On Wed, 30 Mar 2016, Aidan Nichol wrote:

> I have been looking at various options for controlling how figures are placed on a page and based on answers to similar questions in this mailing list I  tried various options. The most flexible one seems to be using tables e.g.
>
> \setupexternalfigures[location={default}]
>
> \starttext
>
> \placefigure[]{}{\externalfigure[hacker][height=1in]}
>
> \startxtable[frame=off,align=low]
> \startxrow
>  \startxcell[ny=2]
>      \placefigure[force][]{left twoup}{\externalfigure[mill][height=4in]}
>   \stopxcell
>   \startxcell
>     \placefigure[force][]{the first}{\externalfigure[spider][height=1.5in]}
>   \stopxcell
> \stopxrow
> \startxrow
>  \startxcell
>    \placefigure[force][]{the second}{\externalfigure[cow][height=1.5in]}
>  \stopxcell
> \stopxrow
> \stopxtable
>
> It seems to work well except that figure numbers are being skipped. In this example hacker=1 mill=8, spider=9 and cow=10.
> Varying the contents of the table reveals that It is skipping two times the number of figures in the table.
>
> Is this an invalid combination of features I’m using or am I doing something wrong?

The contents of a table are typeset multiple times to get an idea of the
height and width. Here is one option:

\useMPlibrary[dum]

\starttext

\bTABLE[frame=off,align=low]
\bTR
\bTD[ny=2]
      \placefigure[here,\iftrialtypesetting nonumber \fi]
                  []{left twoup}{\externalfigure[mill][width=2in,height=4in]}
\eTD
\bTD
      \placefigure[here,\iftrialtypesetting nonumber \fi]
                  []{the first}{\externalfigure[spider][width=2in,height=2in]}
\eTD
\eTR
\bTR
\bTD
      \placefigure[here,\iftrialtypesetting nonumber \fi]
                  []{the second}{\externalfigure[cow][width=2in,height=2in]}
\eTD
\eTR
\eTABLE
\stoptext

Aditya