Cfrgtkky

Returning to this example, I would like to change the "Left 1" heading to a subheading while keeping the two "Left 1", "Right 1" headings vertically lined-up. And assuming ConTeXt: uniform handling of whitespace in margin and text is solved, also keeping the subsequent paragraphs aligned. I've been playing around with vertical heading struts to no avail, but perhaps line correction could also work. Though not clear, the documentation suggests it 'snaps' its argument to the nearest baseline.

setuppapersize[letter]



setupwhitespace[medium]



setuplayout

    [backspace=4.375in,

     width=3.625in,

     leftmargin=3.625in,

     rightmargin=0in,

     leftmargindistance=0.25in,

     %

     topspace=0.25in,

     height=10.5in,

     header=0.25in,

     headerdistance=0.25in,

     footer=0.25in,

     footerdistance=0.25in,

    ]



setupmarginblock

    [location=left,

     width=leftmarginwidth,

    ]



define[1]heading{%

    dontleavehmode{bfcsetupinterlinespacestrut#1}%

    blank[big,samepage]%

}



define[1]subheading{%

    dontleavehmode{bfasetupinterlinespacestrut#1}%

    blank[small,samepage]%

}



showframe



%showallmakeup





starttext

    startmarginblock

        heading{Left 1}

        samplefile{ward}



        heading{Left 2}

        samplefile{knuth}



        samplefile{weisman}



        heading{Left 3}

        startitemize

        item 1

        item 2

        item 3

        stopitemize

        samplefile{ward}

    stopmarginblock



    heading{Right 1}

    samplefile{ward}



    heading{Right 2}

    samplefile{knuth}



    samplefile{weisman}



    heading{Right 3}

    startitemize

    item 1

    item 2

    item 3

    stopitemize

    samplefile{ward}

stoptext

Edit:

I was trying to achieve something like this:

Or like this:

In retrospect I have no problem implementing a simpler approach:

define[1]headinghmode{%

    bfcsetupinterlinespacestrut#1%

}



define[1]subheadinghmode{%

    bfasetupinterlinespacestrut#1%

}



define[1]heading{%

    dontleavehmode{headinghmode{#1}}%

    blank[big,samepage]%

}



define[1]subheading{%

    dontleavehmode{subheadinghmode{#1}}%

    blank[small,samepage]%

}

And using it like:

heading{subheadinghmode{Interlude}}

Before I was trying to avoid any reuse of my original (see above) heading definitions. For example I would insert either blank[back] or blank[disable] in all possible locations of the following lines, where ... represents non-TeX text:

heading{}subheading{...}

heading{subheading{...}

subheading{heading{}...}

For example:

heading{blank[back]}subheading{...}

heading{}blank[back]subheading{...}

heading{}subheading{blank[back]...}

heading{}subheading{...blank[back]}

heading{}subheading{...}blank[back]



blank[disable]heading{}subheading{...}

...

heading{}subheading{...blank[disable]}



heading{blank[back]subheading{...}}

...

heading{subheading{...}blank[disable]}



subheading{heading{}blank[back]...}

...

subheading{heading{}...}blank[disable]

Now this (mostly) didn't work, probably because they're stacked vertically outside of h-mode. That's fine because who wants to remember to place that extra blank[back] or blank[disable]? That said I did test them all because accidentally I came across one that works, but only in a margin block (first picture):

setuppapersize[letter]



setupwhitespace[medium]



setuplayout

    [backspace=4.375in,

     width=3.625in,

     leftmargin=3.625in,

     rightmargin=0in,

     leftmargindistance=0.25in,

     %

     topspace=0.25in,

     height=10.5in,

     header=0.25in,

     headerdistance=0.25in,

     footer=0.25in,

     footerdistance=0.25in,

    ]



showframe



setupmarginblock

    [location=left,

     width=leftmarginwidth,

    ]



define[1]heading{%

    dontleavehmode{bfcsetupinterlinespacestrut#1}%

    blank[big,samepage]%

}



define[1]subheading{%

    dontleavehmode{bfasetupinterlinespacestrut#1}%

    blank[small,samepage]%

}





starttext

    startmarginblock

        %heading{Left 1}

        heading{subheading{Left 1}}

        samplefile{ward}

    stopmarginblock



    heading{Right 1}

    samplefile{ward}

stoptext

That makes no sense... Why would this work, and only in a margin block?

heading{subheading{...}}

Anyway of all possible combinations I tested this is the only other one to work, and in either the main text or the margin:

heading{subheading{...blank[back]}}

I don't understand, given all the other possible and likely combinations, why only that worked.

I also tried some even more extreme approaches. This one can't work without a second "disable blank" parameter, and I didn't feel like digging through ConTeXt to figure out how to implement optional parameters:

define[1]heading{%

    ...

    ifrelaxdetokenize{#1}relax else blank[big,samepage] fi%

}

And this one can't reproduce the vertical position of the heading, but the before/after whitespace should remain unchanged. Something's not working:

heading{...}

setbox0=vbox{heading{...}}

vrule height 0.7ht0 depth 0.3ht0 width 1ptsubheading{...}

Though I'm curious how my two exceptions manage to work, the simpler approach is best.

If you want the exact same spacing in the margin block as in the main vertical list, then you have to “simulate” a page in the margin. What do I mean by this? The content in the margin is typeset in a vbox at natural height. This means that vertical glue has neither be stretched nor shrunk, whereas the main vertical list is constrained by vsize. Thus, to simulate the main vertical list in the margin you have to wrap its contents in vbox to textheight {...strutparvfill}. The strut ensures that the last line has strut depth, par switches to vertical mode, and vfill fills up the box to the bottom if the content is shorter than textheight.

setuppapersize[letter]



setupwhitespace[medium]



setuplayout

  [backspace=4.375in,

    width=3.625in,

    leftmargin=3.625in,

    rightmargin=0in,

    leftmargindistance=0.25in,

    %

    topspace=0.25in,

    height=10.5in,

    header=0.25in,

    headerdistance=0.25in,

    footer=0.25in,

    footerdistance=0.25in,

  ]



setupmarginblock

  [location=left,

    width=leftmarginwidth,

  ]



define[1]heading{%

  dontleavehmode{bfcsetupinterlinespacestrut#1}%

  blank[big,samepage]%

}



define[1]subheading{%

  dontleavehmode{bfasetupinterlinespacestrut#1}%

  blank[small,samepage]%

}



showframe



starttext

startmarginblock

  vbox to textheight {

    heading{Left 1}

    samplefile{ward}



    heading{Left 2}

    samplefile{knuth}



    samplefile{weisman}



    heading{Left 3}

    startitemize

    item 1

    item 2

    item 3

    stopitemize

    samplefile{ward}

    % fill up the box

    strutparvfill

  }

stopmarginblock



heading{Right 1}

samplefile{ward}



heading{Right 2}

samplefile{knuth}



samplefile{weisman}



heading{Right 3}

startitemize

item 1

item 2

item 3

stopitemize

samplefile{ward}



stoptext