Page Layout in Books

[DKleinecke]

Let us assume the paper book is on its way out and that we will soon be reading all our books on digital screens.

I assume that people will soon realize that, at least as an option, they really like the old two pages at a time display. Tablets are one-page displays but the screen shape in desktop monitors would lend itself to a two-page display.
Certainly it is hard to read material where the text extends in a single line clear across a modern desktop screen.

I was looking a the EPub specifications (and I'm not finished looking). I assume that a two-page screen layout is easy (though I still don't know how to do it). For the body of the book what should show on these two pages is obvious - it should look just like an opened book.

Now I happen to be analyzing the layout of Donner's "Muhammad and the Believers" (a very good book incidentally) published by the Harvard University Press in 2010. I picked it as an example of a modest modern scholarly book. The body of the book offers no surprises (or I haven't uncovered any yet). It is what precedes and follows that surprised me. I identified 9 different things preceding and 8 following. What surprised me is that all 17 are physical page oriented. That is, they start on one side of a physical page (right-hand page) and if the don't fit on one page they go over to the other side of the physical page. But if they fit on one side the back side remains blank.

Finally I get to my question. Wouldn't it be better to layout these accessory things in terms of what is seen rather than physical page (which, after all, no longer exists)?. That is, to start them on the left-hand page and leave the right-hand page blank if it is not needed.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Are you talking about the layout of the printed book, or of an eBook
version?

See what psychologists say about perceptual salience. I think it very
likely that having important things start on the recto helps orient
the reader (including, of course, when the book is opened from right
to left; the same is done for Hebrew and Arabic books, where the recto
is on the left and the verso on the right).

Keep in mind, also, that books are necessarily printed in groups of at
least 8, far more often 16 or 32, pages (i.e. 4, 8, or 16 leaves), and
you will realize that it's better to havve blank pages where they are
doing some good in separating elements than collecting them all at the
back (occasionally, with bad planning, you get as many as 7 blank
leaves at the back of a book. In the olden days, they used them for
advertising).

[DKleinecke]

I was thinking in terms of e-books displayed in a a two page manner. This is what I expect all of us to be using soon - whenever we are not reading a tablet displaying a single page.

Knowing how conservative book publishers are I expect them to move from paper to screen by moving what they are used to having on the recto to the right hand half-screen. I was suggesting that the recto should go on the left hand half-screen instead - to avoid unnecessary "page turning".

One aspect of good e-book making will be that the page size and shape (as well as the fonts) will be manipulatable by the reader. Different readers can be expected to have different numbers of pages (I believe that whether or not page numbers should be continued is still being discussed) and a publisher could get material on right-hand half page only by fiat. My point was that if the publisher does issue a fiat he should put the beginning of each section on the left-hand half-page.

EPub is an improved HTML. It would be possible to write a book in HTML but very clumsy. EPub claims to offer all of HTML5 and more. Their philosophy appeals to me but I haven't examined its implementation deeply enough to have an actual opinion about whether it is destined to be THE e-book format.

I can't detect anybody using TeX as a book format even though it was designed specifically for that purpose. The dialect called Latex is, of course, the de facto standard in mathematics and, I think. some other fields, but it does not seen to be used in book design.

[Adam Funk]

On 2012-04-21, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> Keep in mind, also, that books are necessarily printed in groups of at
> least 8, far more often 16 or 32, pages (i.e. 4, 8, or 16 leaves), and
> you will realize that it's better to havve blank pages where they are
> doing some good in separating elements than collecting them all at the
> back (occasionally, with bad planning, you get as many as 7 blank
> leaves at the back of a book. In the olden days, they used them for
> advertising).

Or the notes added to _The Waste Land_.


--
Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results,
but that's not why we do it. [Richard Feynman]

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Apr 21, 11:11 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, April 21, 2012 5:37:37 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Apr 20, 10:09 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Let us assume the paper book is on its way out and that we will soon be reading all our books on digital screens.
>
> > > I assume that people will soon realize that, at least as an option, they really like the old two pages at a time display. Tablets are one-page displays but the screen shape in desktop monitors would lend itself to a two-page display.
> > > Certainly it is hard to read material where the text extends in a single line clear across a modern desktop screen.
>
> > > I was looking a the EPub specifications (and I'm not finished looking). I assume that a two-page screen layout is easy (though I still don't know how to do it). For the body of the book what should show on these two pages is obvious - it should look just like an opened book.
>
> > > Now I happen to be analyzing the layout of Donner's "Muhammad and the Believers" (a very good book incidentally) published by the Harvard University Press in 2010. I picked it as an example of a modest modern scholarly book. The body of the book offers no surprises (or I haven't uncovered any yet). It is what precedes and follows that surprised me. I identified 9 different things preceding and 8 following. What surprised me is that all 17 are physical page oriented. That is, they start on one side of a physical page (right-hand page) and if the don't fit on one page they go over to the other side of the physical page. But if they fit on one side the back side remains blank.
>
> > > Finally I get to my question. Wouldn't it be better to layout these accessory things in terms of what is seen rather than physical page (which, after all, no longer exists)?. That is, to start them on the left-hand page and leave the right-hand page blank if it is not needed.
>
> > Are you talking about the layout of the printed book, or of an eBook
> > version?
>
> > See what psychologists say about perceptual salience. I think it very
> > likely that having important things start on the recto helps orient
> > the reader (including, of course, when the book is opened from right
> > to left; the same is done for Hebrew and Arabic books, where the recto
> > is on the left and the verso on the right).
>
> > Keep in mind, also, that books are necessarily printed in groups of at
> > least 8, far more often 16 or 32, pages (i.e. 4, 8, or 16 leaves), and
> > you will realize that it's better to havve blank pages where they are
> > doing some good in separating elements than collecting them all at the
> > back (occasionally, with bad planning, you get as many as 7 blank
> > leaves at the back of a book. In the olden days, they used them for
> > advertising).
>
> I was thinking in terms of e-books displayed in a a two page manner. This is what I expect all of us to be using soon - whenever we are not reading a tablet displaying a single page.

BTW, from the way your postings are quoted, it appears that you are
typing in very, very, very long lines all the way across your screen
and then some. Try to find the "line length" parameter and set it for
70 characters, the industry standard.

I'm not interested in any sort of eReader -- Kindle, Nook, or anything
else -- and I've certainly never seen one that displays two pages.

> Knowing how conservative book publishers are I expect them to move from paper to screen by moving what they are used to having on the recto to the right hand half-screen. I was suggesting that the recto should go on the left hand half-screen instead - to avoid unnecessary "page turning".

Go listen to this weekend's "On the Media" (an NPR program originating
at WNYC). The arguments showing that "conservative book publishers"
are absolutely necessary are laid out in excellent detail. The example
was the current biography of Steve Jobs -- if there are no more
publishers in the traditional sense, who would have provided the $0.5M
- $1M advance that made the research possible?

> One aspect of good e-book making will be that the page size and shape (as well as the fonts) will be manipulatable by the reader. Different readers can be expected to have different numbers of pages (I believe that whether or not page numbers should be continued is still being discussed) and a publisher could get material on right-hand half page only by fiat. My point was that if the publisher does issue a fiat he should put the beginning of each section on the left-hand half-page.

So you also want to put the art and profession of book design out of
existence. You want graphic design to be used only for advertising.

> EPub is an improved HTML. It would be possible to write a book in HTML but very clumsy. EPub claims to offer all of HTML5 and more.  Their philosophy appeals to me but I  haven't examined its implementation deeply enough to have an actual opinion about whether it is destined to be THE e-book format.

From all appearances, it is graphically/esthetically monumentally
limited.

> I can't detect anybody using TeX as a book format even though it was designed specifically for that purpose. The dialect called Latex is, of course, the de facto standard in mathematics and, I think. some other fields, but it does not seen to be used in book design.-

Because the results are crap, and because graphic artists aren't
interested in writing programs. If they were, there'd be nothing but
game designers.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Apr 22, 2:41 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> On 2012-04-21, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > Keep in mind, also, that books are necessarily printed in groups of at
> > least 8, far more often 16 or 32, pages (i.e. 4, 8, or 16 leaves), and
> > you will realize that it's better to havve blank pages where they are
> > doing some good in separating elements than collecting them all at the
> > back (occasionally, with bad planning, you get as many as 7 blank
> > leaves at the back of a book. In the olden days, they used them for
> > advertising).
>
> Or the notes added to _The Waste Land_.

Hmm, if you can document that the reason they're there is that there
were some blank leaves at the back of the book, you've got yourself an
M.A. thesis.

[DKleinecke]

On Sunday, April 22, 2012 4:38:24 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Apr 21, 11:11 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:

> BTW, from the way your postings are quoted, it appears that you are
> typing in very, very, very long lines all the way across your screen
> and then some. Try to find the "line length" parameter and set it for
> 70 characters, the industry standard.

I have no problem at this end. Automatic word wrap works just fine in Google Groups for me. I can't find any "line length" for me to fiddle with. Perhaps Google was just misbehaving again.

> I'm not interested in any sort of eReader -- Kindle, Nook, or anything
> else -- and I've certainly never seen one that displays two pages.

I didn't expect you (or anyone else in the traditional book business) to be eager to move to a screen. But you really should look at the oncoming locomotive and decide which way to jump.

> > Knowing how conservative book publishers are I expect them to move from paper to screen by moving what they are used to having on the recto to the right hand half-screen. I was suggesting that the recto should go on the left hand half-screen instead - to avoid unnecessary "page turning".
>
> Go listen to this weekend's "On the Media" (an NPR program originating
> at WNYC). The arguments showing that "conservative book publishers"
> are absolutely necessary are laid out in excellent detail. The example
> was the current biography of Steve Jobs -- if there are no more
> publishers in the traditional sense, who would have provided the $0.5M
> - $1M advance that made the research possible?

I didn't say the copyright laws were going away. I have complete confidence that given a chance to make money somebody will work out the details. Or perhaps just change our expectations. IMHO a biography of Steve Jobs is not crucial to the survival of civilization as we know it.

> > One aspect of good e-book making will be that the page size and shape (as well as the fonts) will be manipulatable by the reader. Different readers can be expected to have different numbers of pages (I believe that whether or not page numbers should be continued is still being discussed) and a publisher could get material on right-hand half page only by fiat. My point was that if the publisher does issue a fiat he should put the beginning of each section on the left-hand half-page.
>
> So you also want to put the art and profession of book design out of
> existence. You want graphic design to be used only for advertising.
>

You probably don't understand what can be done even using HTML5. A computer with the power of an iPad could be programmed to read the printed text of an e-book and speak is aloud - or display it in Braille. The downside is that we will probably to subjected to on-the-fly translation.

One plus is that - on a computer screen - color become a requirement for all pictures not apologized for, I suspect that digital books offer just as much scope for graphic arts as book traditional publishing does,

> > EPub is an improved HTML. It would be possible to write a book in HTML but very clumsy. EPub claims to offer all of HTML5 and more.  Their philosophy appeals to me but I  haven't examined its implementation deeply enough to have an actual opinion about whether it is destined to be THE e-book format.

> From all appearances, it is graphically/esthetically monumentally
> limited.

This statement need considerable defending. Can you provide a little or point me at some?

> > I can't detect anybody using TeX as a book format even though it was designed specifically for that purpose. The dialect called Latex is, of course, the de facto standard in mathematics and, I think. some other fields, but it does not seen to be used in book design.-

> Because the results are crap,

Another statement that needs defending. Knuth says that he moved into book design because the galley proofs for the second volume of his big book were, in his opinion, crap and he wanted to do something about it. If this comes dowm to an esthetic debate between you and Knuth I want to get out of the crossfire.

> and because graphic artists aren't interested in writing programs.

Perhaps they should become acquainted with the tools of their trade.

> If they were, there'd be nothing but game designers.

There are some amazing games out there.

[Ruud Harmsen]

DKleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> schreef/wrote:

>On Sunday, April 22, 2012 4:38:24 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> On Apr 21, 11:11 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> BTW, from the way your postings are quoted, it appears that you are
>> typing in very, very, very long lines all the way across your screen
>> and then some. Try to find the "line length" parameter and set it for
>> 70 characters, the industry standard.
>
>I have no problem at this end. Automatic word wrap works just fine in Google Groups for me. I can't find any "line length" for me to fiddle with. Perhaps Google was just misbehaving again.

I have. Lines broken in the middle of words, and endlessly long line
when quoting your text.

This is what I see before quoting:
===

> BTW, from the way your postings are quoted, it appears that you are
> typing in very, very, very long lines all the way across your screen
> and then some. Try to find the "line length" parameter and set it for
> 70 characters, the industry standard.

=20

I have no problem at this end. Automatic word wrap works just fine in

Googl=

e Groups for me. I can't find any "line length" for me to fiddle

with. Per=
haps Google was just misbehaving again. =20
/===
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com/new

[pauljk]

"Ruud Harmsen" <r...@rudhar.com> wrote in message
news:qgs9p79sddp3sm4nt...@4ax.com...

> DKleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> schreef/wrote:
>
>>On Sunday, April 22, 2012 4:38:24 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Apr 21, 11:11 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> BTW, from the way your postings are quoted, it appears that you are
>>> typing in very, very, very long lines all the way across your screen
>>> and then some. Try to find the "line length" parameter and set it for
>>> 70 characters, the industry standard.
>>
>>I have no problem at this end. Automatic word wrap works just fine in Google Groups
>>for me. I can't find any "line length" for me to fiddle with. Perhaps Google was
>>just misbehaving again.
>
> I have. Lines broken in the middle of words, and endlessly long line
> when quoting your text.

My WLM breaks DK's super long one line paragraphs between
words, so that looks okay. However, only the first line of the resulting
'wrapped around' paragraph is marked with the usual '>' quote mark.
The following wrapped around lines look like fresh contributions,
i.e. they are not prefixed with quotes.

It ends up looking a horrible mess especially after the thread has
been contributed to by DK more than once.

Franz used to have this problem at one stage and IIRC he
solved it by not relying on the auto-wrap-around and hitting
Enter now and then to enter explicit line-breaks.

As far as I can tell, you are using Google, and no other
Google users have this problem, perhaps they could tell
you what needs to be done. Otherwise you could do
what Franz does.

pjk

[Adam Funk]

On 2012-04-22, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> On Apr 22, 2:41 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>> On 2012-04-21, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>> > Keep in mind, also, that books are necessarily printed in groups of at
>> > least 8, far more often 16 or 32, pages (i.e. 4, 8, or 16 leaves), and
>> > you will realize that it's better to havve blank pages where they are
>> > doing some good in separating elements than collecting them all at the
>> > back (occasionally, with bad planning, you get as many as 7 blank
>> > leaves at the back of a book. In the olden days, they used them for
>> > advertising).
>>
>> Or the notes added to _The Waste Land_.

(Well, not all of the notes.)

> Hmm, if you can document that the reason they're there is that there
> were some blank leaves at the back of the book, you've got yourself an
> M.A. thesis.

Do you think Eliot was kidding when he gave that explanation?



--
It is probable that television drama of high caliber and produced by
first-rate artists will materially raise the level of dramatic taste
of the nation. (David Sarnoff, CEO of RCA, 1939; in Stoll 1995)

[António Marques]

=20 is a line break in MIME-QP.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Apr 23, 2:33 am, "pauljk" <paul.kr...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:
> "Ruud Harmsen" <r...@rudhar.com> wrote in message
>
> news:qgs9p79sddp3sm4nt...@4ax.com...
>
>
>
>
>

> > DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> schreef/wrote:

>
> >>On Sunday, April 22, 2012 4:38:24 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >>> On Apr 21, 11:11 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> BTW, from the way your postings are quoted, it appears that you are
> >>> typing in very, very, very long lines all the way across your screen
> >>> and then some. Try to find the "line length" parameter and set it for
> >>> 70 characters, the industry standard.
>
> >>I have no problem at this end. Automatic word wrap works just fine in Google Groups
> >>for me.  I can't find any "line length" for me to fiddle with. Perhaps Google was
> >>just misbehaving again.
>
> > I have. Lines broken in the middle of words, and endlessly long line
> > when quoting your text.
>
> My WLM breaks DK's super long one line paragraphs between
> words, so that looks okay. However, only the first line of the resulting
> 'wrapped around' paragraph is marked with the usual '>' quote mark.
> The following wrapped around lines look like fresh contributions,
> i.e. they are not prefixed with quotes.

That's how it looks in GG -- that's what caused me to complain.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Apr 23, 6:47 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> On 2012-04-22, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > On Apr 22, 2:41 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> >> On 2012-04-21, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> >> > Keep in mind, also, that books are necessarily printed in groups of at
> >> > least 8, far more often 16 or 32, pages (i.e. 4, 8, or 16 leaves), and
> >> > you will realize that it's better to havve blank pages where they are
> >> > doing some good in separating elements than collecting them all at the
> >> > back (occasionally, with bad planning, you get as many as 7 blank
> >> > leaves at the back of a book. In the olden days, they used them for
> >> > advertising).
>
> >> Or the notes added to _The Waste Land_.
>
> (Well, not all of the notes.)
>
> > Hmm, if you can document that the reason they're there is that there
> > were some blank leaves at the back of the book, you've got yourself an
> > M.A. thesis.
>
> Do you think Eliot was kidding when he gave that explanation?

He doesn't strike me as a kidder, but he did come up with that
godawful musical (yes, it IS his fault!). Where did he say it? Weren't
they Ezra Pound's doing?

[Adam Funk]

I'd say "harmless fun for some people" rather than "godawful", but how
is it his fault? Eliot died in 1965 and the musical opened in the
early 1980s.

I haven't heard Rawsthorne's setting of some of the poems --- is that
good?

> Where did he say it? Weren't they Ezra Pound's doing?

Here's Eliot quoted in Wikipedia, which sounds like what I've read (in
print) previously:

Eliot discussing his notes: "[W]hen it came time to print The Waste
Land as a little book--for the poem on its first appearance in The
Dial and in The Criterion had no notes whatever--it was discovered
that the poem was inconveniently short, so I set to work to expand
the notes, in order to provide a few more pages of printed matter,
with the result that they became the remarkable exposition of bogus
scholarship that is still on view to-day."[30]

Citation 30 points to pages 109--10 of Eliot, T. S. (1986) "The
Frontiers of Criticism" in On Poetry and Poets London: Faber and Faber
Ltd., London ISBN 0-571-08983-6. (I don't have a copy.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land#Notes


--
The internet is quite simply a glorious place. Where else can you find
bootlegged music and films, questionable women, deep seated xenophobia
and amusing cats all together in the same place? [Tom Belshaw]

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Apr 23, 8:46 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> On 2012-04-23, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > On Apr 23, 6:47 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> >> On 2012-04-22, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >> > Hmm, if you can document that the reason they're there is that there
> >> > were some blank leaves at the back of the book, you've got yourself an
> >> > M.A. thesis.
>
> >> Do you think Eliot was kidding when he gave that explanation?
>
> > He doesn't strike me as a kidder, but he did come up with that
> > godawful musical (yes, it IS his fault!).
>
> I'd say "harmless fun for some people" rather than "godawful", but how
> is it his fault?  Eliot died in 1965 and the musical opened in the
> early 1980s.

If he hadn't committed the works to paper, no one could have tarted
them up into garbage.

> I haven't heard Rawsthorne's setting of some of the poems --- is that
> good?

Let's just say that they were on a very cheap LP many decades ago, and
I didn't play it more than once.

> > Where did he say it? Weren't they Ezra Pound's doing?
>
> Here's Eliot quoted in Wikipedia, which sounds like what I've read (in
> print) previously:
>
>    Eliot discussing his notes: "[W]hen it came time to print The Waste
>    Land as a little book--for the poem on its first appearance in The
>    Dial and in The Criterion had no notes whatever--it was discovered
>    that the poem was inconveniently short, so I set to work to expand
>    the notes, in order to provide a few more pages of printed matter,
>    with the result that they became the remarkable exposition of bogus
>    scholarship that is still on view to-day."[30]

So there already were notes.

[DKleinecke]

On Apr 22, 11:33 pm, "pauljk" <paul.kr...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:
> "Ruud Harmsen" <r...@rudhar.com> wrote in message
>
> news:qgs9p79sddp3sm4nt...@4ax.com...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> > DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> schreef/wrote:

I may be the only Google users trying to use the New Google Groups.
Today New Groups is just giving me server errors. I'm back on the old
Google Groups (on Chrome) and everything seems just like it was in the
good old days.

There is some element of bias against Sci.Lang. At least one other
group still works in the New Groups.

[Peter T. Daniels]

> group still works in the New Groups.-

They threatened to replace GG with NGG months ago. I tried it for a
few minutes, found all the features it had removed and all the bugs
(that's not the right word: things it thinks are features that are
pointless, such as displaying every page linked to), and tried to send
a comment; and the comment was "not accepted." Perhaps because it
included the word "crap." Presumably they have received so many
negative comments that theiy're rethinking their act.

[Adam Funk]

On 2012-04-23, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> On Apr 23, 8:46 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>> On 2012-04-23, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

>> > He doesn't strike me as a kidder, but he did come up with that
>> > godawful musical (yes, it IS his fault!).
>>
>> I'd say "harmless fun for some people" rather than "godawful", but how
>> is it his fault?  Eliot died in 1965 and the musical opened in the
>> early 1980s.
>
> If he hadn't committed the works to paper, no one could have tarted
> them up into garbage.

harmless fun

>> > Where did he say it? Weren't they Ezra Pound's doing?
>>
>> Here's Eliot quoted in Wikipedia, which sounds like what I've read (in
>> print) previously:
>>
>>    Eliot discussing his notes: "[W]hen it came time to print The Waste
>>    Land as a little book--for the poem on its first appearance in The
>>    Dial and in The Criterion had no notes whatever--it was discovered
>>    that the poem was inconveniently short, so I set to work to expand
>>    the notes, in order to provide a few more pages of printed matter,
>>    with the result that they became the remarkable exposition of bogus
>>    scholarship that is still on view to-day."[30]
>
> So there already were notes.

Yes, but not nearly so many full of "bogus scholarship".

--
War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
[Ambrose Bierce]

[DKleinecke]

I am using the new version again today and today it is working - at
least at this end. Google was working on it - GOK why - and lost
control. Hopefully they are back in control.

The new version takes some getting used to and, of course, being
Google they have never made the slightest attempt to explain WHY they
made changes. But it does everything I want to do - post, read other
people's posts and make replies. There seem be some other things I
might do but to me they are just more of the useless baggage
(featuritis) that so much software is inflicted with these days.

[pauljk]

"DKleinecke" <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:7e4ee0c5-a0fb-4326...@t2g2000pbl.googlegroups.com...

Look okay from this end too.
Your contributions don't come up in long single line paragraphs anymore.

pjk

[Peter T. Daniels]

> (featuritis) that so much software is inflicted with these days.-

So it has been greatly changed since about two months ago?

You can now (again) view the entire thread arranged "by reply," as
they currently call it? Or "by date," if you need to know what's been
put up recently? You no longer have to wait forever while it displays
every web page ever linked to in the thread?

[DKleinecke]

I haven't tried "by reply" because "by date" works just fine for me.
Actually seems to, at least some times open exactly the point It ended
the previous time I used it.

I think they have been changing it almost daily and, if they ever get
to a place they like, they will edict everybody over. Google is a
strange outfit.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Use "By reply" once and you'll never default to "By date" again. It
enables you to follow a single conversation at a time.

> I think they have been changing it almost daily and, if they ever get
> to a place they like, they will edict everybody over.  Google is a

> strange outfit.-

[DKleinecke]

I'll try it but I seem to remember a version of Google Groups before
the current one that provided nothing but "by reply" and I welcomed
the chance to read "by date".

I have no difficulty with "by date" because I am interested in the
latest postings and I never have any trouble remembering what went
before unless the reply has erased all the information in the post
being replied to.