I join the thanks to the other members of the list. I think that good documentation is essential in any project, and, in particular, a low-level explanation of ConTeXt that is understandable without being an accomplished TeX programmer seems to me a great idea. As for TeX documentation, I don't know what the members of the list who know more than I do will think, but I think The TeXBook is a great book, very didactic. I also like (although at a different level) TeX By Topic, El 12/2/24 a las 8:49, SirColeman via ntg-context escribió: > Greetings all. I have a passion for typesetting. I found that > currently the best typesetting systems are those that are based on > TeX. Of them, there are LaTeX, and ConTeXt. > LaTeX is very well documented and popular; ConTeXt, on the other hand, > is apparently very powerful and capable, but is not as well documented. > > There are things that are spectacularly well documented, others that > only show hints, and leave it up to the user to figure things out on > their own, and others still that won't even compile on a more recent > version of ConTeXt (apparently the proper way to access a counter's > value in ConTeXt is to use \getnumber or \convertednumber, and not > \getcounter. That's just an example). > > I thus thought, as an exercise in typesetting, in writing, and also to > help the ConTeXt documentation, to write a new book, a large book, > that teaches the details of how ConTeXt on a lower level works, > allowing one to understand how to utilize low level typesetting > features for anything more sophisticated than a simple book or > article. By lower level, I mean how things like heads, items, > references, alignment, tables, etc., work. Also, I would like a book > that teaches things like how to program it using lua, how to > understand and utilize the underlying engine itself (the low level > LuaMetaTeX), how to even use DocBook with ConTeXt, etc. > > (I do realize that there already are manuals for lua in ConTeXt and on > LuaMetaTeX, etc., and manuals on various different parts of ConTeXt, > and I'll certainly be learning from them whenever their particular > topic comes, but I reserve the opportunity to rewrite parts of these > manuals for this book, as is necessary for the book's purpose, perhaps > referencing these manuals for further details.) > > In particular, I want to go a step beyond the book "A not so short > introduction to ConTeXt Mark IV", and teach the particularly advanced > features, where there is sparse information. Particularly, it's meant > to serve as one complete reference, instead of having to hunt for > different manuals, which explain things differently, and with the > consequence that it's hard to find a particular piece of information > because its scattered around so many different places. > > This book should serve as the one and only final documentation that > you would need. It would contain everything in a highly cohesive > format, in one place, and make particular pieces of information > particularly easy to find. I realize that this is a very ambitious > undertaking, but I find that a unified source of information is better > than information with varying levels of quality scattered across more > places than one can hold in his head. > > I just have one question: What is all the necessary material to > understand and utilize the low level TeX programming language itself? > That is, what do I need to read to learn to be able to read the > ConTeXt source code itself (which is written in TeX---and lua, but I > can help myself in that regard)? Is the "Low Level TeX" set of manuals > all that I'll need, or will I need other sources of information too? > And also, is it worth learning Plain TeX, and reading The TeXbook, or > is not necessary? > > And, I'm grateful to have an alternative to LaTeX. It's certainly > promising, but I would like to help make it appealing, by making it > easy to learn and master it, and provide a single source of > information. I'm grateful for having ConTeXt. > > P.S. If I have bugs to file, should I file them on this mailing list, > or on the dev-context@ntg.nl mailing list? > > And, to all beginner ConTeXt users: What would you like to see covered > in this book? > > Thanks. > > -- > Sent with Tuta; enjoy secure & ad-free emails: > https://tuta.com > > > ___________________________________________________________________________________ > If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! > > maillist :ntg-context@ntg.nl /https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mailman.ntg.nl/mailman3/lists/ntg-context.ntg.nl__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QWFZm_2N9xmHJhv44T-gCn3wT13B8vqioQVKV9OYy-urs_4nY0NPCAHDzqMK9B02JMba_6bNVIEKltU$ > webpage :https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.pragma-ade.nl__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QWFZm_2N9xmHJhv44T-gCn3wT13B8vqioQVKV9OYy-urs_4nY0NPCAHDzqMK9B02JMba_6bNIiUgrNs$ /https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://context.aanhet.net__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QWFZm_2N9xmHJhv44T-gCn3wT13B8vqioQVKV9OYy-urs_4nY0NPCAHDzqMK9B02JMba_6bNHROHS_k$ (mirror) > archive :https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/contextgarden/context__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QWFZm_2N9xmHJhv44T-gCn3wT13B8vqioQVKV9OYy-urs_4nY0NPCAHDzqMK9B02JMba_6bNbrWTGmo$ > wiki :https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://wiki.contextgarden.net__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QWFZm_2N9xmHJhv44T-gCn3wT13B8vqioQVKV9OYy-urs_4nY0NPCAHDzqMK9B02JMba_6bNNlFxOzY$ > ___________________________________________________________________________________ -- Joaquín Ataz López Departamento de Derecho civil Universidad de Murcia