follow GB's suggestion to use environments

That's a good point. I'm certainly in favor of non-invasive
modifications whenever they are possible. I guess I need to learn more
about environments. As long as I'm here, let me just ask: for the
presentation I mentioned last month, the style I used was basically the
Pragma "original" style (from 's-pre-01.tex'); as far as I remember I
didn't change the layout at all, just used different fonts and colors.
Would that be an appropriate task for an environment?

-- 
Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
Englewood, Colorado, USA    Horses bear manure through
mgushee@havenrock.com           its fields;
http://www.havenrock.com/   When a nation ignores the Way,
                            Horses bear soldiers through
                                its streets.
                                
                            --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)

Re: How to add your own modules?

[Hans Hagen]

At 01:32 AM 10/21/2002 -0600, Matt Gushee wrote:
>Thank you all for the suggestions.
>
>On Fri, Oct 18, 2002 at 10:53:38PM +0200, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
>
> > Not really.
> > Your own modules should go into (texmf-var or so)/tex/context/user
> > and you should name them t-somewhat.tex (t for "third-party module").
> > Then you can address them with \usemodule[somewhat] (without t-).
>
>Is that all you need to do? I have tried that and it's not working. Do
>you need to somehow "register" your module with the system or perhaps
>generate a format file before using it?

maybe you need to run mktexlsr so that the file is known to the kpse file 
searching lib


didn't change the layout at all, just used different fonts and colors.
>Would that be an appropriate task for an environment?

or just in your document, preceding \starttext

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------