On Tue, 3 Feb 2009, Dave wrote:
Hi all,
I've been using ConTeXt for a few years and I'm curious about whether it is
worth migrating to MKIV (I've just re-read the mk.pdf document). Here are
the features I often use:
- Postscript fonts... I have typescripts setup for the fonts I bought
(full versions of Utopia, Minion, Warnock, and a few compatible sans fonts).
I believe I can get these as open-type as well if needed.
- Bibliography via \usemodule[bib]
- Chemistry via \usemodule[chemic]
- Inclusion of PDF figures using an XML Figure database, i.e.
\usemodule[fig-base]
- Equations (with the multiline and alignment macros) using Fourier/Utopia
including the bold math modifications in the MyWay document.
- Tables (tabulate, natural, linetable)
The questions I have:
1) Do all of the above work in MKIV?
In principle they should. Font support for latin script in MKIV is quite
stable now. Writing typescripts for both postscript and opentype fonts in
MKIV is much easier than in MKII.
The bibliography module works fine, equation and math alignment is
currently the same as in MKII. Math font support is being reworked, so
using bold fonts will eventually be much easier in MKIV. I personally do
not use chemic, figbases, and complicated tables, so cannot comment on
those.
2) How much of a pain is it to switch to MKIV? Do I need to rework my
fonts/typescripts? Will all my current environments (setups, macros and
one-line definitions) work?
You may need to rework your typescripts, but they are much easier in MKIV.
User interface for other things have not changed.
3) Beyond speed and better font support, does it offer anything else to
me?
Depends on how complicated macros you write. In MKIV, you can harness a
proper programming language (lua) to write macros, so if you do anything
complicated, it is a big help.
For the most part, I'm content with MKII and wonder if it is really worth
the effort to move to MKIV. Perhaps the sample is skewed, but after reading
the mailing list I get the impression that the current experimental/beta
MKIV has a number of bugs and is not particularly feature complete when
compared to MKII.
My current suggestion is that if you find MKII adequate for you use, do
not switch now. Wait until things stablize a bit, or you need an exotic
feature for which is only availble in MKIV, or you want to help with
testing MKIV.
Aditya
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