[NTG-context] Re: How hard should something get \smash-ed ?

Hi Mikael et al, On Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 07:44 (+0100), Mikael Sundqvist wrote:

Hi,

On Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 1:43 AM Jim wrote:

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Hi,

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In plain TeX,

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$$\smash{\sum_0^n}$$

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is set in \displaystyle, just like

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$$\smash{\sum_0^n}$$

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However, ConTeXt

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\starttext $$\smash{\sum^0_n}$$ \stoptext

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outputs the above in \textstyle, whereas

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\starttext $$\sum^0_n$$ \stoptext

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is in (of course(?)) \displaystyle.

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Is this difference intentional?

Thanks for reporting. I don't think it is intentional. (Can you show your real world example where \smash is needed? It seems to not really be used in any macro in ConTeXt.)

At the risk of citing an example using a deprecated feature, in https://wiki.contextgarden.net/Tables/Deprecated/Table the following example is shown: \starttable[|M|c|] \HL \VL \VL a \VL \AR \DC \DL[1] \DR \VL \smash{\displaystyle\sum_0^N} \VL b \VL \AR \DC \DL[1] \DR \VL \VL c \VL \AR \HL \stoptable Without \smash{}, the second row is higher than (presumably) whomever wrote the example wanted. I can imagine someone wanting to do something like that in another type of table, even using a non-deprecated type of table. (I added \displaystyle to the example yesterday to make it do what the example's author intended.)

PS $$ is not meant to be used in ConTeXt. If you want inline math in display style, use \dm {}, and if you want displayed formulas in display style, use \startformula \stopformula.

Yeah... as a very-long-time plain TeX user, old habits die hard (and I am not using any math in my current main use of ConTeXt). The main reason for using $$ in my report was because that is what is in the wiki page. (And the issue is still there with \startformula and \stopformula anyway.) Cheers. Jim