Re: Compiling Dia

[Lars Clausen <lrclause cs uiuc edu>]

On Tue, 20 Nov 2001, Matthew mailme org wrote:

> Hello,
>
>       Holidays have come at last so I figured I might see whats been
> happening in the land of dia.
>
>       Three things. Firstly, after downloading from cvs into my
> machine, here were the Compiling results that I ended up with. Can
> somebody help me in my dilemma of getting this program compiled?
>
> Running libtoolize
> You should add the contents of `/usr/local/share/aclocal/libtool.m4' to
> `aclocal
> .m4'.
> aclocal: configure.in: 40: macro `AM_PATH_GTK' not found in library
> aclocal: configure.in: 203: macro `AM_PATH_LIBART' not found in library
> configure.in:30: AC_TRY_COMPILE was called before AC_ISC_POSIX
> Can't call method "close" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bin/automake
> line
> 7751.
> configure.in:30: AC_TRY_COMPILE was called before AC_ISC_POSIX
> autoconf: Undefined macros:
> configure.in:147:    AC_DEFINE(HAVE_UNICODE,, Unicode support library
> available)
> configure.in:178:    AC_DEFINE(HAVE_FREETYPE,, Freetype support library
> available)
> configure.in:196:AC_CHECK_LIB(popt, poptSetOtherOptionHelp,
> [AC_DEFINE(HAVE_LIBPOPT)
> configure.in:205:  AC_DEFINE(HAVE_LIBART)],
> configure.in:212:AM_PATH_GDK_PIXBUF(0.7.0,,AC_MSG_ERROR([gdk-pixbuf >= 0.7.0
> is required]
>
>       What does this mean? And any idea why? Has someone had this before?

Looks like you're missing the development packages for GTK and Libart.
You're not saying which system this is on, so I can't tell the exact names.

>       Secondly, I'm not sure how all this works as I'm only new to the
> OpenSource coding scene so I put together a few suggestions for the Dia
> package which I thought may be useful?

Thank you!  Feedback is always appreciated (though telling what system you
have and which version of Dia you use helps us help you).

>       -Upon changing between screens you have to click twice to select
> an item.  Click once to select the window, click twice to select the
> button or lay the object.

That's because you use a window manager setup where you need to click to
focus the window.  The first click gets used by the window manager.

>       -The UML Class object isn't resizeable?

True.  I personally don't agree with that decision.

>       -Perhaps there could be a Snap to Grid option?

There is.  In the right-button menu, under View.

>       -Big Projects clutter easily with many windows on the
> screen. Perhaps an auto-arranging option for arranging the windows on the
> screen. Tile / Cascade etc.

That's not a problem we've run into before.  The newest CVS version has a
diagram tree feature that might help you.

>       -I noticed in the code the ability to save to png. Why not also
> bmp/gif/jpg etc?

Because it's easy to convert to other formats outside of Dia (using
Imagemagick, for instance).  Besides, GIF is not free and JPG is lossy, a
poor choice for diagrams.

>       -Maybe having an application icon?

We do.  Maybe it hasn't shown up in your installation, but without knowing
your setup, I cannot tell why.

>       -Print to a printer?

Right button menu, File->Print ?

>       -Maybe the delete key should delete objects selected when hit?

Agreed!

>       Anyway, I'm not sure how this works but they were some of the
> ideas I came up with and I'd be prepared to throw some time into coding
> them ( providing they are appropriate ) and if I can get this thing
> compiled? Someones feedback would be appreciated so I know this is how
> you guys do business...
>
>       Last but not least, third thing. Can somebody guide me in my
> state of learning, as to how I would be able to actually contribute the
> changes I make... ie... Whats the best/appropriate method of handing my
> code back ( or patch as I've heard of? )

If you're using CVS to check out the source, do 
cvs diff >my_patch
Otherwise, keep a copy of the original source and do 
diff -rubB orig_src_dir your_modified_source_dir

This should give a patch that you can send to the list.

Thank you for the feedback, keep it coming.

-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)| Hårdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I   |----------------------------
will defend to the death your right to say it."   | Where are we going, and
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire  | what's with the handbasket?