Hiya!
With my CVS access set up, I'm now putting in some of the stuff that I've
had floating around for a while. Some of it was sent to James previously,
but never made it in, whether that was because he was too busy or
disapproved of it, I don't know (even a harsh criticism would be better
than silence -- feedback is gold). Since I'll no longer have the filter of
James/Alex on my crazy ideas, expect me to present my ideas here to get the
flukes shot down. So please let me know if these ideas are interesting or
bad or fixable (especially those of you with UI wisdom).
Just now I added two new menus on the right-mouse menu, Tools and Select.
The Tools menu may seem superfluous, but it's there to allow keyboard
shortcuts (and less mouse-movement). The Select menu has several different
select methods. Let me know if they're too confusing/unusable. This
includes the start of a transitive selection, namely Select Connected,
which selects object immediately connected to the currently selected
objects. I'll make a Transitive Connect soon.
I'll be adding persistent menu shortcuts soon, unfortunately they'll have
to live in a bunch of different files because of the number of menus that
are created dynamically. Interestingly, the menu on the sheet tabs isn't a
'real' menu, in that you can't add shortcuts, but that's a GTK problem.
I'm a bit dissatisfied with the way arc endpoints are dragged. I'd like
the rounding to change with the distance between the endpoints, such that
the angle at the endpoints remain the same. I have code that does this.
Any objections?
James, about the filled bezier/polygon: Should we add two new tools,
Filled Polygon and Filled Bezier? They're almost the same as the Polyline
and Bezierline. I think having 'connect' and 'fill' options on Polyline and
Bezierline would be a nicer solution. Hmmm... the properties will need
some way to disable properties, like menus have.
For further discussion, here's my private TODO file. This doesn't mean I'm
working on all of this, just that I'd like to see it done. Take your pick!
I think a global TODO file on the web page would be nice for interested
coders who want to see if there are exciting problems left to do (lots!).
Zig-zag line: When removing an end-segment, don't move the endpoint.
Units. I have the Properties code for this, but need to deal better with
default values for line widths etc for various units, and the modularity
problem that Properties are in app while the use is in lib.
The direction of the initial endpoints of a zig-zag line should be
settable.
The save-as requester should use the directory the file is from.
Grid, zoom, margins, are not saved.
Shortcuts for object menus don't give correct mouse position.
Save should be blanked out when no changes were made.
Add connection point for boxes etc.
Add fixed connection point (snapped to grid).
Find better way to specify poly/bezier points at creation.
(If I sound a bit braggy about this, it's just because I'm happy to have
CVS access. And I want to tell about new features so the doc people can
get ahold of them.)
-Lars
--
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause) | H�rdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I | Retainer of Sir Kegg
will defend to the death your right to say it." | of Westfield
--Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire | Chaos Berserker of Khorne
