Hi Pablo,

The section breaks are a bit of a headache. In the old mechanism (also mkii) we used penalties between different section levels (different values so that there is some hierarchy).

In mkiv we have a weighted penalty/glue mechanism which has advantages but can also create side effects. The method of a few weeks ago coul deal with

\section followed by 100 \subsections

i.e. no text between this. In a strict mechanism you end up with one long page fur to all the penalties. So, there was some precaution for this. However that didn't work well with content following sections that prefers breaks (read: section head followed by e.g. itemize or tabulate).

So, the newer mechanism tries to analyze the page stream which (currently) is somewhat tricky. That's why we need to iterate to an acceptable solution.

Some of these mkiv mechanisms are already a bit old and could be done better using some newer luatex trickery (but i need tome to do that).

It would be nice to have a large test case for this (sort of hard to make one as some trial and error is involved). As you already have some, best collect them for future reference.

A new beta ...

Hans

%   Extra whitespace after some marginal section headings
%
%   When section heads are set in the margin, the following body
%   text should start on the same line as the heading. This is
%   the case with plain text, but not always the case with other
%   features (floats and enumerations). Wolfgang suggested adding
%   insidesection={blank[overlay]} to the section heading setup, but
%   that only helps with enumerations and with tabulate tables that do
%   not start with an HL (it fails with natural tables as well). And
%   that success only comes with start/stop sectioning. With traditional
%   sectioning, there are more failures.
%
%
      \setupexternalfigures[location=default]
      \setuphead
        [section]
        [alternative=text,
         command=\SectionCommand,
         distance=0pt,
         insidesection={\blank[overlay]},
        ]
 
      \define[2]\SectionCommand
        {\inmargin{#1 – #2}}
 
      \setuplayout[backspace=4cm]
 
      \starttext
      \startchapter[title={Start/Stop sectioning}]
      \startsection[title={Okay with text first}]
 
      Text here
      \starttabulate
      \FL \NC Knuth \NC \input{knuth} \NC\NR
      \stoptabulate
 
      \stopsection
      \startsection[title={Okay with itemize}]
 
      \startitemize
      \item One
      \item Two
      \item Three
      \stopitemize
 
      \stopsection
      \startsection[title={Okay with tabulate no HL}]
 
      \starttabulate
      \NC Knuth \NC \input{knuth} \NC\NR
      \stoptabulate
 
      \page
      \stopsection
      \startsection[title={Fail with tabulate HL}]
 
      \starttabulate
      \FL \NC Knuth \NC \input{knuth} \NC\NR
      \stoptabulate
      \stopsection
      \startsection[title={Fail with TABLE frame}]
 
      \bTABLE
      \bTR \bTD Knuth \eTD\bTD \input{knuth} \eTD\eTR
      \eTABLE
 
      \stopsection
      \startsection[title={Fail with TABLE no frame}]
 
      \bTABLE[frame=off]
      \bTR \bTD Knuth \eTD\bTD \input{knuth} \eTD\eTR
      \eTABLE
 
      \page
      \stopsection
      \startsection[title={Fails with figures}]
 
      \startplacefigure[location=right,reference={fig:2},title={Caption}]
        \externalfigure[cow.pdf][width=2cm]
      \stopplacefigure
 
      \input{tufte}
 
      \stopsection
      \stopchapter
 
      \chapter{Traditional sectioning}
 
      \section{Okay with text first}
 
      Text here
      \starttabulate
      \FL \NC Knuth \NC \input{knuth} \NC\NR
      \stoptabulate
 
      \section{Fail with itemize}
 
      \startitemize
      \item One
      \item Two
      \item Three
      \stopitemize
 
      \page
      \section{Fail with tabulate no HL}
 
      \starttabulate
      \NC Knuth \NC \input{knuth} \NC\NR
      \stoptabulate
 
      \section{Fail with tabulate HL}
 
      \starttabulate
      \FL \NC Knuth \NC \input{knuth} \NC\NR
      \stoptabulate
 
      \section{Fail with TABLE frame}
 
      \bTABLE
      \bTR \bTD Knuth \eTD\bTD \input{knuth} \eTD\eTR
      \eTABLE
 
      \section{Fail with TABLE no frame}
 
      \bTABLE[frame=off]
      \bTR \bTD Knuth \eTD\bTD \input{knuth} \eTD\eTR
      \eTABLE
 
      \page
      \section[title={Fails with figures startstop}]
 
      \startplacefigure[location=right,reference={fig:2},title={Caption}]
        \externalfigure[cow.pdf][width=2cm]
      \stopplacefigure
 
      \input{tufte}
 
      \section[title={Fails with figures traditional}]
 
      \placefigure[right][fig:2]{Caption}
        {\externalfigure[cow.pdf][width=2cm]}
 
      \input{tufte}
 
      \stoptext

--
Rik Kabel