Multiple [named] textbox items in shape definition




Hello All,
I have read a number of postings on similar requests (see References), and have looked at the latest code, but so far have not found any definitive statements, or even recent discussions about it. I also looked over the TWiki and saw nothing about this.

1. I want to be able to define, for a custom shape, multiple text fields ("edit boxes"). The existing "textbox" is okay, but I'd like to have an arbitrary number of them. I have tried this with v0.91 and it only recognizes the last one in the shape file. I prefer the number, size, and placement of the fields to be static -- defined in the shape definition file. Reference #3 (below) requests the ability to add attributes dynamically at run-time. I would very much prefer to be able to specify these things explicitly in the shape definition. I will use a script to process the diagram, and don't want the diagram author to have to worry about attribute names, creating meaningless ones, or deleting required ones.

2. I want each text field to be accessible from my Python script, preferably by name. One alternative to this would be to use "svg:text" items to label each textbox (maintenance problem when moving them around). In this case, the script would have to assume the meanings of the text boxes based on the order they are found. This is acceptable, but I would prefer to include a "name" or "label" attribute in each "textbox" item, which would then show up on-screen, generally above or to the left of the associated edit area. It would be great if these name/value mappings showed up as a Python dictionary, easily accessible from my script.

3. I am working on Windows 2000 Pro and am about to try building the 2003-08-22 cut. I have no problem starting to make this enhancement myself, but want to make sure I'm doing it in a way that is desirable for everyone else, since I'd like to see it show up in a mainline cut in the future (please let me know if something like this is already planned). Note that I need this immediately so if someone is working on it, it would be nice to get the code (stable or not) -- I'll help work out the bugs.

Thanks a lot!
Christopher Bahns

References:
1. http://mail.gnome.org/archives/dia-list/2001-June/msg00031.html
2. http://mail.gnome.org/archives/dia-list/2001-June/msg00036.html
3. http://mail.gnome.org/archives/dia-list/2002-July/msg00097.html








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