Command Syntax

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Command

Command consists of:

\	leading backslash
name	command name
{ }	scope or range of the command (if applicable)
[ ]	setups (if applicable)
$$ $$	math input (if applicable)

\placeformula[...]{...}$$...$$

Find definition

There are several places where you can search for command definitions:

• setup-en.pdf (and appropriate language variants) most up-to-date ConTeXt command reference (is this generated from cont-en.xml?)
• ConTeXt manual
• texshow-web on-line command reference (is this generated from cont-en.xml?)
• etexshow emacs browser for ConTeXt commands (is this generated from texshow-web?)
• xml description in cont-en.xml (and appropriate language variants) (typed manually or generated from sources?)

In these sources there is different referencing of arguments to thier possible values and fifferent typographic conventions.

Referencing of arguments

Example: \setupheadertexts

• in the manual:

 \setupheadertexts[.1.][.2.][.3.]
 .1. text margin edge
 .2. text section date mark pagenumber
 .3. text section date mark pagenumber

• in the texshow

 \setupheadertexts[.1.][.2.][.3.]
 .1. text margin edge
 .2. text section date mark pagenumber
 .3. text section date mark pagenumber

• in the emacs help

  \setupheadertexts[.1.][.2.][.3.]
  .1. <text> margin edge
  .2. <text> <section> date  pagenumber
  .3. <text> <section> date  pagenumber

Typographic conventions

As you can see in in previous examples, command references have different typographic conventions.

Following table explains the meaning of values and shows their notation in different sources.

	meaning	setup-en.pdf]	ConTeXt manual	texshow-web	etexshow]	cont-en.xml
default	x	x	x	x	x	x
predefined	x	x	x	x	x	x
user input	x	x	x	x	x	x
text	x	x	x	x	x	x
number	x	x	x	x	x	x
reference	x	x	x	x	x	x
identifier	x	x	x	x	x	x
key=value pair	x	x	x	x	x	x
triplet	x	x	x	x	x	x
list of	x	x	x	x	x	x
command	x	x	x	x	x	x
...,...,...	x	x	x	x	x	x
	x	x	x	x	x	x
	x	x	x	x	x	x
	x	x	x	x	x	x

Other notes

• In LaTeX optional arguments come before mandatory arguments. This is not true in ConTeXt. Optional argument can be at any position.

 \definetextvariable

• If key=value pair is missing the value, than the key is assigned the default value.

 location=

Contexgarden wiki

While writing to this wiki you can refer to the user commands with

[[cmd:goto|\goto]]

which displays as \goto and the link brings you to the command definition in texshow-web.

Missing commands, descriptions and examples

Command Syntax/Missing