Soul Package in ConTeXt

Soul Package in ConTeXt

[Steffen Wolfrum]

Because of looking for a nice letterspacing solution I had a look at 
the LaTeX's soul.sty.

Melchior Franz wrote that it should also work with ConTeXt:

>  The soul package
>  Melchior FRANZ
>  May 29, 2002
>  Abstract
>  This article describes the soul package1, which provides h y p h e n -
>  a t a b l e l e t t e r s p a c i n g ( s p a c i n g o u t ) , 
>underlining and some
>  derivatives such as overstriking and highlighting. Although the package is
>  optimized for LATEX2", it also works with Plain TEX and with other flavors
>  of TEX like, for instance, ConTEXt.


But how?

\input soul.sty

gives me in ConTeXt:

>  (/Users/steffen/Library/texmf/tex/latex/misc/soul.sty
>  ! Undefined control sequence.
>  l.49     \NeedsTeXFormat
>                          {LaTeX2e}
>  ?


So what what did he mean by "works with"?
What is the right way?


Thank you for any reply,

Steffen

Re: Soul Package in ConTeXt

[Hans Hagen]

At 13:52 17/09/2003 +0200, you wrote:
>Because of looking for a nice letterspacing solution I had a look at the 
>LaTeX's soul.sty.
>
>Melchior Franz wrote that it should also work with ConTeXt:
>
>>  The soul package
>>  Melchior FRANZ
>>  May 29, 2002
>>  Abstract
>>  This article describes the soul package1, which provides h y p h e n -
>>  a t a b l e l e t t e r s p a c i n g ( s p a c i n g o u t ) , 
>> underlining and some
>>  derivatives such as overstriking and highlighting. Although the package is
>>  optimized for LATEX2", it also works with Plain TEX and with other flavors
>>  of TEX like, for instance, ConTEXt.
>
>
>But how?
>
>\input soul.sty
>
>gives me in ConTeXt:
>
>>  (/Users/steffen/Library/texmf/tex/latex/misc/soul.sty
>>  ! Undefined control sequence.
>>  l.49     \NeedsTeXFormat
>>                          {LaTeX2e}
>>  ?

you can take a look in core-fnt.tex and supp-fun which has streched, all 
kinds of underline, dropped caps and alike

Hans
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                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
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Re: Soul Package in ConTeXt

[Patrick Gundlach]

Steffen Wolfrum <xmailings@estfiles.de> writes:

Hi,

> But how?
>
> \input soul.sty
>
> gives me in ConTeXt:
>
>>  (/Users/steffen/Library/texmf/tex/latex/misc/soul.sty
>>  ! Undefined control sequence.
>>  l.49     \NeedsTeXFormat
>>                          {LaTeX2e}
>>  ?

this is because in core-mis.tex, ConTeXt defines \documentclass. I
wonder why. This works, but I don't know about any drawbacks:

\starttext
\let\documentclass\undefined
\input soul.sty 
\textul{foo}
\stoptext

But: (this is for Melchior Franz) IMO there is a newcommand* in
soul.sty where it does not belong (line 89):

\newskip\SOUL@spaceskip
\newif\ifSOUL@ignorespaces
\newcommand*\soulomit{\noexpand\soulomit}
\def\SOUL@stopM{\SOUL@stop}
\let\SOUL@stop\relax

$Id: soul.dtx,v 1.82 2002/05/07 22:09:30 m Exp $

If you replace it with \def{..} everything looks fine.

Patrick

Re: Soul Package in ConTeXt

[Patrick Gundlach]

Patrick Gundlach <pg@levana.de> writes:

> this is because in core-mis.tex, ConTeXt defines \documentclass. I
> wonder why. 

Actually, I still wonder why. Could anyone enlighten me?
 

Patrick
-- 
Silent is the goldfish in its bowl

Re: Re: Soul Package in ConTeXt

[Hans Hagen]

At 12:07 19/09/2003 +0200, you wrote:
>Patrick Gundlach <pg@levana.de> writes:
>
> > this is because in core-mis.tex, ConTeXt defines \documentclass. I
> > wonder why.
>
>Actually, I still wonder why. Could anyone enlighten me?

as a trigger point for a message

Hans


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Soul Package in ConTeXt

[Patrick Gundlach]

Hi,

>> > this is because in core-mis.tex, ConTeXt defines \documentclass. I
>> > wonder why.
>>
>>Actually, I still wonder why. Could anyone enlighten me?
>
> as a trigger point for a message

You mean the 
system         : try LaTeX
message? 

Would it break anything to remove the LaTeX check?

Patrick
-- 
Silent is the goldfish in its bowl

Re: Re: Soul Package in ConTeXt

[Hans Hagen]

At 14:22 19/09/2003 +0200, Patrick Gundlach wrote:

>Hi,
>
> >> > this is because in core-mis.tex, ConTeXt defines \documentclass. I
> >> > wonder why.
> >>
> >>Actually, I still wonder why. Could anyone enlighten me?
> >
> > as a trigger point for a message
>
>You mean the
>system         : try LaTeX
>message?
>
>Would it break anything to remove the LaTeX check?

no, apart from being less polite to ths confused user ; btw, why does it 
need to be removed?

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
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                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
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Re: Soul Package in ConTeXt

[Patrick Gundlach]

Hi,

>>Would it break anything to remove the LaTeX check?
>
> no, apart from being less polite to ths confused user ; btw, why does
> it need to be removed?

Well, it does not really have to be removed. The only thing that I
think is unnecessary is that ConTeXt defines \documentclass. IMO it
is not a good habit that any other macro package besides LaTeX
defines \documentclass (unless, of course, absoultely necessary). So
my suggestion is to use something like

\ifx\documentclass\undefined\else
  \global\def\documentclass  {\showmessage\m!systems3\empty\stoptext}
\fi

instead. We can forget about \documentstyle, since latex2.09 is
ancient history. 

There might be more tex-macros out ther than soul.sty that are mostly
macro package independant but looks for LaTeX by checking for
\documentclass.


Patrick
-- 
Silent is the goldfish in its bowl

Re: Soul Package in ConTeXt

[Patrick Gundlach]

Patrick Gundlach <pg@levana.de> writes superfluous stuff:

> \ifx\documentclass\undefined\else
>   \global\def\documentclass  {\showmessage\m!systems3\empty\stoptext}
> \fi

which only works because \documentclass is already defined in
core-mis.tex :-(. 

Next time, please follow the rule:

think then write

and not 

write then think

Patrick
-- 
Silent is the goldfish in its bowl

Re: Re: Soul Package in ConTeXt

[Hans Hagen]

At 14:55 21/09/2003 +0200, you wrote:

>\ifx\documentclass\undefined\else
>   \global\def\documentclass  {\showmessage\m!systems3\empty\stoptext}
>\fi

ok, i made the code obsolete

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
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