Re: New Member Introductory Rant

["Idris Samawi Hamid" <ishamid@colostate.edu>]

Hi Corin,

Welcome. I will offer some brief comments, and maybe others will elaborate  
on things I skip, pass over, or inadequately discuss:

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:01:30 -0600, Corin Royal Drummond  
<corin@studiochango.com> wrote:

> I've long been curious about TeX but it seemed too

> ossified,

No, see the luatex project, developed and supported mostly (though not  
exclusively) by the ConTeXt community.

> fragmented,

engines: pdfTeX is standard, luaTeX (experimental) will one day be its  
successor, and xeTeX is is also available for special script needs (an  
area where luaTeX also shines). Other TeX versions are deprecated or  
obsolete. In the next three years only luaTeX and xetex will be relavant.

formats: ConTeXt and LaTeX.

So: you have two/three engines to choose from (depending on your needs)  
and two formats.

> inflexible,

This is simply not the case. Indeed, I am not aware of any foundation for  
typography and typesetting that is more flexible than TeX. And you have a  
variety of options depending on your needs, as I just explained above.

> and hard to learn.

That is true, to an extent. OTOH ConTeXt has a very consistent interface,  
much more so than LaTeX's (including its package system).

> Later I discovered LyX and understood
> implicitly the style based markup idea, and it's power.

LyX, now THAT's inflexible ;-)

> I've always
> hated things like word, open office, and DTP programs.  I'm fine doing
> the GUI for PhotoShop, but somehow I feel I should be able to just type
> text, and have it come out all pretty.  ConTeXt seems to share that
> philosophy, so I'm giddy about it.  I suppose I should learn InDesign
> too, but I don't really want to.

For structured elements that require automated processing ConTeXt is way  
ahead of InDesign AKAIK.

> I've been working my way through the documentation, ConTeXt Garden, and
> whatever I can find on Google searches.  I've worked my way up to making
> a letter head with my address, a graphic logo, and couple of font
> switches, and some hanging punctuation.  I made another version for my
> journal with two columns under each section heading.  I'm using Scite as
> my editor, but I haven't set it up anyway special.

There is a ConTeXt-enabled version of scite that is distributed by Pragma.

> Kile didn't seem to
> like ConTeXt much, and it's command completion facility kept spitting
> out LaTeX code as I typed.  I like Scite as it starts fast, has nice
> colors, and is easy to get around.

See the wiki

http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Main_Page

and search for the text editors page.

For what follows, I will make a comment or two, but note the following:

1. There are people here more than happy to help you with any problems you  
may be experiencing.

2. In general, try to focus on one problem per email subject.

3. When possible, always give the smallest sample context file that  
illustrates the problem.

> TexFont doesn't work on Ubuntu.  It craps out saying it can't find it's
> TeX root.  Even when I set the FontRoot with the command line switch, it
> fails to find it's map files.  I filed a bug with Ubuntu about it as it
> seems like some files like the font maps got put in /var/lib.  So I'm
> completely frustrated by the font situation.  Don't understand why I
> can't just point TexFont at my directory of OTF, TTF, and PFB fonts and
> have it suck up every last glyph and variant like Scribus, InkScape, and
> InDesign do.  It should configure a reasonable set of typescripts, and
> tell me what's available.  All the other TeX fonts should just work out
> of the box.  Why do I have to wrestle so vainly just to get the damn
> fonts to be available.

ConTeXt is extraordinarily flexible when it comes to fonts, and this  
inevitably involves much user configuration. With luaTeX and mkiv (next  
generation context) things will become streamlined in ways but you will  
have to learn to manipulate fonts the context way. There are lots of  
tutorials out there (see the wiki). AKAIK pdfTeX+mkii (which I presume you  
are using) has pretty much stabilized so bring your problems here and  
there is probably an easy fix.

About Ubuntu, I know nothing. Make sure you have installed the latest  
context and are not using an old version.

> Also, I can't for the life of me figure out how to change typefaces in
> headers and footers.  I can change to italics, or sizes with style=\it\x
> but have no clue how to switch a header to say the Zaph Chancery
> caligraphic.  I can switch the body font to it, so I'm part way there.

Send a separate email illustrating the problem (this one's easy btw:  
\switchtotypeface, \switchtobodyfont).

> I'm pretty pissed off about the state of the documentation for ConTeXt.
> Out of date docs, that were never finished, and full of holes.

Actually, given the size of ConTeXt and the number of developers, it's  
amazing how much documentation there is. Look at the cup as half-full, not  
half-empty.

> Small
> set of MyWay articles, old dead links on the wiki, no roadmap, no bug
> database.

Get involved! This mailing list is the place to start, then the wiki. See  
also the list archives.

We hope to get a major ConTeXt book out in a couple of years or so...

> It's 2008, there's things like SourceForge, and LaunchPad for
> these sort of things.  I don't understand why Pragma can't sell support
> for ConTeXt like other open source projects.  That way Hans can afford a
> staff to handle people's questions, he can focus on building what he
> likes (and we all love), new users can be brought in, and a virtuous
> cycle of new contributors, new features, and new users.

I am sure Hans will be happy to have you as a paying customer. Hang around  
the list for awhile, ask specific questions, get familiar with the  
community, then revisit this issue.

> TexShow is missing tons of commands I've read about in the manual, and
> doesn't bother to explain what any command or option does.  Nor do I
> understand how options are chained or structured into more than simple
> switches.  Where are the screencasts of gurus showing off how to do cool
> things?  Where are the tutorials?  Where are the contributed templates,
> so I can read other people's code to learn from?  You'd think that
> people who make structured document typesetting systems would spend some
> more time on their documentation.

A lot of what you are looking for is there: see the archives, send  
distinct emails each with a distinct subject matter.

Others (Mojca, Luigi) can answer this question in more detail.

> I'd be glad to help, but first I'd need to learn the system.  Since the
> docs are so incomplete, I'm not sure how I'd do that.  Catch 22.

 From your comments above it seems you've made a lot of progress already.  
Just follow the protocol I've outlined above.

> I've gotten as far as letter writing, and I'm pretty happy with that.
> My goal is to typeset my housemate's pirate novel that she's writing.
> I'm going to stick it out and see how far I can get.  I hope I don't
> have to go running back to LyX and the memoir class.

You won't have to ;-) ConTeXt is in a whole other league.

> I'm home sick with
> Hepatitis and Diabetes so I've got some quality time with my six year
> old Ubuntu laptop.

Wishing you good health!

> If there are any Bay Area ConTeXt users around, I'd love to meet you.
> And if any one wants help setting up a better community website, I could
> help with that, knowing Drupal.

Mojca is probably the main point person. Welcome again to ConTeXt and

Best wishes
Idris

-- 
Professor Idris Samawi Hamid, Editor-in-Chief
International Journal of Shi`i Studies
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523

--
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