Multiple [named] textbox items in shape definition

[Christopher Bahns <bahnsch access4cheap com>]

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