X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1729" "Sun" "19" "December" "93" "07:55:51" "CET" "viro@MATUPS.MATUPS.FR" "viro@MATUPS.MATUPS.FR" nil "58" "Plain Figure placement" "^Date:" nil nil "12" nil nil]) Return-Path: Received: from sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (mailserv) by dagobert.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0/24.6.93) id AA15388; Mon, 20 Dec 93 19:16:54 +0100 Received: from mail.cs.tu-berlin.de by sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0-sc/03.06.93) id AA00150; Mon, 20 Dec 93 19:16:52 +0100 Received: from tubvm.cs.tu-berlin.de by mail.cs.tu-berlin.de with SMTP id AA16645 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4(mail.m4[1.12]) for <@MAIL.CS.TU-BERLIN.DE:Schoepf@SC.ZIB-BERLIN.DE>); Mon, 20 Dec 1993 19:16:50 +0100 Message-Id: <199312201816.AA16645@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de> Received: from TUBVM.CS.TU-BERLIN.DE by tubvm.cs.tu-berlin.de (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 2569; Mon, 20 Dec 93 19:05:46 +0200 Received: from VM.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (NJE origin MAILER@DHDURZ1) by TUBVM.CS.TU-BERLIN.DE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 2568; Mon, 20 Dec 1993 19:05:46 +0200 Received: from DHDURZ1 (NJE origin LISTSERV@DHDURZ1) by VM.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 1508; Sun, 19 Dec 1993 07:56:10 +0000 Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project Date: Sun, 19 Dec 93 07:55:51 CET From: viro@MATUPS.MATUPS.FR Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple Recipients of Subject: Plain Figure placement Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 1220 Plain Figure placement I know very little about LaTeX, but a fair amount about Plain and AmSTeX which share the same output routine. I feel it is worth recalling that the road to perfection for plain's insert macros has been rocky. For instance, an official correction circa 1990 attempted to prevent figures from embarassingly floating to the top of a title page --- but failed. To my knowlege the official version has not changed since, although my experience has shown that its behavior is utterly unacceptable. In 1990, Walter Neumann undertook to fix the Plain insert macros and he eliminated a very large number of bugs. The bugs were so subtle and persistant that he does not assert the corrected code is bugfree even now. However no bug has been reported since my last complaint of July 1992 and I am willing to claim the code is now robust in "normal" circumstances. Incidentally, Neumann changes \midinsert behavior to prevent midinserts getting out of order when a small one follows a bigger one. This is what a majority rightly wants; it is a feature change and definitely not a bug fix. Neumann, I believe, would subscribe to an opinion signed by 'Paul' > I suggest that LaTeX-3 should have a VERY SIMPLE > algortithm for float placement, ie one whose behaviour is > predictable by users and NOT clever. The effect will > probably be that most of their figures will actually > appear where they want them. Laurent S PS. The newinsert.tex macros avilable on ftp matups.matups.fr in directory /pub/pubTeX/Graphics.dir and should be more widely posted than they currently are. PS. I have no idea whether the LamSTeX insert macros are bullet-proof.