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I have a kind of strange question but I think it is a real problem: How do I find information about context in search engines? You can find some, but I think it is by far not all the information you want nor the information available since "context" is used everywhere. E.g. search for ConTeXt on the orgmode mailing list: I bet there has been a question about ConTeXt export in there (that is what I'd love to have), but you don't find it because plenty of articles use the word "context" without meaning ConTeXt.

Any Ideas?

BTW: In my eyes it was not a good Idea to name it like that. ConTeXXt, ConTekSt, would be searchable much better.

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    I usually search for context tex. There are not that many documents about ConTeXt that would not contain the word TeX as well. Alternatively, instead of searching, you can head directly over to contextgarden.net Commented Jan 22, 2012 at 20:10
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    You could try case sensitive google search: case-sensitive-search.appspot.com/…
    – student
    Commented Jan 22, 2012 at 20:30
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    I have found it best to use Google as such: <term> site:tex.stackexchange.com, especially considering how bad the search functionality is here and that there is a limit in how often one can search (not sure why that is in place). Commented Jan 22, 2012 at 23:17
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    @Jan I always add tex when I'm searching for latex:-).
    – user10274
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 4:35
  • I sometimes add site:www.tug.org to my google searches -- after I've exhausted contextgarden. I too hate the name they picked.
    – prash
    Commented Feb 15, 2012 at 23:46

3 Answers 3

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I personally use the keyword contextgarden instead of context. This gets me

  1. *.contextgarden.net, especially http://wiki.contextgarden.net, but also the modules repository.
  2. The ntg-context mailinglist, because the footer it appends to each e-mail contains a link to the contextgarden wiki. The official archive removes this footer, but there are tons of mirrors around that don't.
  3. A surprising amount of PDF files (published in TUGboat or similar, mostly) that mention the wiki in their 'Further Resources' section.
  4. Practically nothing that doesn't have to do with ConTeXt.

This lets me search, I estimate, 95% of the available material with practically no false positives. It doesn't really get results from tex.stackexchange.net; if you want that, too, I'd use a search that starts contextgarden OR site:tex.stackexchange.com AND context. (Best to wrap that in a saved search; it's a bit of a bother to type every time.)

Edit:

You want to add the following URL as a keyword search. (The &nfpr=1 prevents autocorrection. Especially, it prevents Google from thinking you meant 'start align' instead of 'startalign'. http://www.google.com/search?q=%s+(site:contextgarden.net+OR+site:tex.stackexchange.com+OR+site:ntg.nl+OR+contextgarden)&ie=utf-8&sa=Search&nfpr=1

  • In Opera, just create a search (right-click on any search field, or use Preferences > Search. Add a keyword, e.g. con if you want to be able to typ con startaling middle; otherwise, it'll be usable from the search box in the top right.
  • In Firefox, bookmark this URL. Then in the bookmark's settings, give it a keyword. con, for example. Now you can type con startalign middle, because of the %s in the URL.
  • In Chrome, I don't know. I've set this question to 'Community wiki', so do feel free to fill in. (These instructions may be slightly off-topic, but they are information essential to using the solution, and I do believe in keeping information in one place.)
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  • Thank you for your answers. All of these do improve searches on ConTeXt related sites. But to be honest that only partially solves the problem. I e.g. tried to find information whether orgmode does have context export. I completely failed to get information about that. I guess the only solution is to give context a better name. But I doubt anybody is willing to do that. On the other hand I am sure context would be much better known (and better to use) if it had a unique name... Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 15:33
  • Regarding the org-mode question: helcim's answer here says that AucTeX supports ConTeXt. I believe that AucTeX is an org-mode? (I'm not quite sure --- I dwell in the blessed valley of Vim, myself.) tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1043/context-editors/1201#1201
    – Esteis
    Commented Mar 1, 2012 at 20:21
  • Nope, orgmode and auctex, as far as I see do not have to much in common. I asked on the orgmode list and there is no exporter up to now Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 14:45
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I cannot comment yet, so I'll just discuss here. This is also a real issue to me. My experience is to just search inside domain ntg.nl (with site:ntg.nl in Google), in which the ConTeXt mailing list resides. Sometimes when I'm really desperate, I search for "tex context blabla", but it doesn't hit very good. I think most useful information about MKIV is in the mailing list and wiki though.

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Interestingly search for "ConTeXt" and "TeX" in Google (The search string is: ConTeXt TeX) gives pertinent results.

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