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Placemat wizard

Posted: 20:12 Mon 09 May 2016
by flash_uk
Many users of the forum will be familiar with JDAW's free software to make placemats for tastings. Some users may feel they are not suitably qualified to use the software - if this is you, then a wizard has been developed which allows you to create the postscript file necessary for creating placemats and associated pages.

The wizard can be found here.

Should you encounter any issues using the wizard, please PM me and I will help if I can.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 21:05 Mon 09 May 2016
by jdaw1
The placemat software’s manual has a box Making Your First Placemat: Advice for Beginners. Mike: please let me know when a link to the Wizard can go in that box.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 23:54 Mon 09 May 2016
by DRT
flash_uk wrote:Many users of the forum will be familiar with JDAW's free software to make placemats for tastings. Some users may feel they are not suitably qualified to use the software - if this is you, then a wizard has been developed which allows you to create the postscript file necessary for creating placemats and associated pages.

The wizard can be found here.

Should you encounter any issues using the wizard, please PM me and I will help if I can.
Good work. Thank you.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 00:05 Tue 17 May 2016
by flash_uk
A small upgrade has been made to the wizard. It is now possible to save parameter files and reload parameter files.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 09:26 Tue 17 May 2016
by PhilW
flash_uk wrote:A small upgrade has been made to the wizard. It is now possible to save parameter files and reload parameter files.
Excellent job Mike; a "small" upgrade perhaps, but a hugely significant one making the wizard easy to use and to return to and update for changes without having to re-enter everything. Great job.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 19:54 Wed 18 May 2016
by flash_uk
I have now figured out how to permit and validate accented characters. This will be included in the next release.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 11:17 Mon 23 May 2016
by jdaw1
JDAW, in [url=http://www.jdawiseman.com/papers/placemat/placemat.html#advice_for_beginners_wizard]the manual[/url], wrote: First there is a decision. Mike Meehan, a friend of the author of the PostScript program, has made a ‘Wizard’. The Wizard has the great advantage of simplifying the making of the placemats, and does some hand-holding of the user. The Wizard has the small disadvantage of hiding almost all of the 400+ parameters, putting many features and settings beyond its reach. So non-geeks should use the Wizard. Geeks might or might not prefer use it: laziness versus features-and-control. If not using the Wizard, then continue with this manual. If using the Wizard, continue at www.planetmeehan.com/tpf/wizard.php. (And the rest of this manual assumes not using the Wizard.)
Improvements to wording welcomed.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 12:05 Mon 23 May 2016
by PhilW
jdaw1 wrote:
JDAW, in [url=http://www.jdawiseman.com/papers/placemat/placemat.html#advice_for_beginners_wizard]the manual[/url], wrote: First there is a decision. Mike Meehan, a friend of the author of the PostScript program, has made a ‘Wizard’. The Wizard has the great advantage of simplifying the making of the placemats, and does some hand-holding of the user. The Wizard has the small disadvantage of hiding almost all of the 400+ parameters, putting many features and settings beyond its reach. So non-geeks should use the Wizard. Geeks might or might not prefer use it: laziness versus features-and-control. If not using the Wizard, then continue with this manual. If using the Wizard, continue at www.planetmeehan.com/placemat/wizard.php. (And the rest of this manual assumes not using the Wizard.)
Improvements to wording welcomed.
Am personally not keen on "Wizard" (I would prefer "UI" or "User Interface") but can see the value of a simple reference term for less technical users; whatever term is used I think needs better initial explanation, along the lines of "... has made a Web-based user interface (the "Wizard" [or whatever]) allowing the user to create placemats by completing a form on a web page. The Wizard thus has the great advantage of simplifying the creation of placemats, but the disadvantage of hiding almost all of the 400+ parameters, putting many features and settings beyond its reach..." and suggest replace laziness with "ease-of-use".

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 13:30 Mon 23 May 2016
by jdaw1
PhilW wrote:Am personally not keen on "Wizard" (I would prefer "UI" or "User Interface") but can see the value of a simple reference term for less technical users; whatever term is used I think needs better initial explanation, along the lines of "... has made a Web-based user interface (the "Wizard" [or whatever]) allowing the user to create placemats by completing a form on a web page. The Wizard thus has the great advantage of simplifying the creation of placemats, but the disadvantage of hiding almost all of the 400+ parameters, putting many features and settings beyond its reach..." and suggest replace laziness with "ease-of-use".
Done.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 15:51 Mon 23 May 2016
by Glenn E.
Revised wording looks good. "Wizard" is a commonly understood word for non-tech people.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 10:50 Sat 11 Jun 2016
by flash_uk
Wizard now offers the portrait/landscape option for page orientation.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 11:48 Sat 11 Jun 2016
by jdaw1

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 17:04 Wed 29 Jun 2016
by /2alph
Thanks a lot for the tool. Its very easy!

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 22:28 Sun 24 Jul 2016
by flash_uk
Folks, a bit of a webserver disaster has overwritten the wizard code with an older version. I will endeavour to get the wizard restored as soon as possible.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 19:29 Sat 30 Jul 2016
by flash_uk
flash_uk wrote:Folks, a bit of a webserver disaster has overwritten the wizard code with an older version. I will endeavour to get the wizard restored as soon as possible.
All back up and running now. In addition, accented characters are now available.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 13:03 Sun 13 Oct 2019
by flash_uk
Folks, the wizard website will be unavailable likely until Jan 2020. The location of my server has no electricity while renovations are happening. So it’s doors to manual for now.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 21:20 Sat 04 Jan 2020
by flash_uk
flash_uk wrote: 13:03 Sun 13 Oct 2019 Folks, the wizard website will be unavailable likely until Jan 2020. The location of my server has no electricity while renovations are happening. So it’s doors to manual for now.
Placemat wizard is now available again.

Re: Placemat wizard

Posted: 18:52 Fri 04 Nov 2022
by flash_uk
After an extended period of webserver transition, the wizard is available again: Wizard

The save/reload parameters function is broken however. I will endeavour to fix this shortly...