Software that makes placemats

Organise events to meet up and drink Port.
User avatar
DRT
Fonseca 1966
Posts: 15779
Joined: 23:51 Wed 20 Jun 2007
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by DRT »

jdaw1 wrote:Example 1 could be pre-canned: 4 to 12 drinks (I, II, III, IV, …); 14 drinkers (A, B, C, …, N); A4 or 8½″×11″.
Let's call that Example 0. Not everyone wants to waste paper.
"The first duty of Port is to be red"
Ernest H. Cockburn
User avatar
jdaw1
Cockburn 1851
Posts: 23568
Joined: 15:03 Thu 21 Jun 2007
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by jdaw1 »

foomench wrote:I also have considered trying to adapt it for another use, but the time to tweak output seems a little prohibitive to me. Here is my use case: Best of show judging at a beer competition. All beers are first judged in their individual categories. Then the best of each category goes on to a best of show round. Now we have some large number (say 30) of beers to pick from, blind. But for each we have an entry number and a style (alphanumeric indicator and description, like "4A: Belgian Golden Strong").
Is “4A: Belgian Golden Strong” a category? If so, could you use the likes of the following?

Code: Select all

/Titles [ … (4A) …  ] def
/Circlearrays [
	…
	[ (Belgian Golden Strong)  (4A)  ]
	…
] def
The vote-recorder sheets would be used. Do you need a separate v-r sheet each, with column titles being points categories (nose, taste, gets you sauced quickly, etc)? That fits into the current code, though some re-arrangements of parameters might help.

If not, what is known? Is it that there will be only one ‘4’ beer, and it could be 4A or 4B or 4C or … or 4Z?

Please could you post more data.
User avatar
jdaw1
Cockburn 1851
Posts: 23568
Joined: 15:03 Thu 21 Jun 2007
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by jdaw1 »

DRT wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:Example 1 could be pre-canned: 4 to 12 drinks (I, II, III, IV, …); 14 drinkers (A, B, C, …, N); A4 or 8½″×11″.
Let's call that Example 0. Not everyone wants to waste paper.
One PDF for each number of glasses; glasses sheets and TN sheets at end so user chooses last page to print and thereby chooses effective number of people. Or have 14 people on the voting sheets, and one set of glasses/TN pages with a blank name: print as many copies as needed.
User avatar
DRT
Fonseca 1966
Posts: 15779
Joined: 23:51 Wed 20 Jun 2007
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by DRT »

jdaw1 wrote:
DRT wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:Example 1 could be pre-canned: 4 to 12 drinks (I, II, III, IV, …); 14 drinkers (A, B, C, …, N); A4 or 8½″×11″.
Let's call that Example 0. Not everyone wants to waste paper.
One PDF for each number of glasses; glasses sheets and TN sheets at end so user chooses last page to print and thereby chooses effective number of people. Or have 14 people on the voting sheets, and one set of glasses/TN pages with a blank name: print as many copies as needed.
Yes, that would work, but includes the user picking and downloading a file from somewhere. Compare that to an App on an iPhone (or, if you are staunchly Glenn, a lesser device) >> launch >> x drinks >> y drinkers >> print. No having to find the files, no choosing the correct one, no downloading, just six or seven clicks and you have a complete set of placemats.
"The first duty of Port is to be red"
Ernest H. Cockburn
User avatar
foomench
Cruz Ruby
Posts: 9
Joined: 19:15 Wed 14 Oct 2015
Location: Longmont, CO, USA

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by foomench »

I really stirred this pot it seems. In my beer use case, we don't need score sheets, aren't really concerned about drinker names ... Detailed notes have already been recorded and entered into the competition software for the 300 or 1000 beers judged. (There are a couple different programs out there for this.) This is the final elimination round and we just want to keep from mixing things up. 3 or 5 judges take sheets of paper and stewards pour the BOS qualifiers. Judges sample everything. "Got anything you would knock out?" A whole bunch of beers go away if there are no objections. Then people start ranking them and talking about them, taking another sip, sitting them back down. You might scribble something on your grid/placement. More things get knocked out ...

I'll see if I can draw up one of these improvised placemats for inspiration some time.
User avatar
jdaw1
Cockburn 1851
Posts: 23568
Joined: 15:03 Thu 21 Jun 2007
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by jdaw1 »

foomench wrote:I really stirred this pot it seems.
Requests have improved the software. I need to understand the request and its generality before knowing what to do with it.

• Do you know that there will be on ‘4’ beer?
• Do you know that there will be on ‘4A’ beer?
• Is there any level of the hierarchy of specification such that you know, at that level of ontology, how many beers there will be?
User avatar
DRT
Fonseca 1966
Posts: 15779
Joined: 23:51 Wed 20 Jun 2007
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by DRT »

foomench wrote:In my beer use case, we don't need score sheets, aren't really concerned about drinker names ... Detailed notes have already been recorded and entered into the competition software for the 300 or 1000 beers judged. (There are a couple different programs out there for this.) This is the final elimination round and we just want to keep from mixing things up. 3 or 5 judges take sheets of paper and stewards pour the BOS qualifiers. Judges sample everything. "Got anything you would knock out?" A whole bunch of beers go away if there are no objections. Then people start ranking them and talking about them, taking another sip, sitting them back down. You might scribble something on your grid/placement. More things get knocked out ...
A perfect use for example 2:

1. Launch Placemat Wizard and choose "Include Drink Names"
2. Enter a list of drinks (max 50?) in one box, one name per line.
3. Enter the number of drinkers.
4. Print.

:D
"The first duty of Port is to be red"
Ernest H. Cockburn
User avatar
DRT
Fonseca 1966
Posts: 15779
Joined: 23:51 Wed 20 Jun 2007
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by DRT »

jdaw1 wrote:
foomench wrote:I really stirred this pot it seems.
Requests have improved the software. I need to understand the request and its generality before knowing what to do with it.
By your own admission elsewhere in this thread writing a wizard is not your forte. You therefore do not need to know what to do with this request other than to give a stable version of the code to someone who does.
"The first duty of Port is to be red"
Ernest H. Cockburn
User avatar
jdaw1
Cockburn 1851
Posts: 23568
Joined: 15:03 Thu 21 Jun 2007
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by jdaw1 »

DRT wrote:give a stable version of the code to someone who does.
Actually, it suffices for it to be a version of the code the parameters of which the wizard might change are stable.

Calling for volunteers to write Derek’s wizard?
User avatar
jdaw1
Cockburn 1851
Posts: 23568
Joined: 15:03 Thu 21 Jun 2007
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by jdaw1 »

Eric: please don't be distracted by Derek's enthusiasm for a wizard. Please do answer the beer questions.
User avatar
djewesbury
Graham’s 1970
Posts: 8165
Joined: 20:01 Mon 31 Dec 2012
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by djewesbury »

jdaw1 wrote:Actually, it suffices for it to be a version of the code the parameters of which the wizard might change are stable.
A perfect example of how to render the language impenetrable through the thoroughly correct use of grammar. Brown star for you.
Daniel J.
Husband of a relentless former Soviet Chess Master.
delete.. delete.. *sigh*.. delete...
User avatar
jdaw1
Cockburn 1851
Posts: 23568
Joined: 15:03 Thu 21 Jun 2007
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by jdaw1 »

djewesbury wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:Actually, it suffices for it to be a version of the code the parameters of which the wizard might change are stable.
A perfect example of how to render the language impenetrable through the thoroughly correct use of grammar. Brown star for you.
Agreed. It’s a mess. :VegetableStar: (which is our lowest grade of star) indeed.
  • What matters is the stability of the parameters that the wizard might alter. The code and the other parameters need not be stable.
User avatar
DRT
Fonseca 1966
Posts: 15779
Joined: 23:51 Wed 20 Jun 2007
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by DRT »

jdaw1 wrote:
djewesbury wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:Actually, it suffices for it to be a version of the code the parameters of which the wizard might change are stable.
A perfect example of how to render the language impenetrable through the thoroughly correct use of grammar. Brown star for you.
Agreed. It’s a mess. :VegetableStar: (which is our lowest grade of star) indeed.
  • What matters is the stability of the parameters that the wizard might alter. The code and the other parameters need not be stable.
Semantics. It is a single file and to a non-programmer is reasonably considered to be a file of "code". By stable I mean "not being tinkered with by JDAW".
"The first duty of Port is to be red"
Ernest H. Cockburn
User avatar
jdaw1
Cockburn 1851
Posts: 23568
Joined: 15:03 Thu 21 Jun 2007
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by jdaw1 »

DRT wrote:Semantics. It is a single file and to a non-programmer is reasonably considered to be a file of "code". By stable I mean "not being tinkered with by JDAW".
Not semantics. Later improvements to the code that do not effect the parameters controlled by the wizard could be very easily included in the wizard version.

What is missing is somebody volunteering to build your wizard. You find the volunteer; I will assist that person.
User avatar
foomench
Cruz Ruby
Posts: 9
Joined: 19:15 Wed 14 Oct 2015
Location: Longmont, CO, USA

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by foomench »

jdaw1 wrote:
foomench wrote:I really stirred this pot it seems.
Requests have improved the software. I need to understand the request and its generality before knowing what to do with it.
• Do you know that there will be on ‘4’ beer?
• Do you know that there will be on ‘4A’ beer?
• Is there any level of the hierarchy of specification such that you know, at that level of ontology, how many beers there will be?
The general answer to all the above is no. There need not be any hierarchy maintained, but ordering would be nice. The style guidelines are set (but subject to update, as the 2015 just came out to supersede the 2008), but at any given competition categories may be split or combined based on the number of entries. A BOS judging may have one "11" English Bitter, which happens to be an "11A" Ordinary Bitter, but there could be both an 11A and an 11B, or no 11s at all. Some competitions exclude certain categories, and judges in the early rounds may choose not to award a 1st place, which means nothing from that pool will advance.

I might volunteer to make a wizard some day, but it won't be too soon. The next beer competition that I will help out with, beyond just judging, will probably be next March. That might be the time I work on something.
User avatar
jdaw1
Cockburn 1851
Posts: 23568
Joined: 15:03 Thu 21 Jun 2007
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by jdaw1 »

That was helpful. But what output do you want? What is it that you hand-scribble?
PhilW
Dalva Golden White Colheita 1952
Posts: 3501
Joined: 14:22 Wed 15 Dec 2010
Location: Near Cambridge, UK

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by PhilW »

A question/request; I am hosting a tasting next month where I will not know the names of the attendees in advance. I wish to print sets of glasses and tasting note pages for each attendee, and it would seem sensible to provide a location (on both pages?) for the attendee to put their initials/name.

Various solutions come to mind - I could potential use blank definitions for the attendees initials, or perhaps "....." or "Name: .........." in the initials field. Before I start testing what might look best, is there already an intended method/approach for this scenario?
User avatar
jdaw1
Cockburn 1851
Posts: 23568
Joined: 15:03 Thu 21 Jun 2007
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by jdaw1 »

One possibility includes something like

Code: Select all

/Names [ () ] def
/NamesVoteRecorder [ 14 {()} repeat ] def
That makes only one set of glasses and TN pages, which are printed as many times as are needed. But the vote-recorder page would have enough for columns for its purpose.
User avatar
jdaw1
Cockburn 1851
Posts: 23568
Joined: 15:03 Thu 21 Jun 2007
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by jdaw1 »

Usually bugs are fixed silently. But notice should be given of the most recent bug fix: the code used an incorrect size for A4.

Erroneously I had believed that A4 was 250mm÷√√2 by 250mm×√√2, which ≈ 210.224mm×297.302mm. No, not so: in a different conversation mention was made of ISO 216, which iteratively rounds the A and B paper sizes to integer numbers of mm. A4 is actually 210mm×297mm, precisely, the area of which is 0.208% smaller than that in the previous code (0.06237m² rather than 0.0625m²).

The code (HTML, PostScript) now uses the slightly smaller but on-standard A and B page sizes, and hence radii and titles and such like features are also slightly smaller.

But only slightly. Unless you look carefully, you might not notice.
User avatar
jdaw1
Cockburn 1851
Posts: 23568
Joined: 15:03 Thu 21 Jun 2007
Location: London
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by jdaw1 »

Re the placemats for the 1985 horizontal on Wednesday 25th November:
In the thread [url=http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=96335#p96335]Parameters for the placemat software[/url] jdaw1 wrote:

Code: Select all

/ExternalLinks [  % Array, length a multiple of three:  indented0-boolean, (Descriptor0), (http://URL0),  indented1-boolean, (Descriptor1), (http://URL1),  ...
	false   (Review at ThePortForum.com)     (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10381&view=unread#unread)
		true    [(C) /aacute (lem 1985, TN)]     (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10394&view=unread#unread)
		true    (M Gonzalez 1985, TN)            (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10395&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Delaforce 1985, TN)             (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10396&view=unread#unread)
		true    (J. H. Andresen 1985, TN)        (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10397&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Quinta do Noval 1985, TN)       (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10398&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Offley Boa Vista 1985, TN)      (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10399&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Churchill 1985, TN)             (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10400&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Sandeman 1985, TN)              (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10401&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Martinez 1985, TN)              (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10402&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Gould Campbell 1985, TN)        (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10403&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Quarles Harris 1985, TN)        (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10404&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Smith Woodhouse 1985, TN)       (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10405&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Ramos Pinto 1985, TN)           (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10406&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Taylor 1985, TN)                (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10407&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Fonseca 1985, TN)               (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10408&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Dow 1985, TN)                   (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10409&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Graham 1985, TN)                (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10410&view=unread#unread)
		true    (Warre 1985, TN)                 (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10411&view=unread#unread)
	false   (Planning at ThePortForum.com)   (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10175&view=unread#unread)
	false   (Latest version this placemat)   (http://www.jdawiseman.com/2015/20151125_1985s.pdf)
		true    (in list of placemats)           (http://www.jdawiseman.com/papers/placemat/placemats_list.html#a20151125)
		true    (parameters by which made)       (http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=96335#p96335)
	false   (Food order)                     (http://www.jdawiseman.com/2015/20151125_ThePortForum_food.pdf)
	false   (Boot & Flogger)                 (http://www.davy.co.uk/wine-bar/boot-and-flogger/)
		true    (SE1 1TA, streetmap.co.uk)       (http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=532409&y=180083&z=106&pc=SE1+1TA)
		true    (SE1 1TA, maps.google.co.uk)     (https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?z=20&t=k&layer=c&cbll=51.50428,-0.0935&cbp=11,260,,0,0)
		true    (SE1 1TA, bing.com)              (http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?where1=SE1+1TA&cp=51.50428~-0.0935)
] def

ExternalLinks contains the TN threads — at least those created before the tasting. Is this a good idea?
Is it a good idea? (See “§ External Links” area in image.)
Glenn E.
Graham’s 1977
Posts: 4163
Joined: 22:27 Wed 09 Jul 2008
Location: Seattle, WA, USA

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by Glenn E. »

jdaw1 wrote:Is it a good idea? (See “§ External Links” area in image.)
Maybe? Not for me, as I never use external links. (PDF is never used digitally. I use the .ps to create it, then print it, so any functions requiring opening the PDF on a computer are lost to me.)
Glenn Elliott
User avatar
flash_uk
Graham’s 1977
Posts: 4070
Joined: 20:02 Thu 13 Feb 2014
Location: London

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by flash_uk »

jdaw1 wrote:Is it a good idea? (See “§ External Links” area in image.)
I would say not vital. Implies a level of preparedness and planning to create the TN threads in advance of finalising the pdf.
User avatar
DRT
Fonseca 1966
Posts: 15779
Joined: 23:51 Wed 20 Jun 2007
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Contact:

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by DRT »

I am struggling to think of any downside.
"The first duty of Port is to be red"
Ernest H. Cockburn
PhilW
Dalva Golden White Colheita 1952
Posts: 3501
Joined: 14:22 Wed 15 Dec 2010
Location: Near Cambridge, UK

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by PhilW »

jdaw1 wrote:Is it a good idea? (See “§ External Links” area in image.)
I would say that it would only be worthwhile if it might be used. If looking to find details of an old tasting, I expect most people would be more likely to search the forum than to search an archive of post-tasting-modified placemat sheets. However, I also see no down-side except for the whole "placemats should serve as a permanent record and therefore should not be altered after the event" argument, where I am outnumbered; once post-tasting update of placemats is allowed, I see no problem with this, but also little likelihood of use.
User avatar
foomench
Cruz Ruby
Posts: 9
Joined: 19:15 Wed 14 Oct 2015
Location: Longmont, CO, USA

Re: Software that makes placemats

Post by foomench »

It is kind of a neat feature in the PDF, but in my use no one would ever use it. Attendees at my events will use the paper, and have other means of finding the relevant threads on forums, etc.
Post Reply