Re: Bizarre layout

[ser]

Thanks, Jeff.

(1)
>     which explains the discrepancy.  Your suggestion,
>     {T @HAdjust /0.2fo |0.4fo E} @HAdjust |0.9fo X
>     does not appear to be well-formed: neither of the two @HAdjust 

Yes, that's to be expected.  I'd be surprised if anything I wrote in Lout were 
well formed.  However, don't the spacing symbols produce an object?  IE, 
doesn't "|0.9fo X" result in some object, which @HAdjust then works on?  It 
actually works, whether it should or not.

(2)
I read through most of the expert's guide, although it got a bit esoteric in 
the later chapters.  Having no experience with Algol, some of the 
constructions for me get confusing.

The example for '//' after "@Text @Begin" was in a resume.  I created some 
vertical graphic run down the left side of the page, with the resume text to 
the right.  After playing with it for a while, I decided the best way to get 
it to work was to use a @Tab, with the graphic in the first column and the 
text in the second.  This worked fine, except that without an initial @LLP 
(or, as I had it initially, an '//') before the @Tab, the formatting came out 
strange.  In any case, I decided to use @LLP instead of '//', and it works 
fine.

As per the graphics, you mention the age of the material; is there newer 
documentation on using graphics in Lout that shows how to avoid needing '//'?

I must admit that I really don't understand much of how Lout spaces things.  
In particular, I can find nowhere in the documentation (expert or user) 
details on how the '^' is used (as in ^/ constructions).  However, I'm sure 
that with experience I will learn this.

(3)
>     say, and I agree.  The second one you say gives a "hollow copy"; 
> I'm not quite sure what that means, but on my printer it seems to 
> work; I get a solid wavy box twice as thick as the first and third.  

Under ghostview I get a correct bar, but I also get an "echo" which is the 
same graphic, but hollow (outlined), offset to the right of the correct 
graphic and 4 times as wide as the original.

>     X and Y are points on the final printed page, they are not pairs 
> of numbers.  You have to use them as abstractions and forget about 
> numbers. You have asked for a @Squiggle whose lower left corner is at 
> X - so far so good.  But you have marked its lower right corner as 
> being at X too, by your X @Label MX.  So it will have zero width, and 
> the result is bound to be unusual. 

This makes sense, but I would expect some local scoping; if I encase a Frame 
within a Frame, you are saying that the X and Ys in the second Frame are the 
same as in the first Frame?  How, then, does one write macros for complex 
objects which are independant of the surrounding environment?  I can imagine 
how I could rewrite the Squiggle to produce an object of abstract dimensions 
and arbitrary placement, but without local scoping rules it will require 
passing several more parameters.  Is there a way around this that I am not 
seeing?

--- SER