Re: Columnsetspan rendered when only when coloured?

Dear Jean-Pierre,

Thanks for your investigation. I am just confused as to why this should be
happening at all.

This is probably another regression in the new version of columnsets. I
tried adding \usemodule[oldcolumnsets] and it all works fine now.

Hope this helps someone else before the new columnsets code stabilises.

Yours sincerely,
Wang Chen

On Thu, 11 Jun 2026 at 5:39 PM, Jean-Pierre Delange via ntg-context <
[email protected]> wrote:

> Dear Wang Chen,
>
> I had a quick look at your two files. I do not have a definitive
> solution, but the behaviour suggests a few possible hypotheses that
> might be worth testing step by step. I made two small tests.
>
> The first test inserted only \strut\par immediately after
> \startcolumnset[main],
> before the first \startcolumnsetspan[wide]. In that case the top span was
> rendered.
>
> The second test did not insert any material before the span, but grouped
> the
> span contents explicitly with \start...\stop. This also made the top
> span render.
>
> So the issue does not seem to be colour as such. The colour command
> probably
> changes the internal structure or grouping of the contents, and this
> happens
> to make the first span visible.
>
> The fragile case seems to be a \startcolumnsetspan used as the very first
> material immediately after \startcolumnset. A possible workaround is to
> group
> the contents of the first span explicitly:
>
> \startcolumnsetspan[wide]
> \start
> \samplefile{ward}
> \stop
> \stopcolumnsetspan
>
> This seems cleaner than adding dummy material before the span, although
> both
> tests suggest that the underlying issue is the same.
>
> Then, try this MWE :
>
> % MWE: first columnsetspan at the beginning of a columnset
> %
> % The fragile case seems to be a columnsetspan used as the very first
> % material immediately after \startcolumnset.
> %
> % Adding colour around the contents makes the span appear, but the colour
> % itself is probably not the real cause. A simple explicit group around
> % the contents also makes the span appear.
>
> \definecolumnset
>    [main]
>    [n=2,
>     balance=yes,
>     distance=10mm]
>
> \definecolumnsetspan
>    [wide]
>    [n=2]
>
> \starttext
>
> % ------------------------------------------------------------
> % Fragile case:
> %
> % In Wang Chen's original file this first span did not render.
> %
> % \startcolumnset[main]
> %
> % \startcolumnsetspan[wide]
> % \samplefile{ward}
> % \stopcolumnsetspan
> %
> % \samplefile{knuth}
> % \samplefile{tufte}
> % \samplefile{douglas}
> %
> % \stopcolumnset
> % ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> \startsubject[title={Grouped first columnsetspan}]
>
> \startcolumnset[main]
>
> \startcolumnsetspan[wide]
> \start
> \samplefile{ward}
> \stop
> \stopcolumnsetspan
>
> \samplefile{knuth}
> \samplefile{tufte}
> \samplefile{douglas}
>
> \stopcolumnset
>
> \stopsubject
>
> \stoptext
>
> Le 11/06/2026 à 04:26, Chen Wang a écrit :
> > Dear All,
> >
> > I am using the latest version of ConTeXt. In "main.tex", the top
> > section is not rendered. All I did was add some colouring and now the
> > top section gets rendered in "main copy.tex" in blue colour.
> >
> > How do I make the stuff render properly? I do not understand why the
> > top columnsetspan is not being rendered and why trying to colour it
> > makes it render.
> >
> > Any ConTeXt wizards please help me.
> >
> > Yours sincerely,
> > Wang Chen
> >
> >
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