better coloring for the ConTeXt scheme

[ousia]

From the following source:

\mainlanguage[es]
\setuppapersize[A5]
\starttext

\chapter{Introducción}

\ConTeXt\ es {\en\em a document generation system} en palabras de {\sc Hans Hagen}.
\stoptext

TeXworks displays the following:

But ConTeXt itself displays:

The two differences are:

1. Brackets are also marked.
2. All marked syntax is typeset with the bold font.

Just in case it helps, the complete ConTeXt source was:

\starttext
\startTEXpage[offset=1em]
\startTEX
\mainlanguage[es]
\setuppapersize[A5]
\starttext

\chapter{Introducción}

\ConTeXt\ es {\en\em a document generation system} en palabras de {\sc Hans Hagen}.
\stoptext
\stopTEX
\stopTEXpage
\stoptext

[josephwright]

I'm planning to look at some of the highlighting patterns shortly (will log an issue): perhaps I could 'take' this?

[josephwright]

I think it's worth noting here that the scheme TeXworks uses for ConTeXt is similar to that for plain or LaTeX. That's what I think I'd expect: the general 'style' is a choice of the editor. One might add square brackets to the 'known' characters (possibly also for LaTeX). Not sure I see the 'boldness' you mention, and I think at least as-standard I'd avoid that: might mess up monospacing and that will annoy a reasonable number of users.

[ousia]

@josephwright, many thanks for your replies.

The bold font is used:

$ pdffonts context-code.pdf 
name                                 type              encoding         emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
CZEXLI+LMMonoLt10-Bold               CID Type 0C       Identity-H       yes yes yes     10  0
ELMVVJ+LMMono12-Regular              CID Type 0C       Identity-H       yes yes yes     11  0

But it might be clearer with Cousine:

Or even with Inconsolata:

If the fixed with of a monospace bold font is different from its regular counterpart, the font is poorly designed.

Could you test whether the possibility you mention happens with a font family? (It doesn’t happen with the typewriter typefaces I use.)

Many thanks for your help.

[josephwright]

With an editor/IDE you can't be sure of the font the user will pick: somewhat different from producing code listings for documentation.

[ousia]

Of course, one can never know what a single user will do 😄.

How about implementing the conventions that ConTeXt itself proposes for its own code, see what happens with the bold font, and then decide whether it should be removed (or kept)?

[josephwright]

@ousia I'll take a look (I've got a few other minor suggestions in this area, as I said). One thing I'd rather retain is the idea that \start.../\stop... really should be highlighted differently from other control sequences. (Hans might not agree, but they have a particular structural role.)

[josephwright]

BTW, I notice that WinEdt (my other favoured editor on Windows) does use bold for some LaTeX syntax so this is perhaps a better idea than I thought :) I wonder if we might want something similar, but it relies on having a list of all keywords: not much fun in a regex.