Re: placefigure feature request ?

[Sanjoy Mahajan <sanjoy@mrao.cam.ac.uk>]

>> It would be nice if placefigure can be able to detect if the best
>> place is the top or the bottom of the page accordingly to its call,

A related point, which I didn't fiugre out how for my own TeX
figure-placement macros, is correct sequential numbering when some
figures are at the top of the page.  Some pseudocode on one page:

=============== snip ===================
\ref{figure:narrow} is a narrow figure.

\figuremacro{figure:narrow}{narrowfig.1}{A narrow figure.}

\ref{figure:wide} is a wide figure.

\figuremacro{figure:wide}{widefig.1}{A wide figure}
=============== snip ===================

Here \figuremacro figures out (sorry) that narrow figures go in the
margin and wide figures go at the top of the page.  But the page will
look funny: The narrow figure will be numbered, say, Figure 10, and
the wide figure will be Figure 11, but Figure 11 will appear before
Figure 10 on the page.  Which is disconcerting to the reader.  

One solution is to look at all the figures on the page and then number
them, instead of numbering them when \figuremacro is executed.  I
couldn't figure out how to do that in my TeX macros, but maybe there
are hooks into the context output routine for such tricks?

-Sanjoy

`Never underestimate the evil of which men of power are capable.'
         --Bertrand Russell, _War Crimes in Vietnam_, chapter 1.