Vit, many thanks for your answer. Vit Zyka wrote:
1. For a moment I set shell_escape = f in `kpsewhich texmf.cnf'
ok, done
2. Input file f.tex: \startuseMPgraphic{A} draw unitcircle scaled\overlaywidth; \stopuseMPgraphic
\defineoverlay [B] [\uniqueMPgraphic{A}]
\starttext \framed[background=B]{Hallo frame!} \stoptext
3a. classical run texexec --pdf f
No circle under frame, right? If not, I have a bad installation; please discard the rest (and some hints to repair will be really appreciate :) ).
3b. step by step texexec --pdf --nomp f mpost f-mpgraph texexec --pdf --nomp f
A circle appear under the frame. But I have 3 runs ( texexec, mpost, texexec). Now, what is my goal ? To achieve a circle under the frame as quick as possible. For 3.a, in f.log I find mpost -progname=mpost -mem=metafun f-mpgraph system()...disabled. An attempt to run mpost failed: no circle, goal unsatisfied. For 3.b, I run manually mpost (and then again texexec): goal satisfied. With shell_export=t, 3.a) is ok, but f.log says system(mpost -progname=mpost -mem=metafun f-mpgraph)...executed. So it seems that my goal can be achieved only with a run of mpost. With XYPic, a similar result can be achieved without mpost: %% %% WARNING:: deprecated example %% Don't use it ! %% \input xy \xyoption{frame} \starttext \xy (0,0) *++=\hbox{\framed{Hallo frame}} *\frm{o} ; \endxy \stoptext Of course this doesn't mean that XY is better/worse than mpost, nor that using mpost coupled with context will be always slow than others ways; but sometimes a faster alternative may be required. Sure for XYPic, name spaces collisions, cpu/memory required, syntax are (some) items to consider: but it also comes with a bunch of features and may be faster than mpost in some circumstances. [OT] XFIG: fig2dev can be export to metapost and in multi-metapost. Hence, from the moon, I see that xfig can be used with context. luigi