This is my macro:

% Label with text and centerposition

vardef theLabel@#(expr labeltext, pos) =

save pic; picture pic;

if picture labeltext:

pic := labeltext;

else:

if labeltext = "":

pic := nullpicture;

else:

% prevent wobbling of text boxes with uneven depth

% TEXTEXT line:

pic := textext("\setbox0=\hbox{"&labeltext&"}\dp0=0pt\box0");

% since ConTeXt 14-7-2006 textext => sometxt

% SOMETXT line:

%pic := sometxt("\setbox0=\hbox{"&labeltext&"}\dp0=0pt\box0");

fi

fi

% calculate labelshift from suffix

save shift; pair shift;

shift = ((penX/2 + labeloffset) * xpart laboff@#,

(penY/2 + labeloffset) * ypart laboff@#)

- (labxf@# * lrcorner pic + labyf@# * ulcorner pic

+ (1 - labxf@# - labyf@#) * llcorner pic);

% deliver picture shifted in position

pic shifted (pos + shift)

enddef;

With textext enabled it just works as I intend.

With sometxt enabled I get:

>> unknown picture pic

>> sometxt

! Equation cannot be performed (unknown picture=numeric).

<to be read again>

                   (

theLabel->...":pic:=nullpicture;else:pic:=sometxt(

                                                  "\setbox0=\hbox{"&(EXPR3)&...

l.211 Label("TEXTEXT", (w/2,h/2))

                                  withcolor red;

Thus while textext delivers a picture sometxt does not. This seems strange, because I understood that sometxt was meant as a dropin replacement for textext (except for MP loops, as Hans Hagen mentioned in a previous email).

Is this correct or do I have to make more changes to switch over from textext to sometxt?