Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Henry House]

Procházka Lukáš wrote:
[...]
> > 5) how to better promote context to new/latex users?
> 
> For LaTeX incomers: it would be good to provide a sample setup (module?) which would make Ctx generated .pdf looking very closely to that been generated by LaTeX.
> 
> Now, if you see a .pdf document and you are familiar with LaTeX, you recognize immediately whether or not it was generated by LaTeX (Word's signature is also unmatchable).
> 
> If you create a first document with ConTeXt (moreover when migrating from LaTeX), you probably won't be satisfied with the default look (letters too big, heads not bold, spacing before/after heads too different from LaTeX's; and the LaTeX default document looks very "symphonic" in my opinion) (but also I can imagine that many Ctx defaults cannot be changed due to backward compatibility reasons).
> 
> The perfect feature of ConTeXt is that all these features may be systematically altered (often [almost] impossible in LaTeX) but you must search enough and study (and maybe ask the forum) to get the result which would fulfil your aesthetic requirements.

I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally well-commented so that
it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the style of LaTeX
would be helpful. The appearance of LaTeX documents isn't perfect but it
produces reasonably high-quality results suitable for complex technical
documents right out of the box of the box without any tweaking, whereas
ConTeXt requires (at least it did for me) some trouble to set it up for
the first time. To some extent this is not because of the merit of the
LaTeX design itself but the fact that it is familiar and therefore
highly readable to someone used to reading it. It is also the point of
departure for a LaTeX user wanting to convert to using ConTeXt; hence, i
would imagine many such people would prefer to tweak a LaTeX-like
document appearance to better suit their needs rather than starting with
something quite different. Certainly, this was the case for me; being
basically satisfied with my LaTeX documents but wanting more control and
the option to use the advanced features of ConTeXt. Having sample set-up
code that emulated LaTeX would have eased the initial transition for me.
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Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Taco Hoekwater]

On 03/13/2011 12:35 AM, Henry House wrote:
> Procházka Lukáš wrote:
> [...]
>>> 5) how to better promote context to new/latex users?
>>
>> For LaTeX incomers: it would be good to provide a sample setup (module?) which would make Ctx generated .pdf looking very closely to that been generated by LaTeX.
>>
>> Now, if you see a .pdf document and you are familiar with LaTeX, you recognize immediately whether or not it was generated by LaTeX (Word's signature is also unmatchable).
>>
>> If you create a first document with ConTeXt (moreover when migrating from LaTeX), you probably won't be satisfied with the default look (letters too big, heads not bold, spacing before/after heads too different from LaTeX's; and the LaTeX default document looks very "symphonic" in my opinion) (but also I can imagine that many Ctx defaults cannot be changed due to backward compatibility reasons).
>>
>> The perfect feature of ConTeXt is that all these features may be systematically altered (often [almost] impossible in LaTeX) but you must search enough and study (and maybe ask the forum) to get the result which would fulfil your aesthetic requirements.
>
> I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally well-commented so that
> it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the style of LaTeX
> would be helpful. The appearance of LaTeX documents isn't perfect but it
> produces reasonably high-quality results suitable for complex technical
> documents right out of the box of the box without any tweaking, whereas
> ConTeXt requires (at least it did for me) some trouble to set it up for
> the first time.

First, let me say that I don't agree that the default LaTeX appearance
is high-quality at all. To me, it looks like crap, and IIRC Lamport
actually designed it 'ugly' with to encourage people to create
something better looking themselves. Of course most people don't bother
(which is typical and he could have seen that coming) but still...

The same applies to the default context setup: it is also too ugly
to be used for real world documents, and nevertheless many people leave
it as is.

This means that (for both LaTeX and ConTeXt) the defaults cannot be
changed any more because of portability problems in existing documents.

But nothing is to stop anybody from creating a different class file
for LaTeX or a different module/environment for ConTeXt that produces
something 'better'.

So, if the intent is to lure people away from LaTeX, why not create
a set of environment files to mimic LaTeX's article/book/report
and upload them to the garden?

Best wishes,
Taco



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Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Thomas Schmitz]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:35:54 -0800
  Henry House <hajhouse@hajhouse.org> wrote:

> 
> I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally 
>well-commented so that
> it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the 
>style of LaTeX
> would be helpful. The appearance of LaTeX documents 
>isn't perfect but it
> produces reasonably high-quality results suitable for 
>complex technical
> documents right out of the box of the box without any 
>tweaking, whereas
> ConTeXt requires (at least it did for me) some trouble 
>to set it up for
> the first time. To some extent this is not because of 
>the merit of the
> LaTeX design itself but the fact that it is familiar and 
>therefore
> highly readable to someone used to reading it. It is 
>also the point of
> departure for a LaTeX user wanting to convert to using 
>ConTeXt; hence, i
> would imagine many such people would prefer to tweak a 
>LaTeX-like
> document appearance to better suit their needs rather 
>than starting with
> something quite different. Certainly, this was the case 
>for me; being
> basically satisfied with my LaTeX documents but wanting 
>more control and
> the option to use the advanced features of ConTeXt. 
>Having sample set-up
> code that emulated LaTeX would have eased the initial 
>transition for me.
> 

Pardon my French, but this thread is getting less and less 
useful, probably because it addresses too many issues at a 
time. It is rapidly degenerating from a "how to 
restructure the garden" into a "things I wish others would 
do so my life becomes easier." If someone says "I added a 
section to the wiki which explains which ConTeXt settings 
will give a document equivalent to LaTeX XXX class," fine 
- I would consider this superfluous, but it may help some 
people. But even strongly agreeing that somebody else 
should write a tutorial isn't getting any work done. And 
the assumption that most or all ConTeXt users are, at 
their heart, LaTeX renegades is not true, I think. Many 
advanced users haven't used LaTeX ever or in a long time 
and wouldn't want to waste their time on learning it just 
for the sake of such a comparison.

Sorry for being so blunt, but I think this will be more 
helpful if we stay focussed.

Thomas
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"latex style" (was : Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?)

[Peter Münster]

Henry House <hajhouse@hajhouse.org> writes:

> I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally well-commented so that
> it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the style of LaTeX
> would be helpful.

If you agree, that http://pmrb.free.fr/work/OS/ConTeXt/arbeit.pdf is
standard latex style (or koma-script, I don't remember...), then you
could use http://pmrb.free.fr/work/OS/ConTeXt/e-phd.tex as starting
point. I don't know how useful it is today, perhaps it's completely
outdated...
-- 
           Peter
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Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Aditya Mahajan]

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On Sat, 12 Mar 2011, Henry House wrote:

> Procházka Lukáš wrote:
> [...]
>>> 5) how to better promote context to new/latex users?
>>
>> For LaTeX incomers: it would be good to provide a sample setup 
>> (module?) which would make Ctx generated .pdf looking very closely to 
>> that been generated by LaTeX.
>>
>> Now, if you see a .pdf document and you are familiar with LaTeX, you 
>> recognize immediately whether or not it was generated by LaTeX (Word's 
>> signature is also unmatchable).

I don't think that we should try to copy that style.

>> The perfect feature of ConTeXt is that all these features may be 
>> systematically altered (often [almost] impossible in LaTeX) but you 
>> must search enough and study (and maybe ask the forum) to get the 
>> result which would fulfil your aesthetic requirements.
>
> I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally well-commented so that
> it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the style of LaTeX
> would be helpful.

A better idea will be to show how to create ConTeXt style files for well 
defined styles e.g., style for some journal, say AMS or IEEE, or even the 
style of LaTeX (if someone can point out its exact specification)

> The appearance of LaTeX documents isn't perfect but it
> produces reasonably high-quality results suitable for complex technical
> documents right out of the box of the box without any tweaking, whereas
> ConTeXt requires (at least it did for me) some trouble to set it up for
> the first time. To some extent this is not because of the merit of the
> LaTeX design itself but the fact that it is familiar and therefore
> highly readable to someone used to reading it. It is also the point of
> departure for a LaTeX user wanting to convert to using ConTeXt; hence, i
> would imagine many such people would prefer to tweak a LaTeX-like
> document appearance to better suit their needs rather than starting with
> something quite different. Certainly, this was the case for me; being
> basically satisfied with my LaTeX documents but wanting more control and
> the option to use the advanced features of ConTeXt. Having sample set-up
> code that emulated LaTeX would have eased the initial transition for me.

I agree, partially. One of the difficulties in getting a good design with 
ConTeXt is that you should know what a good design is! It you have a 
pre-specified style guideline, then it is easy to reproduce it in ConTeXt. 
If not, you can be stuck up experimenting whether you the space above a 
section be twice as big the space below it or the other way round.

Aditya

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Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Alasdair McAndrew]

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Speaking as a raw ConTeXt beginner, I would find it very helpful to have a
library of different styles: LaTeX, journal, conference and book styles.
Although all the information is probably there, it is very scattered around
though manuals, the wiki, and other documents, and so is in consequence not
always easy to find.

cheers,
Alasdair

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 7:34 AM, Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu> wrote:

> On Sat, 12 Mar 2011, Henry House wrote:
>
>  Procházka Lukáš wrote:
>> [...]
>>
>>> 5) how to better promote context to new/latex users?
>>>>
>>>
>>> For LaTeX incomers: it would be good to provide a sample setup (module?)
>>> which would make Ctx generated .pdf looking very closely to that been
>>> generated by LaTeX.
>>>
>>> Now, if you see a .pdf document and you are familiar with LaTeX, you
>>> recognize immediately whether or not it was generated by LaTeX (Word's
>>> signature is also unmatchable).
>>>
>>
> I don't think that we should try to copy that style.
>
>
>  The perfect feature of ConTeXt is that all these features may be
>>> systematically altered (often [almost] impossible in LaTeX) but you must
>>> search enough and study (and maybe ask the forum) to get the result which
>>> would fulfil your aesthetic requirements.
>>>
>>
>> I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally well-commented so that
>> it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the style of LaTeX
>> would be helpful.
>>
>
> A better idea will be to show how to create ConTeXt style files for well
> defined styles e.g., style for some journal, say AMS or IEEE, or even the
> style of LaTeX (if someone can point out its exact specification)
>
>
>  The appearance of LaTeX documents isn't perfect but it
>> produces reasonably high-quality results suitable for complex technical
>> documents right out of the box of the box without any tweaking, whereas
>> ConTeXt requires (at least it did for me) some trouble to set it up for
>> the first time. To some extent this is not because of the merit of the
>> LaTeX design itself but the fact that it is familiar and therefore
>> highly readable to someone used to reading it. It is also the point of
>> departure for a LaTeX user wanting to convert to using ConTeXt; hence, i
>> would imagine many such people would prefer to tweak a LaTeX-like
>> document appearance to better suit their needs rather than starting with
>> something quite different. Certainly, this was the case for me; being
>> basically satisfied with my LaTeX documents but wanting more control and
>> the option to use the advanced features of ConTeXt. Having sample set-up
>> code that emulated LaTeX would have eased the initial transition for me.
>>
>
> I agree, partially. One of the difficulties in getting a good design with
> ConTeXt is that you should know what a good design is! It you have a
> pre-specified style guideline, then it is easy to reproduce it in ConTeXt.
> If not, you can be stuck up experimenting whether you the space above a
> section be twice as big the space below it or the other way round.
>
> Aditya
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to
> the Wiki!
>
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl /
> http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
> webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
> archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
> wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
>
>


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Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Aditya Mahajan]

On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Alasdair McAndrew wrote:

> Speaking as a raw ConTeXt beginner, I would find it very helpful to have a
> library of different styles: LaTeX, journal, conference and book styles.
> Although all the information is probably there, it is very scattered around
> though manuals, the wiki, and other documents, and so is in consequence not
> always easy to find.

Why don't you create a wiki page with the **exact** specifications. Then 
others can write the ConTeXt code to show how to achieve that 
specification.

We can perhaps have a cookbook section on the wiki, which can use these 
specification as exercises. Without the exact specification, it is very 
difficult to understand what a "journal" style or a "book" style means. 
Not all journals and books have the same style.

Aditya
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Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[mathew]

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 19:07, Alasdair McAndrew <amca01@gmail.com> wrote:
> Speaking as a raw ConTeXt beginner, I would find it very helpful to have a
> library of different styles: LaTeX, journal, conference and book styles.

This is what I've been setting out to do, build a set of examples. So
far I've got a custom font example (posted for comment last week) and
a personal letter template.

I looked at the letter package, but that's far too general. I wanted
something simple and self-contained that I could take and modify, not
a framework.

So yes, a set of examples of layouts is exactly what I would be likely
to use myself.


mathew
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Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Alasdair McAndrew]

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For example. the LaTeX ieee.sty is available at
http://delphiwww.cern.ch/delphi$www/private/det/stc/ieee94/mp/ieee.sty and
ACM styles at http://www.acm.org/publications/latex_style/.  How hard would
it be to emulate these in ConTeXt?

-Alasdair

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 2:32 PM, mathew <meta@pobox.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 19:07, Alasdair McAndrew <amca01@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Speaking as a raw ConTeXt beginner, I would find it very helpful to have
> a
> > library of different styles: LaTeX, journal, conference and book styles.
>
> This is what I've been setting out to do, build a set of examples. So
> far I've got a custom font example (posted for comment last week) and
> a personal letter template.
>
> I looked at the letter package, but that's far too general. I wanted
> something simple and self-contained that I could take and modify, not
> a framework.
>
> So yes, a set of examples of layouts is exactly what I would be likely
> to use myself.
>
>
> mathew
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to
> the Wiki!
>
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl /
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> wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
>



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Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Aditya Mahajan]

On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Alasdair McAndrew wrote:

> For example. the LaTeX ieee.sty is available at
> http://delphiwww.cern.ch/delphi$www/private/det/stc/ieee94/mp/ieee.sty and
> ACM styles at http://www.acm.org/publications/latex_style/.  How hard would
> it be to emulate these in ConTeXt?

The hard part is figuring out the values (font size, spaces after 
sections, etc) from the LaTeX code. It is difficult to look at 
http://mirror.hmc.edu/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/IEEEtran.cls and 
figure out what is the title size for a 10pt document, or how much space 
should come between the author block and the start of the two column text, 
etc.

Reverse engineering these values is no fun. That is why I am saying that 
an *exact and complete* spec is needed.

Aditya
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Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Alasdair McAndrew]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1690 bytes --]

Yes, I see that would be a non-trivial problem.  Maybe as a stop-gap some
ConTeXt files could be provided which at least roughly emulate a few
standard LaTeX styles?

-Alasdair

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 3:54 PM, Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu> wrote:

> On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Alasdair McAndrew wrote:
>
>  For example. the LaTeX ieee.sty is available at
>> http://delphiwww.cern.ch/delphi$www/private/det/stc/ieee94/mp/ieee.styand
>> ACM styles at http://www.acm.org/publications/latex_style/.  How hard
>> would
>> it be to emulate these in ConTeXt?
>>
>
> The hard part is figuring out the values (font size, spaces after sections,
> etc) from the LaTeX code. It is difficult to look at
> http://mirror.hmc.edu/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/IEEEtran.cls and
> figure out what is the title size for a 10pt document, or how much space
> should come between the author block and the start of the two column text,
> etc.
>
> Reverse engineering these values is no fun. That is why I am saying that an
> *exact and complete* spec is needed.
>
> Aditya
>
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to
> the Wiki!
>
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl /
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>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
>



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Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am 2011-03-14 um 07:33 schrieb Alasdair McAndrew:

> Yes, I see that would be a non-trivial problem.  Maybe as a stop-gap  
> some ConTeXt files could be provided which at least roughly emulate  
> a few standard LaTeX styles?

Again:

We senior ConTeXt users won’t look thoroughly at "a few standard LaTeX  
styles" just to copy their look for a few switchers.
We don’t need them. We design our own styles after our needs. We don’t  
stick to a few "standard" styles. It’s ConTeXt, not LaTeX.

If you come up with specifications, we can help you implementing them.  
Otherwise consider paying one of us for doing annoying, unnecessary  
work.


Greetlings from Lake Constance!
Hraban
---
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https://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer)

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Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Martin Schröder]

2011/3/14 Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu>:
> The hard part is figuring out the values (font size, spaces after sections,
> etc) from the LaTeX code. It is difficult to look at
> http://mirror.hmc.edu/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/IEEEtran.cls and
> figure out what is the title size for a 10pt document, or how much space
> should come between the author block and the start of the two column text,
> etc.

Erm - is that really needed? Today a typical journal's workflow should
accept articles in LaTeX _markup_, convert that to XML and feed it to an
XML formatter (which may well use TeX) eventually. I see ConTeXt's role
there as the XML formatter. Or it could digest LaTeX markup - but then
it would need more than just the layout.

Best
   Martin
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Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Philipp Gesang]

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On 2011-03-13 <23:12:36>, Aditya Mahajan wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Alasdair McAndrew wrote:
> 
> >Speaking as a raw ConTeXt beginner, I would find it very helpful to have a
> >library of different styles: LaTeX, journal, conference and book styles.
> >Although all the information is probably there, it is very scattered around
> >though manuals, the wiki, and other documents, and so is in consequence not
> >always easy to find.
> 
> Why don't you create a wiki page with the **exact** specifications.
> Then others can write the ConTeXt code to show how to achieve that
> specification.

> We can perhaps have a cookbook section on the wiki, which can use
> these specification as exercise.

+1, best idea so far. Not only regarding latex-specific
commonplaces but for typographical tasks in general (along the
lines of “how I implemented Bringhurst’s chapter enumeration”
&c.). Would it suffice to just create another wiki namespace
like the command reference has?

(Entries should have a date stamp and state the context version
they were written for.)

Philipp

>                                  Without the exact specification,
> it is very difficult to understand what a "journal" style or a
> "book" style means. Not all journals and books have the same style.
> 
> Aditya
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
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> 
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
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___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

[Alasdair McAndrew]

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FWIW, specifications of standard LaTeX styles can be found
here<http://www.tug.org/texlive/devsrc/Master/texmf-dist/doc/latex/base/classes.pdf>.
It's a closely written 66 page document.

-Alasdair

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 8:17 PM, Martin Schröder <martin@oneiros.de> wrote:

> 2011/3/14 Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu>:
> > The hard part is figuring out the values (font size, spaces after
> sections,
> > etc) from the LaTeX code. It is difficult to look at
> > http://mirror.hmc.edu/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/IEEEtran.clsand
> > figure out what is the title size for a 10pt document, or how much space
> > should come between the author block and the start of the two column
> text,
> > etc.
>
> Erm - is that really needed? Today a typical journal's workflow should
> accept articles in LaTeX _markup_, convert that to XML and feed it to an
> XML formatter (which may well use TeX) eventually. I see ConTeXt's role
> there as the XML formatter. Or it could digest LaTeX markup - but then
> it would need more than just the layout.
>
> Best
>    Martin
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to
> the Wiki!
>
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl /
> http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
> webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
> archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
> wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
>



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___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________