placefloat

placefloat

[Hans van der Meer]

(1) My intention was to place some material into the left margin on  
the page, but did not succeed.

Using \startmarginblock ... \stopmarginblock resulted in placement in  
the margin to the right, could not get it to the left.

The I experimented with the placeffloat mechanism and didn't succeed  
either.
Tested with the following example:

\starttext
\definefloat[sidenote][sidenotes]
This is the text before in the body of the document.
\placesidenote[inleft]{abc}{margintext}
This is the text after in the body of the document.
\page
on page two.
\stoptext

Summary of the results for the [position] parameter with the values  
given in the ConTeXt manual Table 12.1.
(a) in most cases the caption just appears in the middle of the page,  
not below the float.
(b) some values seem to work ok, these are here, top, bottom, page,  
opposite (appears 2 pages later), always, force.
(c) some values do not work or even give a TeX error:
	-- left margintext appears on the right side of the page (same as  
leftaligned?)
	-- right idem on the left side
	-- inleft the margintext and the caption seem to disappear completely
	-- inright the caption is not seen, margintext appears on the right  
side
	-- inmargin gives error undefined \doinmarginnormal
	-- margin gives error too many }'s


(2) Second question. Is there a mechanism whereby one can force the  
float to at least the next page when there is no room for it below  
the current point on the page?
This is useful for example when a figure belongs to the text of which  
only a few lines are on the current page. The figure is then better  
placed on the next page then somewhere on the current one.

yours sincerely,
dr. H. van der Meer

Re: placefloat

[Taco Hoekwater]

Hans van der Meer wrote:
> (1) My intention was to place some material into the left margin on  the 
> page, but did not succeed.

Added to the collector. I'm positive that there is at least a little
bug somewhere in your list of problems, but I have no time right now
to do research.

> 
> (2) Second question. Is there a mechanism whereby one can force the  
> float to at least the next page when there is no room for it below  the 
> current point on the page?

There is:

   \startpostponing
     <stuff with postponed floats>
   \stoppostponing

I believe it is mentioned in a manual somewhere, but don't recall
off-hand which one. However, I'm not confident that that mechanism
does precisey what you want, and it is definately not automatic.

Cheers, Taco

Re: placefloat

[Hans van der Meer]

On Jan 19, 2006, at 18:00, Taco Hoekwater wrote:

>
>> (2) Second question. Is there a mechanism whereby one can force  
>> the  float to at least the next page when there is no room for it  
>> below  the current point on the page?
>
> There is:
>
>   \startpostponing
>     <stuff with postponed floats>
>   \stoppostponing
>
> I believe it is mentioned in a manual somewhere, but don't recall
> off-hand which one. However, I'm not confident that that mechanism
> does precisey what you want, and it is definately not automatic.

It seems to do what I wanted. Putting small figures in the margin on  
the next page from where the call is made.

I seem to remember some mentioning of remaining space on the page in  
"ConTeXt-fashion" but cannot find it again.
Or can I just rely on TeX's \pagetotal? I tried something as:
	\scratchdimen=\textheight
	\advance\scratchdimen by -\pagetotal
	\ifdim\scratchdimen<#1\relax .......

Is it an option to enrich \startpostponing to \startpostponing 
[need=distance]?
( reprogramming \setvalue{\e!start\v!postponing} is it?  asks a bit  
too much of my inner-ConTeXt skills)

I tried something on the following lines, but got stuck with a  
remaining \stoppostponing when there appears to enough space.
Defining \stoppostponing to \empty seems not to work.
	\def\startpostponingwhen[#1]{%
	\scratchdimen=\textheight
	\advance\scratchdimen by -\pagetotal
	\ifdim\scratchdimen<#1\relax
		\let\dostoppostponingwhen=\stoppostponing
		\expandafter\startpostponing
	\fi}

yours sincerely,
dr. H. van der Meer