Re: Thoughts on ConTeXt: ditched

[Wolfgang Schuster <schuster.wolfgang@googlemail.com>]

Am 27.12.2009 um 16:54 schrieb Manuel P.:

> ConTeXt is a good software. I was impressed with a manual typesetted with it and decided to give it a try. After some small documents, despite my ridicously small knowledge of it I decided to use ConTeXt for my thesis. Bad move.
> 
> ConTeXt is beautiful because it's very configurable, for the most uses doesn't need any external module (unlike LaTeX), and gives me more power on the presentation of the document. But in a few days of work I've come to realize that it's not suited for me and this project.
> 
> I've had some unpleasant surprises:
> - Bibliography doesn't work the way it should on MKIV. Unlike MKII.
> - MKIV, unlike MKII, doesn't setup any background color:

You're wrong, MkIV supports colors by default while you have to enable it in MkII by yourself
for backwards compatibilities. The screen value for the background key could be used to set
a gray background where you could change the gray value with the backgroundscreen key but real
colored backgrounds are set with 'background=color,backgroundcolor=...'. In MkIV Hans made the
decision to break sometimes backward compatibility and one result of this was that background=color
is no longer supported because you could use backgroundcolor.

> ----
> \setupcolors[state=start]
> \setupbackground[background=screen]
> \setupbackground[state=start]
> \def\quotebox#1#2
>    {\blank
>    \midaligned{\startbackground
>    \quotation{\em #1} \crlf --#2
>    \stopbackground}
>    \blank}
> ----
> 
> - the above \quotebox command, in some cases, sends pdftex and luatex (MKII and MKIV) to the moon with an infinite loop (100% CPU).

I guess this is a result of your own definition of the \quotebox macro which expects a space
at the end of the command, you should write (untested) instead:

\define[2]\quotebox
  {\blank
   \startalignment[middle]
   \startbackground
   \quotation{\em#1}\crlf--#2
   \stopbackground
   \stopalignment
   \blank}

> One reason for this is probably my very limited knowledge and experience with ConTeXt. It's extremely configurable, and this is a plus. But on the other hand if you don't know how to move, what to do, the system internals and how any configuration affect the typesetting, a lot of thing won't work. And worse, you won't know where to bump your head. I don't have time to read the reference manual (I've already read the excursion) because the deadline is too near, so I have to call defeat and go to the LaTeX camp. I've wasted days of work, now I can't afford more of that.
> 
> It's a learning experience: don't use an "experimental" (new for me) tool for an important job. Stick to the tried&tested ones, and use new stuff only in a safe context (without a near hard deadline).
> 
> Maybe, in some future, I'll take again ConTeXt and try to learn it the proper way. But for now, it's "fired".
> 
> For your patience, time and help: thanks to all of you!


You should try to play a while with ConTeXt without such a strict and shirt timeline as you had it this time.

Best regards,
Wolfgang

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