Layout issues

[Giuseppe Bilotta <bourbaki@bigfoot.com>]

Hello,

a couple of questions on page layout.

Issue #1: the default layout does not fit in an A4 sheet. First of
all, as it is it puts part of the left margin outside
of the printed page (at least on my system), as shown by

\setuppapersize[A4][A4]
\setupinmargin[left][align=normal]
\starttext
\showframe
\inmargin{Hello there}
\stoptext

But if the backspace is shifted enough to bring the whole
left margin on the page, the right margin falls off the page (by a
very small amount), as shown by

\setuppapersize[A4][A4]
\newdimen\mybackspace
\mybackspace\leftmarginwidth
\advance\mybackspace\leftmargindistance
\setuplayout[backspace=\mybackspace]

\setupinmargin[left][align=outer]
\setupinmargin[right][align=outer]
%%% ^^^^^^^^^^ Why can't I use \setupinmargin[left,right] ?
\starttext
\showframe
\showsetups
\inmargin{Hello there}
\inothermargin{Hello there}
\stoptext

Issue #2: parametric setup of the layout.

This can be done already, but I was thinking of some slightly more
'equationish' way of setting the parameters, something probably
typical of the MetaPost approach (say,
leftmargin=rightmargin=.2width, leftmargindistance=rightmargindistance,
with some predefined equations like
leftmargin+leftmargindistance+width+rightmargindistance+rightmargin=
paperwidth-backspace-leftedge-leftedgedistance-rightedge-leftedgedistance).

Issue #3: scaling/fitting

Often (to save paper or for other reasons) I like to scale my work
(usually done with \setuppapersize[A4][A4]) so that it fits in two
pages per sheet. With LaTeX, I would achieve this by creating a
DVI, converting it to PS and the use various the psutils to
rearrange/merge pages.

ConTeXt has its own imposition capabilities, so one would think
that

\setuppapersize[A5][A4,landscape]
\setuparranging[2SIDE]

would be enough.

Yet this way to achieve things presents interesting problems
related to the (possible) presence of absolute dimensions within
the document. What is needed is thus some kind of arranging option
that provides to automatic scaling/rotating AFTER the document has
been typeset, so that, for example:

\setuppapersize[A4][A4,landscape]
\setuparranging[2SIDE,scaled]

provides automatic scaling of the pages to fit the physical page
---the scaling factor is
max(paper_height/physical_paper_height,
    paper_width/physical_paper_width)

(Ab)using magnification could be an option as well.

--
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta