From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.comp.tex.context/18795 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Gerben Wierda" Newsgroups: gmane.comp.tex.context Subject: Re: Re: Learning ConTeXt, typical hurdle Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:09:11 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <60915.213.84.141.31.1110470951.squirrel@213.84.141.31> References: <60028.213.84.141.31.1110461682.squirrel@213.84.141.31> Reply-To: mailing list for ConTeXt users NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1110471306 3166 80.91.229.2 (10 Mar 2005 16:15:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:15:06 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Thu Mar 10 17:15:06 2005 Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl ([131.211.172.88] helo=ronja.ntg.nl) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1D9QDY-0005rs-GZ for gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:08:56 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9964D12807; Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:09:21 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (ronja.vet.uu.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 04779-05-3; Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:09:18 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 94C171280D; Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:09:18 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8B4201280D for ; Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:09:16 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (ronja.vet.uu.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 04779-05-2 for ; Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:09:15 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from post-24.mail.nl.demon.net (post-24.mail.nl.demon.net [194.159.73.194]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id BF7D912807 for ; Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:09:15 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from ii2.demon.nl ([82.161.98.36]:21309 helo=mail.rna.nl) by post-24.mail.nl.demon.net with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1D9QDr-000AE6-L7 for ntg-context@ntg.nl; Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:09:15 +0000 Original-Received: from mail.rna.nl (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mail.rna.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 28397642D0 for ; Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:09:11 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from 213.84.141.31 (SquirrelMail authenticated user gerben); by mail.rna.nl with HTTP; Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:09:11 +0100 (CET) In-Reply-To: Original-To: "mailing list for ConTeXt users" User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.3a X-Mailer: SquirrelMail/1.4.3a X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Importance: Normal X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at ntg.nl X-BeenThere: ntg-context@ntg.nl X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: mailing list for ConTeXt users List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Errors-To: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at ntg.nl X-MailScanner-From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl X-MailScanner-To: gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.comp.tex.context:18795 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tex.context:18795 > Hey Gerben, > >> Now what turns out to solve this? Empty lines before \description and >> \stopdescriptions > > Things that were defined using \definedescription rely on \par as a > delimiter. > >> Though I like ConTeXt if I look at certain design aspects, behaviour >> that >> depends on whitespace before a command frightens me. > > Just the way it works :-) Nothing to worry about. What this introduces is that the working of the ascii file depends on its layout. I can understand that an empty line does a \par (it is convenient after all) but I would see that kind of behaviour kept to a minimum. That is, now I have this 'invisible' element that is needed to close my structure. It is something quite unexpected for me in a TeX workflow. Different layout because of a missing empty line, fine. But an error message and a halt really surprises me. Another part of a learning curve which if you want adoption you should try to avoid. But maybe it is impossible to make ConTeXt more 'forgiving'. The alternative is \startdescription\stopdescription which is logically nicer, but adds inconvenience to the typing/editing IMO LaTeX here does a better user-interface job (not just because I happe= n to know LaTeX). Withing the description environment \item starts a new item and the item ends with the start of another item or the end of the environment. Completely independent of the layout of the ascii file. It would IMO be a lot friendlier if my \stopdescriptions and \description commands would take care of this and I could do things like: \startdescriptions \description{Foo} Bar bar bar \description{Foo} Bar bar bar \description{Foo} Bar bar bar \stopdescriptions without triggering an error. G