The sentence structure punctuation marks (comma, period, and the colons) are not used very consistently in most published heraldry, so DrawShield generally ignores them, except for the semi-colon ';', of which we expect rather too much - it is currently used:
To separate charges in a list of charges (to ensure all the colours, positions and so on are kept with the right charge)
E.g. Argent, bear passant sable; in dexter chief a mullet gules
(The "in dexter chief" refers to the mullet, not the bear)
To separate tinctures in a list of tinctures (especially with treatments)
E.g. Per pale azure; checky or and vert
(This is azure on the dexter side, and checky or and vert on the sinister)
(Without the semi-colon it would be checky azure and or on the dexter, vert on the sinister)
When doubled, to separate quarters in a list of quarters
(But we still have problems with nested quarterings sometimes...)
However, this gives us problems when we want to use a list of tinctures on a charge that is itself part of a list of charges - the meaning of the semi-colon is ambiguous.
Hence, my proposal involves the currently ignored comma character - in most cases the comma will still be ignored (as in the first example above, after the "Argent); but it will have significance in a list of tinctures - the second example would need to be re-written as:
Per pale azure, checky or and vert
Which in my view actually reads more clearly than the current version. The alternate arrangement would be:
Per pale azure checky or, and vert
(or you can just omit the comma, as this is the default reading anyway). Longer lists of tinctures still work:
Tierced in pale azure, or and vert
either with or without the comma, but look and read better with it. And complex lists can be handled simply:
Tierced in pale azure checky or, vert honeycombed gules, argent masoned sable
Should you want to construct such a monstrosity(!)
This is probably how I should have done things in the first place... There is a small chance that some of the existing gallery entries would be broken by this change but I'd quite like to go ahead with this change despite that.
Thoughts and comments anyone?
Thanks in advance,
Karl