Modifying properties of several objects at the same time

[Daniele Pighin <daniele dcs it>]

Hallo guys,

I was wondering whether it was possible to introduce a way to be able to 
modify several objects' properties at the very same time, as it would be very 
useful and time saving, especially for large diagrams.

I guess this could be done without excessive tweaks to the interface:

method 1 - XFig like - have a toggle-button (say "apply properties") that 
would trigger a state in which any clicked object would be applied the 
stroke, colors and arrows style currently defined in the application window, 
as well as tool specific options (e.g., text properties for text objects, and 
so on).

method 2 - like method 1, but menu oriented: with an item in the context menu 
of any object.

method 3 - popup oriented: when selecting several objects and then clicking on 
"properties", present a popup with the appropriate widgets to edit any 
property which is common to all selected objects. All of these widget would 
initially be disabled (each would be enabled by an appropriate checkbox): 
when enabling one or more fields, editing and applying, all of the selected 
objects would have the corresponding property changed.

method 3: style-copy oriented: allow for the properties of an object (style) 
to be copied and applyed to another object, or a set of objects: all 
properties common to the destination and source objects would be set to the 
appropriate value, inherited from the source object.

method 4: on-the-fly: when having several objects selected end editing some 
property in the main application window, change the object state of any 
object for which that change makes sense.

Is any of these feasable?

Thanks for your kind attention

Daniele