starting headings at top of column

starting headings at top of column

[Lars Huttar]

Hello,

I've started talking to people in charge about contributing some money
to this mailing list, or the wiki, or something ... we're certainly
getting a lot of help from it. Is there an org or project to contribute to?

Anyway, my current challenge is this.
We have a two-column layout using columnsets. Fairly often, we start a
new section (within a column... this does not interrupt the flow of
columns).

Some constraints we want to fulfill are:

- Normally we want a little space before each new section heading
  - Except at the top of a column; can I check whether we're at the top
of a column and do a conditional \vskip based on that?(*)

- Avoid orphans: when starting a new section, if there's not enough room
left in the current column, do a column break before outputting the
section heading. I've tried \testcolumn[n], but it doesn't seem to work
right. What are the units of the argument to \testcolumn?

We also do manual column balancing using \definecolumnset,
\setupcolumnset, and \setupcolumnsetlines. My concern is, does this
apply after other layout is performed, so that any test performed above
(*) regarding position within the column would fail to reflect these
column balancing adjustments and therefore could give wrong results?
That could explain why \testcolumn has been behaving in unexpected ways...

Thanks,
Lars



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Contributing [was: Re: starting headings at top of column

[Idris Samawi Hamid ادريس سماوي حامد]

Hi Lars,

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:57:41 -0700, Lars Huttar <lars_huttar@sil.org>  
wrote:

> I've started talking to people in charge about contributing some money
> to this mailing list, or the wiki, or something ... we're certainly
> getting a lot of help from it. Is there an org or project to contribute  
> to?

My suggestion is to start a fund to sponsor the first commercial ConTeXt  
book. Steve Peter, myself and others have been pushing in this direction  
for awhile, and the time is approaching to work on it in earnest. Feel  
free to contact me off-list to discuss this if you like.

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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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: starting headings at top of column

[Hans Hagen]

Lars Huttar wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I've started talking to people in charge about contributing some money
> to this mailing list, or the wiki, or something ... we're certainly
> getting a lot of help from it. Is there an org or project to contribute to?

a few ideas:

- at the tug web page there is a sponsor link ..

https://www.tug.org/donate.html

there you can explicitly sponsor luatex code development (which includes 
mplib); since this project is directly related to context mkiv, support 
will indirectly boost mkiv development (ok, within the limitations of my 
time)

- another option is to sponsor development meetings (e.g. help some 
contributers to context to attend the context conference); there is no 
context link (yet) on the tug page -)

> Anyway, my current challenge is this.
> We have a two-column layout using columnsets. Fairly often, we start a
> new section (within a column... this does not interrupt the flow of
> columns).
> 
> Some constraints we want to fulfill are:
> 
> - Normally we want a little space before each new section heading
>   - Except at the top of a column; can I check whether we're at the top
> of a column and do a conditional \vskip based on that?(*)
> 
> - Avoid orphans: when starting a new section, if there's not enough room
> left in the current column, do a column break before outputting the
> section heading. I've tried \testcolumn[n], but it doesn't seem to work
> right. What are the units of the argument to \testcolumn?
> 
> We also do manual column balancing using \definecolumnset,
> \setupcolumnset, and \setupcolumnsetlines. My concern is, does this
> apply after other layout is performed, so that any test performed above
> (*) regarding position within the column would fail to reflect these
> column balancing adjustments and therefore could give wrong results?
> That could explain why \testcolumn has been behaving in unexpected ways...

columnsets are kind of special:

- strongly grid based (which permits tricky figure placement)
- a regular mvl (which permits most context features)

sometime next year, when we enter the 'opening up luatexs page-builder' 
stage, we can look into enhancing columnsets (i hit some of tex's 
limitations there)

also, when the mvl code is extended i can finish the new mkiv 
spacing/penalty model i'm working on (but first math)

Hans

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