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djewesbury wrote:

Glenn E. wrote:putting a glass as close to the top left corner of the sheet is primary.

This does seem to make sense at first, but then picture yourself reaching for that first glass at the back of the mat.. It's something delicious, perhaps poured from a Fonseca 1970 mag that you'll be comparing with other formats.. Oh no, your sleeve has just caught the last glass - the Dow 1950! Oh well, it is a pretty colour on the placemat..

But then you aren't a fan of Dow...

Glenn E. wrote:The remainder are likely attempts to be purely descriptive, but for me are just confusing.

There are pictures of all in the ‘Layout’ § of the manual.

/Adjusted5 is like /Diamonds, but with the central circle adjusted towards a long edge, thereby making the circles a mite larger: 20090626, 20090626, 20090721, 20100805. So what it is doing is using the dead space around ‘C2’ in
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djewesbury wrote:I always have a slight problem with very tightly-stacked placemats, which is that the first drink of the flight is the furthest away.. Perhaps this is why I'm pleased to see the new /Arch and /PostsAndLintel designs, which give clear access to every glass.

If we have oodles of table space each, such that 20+ glasses can be placed over multiple sheets of A3, I agree. But typically we don’t.

Glenn E. wrote:But the clarity fails when the other examples are perused. I need more time to ponder a solution, though my first impulse is to say that putting a glass as close to the top left corner of the sheet is primary.

If it is easier for you, don’t stress about the rule. Instead, from each pair pick the one that is obviously definitely primary, or the one that is primary-ish, and also list the pairs about which you have little opinion. From which I can attempt to craft a rule.

djewesbury wrote:

Glenn E. wrote:putting a glass as close to the top left corner of the sheet is primary.

This does seem to make sense at first, but then picture yourself reaching for that first glass at the back of the mat.. It's something delicious, perhaps poured from a Fonseca 1970 mag that you'll be comparing with other formats.. Oh no, your sleeve has just caught the last glass - the Dow 1950! Oh well, it is a pretty colour on the placemat..

We typically put the first glass to be consumed front left, so in theory I should prefer for front left to be primary. But those don't always look like primary to me either. I will attempt to find some commonality in my preferences.

jdaw1 wrote:

Glenn E. wrote:But the clarity fails when the other examples are perused. I need more time to ponder a solution, though my first impulse is to say that putting a glass as close to the top left corner of the sheet is primary.

If it is easier for you, don’t stress about the rule. Instead, from each pair pick the one that is obviously definitely primary, or the one that is primary-ish, and also list the pairs about which you have little opinion. From which I can attempt to craft a rule.

Upon further review, all of the sheets where bottom (or front) left is occupied either appear primary to me, or are of equal standing to their mirror. Therefore, the bottom left position being occupied can be called the primary sheet for me.

In fact, the ones that look odd either way are probably layouts that I wouldn't use anyway. I prefer to place 8 glasses in 3 rows, 3-2-3, for example. I would also simply place 3 glasses in a single row. So their default alignment in /Diamond is irrelevant to me.

Glenn E. wrote:Therefore, the bottom left position being occupied can be called the primary sheet for me.

So you prefer to have front-left full, whereas my rule was to have front-right empty. As yet I’m not convinced that your rule is better. Please say more. Perhaps you could comment on the interaction with the water boxes, which are usually on the right.

Our rules disagree when there are even numbers of rows and an odd number of columns, so for 3 and 14 glasses.



But agree otherwise:

My preference would be for back-left-full to be primary.

PhilW wrote:My preference would be for back-left-full to be primary.

We agree when rows+columns is odd:






We disagree when rows and columns are both even:





(And there is no question to answer when both are odd.)

I need some persuading of this rule. Please persuade.

jdaw1 wrote:

PhilW wrote:My preference would be for back-left-full to be primary.

I need some persuading of this rule. Please persuade.

For me, this is the natural way to look at a page. We read from top to bottom, left to right; The natural first place to look on a page is the top left; this is where I would expect the first glass to be.

We have had three preferences, all different. I’m willing to be persuaded that mine is not the best, but so far I’m not.

Reminder: my preference is empty lower-right.

Reasoning in general
• Most people are right handed. So, for most people, the water boxes are on the lower right. It seems sensible to prefer a greater distance between that writing zone and the nearest glass.
• To pick up a glass in the upper-right triangle of the page, my right hand goes past this spot. Retreating that glass from that corner my help lessen the frequency of collisions.


Reasoning in particular


• Who can’t love a pretty smile?



For those accustomed to a left-to-right writing direction, the left-hand version appears to be ‘going forwards’; the other is going backwards.



• Same as four glasses: moving forwards, not backwards.



• No particular reasoning for eight glasses.



• Same as six glasses: moving forwards, not backwards.



• For fourteen the ‘particular’ reasoning might go the other way: does the right-hand version look more like a stable building, and the left look more rickety?



• Same as nine glasses (moving forwards, not backwards) but the effect is much diluted.



• No particular reasoning for sixteen glasses.

jdaw1 wrote:
For those accustomed to a right-to-left writing direction, the left-hand version appears to be ‘going forwards’; the other is going backwards.

left-to-right

djewesbury wrote:left-to-right

Fixed. Sorry.

jdaw1 wrote:We have had three preferences, all different. I’m willing to be persuaded that mine is not the best, but so far I’m not.

Phenomenal D66 is currently saying you're wrong and I'm right, but I'm not convinced that's especially persuasive... might try something more coherent in the morning.

PhilW wrote:Phenomenal D66 is currently saying you're wrong and I'm right

Is Dow 1966 a particularly argumentative Vintage Port? It is very excellent, so more likely to be right than any of us.

jdaw1 wrote:

Glenn E. wrote:Therefore, the bottom left position being occupied can be called the primary sheet for me.

So you prefer to have front-left full, whereas my rule was to have front-right empty. As yet I’m not convinced that your rule is better. Please say more. Perhaps you could comment on the interaction with the water boxes, which are usually on the right.

Our rules disagree when there are even numbers of rows and an odd number of columns, so for 3 and 14 glasses.

For 3 glasses I agree that your rule is more aesthetically pleasing. But for 14 glasses I prefer the "weight" of the image at the bottom of the page.

Since, as previously stated, I would probably not use /Diamond and would instead put 3 glasses in a single row, I don't really care about that case.

I don't have an issue with the water boxes, so that also doesn't affect my preference.

Avoiding collisions and the associated loss of Port, though, is sufficiently convincing. While I still find my rule more aesthetically pleasing for 14 glasses, aesthetics must yield to Port preservation.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

jdaw1 wrote:• For fourteen the ‘particular’ reasoning might go the other way: does the right-hand version look more like a stable building, and the left look more rickety?

Glenn E. wrote:But for 14 glasses I prefer the "weight" of the image at the bottom of the page.

We agree. Sigh. That makes things complicated. Even if my preference isn’t strong.

Maybe post-D66 PhilW can rescue us. Maybe.

I agree with you both on 14-glass case (preferring the weight at the bottom), though it's only a minor preference; I also would have no problem with this being the exception case for which we use a modifier (/Invert or similar) from the default.

The area I disagree is on the 4,6,8 cases (where really I am looking at the 4*N case, with 6 being a special case), where you describe preferring the ‘going forwards’ style; I do not - I strongly favour the one you refer to as 'going backwards'. To me, the left hand side of the page is the reference; it is where all unjustified text is referenced against, where the spine would be on the cover of a book, where the flagpole would be, etc. In the 4N case, the 'going backwards' variants seem to me to rest in a stable manner against this left side; like a stack leaning on a wall at the left, while the 'going forwards' style means that the stack, or odd bottles at the right would fall off.

Mrs W., who has just made a fabulous Welsh Rarebit, will be asked to adjudicate. Of course, ‘blind’, meaning that she won’t be told who prefers which.

And I’ll also make some /Portrait examples.

/Portrait /Diamonds

The following examples of /Diamonds with orientation /Portrait has changed my preferred rule.

• If the number of rows is even and number of glasses ≥4, then bottom corners full.
• Otherwise old rule of bottom-right being empty.

In particular, six and nine and fifteen glasses need to point up. However, this still doesn’t agree with PhilW. Awaiting Mrs W.’s availability.

jdaw1 wrote:/Portrait /Diamonds

The following examples of /Diamonds with orientation /Portrait has changed my preferred rule.

• If the number of rows is even and number of glasses ≥4, then bottom corners full.
• Otherwise old rule of bottom-right being empty.

In all of these cases, my rule applies. Bottom-left full.

Are there examples of /Portrait /Diamonds where bottom-left full does not provide agreement between us?

Glenn E. wrote:Are there examples of /Portrait /Diamonds where bottom-left full does not provide agreement between us?

jdaw1 wrote:and number of glasses ≥4

Only when glasses ≤ 3.

Glenn E. wrote:In all of these cases, my rule applies. Bottom-left full.

It’s a fair cop. I’ll come quietly.

Decision taken and coded. Bottom-left full, unless there are exactly two rows and three columns.

jdaw1 wrote:Decision taken and coded. Bottom-left full, unless there are exactly two rows and three columns.

grumble /mirror grumble. Though to be fair, your water boxes argument does.. er.. hold water.

PhilW wrote:

jdaw1 wrote:Decision taken and coded. Bottom-left full, unless there are exactly two rows and three columns.

grumble /mirror grumble. Though to be fair, your water boxes argument does.. er.. hold water.

• /Mirror, camel case.
• Nobody had passionate views. Indeed, I asked because I didn’t. But I managed to change my mind, and Glenn observed thatI had changed it to match his. That was a majority.

But [ /Diamonds /Mirror ] is available to the dissenter.