Table of Contents for poetry collection (ConTeXt)

Question

I'm getting stumped about how to generate the ToC for this book. I'm about to give up and just do it by hand. The author wants to include a lot of structural information that isn't present in the actual text, and none of the numbers "roll over" as they're want to do in ConTeXt.

This is the desired effect:

  Narrator 1...

    FIRST PART: PART SUBTITLE

1). First Poem // First Poem (Spanish title) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    1
    Author of Poem (b. XXXX d. XXYY)

2). Second Poem // Poema Secunda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    3
    Author of Poem

  Narrator 2...

3). Third Poem // Third Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    5
    Author

    SECOND PART: Part 2

4). Fourth Poem // Fourth Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    7
    Author

  Narrator 3...

The problems I have essentially boil down to these:

1. There is this weird "narrator" concept that doesn't seem to contain or be contained by the part/poem structure. A new part doesn't imply a new "narrator" and a new "narrator" doesn't imply a new part.

2. I need to aggrandize each title with the title in translation and the author, and I want to typeset them nicely.

3. I need poems to continue counting up across parts.

I see basically three approaches:

1. Make each poem a chapter and customize the appearance with \setuphead[chapter][....]. Then use \writebetweenlist[chapter] to add the Narrator and author information.

2. Make a new list with \definelist[poem] and \definecombinedlist[content][part,poem]; continue using \writebetweenlist[poem] to insert the author and Narrator. This feels like the most conceptually valid option, but I think I'll still need a lot of customization.

3. Forget all about ConTeXt and switch to plain TeX, use eplain's writetocentry system. Make it look right and forget maintainability.

Answer 1

Let's start with the easy part first: How to handle title translation and author. The ConTeXt way is to specify them as part of \starthead, e.g.,

\startpoem
    [title={First Poem}]
    [
      translation={Primier Poema},
      author={Daniel Lyons},
    ]

...

\stoppoem

For this, we specify:

\definehead
  [poem]
  [section]
  [alternative=poemtitle]


\defineheadalternative
  [poemtitle]
  [alternative=horizontal,
   renderingsetup=poemtitle]

\startsetups poemtitle
    \vbox {
    \headnumbercontent. \headtextcontent
    \doifsomething{\structureuservariable{translation}}
      {\space//\space
       \structureuservariable{translation}}
    \doifsomething{\structureuservariable{author}}
        {\blank \structureuservariable{author}}}
\stopsetups

Next, you want the poem number not to be reset with a new part. Note that we mapped a poem to section (rather than a chapter). To control when section counters are reset, we need to use \definestructureresetset. It is explained in this message on the mailing list. For your purpose, you need.

\setuphead
  [part][placehead=yes]

\definestructureresetset[default][0,0,0,1][1]  
% The order of these numbers is: part-chapter-section-subsection
% 0 means do not reset the subsequent section number
% 1 means reset.
%
% So, 0,0,0,1 means that do not reset section (which is what we will map poems
% to) at chapter or part.

How to access title translation and author in lists. This information is available in lists using \setupstructurelistvariable. So, you can define:

\define[1]\PoemListTitle
    {#1%
  {\doifsomething{\structurelistuservariable{translation}}
      {\space//\space
        \structurelistuservariable{translation}}%
    \doifsomething{\structurelistuservariable{author}}
        {\crlf \structurelistuservariable{author}}}

All that is left is the narrator, which can be added using \writebetweenlist.

A working example with all the information so far is below. I merged the renderings of the head and list, to remove redundant information.

\setuphead
  [part][placehead=yes]

\definestructureresetset[default][0,0,0,1][1]  
% The order of these numbers is: part-chapter-section-subsection
% 0 means do not reset the subsequent section number
% 1 means reset.
%
% So, 0,0,0,1 means that do not reset section (which is what we will map poems
% to) at chapter or part.

\definehead
  [poem]
  [section]
  [alternative=poemtitle]

\defineheadalternative
  [poemtitle]
  [alternative=horizontal,
   renderingsetup=poemtitle]

\define[1]\PoemExtras
  % #1: \structureuservariable for heads
  %   : \structurelistuservariable for lists
  {\doifsomething{#1{translation}}
      {\space//\space
        #1{translation}}%
    \doifsomething{#1{author}}
        {\crlf #1{author}}}

\startsetups poemtitle
    \vbox {
        \headnumbercontent. \headtextcontent
        \PoemExtras\structureuservariable
    }
\stopsetups

\setuplist
    [poem]
    [textcommand=\PoemListTitle]

\define[1]\PoemListTitle
    {#1\PoemExtras\structurelistuservariable}


\starttext

\placelist[part,poem][alternative=c]

\startpart[title={First Part: Part Subtitle}]

  \startpoem
      [title={First Poem}]
      [
        translation={Primier Poema},
        author={Daniel Lyons},
      ]


    \input ward

  \stoppoem

  \startpoem
      [title={Second Poem}]
      [
        translation={Poema Secunda},
        author={Author of Poem},
      ]


    \input ward

  \stoppoem

\stoppart

\startpart
    [title={Second Part: Part 2}]


  \startpoem
      [title={Third Poem}]
      [
        translation={Poema Tercer},
        author={Author of Poem},
      ]


    \input ward

  \stoppoem

\stoppart

\stoptext

which gives