Re: Needs

[Lars Clausen <lrclause cs uiuc edu>]

On 03 Oct 2002, Hunter Peress wrote:
> Heres something that dia really needs:
>
> A box that shows you the dimensions of a selected item. 

The placement and dimensions of elements are actually just properties like
those seen in the property dialog.  They were set to not be visible in the
dialog, partly for historical reasons, partly because some elements
(e.g. the UML packages) have extra decoration that goes outside those
bounds.  Making them visible is as easy as adding PROP_FLAG_VISIBLE to the
elem_width and the elem_height property macros in lib/element.h.  This will
take care of the size of all element-like things.

For placement and for the connection points, the properties code is missing
some widgets.  For instance, there is no widget that allows entering a
Point value.  Those things are defined in lib/prop_geomtypes.c.

> It should also
> let you enter in new dimensions (and accept mathetmatical operators like
> + - * /).

The property widget is just a standard gtk_spinner widget.  It can be set
to allow non-numeric entry, in which case we could allow arithmetic and
dimensions.  The spinner in the pagesetup dialog does dimensions for
margins already.  You could generalize on that and allow arithmetic as
well.

To allow dimensions in properties, we would need a property type Length
(rather than Real).  We may run into some compatibility issues if we do
that, though.

> Its impossible to make uniform diagrams if I can't have a box that's
> exactly 2x greater than another one.

You're not the first one to mention this.  I'm certain people will be happy
to have this feature.

> I severly want to help. If this is an idea that is new, please ASSIGN
> some of the labor to me. I would like to get this done within 2 weeks
> from this email. -Hunter.

That's great!  Please do compile the newest CVS version, as many a GTK
thing has changed.

> NOTICE: im not on the list, so please include me in your replies

If you're going to actually code something for Dia, I suggest you join the
list.  Easier for all of us.  It would also be a good idea to make an entry
for this in Bugzilla
(http://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=dia). 

-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?