Hi Achim,

 > >     * The ratio of t1 to t2 is fixed by the design and a float AAA can be
 > >       placed into the middle position if neither t1 nor t2 become too
 > >       small. (Downside of this kind of layout might be that the positioning of
 > >       the floats drastically varies from page to page.)
 > > 
 > >     * The end position of t1 is fixed (vertically) so that a middle float
 > >       always starts on the same point on a page. Further restriction then that
 > >       t2 is not getting smaller as a certain value.
 > > 
 > >     * The starting starting position of t2 is fixed so that the bottom of the
 > >       middle floats always appear on the same vertical position on the page,
 > >       again with some further restrictions to the size of t1 this time.
 > > 
 > >     * An obvious extension to the above could be that there are a list of
 > >       vertical starting points to choose from and some mechanism/logic to
 > >       select one of them
 > > 
 > >     * ...other ideas...
 > 
 > Personally, I would find it awkward if the position of floats would not
 > be consistent between pages. This would rule out options (1) and,
 > possibly (4).

I agree with you, I personally think that (1) would result in fairly bad
results. in case of (4) I don't think so (if done with care), e.g. you may
have only certain points to start at and the rules may choose them according
to size (?) or some other criteria. Certainly that would allow for some
medium-advanced kind of grid layout

On a double spread one could also define relations between the area eg to
ensure that, say, one area starts in a fixed place (which gives the uniformity
across pages but the other is set in relation to the first

just tossing out random ideas ... if anybody has some sample or comments on
real life designs that follow some algorithmic pattern that would be great

 > What I implemented in ant is a combination of (2) and (3): The user can
 > define a fixed area on the page where floats can be placed. In addition
 > he specifies whether this float area should be filled up from top to
 > bottom or from bottom to top.

indeed. yes this is like combining 2 and 3 but not allowing to vary it
between different pages which is something that I have in mind, sort of a
"page-style" for float placement which depends on parameters of the current
page


thanks
frank