Re: Objects & Layers relationships
- From: "Dolores Alia de Saravia" <loli unsa edu ar>
- To: dia-list gnome org
- Subject: Re: Objects & Layers relationships
- Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 15:15:17 -0300
On 13 Aug 2003, Lars Clausen write:
On 12 Aug 2003, Matthew J. Smith wrote:
Hello all-
As a Dia user, I just wanted to throw out one of my own
observations.
Currently, an object seems to reside in a single layer, and can
have no
interaction (for example, connecting lines) with objects in another
layer.
I use layers all the time to show/hide the different components of
my
drawing. For example, an IT Environment diagram may have a
physical
network layer, a logical routing layer, a server layer, an
application
layer, etc.
It would be very useful to me to have an object that can belong in
multiple layers. In the above example, it would be great to have
the
firewall in all my layers, so that all objects can be connected.
As
well, I'd like to hide all layers except for the one I am
interested in,
and still have the firewall show up.
I think the easiest solution would be to make layer membership a
multi-value attribute of an object. A layer view would then
abstractly
be a query to find all the objects with the selected layer(s)
listed as
an attribute. This would also allow all objects to connect with
all
others, regardless of layer, since all objects could belong to some
common "primary" layer.
Would this type of functionality be useful to anyone else? Or,
should
I just re-evaluate my use of layers in diagrams?
Your suggestion seems rather slow -- remember that when moving
line-ends,
we have to search for nearby objects to connect with, and that would
make
us search through a list of layers on each object in the whole
diagram,
rather than just the current layer.
What I've considered is to allow connections between layers. Just
like
Gimp allows several layers to be marked as moveable together, we
could allow
layers to be marked for connectivity as well as visibility. In your
case,
you'd make one layer that has the firewall, always have that visible
and
connectable, but turn visibility and connectibility on and of on the
other
layers (by switching current, i.e. selectable, layer). I think
that'd be
fairly easy to do.
Perhaps it would be nice to have just one more object: a very spetial
one: one which would belong to every layer at exactly same position
and with a "spetial connection point" for each layer (and user could
bring to the diagram any number of them).
For each layer, the connection point of these "transversal objects"
could be connected of disconnected ( user's will) with the ojects
"covering" its position: if the user moves an object connected to a
transversal object, all the object connected would move ...
While working with the diagram, these "transversal objects" would be
visible in every layer, but they would be invisible in printed
diagrams;
If this were the case,
1) We could wark with several layers to show different aspects but it
would be easy to mantain position relationships. For example, Mathew
would have one firewall in each layer, but all of them connected to a
transversal object, so they will always occuppy same position in every
diagram (these positions could change but keeping them equal)
2) (I am not very sure about this): When we "configure" for printing
with the "fitting", all layers have an influence, so it would be
convenient being able to use four no connected "transversal objects"
just to mark what would be the region to print, this way one can work
independently in each layer witout moving outside the region, knowing
that all layers would be well positioned for printing.
·
By the way: Is there a way to print a selected part of a layer?
Loli
email: loli unsa edu ar
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