On Fri, 28 Sep 2012, Philipp Gesang wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> the background mechanism of tabulations is quite simplistic: it
> extends only to the first line of a cell irrespective of its
> length. Example:
>
> ·······································································
> \starttext
> \starttabulate[|p|r|]
>  \CM [red] \input knuth \NC was said by The Don \NC \AR
> \stoptabulate
> \stoptext
> ·······································································
>
> Is there a way to get the whole cell covered? (Textbackgrounds
> only color the area where text is, not the entire cell.)

The TABLE macros are more flexible than tabulate.

(Untested)

\startsetups table:setup
\setupTABLE[frame=off]
\setupTABLE[r][1][background=color, color=red, width=0.5\hsize]
\stopsetups

\startTABLE[setups={table:setup}]
\NC \input knuth \NC was said by the Don \NC \NR
\stopTABLE

Aditya