[NTG-context] Sidebars and versals Oh my!

[Adam Lindsay]

h h extern said this at Sun, 26 Dec 2004 21:33:44 +0100:

>> Context already has mechanisms for flowing or wrapping text around a
>graphic. 
>> How well the wraparound feature works when more than one short
paragraph is 
>> involved I have not tested yet.  
>
>the mp based background mechanism can handle that: see plus-rul.tex
>
>(there is also another mechanism available which permits rather nasty
>variants 
>but i still had no time to document it, so it's currently a hidden feature)

plus-rul is interesting, but I'm 98% certain that when John talks about
sidebars, he means what you call intermezzos. My interpretation, using
the things I do know (or figured out this morning):

\setupfloat [intermezzo] 
   [leftmargindistance=-\outercombitotal,
    rightmargindistance=-\outercombitotal,
    default=outer]
\setupcaption[intermezzo][location=none]
\starttext
\showframe
\input ward
\placeintermezzo{}{\framedtext[width=7cm]{\tfx\input dawkins }}
\dorecurse{3}{\input knuth \par}
\stoptext

What I don't know, however, is: 1) how to force a width on flowed text
within a float without resorting to the internal \framedtext, or 2) how
to use this with \splitfloat, which is what I suspect people who think
about sidebars (intermezzo texts) are going to be worried about in a
batch-based system. 
-- 
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 Adam T. Lindsay, Computing Dept.     atl at comp.lancs.ac.uk
 Lancaster University, InfoLab21        +44(0)1524/510.514
 Lancaster, LA1 4WA, UK             Fax:+44(0)1524/510.492
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