Re: Using ConTeXt for a thesis?

[Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu>]

On Sat, 19 Dec 2009, Manuel P. wrote:

> George N. White III ha scritto:
>> 
>> ConTeXt has been used, but different institutions have different rules
>> and expectations.
>> At many institutions there is already a LaTeX thesis style "ready to go",

In my experience, the trouble is not creating a style that meets your 
university's requirement: that is easy both in LaTeX (once you know the 
right packages) or ConTeXt. The difficulty is understanding your 
universities requirement which, in most cases, is ambiguous and 
incomplete.

> My requirements are quite easy: something unobtrusive that enable me to focus 
> on the content and obtain a nice and consistent look with a virtually flat 
> leaning curve (I don't mind a bit of learning, but I can't spend days on 
> that). Some pictures, some tables, mainly text. Footnotes, bibliography, 
> quotes and easy personalization of footers and headers.

All this is easy in ConTeXt and also LaTeX. I don't think that ConTeXt's 
has an advantage over LaTeX in terms of ease of configurability. ConTeXt's 
main advantage is consistency. Once you understand a few basics, you can 
guess the right keywords for other commands. In LaTeX, each package has 
its own conventions and remembering stuff is more difficult.

> Some quick examples:
> - How can I make a double-face document (right page, left page)?

\setuppagenumbering[alternative=doublesided]

> - How can I separate the footer from the rest of the page with something like 
> an \hairline?

\setupbackgrounds[footer][text][topframe=on]

> - There is an equivalent for ConTeXt of LaTeX's lastpage? I want a footer 
> like this: <page>/<n. of pages>

\lastpage :)

\setupfootertexts[Page \pagenumber\ of \lastpage]

Aditya
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