I think that one of the problems is that ConTeXt can do almost anything, if you know how to ask it to do that. What I do is different what most people use it for, but it works (http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en/co-pagedesign.pdf and http://www.lucet.fi/2013/01/metaposting/ and http://www.lucet.fi/2012/12/twpatterns/).
There used to be a project to create a test suite with various types of files, but the links on the wiki refer to something from 2009 and that is, as you say, probably a be obsolete. I remember somebody talking about the test suite at one of the more recent ConTeXt meetings (2011/2012) - anyone with more info on that project? I think it'd help Keith (and many others, me included) to see what can be done. If you do not want to splurge in the books, the revised chapters on typography, fonts and pagedesign are recommended reading and pretty well up-to-date. They are linked to the main page of the garden, but these take you directly to the pdfs: http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en/co-typography.pdf http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en/co-fonts.pdf http://context.aanhet.net/svn/contextman/context-reference/en/co-pagedesign.pdf Other than that, it'd be helpful to know what you are looking for: are interested in typography, doing layouts for you and others? Is automated workflow what you are looking for? Dealing with maths? XML? What about dealing with colour? Interactivity? I guess I've resigned to the fact that ConTeXt is so huge that I'll never know more than a fraction of it - so I operate on a need-to-know basis. I learn something either because I'm certain it can be done or because I've seen it at a ConTeXt meeting or heard about it (a remark by Hans is to be blamed for my recent MetaPosting excursions). A slightly off-topic thought: there are hundreds of manuals on Microsoft Word. However, once you start going deeper into the program, it is not *that* easy to find a single good manual on the subject. With ConTeXt it is the other way round, finding 'for Dummies' information is hard, but once you want to dive deep, the developers are on this list to answer questions. Just my five cents on the subject, Mari (who still remembers what things were like before the wiki. this is much better.) ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________