On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On 4 Jun 1999, Lars R.Clausen wrote: > >> On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >> > One other annoyance that I didn't see a way to do was changing >> > properties on a set of select objects. In my case I needed to change >> > the color and thickness on multiple line objects. Is this there or in >> > the works? If not I'll gladly start on it. >> >> I've been annoyed by that several times, too. If you have an idea for >> how the interface for it would look, I'd love to help. >> > Well, I suppose once objects are multiply selected, and the properties > window is brought up by double clicking (hmmm..is it on the menu too? I > don't have Dia in front of me presently), any change would be made to > objects of the same kind. > > For example, I select everything in the diagram, bring up properties by > double clicking on a line, and change thickness, all line thicknesses > would change. Or optionally a preference could be set to allow all > thicknesses to change or only ones that match the current one. That is, > if I change from 0.10 to 0.05, lines with an original thickness of 0.10 > would change to 0.05, but if a line had a thickness of 0.07 it would or > would not change based on the preference. Ok, that sounds fair. There are actually several different combinations you might want: 1) Affect this object only 2) Affect all selected objects of this kind 3) Affect all selected objects 4) Affect all selected objects of this kind with the same setting 5) Affect all selected objects with the same setting I tried a simple hack that would do (2)[1], and now I'm beginning to see the problems (which actually seem to tie in with the undo functionality). First off, applying the properties don't just set the property that is changed, but all of them. So if you have a group of objects with mixed properties, doing a group set will force them all to have the same properties. Second, there is no (easy) way to do (3) and (5), since you can't tell if other kinds of objects have the equivalent properties. So we would like a more abstract way of handling properties, something like each object having a list of 'known' properties. That way, we could generate the properties dialogues from that list rather than (as now) having to do it for each object, and we can ask each selected object if it has the property we are setting. Also, setting a property becomes easier to remember for the undo function. Alexander, what thoughts have you made about the undo functionality? I could see how the properties settings would be one of the more difficult parts of that. BTW, I put a new screenshot at <URL:http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause/screengrab.gif>, showing some of the things I've been using Dia for. BTBTW: Shouldn't the smallest line thickness selectable from the toolbox be hairline thickness? -Lars [1] That was the easiest to do:) -- Lars R. Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause) Hårdgrim of Westfield "I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire (?)
