Mats Broberg wrote:Well, TeXLive, fpTeX or Hans' stripped-down TeX version comes into my mind.Pity! What TeX distributions are the other Windows users running, if not MikTeX?
I'm running TeXLive2003, although I think my ConTeXt is from last summer, i.e. updated from the original. One of my TeXLive2003:s (I guess the XP at home) has TeXLive installed in C:\Program Files, which means that while ConTeXt now works fine with spaces in file names, the TeXfont in that system doesn't, so I haven't been able to install a single extra font besides the ones I already have. Where TeXLive2003 is installed as C:\TeXLive, I haven't had problems. I don't yet know what newer versions do here.
If you don't have the TeXLive CD (as several TeX user groups send their members), try - http://www.tug.org/texlive/
TeXLive 2004 .iso CD image, i.e. the installable TeXLive, does NOT come with Windows installer and I couldn't get it to install by running the shell scripts in CygWin, either. Or let's say, it kind of installs, but takes a ton of tweaking afterwards and still doesn't work for me. (Note. I tried installing it into a "blank" Windows2000, a Windows without an older version of TeXLive2003 (and very little else besides Windows and Office)).
However, you may have better luck if you get hold of the stand-alone
(runnable) TeXLive2004 DVD. The instructions on how to install TeXLive
on Windows from that are at <http://www.tug.org/texlive/windows.html>,
see "Manual Windows installation for 2004" and this sounds like a viable
option (had to find a DVD burner first and just got the DVD done, so haven't tried yet). The same page now also mentions that there's now a provisional installation program for reasonably experienced users who know how to use command line. (Maybe I'll try this... not getting TeXLive 2004 to work majorly *irritates* me.)
Maybe some Windows users know others or can recommend which one is best (with which editor).
I'm weird, I use NTEmacs (have to install that separately) with context.el. For Emacs it probably doesn't make any difference what distribution is used as long as it works at all.
My workmate installed the standalone windows version (mswincontext.zip) and found out (the hard way) that it required some bits and pieces that a standard Windows (think of non-programming 'dummy user' Windows) doesn't automatically have - both perl and ruby were missing, at least. Once he installed ruby (perl he had already) and got the system running, he's been very happy with editing ConTeXt with Scite on the stand-alone.
(Hans, I'd suggest including a small "readme.txt" in these windows zips
for us dummy users which tell us about the system requirements including
info on where to get ruby - the downloading page itself is less than
informative in this respect. Or included perl and ruby into the standalone package as was done in the older/original version of the standalone. But for example I'd be quite ok with getting them from somewhere else if I got some pointers on from where.)
Or, even better, while I'm at it: I'll go install the standalone in a computer that recently experienced a hard-disk wipe and *if* I get the system to work, I'll write the instructions for other Windows users to follow.
mari (whose never used ConTeXt in any other platform than Windows) _______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
