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Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 00:56 Sun 29 Mar 2015
by jdaw1
The placemat code allows the adding of an annotation to glasses (GlassesAnnotations). After a blind tasting, should the placemat then be ‘changed’ to annotate what was what?

The ‘changed’ is in single quotation marks because such annotations would affect the digital file, but have no affect on a printout. So the changed file would print as did the pre-change file.

As an example, compare, for the tasting on 26th March 2015, the original placemat with an annotated placemat. Is it worth the effort?

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 01:01 Sun 29 Mar 2015
by djewesbury
Sorry, where is the annotation?

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 01:06 Sun 29 Mar 2015
by jdaw1
djewesbury wrote:Sorry, where is the annotation?
The following are as seen in Preview 8.0 (859.7) on Yosemite 10.10.2.

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Clicking on the black square reveals previously secret information.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 01:08 Sun 29 Mar 2015
by djewesbury
Not worth the effort.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 22:06 Sun 29 Mar 2015
by PhilW
jdaw1 wrote:The placemat code allows the adding of an annotation to glasses (GlassesAnnotations). After a blind tasting, should the placemat then be ‘changed’ to annotate what was what?
No. Final version of placemats is final version, including any errors. Scoresheet (including answers) is Scoresheet. Post-event update of placemats bad.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 22:53 Sun 29 Mar 2015
by jdaw1
PhilW wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:The placemat code allows the adding of an annotation to glasses (GlassesAnnotations). After a blind tasting, should the placemat then be ‘changed’ to annotate what was what?
No. Final version of placemats is final version, including any errors. Scoresheet (including answers) is Scoresheet. Post-event update of placemats bad.
More dogmatic than me.
[url=http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=75077#p75077]Here[/url] jdaw1 wrote:
[url=http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=75076#p75076]Here[/url] jdaw1 wrote:DB78 — though on the placemats, erroneously, as “D78” …

The placemat error has resulted in a new feature to the code, GlassesAnnotations.
I agree that the version as-printed is inviolable. Must that be true of the digital version? That is, can digital-only non-printable annotations be added after the event? Phil is adamantly against. I am more relaxed. Others?

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 11:38 Tue 31 Mar 2015
by jdaw1
Just created: the review thread for the Magnus tasting this evening. Normally what I would do is add a link to this to the ExternalLinks parameter. But
PhilW: you said “Final version of placemats is final version”. Does that mean that I now can’t add the link to ExternalLinks? Does that mean that if I’d done it before printing, it would have been OK, even thought it would not even slightly have affected the printing?

Such a position has a dogmatic logical consistency to it — but I want to check that is your position.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 20:09 Tue 31 Mar 2015
by PhilW
That is indeed my (dogmatic) position. With regard to placemat links, I put them in before the tasting; for the link to placemats themselves the intention is that I name the link YYMMDD_name_placemats.pdf and then leading up to the tasting I append version numbers, saving the last one (or each in turn) with the right name with no version appended. A similar practise to the way I manage software releases, with multiple candidates, but only one final release name.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 01:01 Sat 04 Apr 2015
by Glenn E.
I seem to have lost track of the alternate online PS to PDF converter that we (or at least I) have been using since ps2pdf.com starting having problems. Does anyone have a recommendation?

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 02:08 Sat 04 Apr 2015
by Glenn E.
I found online2pdf.com and believe that is the one that I used in January. Unfortunately, it is not able to process my most recent placemats either. (I also tried ps2pdf.com and received the 500 Internal Server Error that we've been seeing for some time now.)

My guess is that the placemats are growing too large. Online2pdf.com will still convert the placemats that I created in January, but those placemats were for 18 glasses on USL2 with simple Circlearrays, minimal Titles (the numbers 1-18), and no Belowtitles. The current placemats are for 20 glasses and have relatively lengthy Circlearrays, still fairly minimal Titles (years), and producers as Belowtitles.

I even went so far as to make a copy of the January placemats and simply replace Circlearrays, Titles, and Belowtitles with the new information. Online2pdf.com failed to convert it.

I've since tried trimming that test file down to 16 glasses (failed) and 12 glasses (failed). The original 18-glass January placemat still converts.

I am at a loss.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 10:22 Sat 04 Apr 2015
by jdaw1
Email it to me?

Email it to somebody with a, ahem, Mac, who could then open it in Preview and save as PDF?

Most, perhaps all, online PS→PDF converters use Ghostscript. Install Ghostscript?

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 23:01 Sat 04 Apr 2015
by jdaw1
A few minutes ago online2pdf.com/convert-ps-to-pdf was tested to reproduce the placemats used on 2nd March. It worked well, quickly producing a 114-page PDF (in which Harrington and LucidaSans were replaced with Courier). So WFM.
Glenn E. wrote:My guess is that the placemats are growing too large.
Unlikely to be the problem. Consider …EBKAC.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 04:47 Sun 05 Apr 2015
by Glenn E.
I sent the .ps file to a friend who has GhostScript installed locally, and he was able to generate the .pdf for me. It took 17 minutes, which explains why an online service would abort. The online service probably thinks that the conversion is caught in an infinite loop or something.

I'll email you the .ps so that you can take a look if you so choose. I'll also be downloading and installing GhostScript myself, which I did briefly this weekend but couldn't quickly figure out how to use it so resorted to asking a friend for help.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 09:37 Sun 05 Apr 2015
by jdaw1
Glenn E. wrote:I sent the .ps file to a friend who has GhostScript installed locally, and he was able to generate the .pdf for me. It took 17 minutes, which explains why an online service would abort. The online service probably thinks that the conversion is caught in an infinite loop or something.
That might be the answer. Using Distiller 8 the two .ps files you sent me took 12 seconds and 8 seconds.

Perhaps the recent change of default value of InlineTitles is the problem. That’s a shame. Try /InlineTitles false def.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 10:20 Sun 05 Apr 2015
by PhilW
I tried ghostscript under windows a few years ago, mostly just because I needed to view some .ps files rather than convert them, but found it fairly unfriendly, so decided to try again and see where things are at now.

- Ghostscript installed no problem
- To use ps2pdf, you have to run their batch file (from a Windows Command Prompt) referencing the full path, i.e. in my case "C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.16\lib\ps2pdf" with input and output files as parameters.
- This also requires the gs\gs9.16\bin directory to be added to your path, manually (not done by installer), to access the underlying gswin64.exe core binary executable called by the scripts
- This worked for processing a relatively simple tasting notes .ps (the Martinez vertical) but failed catastrophically with no error message on a more complex one (the Warre/Fonseca tasting)

Overall, non-trivial for users (since have to set paths manually, and run long directory-linked paths on the command line; both of these could be addressed simply with another script); clearly works to some extent; whether the failure to parse more complex postscript could be addressed by some control parameters modifications or other means is TBD.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 14:54 Sun 05 Apr 2015
by jdaw1
jdaw1 wrote:
Glenn E. wrote:I sent the .ps file to a friend who has GhostScript installed locally, and he was able to generate the .pdf for me. It took 17 minutes, which explains why an online service would abort. The online service probably thinks that the conversion is caught in an infinite loop or something.
That might be the answer. Using Distiller 8 the two .ps files you sent me took 12 seconds and 8 seconds.
Thank you Glenn: you have found the problem. Changing one line to /InlineTitles false def makes it work in both PS2PDF.com and online2pdf.com.

Default parameters will be reverted this evening, and cautionary words added to the manual.

Edit: I’ve had other troubles with /Helvetica-Bold. Maybe the font is somehow misformed? Perhaps the default value of TitlesFont should be one of the CMU fonts. Suggestions? Ideally widely available and included with Ghostscript as standard, bold or demi-bold, not italic, not oblique, condensed or demi-condensed, lining figures, and with all of CkDFGKNOSTVW0123456789 resting on the baseline and having the same height.

Edit edit: /TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT worked on online2pdf.com but not on PS2PDF.com. Sigh. Two different problems.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 22:48 Sun 05 Apr 2015
by jdaw1
jdaw1 wrote:Default parameters will be reverted this evening, and cautionary words added to the manual.
This evening has been postponed. Investigations underway. But, pro tem, /InlineTitles false def seems to work.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 06:19 Mon 06 Apr 2015
by Glenn E.
It does indeed. My friend performed the test on his system and the conversion time dropped from 1017 seconds to 1.053 seconds. ~1000x improvement.

I plan to start using GhostScript locally, but agree that InlineTitles should be false by default.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 06:22 Mon 06 Apr 2015
by Glenn E.
Also, my friend said he was able to pinpoint the slowness to the generation of the circle arrays. He said that once the circles were done that everything else completed very quickly. I think he was using a built in GhostScript previewer of some sort.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 14:24 Mon 06 Apr 2015
by jdaw1
jdaw1 wrote:Default parameters will be reverted this evening, and cautionary words added to the manual.
Done.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 20:43 Mon 06 Apr 2015
by Glenn E.
I now have GhostScript installed and so tried it myself using the first file that I generated for this set of placemats. (I sent a different file to my friend based off a known-to-be-good version from the FTLOP 1985 Horizontal in January.)

With /InlineTitles true def, 1283.8 seconds.

With /InlineTitles false def, 0.8 seconds.

GhostScript really really really does not like InlineTitles. And it's clearly a GhostScript issue because Julian's copy of Distiller can do these files in ~20 seconds.

Sadly, I like the look better with InlineTitles true. So in the future I will likely do my placemat creating with it false, then once I have everything settled the way I like it I'll switch it to true and run the final placemats locally.

Thank you, Julian, for your help. Hopefully GhostScript will be able to figure out what's going on and issue a patch.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 20:54 Mon 06 Apr 2015
by jdaw1
A solution is underway. Problem understood and can (perhaps sufficiently) be remedied.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 22:38 Mon 06 Apr 2015
by jdaw1
InlineTitles now back to previous true. Instead three different parameters have new starting values:

Code: Select all

/InlineTitlesAttemptMinimiseNumContours {InlineTitlesMaxNumberContours 2 gt  IsDistiller and} def
/InlineAboveBelowOverAttemptMinimiseNumContours {InlineAbovetitlesMaxNumberContours 2 gt  InlineBelowtitlesMaxNumberContours 2 gt  InlineOvertitlesMaxNumberContours 2 gt  or or  IsDistiller and} def
/InlinePlaceNamesAttemptMinimiseNumContours {InlineTitlesMaxNumberContours 2 gt  IsDistiller and} def
[/small]All now working well and quickly.

Please verify same.

Edited Sunday 12th April 2015 with latest version of parameter defaults.

Re: Software that makes placemats

Posted: 23:52 Mon 06 Apr 2015
by jdaw1
Glenn E. wrote:Hopefully GhostScript will be able to figure out what's going on and issue a patch.
Bug submitted, but even if a patch were issued tomorrow (unlikely), it might take years for ps2pdf.com and the like to update. So my fix probably more useful.

Re: Thursday 17th December - The Christmas Offline

Posted: 16:44 Thu 16 Apr 2015
by Alex Bridgeman
Moved by jdaw1 from the thread entitled Thursday 17th December - The Christmas Offline.
JDAW wrote:Edit by jdaw1, by permission of AHB: current draft of the stickies and TN pages.
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Please post-script expert sir, please could we have some water boxes to colour in while waiting for our next glass of port? There could be space on the tasting sheets sir.