[NTG-context] An announcement of my new book.

[NTG-context] An announcement of my new book.

[SirColeman via ntg-context]

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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.

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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Wolfgang Schuster]

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SirColeman via ntg-context schrieb am 12.02.2024 um 08:49:
> 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).

This is wrong, the counter commands are official and the number variants 
are kept for backwards compatibility with old styles.

Wolfgang


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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[SirColeman via ntg-context]

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>> This is wrong, the counter commands are official and the number variants are kept for backwards compatibility with old styles.

I do recall reading on the ConTeXt wiki that \definenumber is maintained for backwards compatibility reasons. However, why then does ConTeXt fail to compile with \getcounter, if that's how it's supposed to work? I was confused, don't get me wrong, but what I wrote was my own conclusion on the matter.

Clearly, we have a bug that needs to be reported. I wish my email hadn't included such misinformation. But now, this is a bug that needs to be resolved.

I'm running ConTeXt  version 2024.01.24, and the given attachment fails to compile, even with MkIV.

I don't want to pester those subscribed to this mailing list with bug reports, so I thought it would be more sensible to post such reports on the context developers mailing list. I ask for confirmation that I can post there instead of here.

Thanks.

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\definecounter[counter]
\starttext
Bug report version: \getcounter[counter] 
\stoptext

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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Wolfgang Schuster]

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SirColeman via ntg-context schrieb am 13.02.2024 um 20:44:
> >> This is wrong, the counter commands are official and the number 
> variants are kept for backwards compatibility with old styles.
>
> I do recall reading on the ConTeXt wiki that \definenumber is 
> maintained for backwards compatibility reasons. However, why then does 
> ConTeXt fail to compile with \getcounter, if that's how it's supposed 
> to work? I was confused, don't get me wrong, but what I wrote was my 
> own conclusion on the matter.
>
> Clearly, we have a bug that needs to be reported. I wish my email 
> hadn't included such misinformation. But now, this is a bug that needs 
> to be resolved.
>
> I'm running ConTeXt version 2024.01.24, and the given attachment fails 
> to compile, even with MkIV.
>
> I don't want to pester those subscribed to this mailing list with bug 
> reports, so I thought it would be more sensible to post such reports 
> on the context developers mailing list. I ask for confirmation that I 
> can post there instead of here.

There is no command named \getcounter, only \convertedcounter exists. 
The two older commands \getnumber and \convertednumber are aliases for 
the new \convertedcounter command.

You can report bugs on this list (no need to use the more or less dead 
dev list) but in this case there is no bug, just different names.

Wolfgang


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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Sir Coleman via ntg-context]

Acknowledged.

However, this does reinforce my point, that the documentation needs to be updated. The examples on the wiki still use \getcounter, and naturally they all fail to compile. Hence, my ambition to create a book to serve as the documentation, which I find is a better medium for communication rather than wikis.

Now, as to my question, to understand the low level TeX programming language, will the manuals "Low Level TeX" be enough?

Thanks.
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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Peter Hopcroft via ntg-context]

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Thank you Sir Coleman. I’m a Context beginner and I’d love a good book introducing me to Context. I’ve wasted many hours trying to figure out how to do things that turned out to be simple.

The answer is often/sometimes buried in the documentation, and what would really help me is a book that is more of an index to the existing documentation that is not out of date, with perhaps some simple examples. One case that comes to mind is to pass a couple of numbers to Lua, have it do a calculation and use the result in Context.

Regards,
Peter

> On 14/02/2024, at 9:03 AM, Sir Coleman via ntg-context <ntg-context@ntg.nl> wrote:
> 
> Acknowledged.
> 
> However, this does reinforce my point, that the documentation needs to be updated. The examples on the wiki still use \getcounter, and naturally they all fail to compile. Hence, my ambition to create a book to serve as the documentation, which I find is a better medium for communication rather than wikis.
> 
> Now, as to my question, to understand the low level TeX programming language, will the manuals "Low Level TeX" be enough?
> 
> Thanks.
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
> 
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / https://mailman.ntg.nl/mailman3/lists/ntg-context.ntg.nl
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> archive  : https://github.com/contextgarden/context
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> ___________________________________________________________________________________

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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Sir Coleman via ntg-context]

I'm glad to know there's a demand for this book.

Hopefully soon I'll upload a draft of it to GitLab, so if there's anything that you learned that you would like to contribute to this book, you would be able to do so. I personally would be very happy if someone would give me examples of things a user would like to do, because my own use cases can only go that far.

I'll make sure to make finding information in this book as direct as possible. If you find that some information in this book isn't clear or easy to learn from (or locate in the first place), then I'll expect a complaint about it.

I'll post here a link to the GitLab repository when part of the book has been written and ready for feedback. Should take some time, but not too long.
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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Shiv Shankar Dayal]

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Please write one. More documentation is needed.

On Wed, Feb 14, 2024 at 3:55 AM Sir Coleman via ntg-context <
ntg-context@ntg.nl> wrote:

> I'm glad to know there's a demand for this book.
>
> Hopefully soon I'll upload a draft of it to GitLab, so if there's anything
> that you learned that you would like to contribute to this book, you would
> be able to do so. I personally would be very happy if someone would give me
> examples of things a user would like to do, because my own use cases can
> only go that far.
>
> I'll make sure to make finding information in this book as direct as
> possible. If you find that some information in this book isn't clear or
> easy to learn from (or locate in the first place), then I'll expect a
> complaint about it.
>
> I'll post here a link to the GitLab repository when part of the book has
> been written and ready for feedback. Should take some time, but not too
> long.
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to
> the Wiki!
>
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl /
> https://mailman.ntg.nl/mailman3/lists/ntg-context.ntg.nl
> webpage  : https://www.pragma-ade.nl / https://context.aanhet.net (mirror)
> archive  : https://github.com/contextgarden/context
> wiki     : https://wiki.contextgarden.net
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
>


-- 
Respect,
Shiv Shankar Dayal

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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Jim]

Hi,

a book like this would be very valuable.  I hope your project is
successful.  And, as soon as you have something on gitlab, I will be happy
to read it and give feedback.

In terms of organization... one of the things I don't like about "A Not So
Short Guide..." is that it starts with information about how you structure
large projects.  I think this is a serious mistake, it is like explaining
to someone how to pass a car in an F1 race when they don't know where the
gas pedal in their car is.  I got bogged down on that and wasted time
reading (and forgetting) it, because I don't yet have any projects that
big.

Anyway, good luck with the project.

                                Jim

On Tue, Feb 13, 2024 at 22:22 (-0000), Sir Coleman via ntg-context wrote:

> I'm glad to know there's a demand for this book.

> Hopefully soon I'll upload a draft of it to GitLab, so if there's anything that you learned that you would like to contribute to this book, you would be able to do so. I personally would be very happy if someone would give me examples of things a user would like to do, because my own use cases can only go that far.

> I'll make sure to make finding information in this book as direct as possible. If you find that some information in this book isn't clear or easy to learn from (or locate in the first place), then I'll expect a complaint about it.

> I'll post here a link to the GitLab repository when part of the book has been written and ready for feedback. Should take some time, but not too long.
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / https://mailman.ntg.nl/mailman3/lists/ntg-context.ntg.nl
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> ___________________________________________________________________________________
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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Sir Coleman via ntg-context]

First of all, I'm grateful for your offer, and hope that you find it valuable indeed.

However, I must say that this isn't what I had in mind. I wanted to create more of a reference, a complete reference, and one that's of course not meant to be read from cover to cover. What you're suggesting sounds more like a tutorial to me.

Don't get me wrong: we need both a reference and a tutorial. If necessary, I'll create a quick tutorial that demonstrates how to quickly use ConTeXt, and gives hints on where to look further in my book, or whatever else you and others see needs to be written.

This is a bit interesting, though. Should I start with a tutorial, or the reference? I personally lean more towards the reference, but of course if the community thinks that the tutorial first would be more valuable, then that'll get the higher priority.

What I had in mind was a single reference that taught you all you needed to become as experienced with ConTeXt as Hans Hagen et al, and all the information you'll need to essentially be able to achieve whatever you want. I found (and hope the ConTeXt developers take no offense) that the documentation for how to become an advanced user was nonexistent, and for some specific cases more scattered around. Thus, the book was born.

In other words, it's a book that teaches you how to become an advanced ConTeXt user, certainly far beyond "A not so short introduction to ConTeXt". Would the ConTeXt community more prefer such a book, or a more quick introductory book for ConTeXt? Because I don't think these two would serve well as one, but rather the former backing up the latter, i.e., two different books.

Thanks.
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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Jan Ulrich Hasecke via ntg-context]

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Hi,

Am 14.02.24 um 19:45 schrieb Sir Coleman via ntg-context:
> I wanted to create more of a reference, a complete reference, and one that's of course not meant to be read from cover to cover.


I think that setup-en.pdf is a good starting point for a complete 
reference as it contains the commands and their options. With added 
explanations and examples it would be a great reference to beginners.

juh

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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Mikael Sundqvist]

Hi,

This small example from BachoTeX 2023 could perhaps be useful for
someone: https://github.com/mpsmath/stepbystep

/Mikael

On Thu, Feb 15, 2024 at 8:31 AM Jan Ulrich Hasecke via ntg-context
<ntg-context@ntg.nl> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Am 14.02.24 um 19:45 schrieb Sir Coleman via ntg-context:
>
> I wanted to create more of a reference, a complete reference, and one that's of course not meant to be read from cover to cover.
>
>
> I think that setup-en.pdf is a good starting point for a complete reference as it contains the commands and their options. With added explanations and examples it would be a great reference to beginners.
>
> juh
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
>
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> ___________________________________________________________________________________
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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Tommaso Gordini]

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Thank you, Mikael,

excellent tutorial, for me.

Ciao
Tommaso

Il giorno gio 15 feb 2024 alle ore 09:29 Mikael Sundqvist <mickep@gmail.com>
ha scritto:

> Hi,
>
> This small example from BachoTeX 2023 could perhaps be useful for
> someone: https://github.com/mpsmath/stepbystep
>
> /Mikael
>
> On Thu, Feb 15, 2024 at 8:31 AM Jan Ulrich Hasecke via ntg-context
> <ntg-context@ntg.nl> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Am 14.02.24 um 19:45 schrieb Sir Coleman via ntg-context:
> >
> > I wanted to create more of a reference, a complete reference, and one
> that's of course not meant to be read from cover to cover.
> >
> >
> > I think that setup-en.pdf is a good starting point for a complete
> reference as it contains the commands and their options. With added
> explanations and examples it would be a great reference to beginners.
> >
> > juh
> >
> >
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> > If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry
> to the Wiki!
> >
> > maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl /
> https://mailman.ntg.nl/mailman3/lists/ntg-context.ntg.nl
> > webpage  : https://www.pragma-ade.nl / https://context.aanhet.net
> (mirror)
> > archive  : https://github.com/contextgarden/context
> > wiki     : https://wiki.contextgarden.net
> >
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> 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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> archive  : https://github.com/contextgarden/context
> wiki     : https://wiki.contextgarden.net
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
>

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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Aditya Mahajan]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024, Mikael Sundqvist wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> This small example from BachoTeX 2023 could perhaps be useful for
> someone: https://github.com/mpsmath/stepbystep

For tutorials, I had played around with using a git repo as a tutorial:

https://github.com/adityam/context-slides-example/commits

The following page is generated automatically from the git commit log:
https://adityam.github.io/context-blog/post/presentation-40-commits-redux/

Aditya
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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Tommaso Gordini]

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Thanks everyone for the suggestions on the manuals. I knew the resource
reported by Alain and, of course, that of Joaquín, whose translation into
Italian I have completed, but not yet refined.

However, I didn't know the file reported by Mikael, which I found to be an
excellent tutorial to get started with.

The documentation on ConTeXt is copious, and we know it: just look at the
manuals on Contextgarden. But it is decidedly fragmented, and this
disorientates the user.

I believe, therefore, that what the community misses is a
tutorial/reference manual/complete guide that comes *directly* from the
ConTeXt team (Hans, Wolfgang, etc). And, above all, that it is up to date:
on Contextgarden many ‘valid’ manuals date back to many years ago, and the
obsolescence of the software guides could make people say something like
«well, stuff from years ago, I don't trust it».

A manual in a single file that has, in short, the seal of officiality: the
various resources in circulation are just as many excellent efforts by
individuals, who however have put their own approach to ConTeXt into their
work. Perhaps there is a more correct approach than others, more essential,
which is worth knowing.

I am speaking to you as a LaTeX user, and therefore I may have written a
lot of nonsense in my message.
I conclude by saying that, in the end, the ConTeXt team may not be
interested in all this, and therefore our discussions are pure academic. :)

Ciao
Tommaso

Il giorno gio 15 feb 2024 alle ore 12:13 Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu>
ha scritto:

> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024, Mikael Sundqvist wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > This small example from BachoTeX 2023 could perhaps be useful for
> > someone: https://github.com/mpsmath/stepbystep
>
> For tutorials, I had played around with using a git repo as a tutorial:
>
> https://github.com/adityam/context-slides-example/commits
>
> The following page is generated automatically from the git commit log:
> https://adityam.github.io/context-blog/post/presentation-40-commits-redux/
>
> Aditya
>
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>
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>

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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Hans Hagen]

On 2/15/2024 8:25 PM, Tommaso Gordini wrote:
> Thanks everyone for the suggestions on the manuals. I knew the resource 
> reported by Alain and, of course, that of Joaquín, whose translation 
> into Italian I have completed, but not yet refined.
> 
> However, I didn't know the file reported by Mikael, which I found to be 
> an excellent tutorial to get started with.
> 
> The documentation on ConTeXt is copious, and we know it: just look at 
> the manuals on Contextgarden. But it is decidedly fragmented, and this 
> disorientates the user.
> 
> I believe, therefore, that what the community misses is a 
> tutorial/reference manual/complete guide that comes /directly/ from the 
> ConTeXt team (Hans, Wolfgang, etc). And, above all, that it is up to 
> date: on Contextgarden many ‘valid’ manuals date back to many years ago, 
> and the obsolescence of the software guides could make people say 
> something like «well, stuff from years ago, I don't trust it».
> 
> A manual in a single file that has, in short, the seal of officiality: 
> the various resources in circulation are just as many excellent efforts 
> by individuals, who however have put their own approach to ConTeXt into 
> their work. Perhaps there is a more correct approach than others, more 
> essential, which is worth knowing.
> 
> I am speaking to you as a LaTeX user, and therefore I may have written a 
> lot of nonsense in my message.
> I conclude by saying that, in the end, the ConTeXt team may not be 
> interested in all this, and therefore our discussions are pure academic. :)
As with latex it's not dev who have to write documentation, manuals, 
books ... so any addition is okay. There are only 24 hours in my day 
(maybe a few more in wolfgangs),

Hans


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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Don’t forget the articles from the context journal: 
https://articles.contextgarden.net/
(2022 is still missing)

Esp. Taco’s about MetaPost are very interesting and maybe that’s some 
low level stuff you’re missing.

You don’t need to look at Hans’ contributions – everything that’s still 
valid is in the distribution.

Hraban
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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Joaquín Ataz López]

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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:
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> ___________________________________________________________________________________

-- 
Joaquín Ataz López
Departamento de Derecho civil
Universidad de Murcia

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[NTG-context] Re: An announcement of my new book.

[Hans Hagen]

On 2/14/2024 8:37 PM, Joaquín Ataz López wrote:
> 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,
indeed these are must-haves

Hans

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               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
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