Re: Seeking a Deeper ConTeXt: Questions for Initializing

[Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu>]

On Mon, 25 May 2009, John Haltiwanger wrote:

> unlike document classes), there are no pre-rolled environments available. I
> am thinking here of standardized thesis environments for universities, or a

There are no standardized thesis styles for universities mainly because 
there are no consistent specs. Most univs want you to use times, double 
spaced lines, wide margins, and some formatting guidelines regarding the 
chapter headings, table of content, page headers and footers. Setting 
these are easy in ConTeXt (and also LaTeX if you know the relevant 
packages). Universities do not provide an official thesis style (either in 
LaTeX or ConTeXt) because in most cases they do not have the resources to 
maintain them. Students figure something out, and then pass along their 
styles to the next generation. If the formatting guidelines change, the 
burden is on the students to correct the style, rather than on the 
university.

When I was writing my thesis, it took me about a few hours to understand 
the formatting guidelines, which were a jigjaw puzzle. Statements like: 
Always use Times New Roman at 12pt as the main font. ... two pages down 
... The abstract can be in 10pt or 12pt ... a few pages later, use any of 
the standard fonts. It also used vague terminology. Statements like leave 
two blank lines after the title (blank lines, er... for what fontsize, the 
bodyfont or the title font?).

ConTeXt makes it really easy to make the formatting changes. Once I 
understood the formatting guidelines, writing the main style was very easy 
(with a few trips to the manual, and a few questions here on the mailing 
list). Making sure that the resultant style looked visually appealing 
while not violating the formatting guidelines too a lot of experimentation.

As Hans said, you can think of ConTeXt as the "standard" thesis 
style. Setup a few commands, and you meet your formatting requirements. 
Write it in an environment or a module, and you can reuse it.

Aditya
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