I became dissatisfied with the usual word-processors after
typesetting a book with Word and seeing the catastrophe that ensued:
cross-references, indexes, typographic quality, everything was a
disaster if you looked closer. My first steps into TeX-land were with
LaTeX. I liked so many aspects of it, but I was a bit frustrated that
it was so difficult to change the layout of simple things such as
lists, headings, fonts etc. And I found the plethora of packages that
one needs to add bewildering.
ConTeXt immediately appealed to me because of its elegant user
interface, and I liked the choice it offered to users---so many
\setup this and \start that commands with infinite possibilities to
modify the look of my documents. But I needed several attempts before
I finally switched. I now do most of my work in ConTeXt, unless I'm
forced to use a "normal" word processor because the file will have to
be integrated in a volume or journal that just has Word etc. as a
"standard." I'm a scholar in Classics, and I mostly use ConTeXt
- to write my own lecture notes and typeset them on index cards,
- to prepare my screen presentations,
- for all kind of course-related materials;
- and I'm currently preparing a book that will be typeset with ConTeXt.
I am still amazed by the amount of options and for the wonderful
integration that ConTeXt offers. But there are also some aspects that
I find frustrating:
- the rather small user and developer base is a problem. It's easy to
be a dumb LaTeX user---somebody will already have encountered the
same problem you are just having, and a bit of googling or a question
on a newsgroup will probably provide a solution. In ConTeXt, you
will need to acquire a minimum of knowledge yourself. I've become an
instant expert in fonts and have prepared (with much help) modules to
write ancient Greek. I still like playing around, but if you just
want a job done, ConTeXt can be a bit daunting. The wiki is just
beginning to take off, and when Hans and/or Taco are away or are too
busy to answer questions on the list, it becomes a bit discouraging
because there are so many questions with just very few answers being
posted.
- This has been repeated ad nauseam, but it's still true: the
documentation is already wonderful, but there are still so many
features around that aren't documented at all or not sufficiently.
The source files sometimes help, but reading them sometimes is way
over my level of knowledge.
- I sometimes wonder where we will be in ten years: will we all stll
be using this wonderful tool? Will Hans continue to have time and
energy to develop it? How can we convince more TeX users to come over
to ConTeXt and help?
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