ConTeXt standalone - in what situations is it better?

ConTeXt standalone - in what situations is it better?

[Lars Huttar]

Hello,
I was looking into simplefonts
(http://wiki.contextgarden.net/simplefonts) and noticed the clause

> if you’re running ConTeXt Standalone
> <http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ConTeXt_Standalone> (which is a better
> option)

Well I'm using TeXLive, but am happy to take good advice, so I looked at
http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ConTeXt_Standalone to see why it would be
a better option.
The basic reason I can see is that Standalone is updated more frequently.

So if you're using bleeding-edge features of ConTeXt (including recent
fixes to simplefonts?), I can see wanting to use Standalone and have
access to the latest features and fixes.

On the other hand, if you're working on a large production project that
has to be careful of stability, is there any advantage to Standalone
over TeXLive? Sure, you can keep a standalone version frozen in place,
but then that seems equivalent to staying with an existing version of
TeXLive.

The other issue for me with Standalone is that the only version listed
for Windows is "W32TeX". When I go to the web page for that platform, I
don't see any information about what W32TeX is; just how to install it.
It sounds like it's specific to 32-bit systems, and mine is 64-bit. But
I suppose in that regard it's no different from TeXLive -- the
executables are 32-bit but they run fine on 64-bit systems.

Does anybody have advice for me on other reasons for switching from
TeXLive to ConTeXt Standalone, or reasons not to?

Thanks,
Lars

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Re: ConTeXt standalone - in what situations is it better?

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 2:13 PM, Lars Huttar wrote:
>
> The other issue for me with Standalone is that the only version listed
> for Windows is "W32TeX". When I go to the web page for that platform, I
> don't see any information about what W32TeX is; just how to install it.
> It sounds like it's specific to 32-bit systems, and mine is 64-bit. But
> I suppose in that regard it's no different from TeXLive -- the
> executables are 32-bit but they run fine on 64-bit systems.

http://w32tex.org/

It's another distribution created by a Japanese guru for compiling
binaries with Visual Studio. You don't need to install W32TeX
yourself, but those binaries are used in both TeX Live and ConTeXt
distribution, so you basically get the same binaries (only maybe
slightly newer version with ConTeXt distribution). And yes, the
binaries work fine on a 64-bit system. Since recently there are 64-bit
binaries available, but I didn't manage to fix the scripts yet to
fetch those binaries when applicable.

> Does anybody have advice for me on other reasons for switching from
> TeXLive to ConTeXt Standalone, or reasons not to?

If TeX Live works for you, there is no real need to switch, but if you
ever need a patch or some new functionality, it would be easier to use
the latest version.

Mojca
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Re: ConTeXt standalone - in what situations is it better?

[john Culleton]

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 14:57:35 +0200
Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 2:13 PM, Lars Huttar wrote:
> >
> > The other issue for me with Standalone is that the only version
> > listed for Windows is "W32TeX". When I go to the web page for that
> > platform, I don't see any information about what W32TeX is; just
> > how to install it. It sounds like it's specific to 32-bit systems,
> > and mine is 64-bit. But I suppose in that regard it's no different
> > from TeXLive -- the executables are 32-bit but they run fine on
> > 64-bit systems.
> 
> http://w32tex.org/
> 
> It's another distribution created by a Japanese guru for compiling
> binaries with Visual Studio. You don't need to install W32TeX
> yourself, but those binaries are used in both TeX Live and ConTeXt
> distribution, so you basically get the same binaries (only maybe
> slightly newer version with ConTeXt distribution). And yes, the
> binaries work fine on a 64-bit system. Since recently there are 64-bit
> binaries available, but I didn't manage to fix the scripts yet to
> fetch those binaries when applicable.
> 
> > Does anybody have advice for me on other reasons for switching from
> > TeXLive to ConTeXt Standalone, or reasons not to?
> 
> If TeX Live works for you, there is no real need to switch, but if you
> ever need a patch or some new functionality, it would be easier to use
> the latest version.
> 
> Mojca
> 

There is a problem with using Texlive and a problem with using
Standalone. In the simplefonts area in particular documentation and
examples may rely on changes that weren't in place when Texlive 2103
was put together. This is a rapidly developing area. 

The problem with Standalone is that the full range of fonts found with
Texlive is not available. Standalone has 258 otf fonts and TexLive
has 508 otf fonts. So I am opting for TeXLive, although I have both.

Another dfficulty is that many of the examples for simplefonts
are apparently developed on a Windows system and I use Linux. Font
names are different.
  


-- 
John Culleton
Wexford Press
Free list of books for self-publishers:
http://wexfordpress.net/shortlist.html
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Re: ConTeXt standalone - in what situations is it better?

[Aditya Mahajan]

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On Thu, 24 Oct 2013, Lars Huttar wrote:

> Hello,
> I was looking into simplefonts
> (http://wiki.contextgarden.net/simplefonts) and noticed the clause
>
>> if you’re running ConTeXt Standalone
>> <http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ConTeXt_Standalone> (which is a better
>> option)
>
> Well I'm using TeXLive, but am happy to take good advice, so I looked at
> http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ConTeXt_Standalone to see why it would be
> a better option.
> The basic reason I can see is that Standalone is updated more frequently.

Three or four years ago, when ConTeXt was moving from MkII to MkIV, 
you had to run through hoops to get context working with TL. Since the 
last two years, ConTeXt works out of the box in TL.

> So if you're using bleeding-edge features of ConTeXt (including recent
> fixes to simplefonts?), I can see wanting to use Standalone and have
> access to the latest features and fixes.
>
> On the other hand, if you're working on a large production project that
> has to be careful of stability, is there any advantage to Standalone
> over TeXLive? Sure, you can keep a standalone version frozen in place,
> but then that seems equivalent to staying with an existing version of
> TeXLive.

No. In some sense, it is better to use the frozen version that is part of 
TL rather than an arbitrary beta version from standalone. Every once in a 
while, the beta version has bugs (those are usually fixed in a matter of 
hours). But it can be tricky to decide which version to freeze for a long 
term production environment.

On the other hand, the version of ConTeXt that ships with TL is tested 
more thoroughly. So, there is some guarantee that it will not include any 
serious bugs.

Aditya

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Re: ConTeXt standalone - in what situations is it better?

[Aditya Mahajan]

> The problem with Standalone is that the full range of fonts found with
> Texlive is not available. Standalone has 258 otf fonts and TexLive
> has 508 otf fonts. So I am opting for TeXLive, although I have both.

I use standalone in parallel with texlive (which I need for latex). In the 
Arch PKGBUILD that I maintain, I use:

  # If texlive exists, use fonts from texlive
  if [ -d $_texlivefontdir ]
  then
    mkdir -p $srcdir/tex/texmf-fonts
    if [ -L $srcdir/tex/texmf-fonts/fonts ]
    then
      rm $srcdir/tex/texmf-fonts/fonts
    fi
    ln -s $_texlivefontdir $srcdir/tex/texmf-fonts/fonts
  fi

So, if TL is installed, the TL font directory is symlinked at an 
appropriate location and all the TL fonts are available with ConTeXt 
standalone as well.

> Another dfficulty is that many of the examples for simplefonts
> are apparently developed on a Windows system and I use Linux. Font
> names are different.

I haven't had any trouble with using simplefonts in Linux (but then, I 
rarely consult the wiki for usage examples). Could you point to specific 
examples.

Aditya
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Re: ConTeXt standalone - in what situations is it better?

[Wolfgang Schuster]

Am 24.10.2013 um 16:18 schrieb Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu>:

>> Another dfficulty is that many of the examples for simplefonts
>> are apparently developed on a Windows system and I use Linux. Font
>> names are different.
> 
> I haven't had any trouble with using simplefonts in Linux (but then, I rarely consult the wiki for usage examples). Could you point to specific examples.

That’s interesting because I use in many of my examples fonts from the TeX Gyre Project
and also fonts from the DejaVu family which are available on Linux. Which example leads
to the thought simplefonts was written on a Windows system?

Wolfgang
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