On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Alexander Larsson told this: > On 20 Jan, Lars Clausen wrote: >> The most important feature I'd like to see is to be able to 'bind' any >> line to any object, like some of the UML lines do. > Well, the concept in Dia is this: Objects can have 'Connection > Points', as many as they want and where they want. Some of the handles > (those with HANDLE_CONNECTABLE, or HANDLE_CONNECTABLE_NOBREAK. Whey > have a cross on them on the screen) on other objects can connect to > the connection-point. Dia then automatically manages this connection. Yes, I see that now. It is extremely nice, once you notice the blue thingies. A low-priority feature would be to be able to add/remove connection points any place on an object. A freaky idea: Transitive selection. Either just select everything you can transitively get to via connections, or select any object connected to the selected objects. Nice with the align-menuitems. Maybe some align size items? To largest, smallest and average size, horizontally and vertically. >> After that, in approximate order of importance: >> Arrow heads on ordinary lines. > This should be very easy. Almost all needed code is written. Needs a > arrow-select widget. Hmm. We might be getting a lot of select widgets: Color, line width, arrows, line style... Or maybe line style should be an option on line width? An arrow select widget could have these choices: | | V ^ V | | | | | | V V V | A pop-up option box could then allow more control over arrow head styles. >> Shift-drag to restrict movement (horizontal/vertical lines, square >> boxes, circles etc). > Hmmm... Would need adding a new parameter to the move_handle method in > Object (like 'flags'). Then you would need to modify all objects > you're interested in to use this. Maybe put some reusable code in > element.c and connection.c. It'll be very object-dependent what will actually happen. >> Options for the various tools should be settable like in Gimp, by >> double-clicking the tool box widget. > They are. They are? I can only get the options dialog by double-clicking the actual object, not the widget in the tool box. It is problematic that I have to set left-justify separately on each block of text I make. >> Splines. > They exist in the back-end of the program. Just not tested very much > or used in any object yet. Check out draw_bezier() in app/render_gdk.c. Then I'll try adding a standard widget for that. Just for starters. >> A limit on the width of a text 'box', with word wrap. E.g. if you drag >> the text 'cursor' at the start, you indicate a width. > Hmmmm.. You can look at <URL:http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause/hastyassault.ps> for one thing I'm currently using Xfig for, and that would benefit a lot from a limited-width tex box. >> When having created an object, it shouldn't switch back to the pointer >> tool. > It was like this earlier, but i changed it. I'll probably change it > back as it's starting to irritate me. That was surprisingly easy to fix. >> Transparent boxes. > Fully transparent boxes are easy. Semi-transparent (alpha) are > impossible due to the architecture and the exporting to PS. The fully-transparent boxes are the most important. I don't like having to move things up and down all the time. >> More formats to export to. > What formats? Hmmm... pdf? gif? fim? Well, it's not so important. Maybe conversion from xfig format is more important. >> A sticky point: Should the keybindings be different when editing text? >> I for instance (being an Emacs user) like to use Ctrl-D to delete to >> the right, but that has rather severe consequences. But on the other >> hand, having different keybindings is a bit messy. > Hmmm, yeah. Might be nice... dunno.. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to have different keybindings for text entry. >> So, where do we go from here? I checked out the source, got it to >> compile and run (though I have to give it an option, such as --help, or >> it pours out warning boxes by the hundred). What is being worked on >> presently and what not? > Well, i'm getting ready for a stable release (0.30) this weekend. The > last stuff i'm waiting for is libtool 1.3 which can create dlopen:able > libraries that doesn't have to be named libxxx.so.0.0.0 but instead > xxx.so. Yeah, that'd be nice. >> [1] Did you get those commercials for Maxibon in Sweden, too? > Nope. Shall i be glad? They were actually quite nice. That must be enough for now. I'll be trying to add a few of the things I've mentioned now, rather than just rattle off new ideas. BTW, it is remarkably stable for such a low version number. Very soon, I might not go back to Xfig ever again. -Lars -- Lars R. Clausen ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) A *real* smart bomb would call in sick, perhaps move to another country, changing its name in the process, open a beach bar maybe and live out its days in safe anonymity. -- Barry O'Neill in rhod
