Line numbering in ConTeXt outside of verbatim

Question

Basically, I would like a way to number the lines in a block of text, without resorting to verbatim mode.

I have tried

\definetyping[code][numbering=line,style=\tf]
\startcode[step=5]
  Thus, I came to the conclusion that
  the designer of a new system must not
  only be the implementer and first
  large-scale user; the designer should
  also write the first user manual.
\stopcode

but this preserves the whitespace; I would like ConTeXt to lay out the paragraph normally and then number the lines. The numbering does not need to be in the margin, but I would like to be able to skip every n numbers and use columns. The solution with definetyping is quite close; I simply would like to avoid having to manually adjust line breaks and possibly have hyphenation.

I found Show the number of lines in margin for LaTeX, but that doesn't apply here, unless there is a ConTeXt equivalent (the wiki does not mention one and Google turns up nothing).

Answer 1

Use \startlinenumbering, it re-wraps the text and does not preserve the line endings. The step key and hyphenation work as well.

\starttext
  \startlinenumbering [step=5]
    \input knuth
  \stoplinenumbering
\stoptext

For further information see the ConTeXT wiki - \startlinenumbering.