Re: How many use the diagram tree?

[Lars Clausen <lrclause cs uiuc edu>]

On 10 Aug 2003, James K. Lowden wrote:
> <rant> One thing I've never understood is Visio's facination with
> handles.  Why?  Any 14-year-old knows a line consists of an infinite set
> of points.  What's the purpose of picking out some few as more
> significant than the rest?  Why isn't every point on the line a handle?
> Draw a line, drag it to another line.  Of course they connect.  What in
> world else would anyone want?  But, no, isn't it much more fun, more like
> a video game, to play "Hit the Handle" and see it go from red to green or
> whatever?  Why do real work when you could be improving your eye-hand
> coÃrdination?  </rant>

Nice rant:)  I've toyed with the nothing of altering the handle system to
at least allow a 'drop line into object' style.  It would indeed be nice if
you could attach anywhere.  The only reason I see for the handles is to
have a way to attach 'prettily', i.e. exactly in the middle or exactly at
the corner.  What's ERwin do there?

Removing handles would require better feedback of hitting objects.  A
'highlight' function with sensible defaults would help for that and a
number of other feedbacks.

-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)| HÃrdgrim 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?