questions/experiences after a night spent with Dia 0.94 (WinXP)

["Mischa Oliver Altmann" <mischa altmann at>]

Good Morning,

after stumbling across Dia while looking for open source or free flowchart  
software via Google[1], I spent last night producing a rather large  
flowchart with several layers, plenty of beziers and zigzaglines.

Here's my first impression including unexpected quirks i experienced with  
it. I think this might be useful for developers as I've never used Visio  
et al so I come in without expectations derived from established packages.

Overall, despite the following load of *constructive* criticism, I am  
quite pleased with the result and ease of use. Please keep this in mind  
while reading on ;-)

Installation (V0.94, WinXP using http://dia-installer.sourceforge.net, AMD  
1.8GHz)
- download & installation was easy & smooth.
- later i realised that certain button images are missing (e.g. snap to
  grid toggle, all in layer tool box) they show up as white pages with
  red x. Any ideas?
- updating of screen is sometimes slow/stuck especially when using
  layers. View > Redraw resolves this most of the time. I cant
  necessarily reproduce this. Hints appreciated...

First impression
- The interface is quite intuitive. I didn't read the manual
  until I got stuck on more elaborate things (e.g. layers)
- why do most shapes have connection points but some dont?
  (e.g. the most basic shapes in "assorted" do not)
- keyboard defaults such as <esc> for cancel and <return> for
  OK are ofte unavailable in dialogs.
  ex: properties of "seven point star"
  - <enter> is close, <esc> is unassigned
  - after changing a property
    <enter> can be either a 1) toogle of the property,
    2) close, 3) ok, or 4) unassigned
  - using <tab> or cursor keys also shows some inconsitant
    behaviour
  - when first opened, the propterites dialog doesn't allow
    <tab> or cursor keys to be used for naviating at all
- <Alt+T> open the Tools menu but is also assigned to select
  the text tool
- when using the text tool the first time i experience quite
  a lag (and lots of HDD activity) is this the pango engine
  loading? If yes, then i presume this is why loading a
  dia file takes a while...
- What is menu "Input Methods" and why is it empty?

creating flowchart
- this was my main aim, so i've spent more time on this than
  other functionality.
- how do i define keyboard shortcuts for shapes (should be
  unique within each set)?
- text editing: i might be missing something here, but is it
  not possible to highlight (select) parts of a text to delete/
  copy it? <shift+left/right> and marking with mouse dont work
  (mouse moves entire shape+text)
- creating shapes with fixed sizes and/or adjusting several
  equal basic shapes to have same sizes (where possible, i.e.
  only if text size permits). This is achievable by "snap-to-
  grid" to some degree but quirky with shapes without horizontal
  /vertical edges e.g. trapezoid.
- the aligning of elements generally works well. it would be
  useful to have these functions readily available (small buttons)
  and/or spacially (logically) placed
  ex: (problem: Center and Middle cant be distiungished)
   +---------------------+
   |        Top          |
   |Left   Center   Right|
   |       Bottom        |
   +---------------------+
   |adjaced | hor spread |
   |stacked | vert spread|
   +---------------------+
- already requested: dockable tools
- how do i join two two arrows: ie how do i get a connection point
  at the end of an arrow? This was discussed in
  http://mail.gnome.org/archives/dia-list/2005-November/msg00043.html
  but I dont understand what Lars meant.
    My suggestion would be to have a shape that is no more than
  a connection point (and if necessary a "dot" that blends in with
  attached shapes/lines). This sounds easy but I dont know how easy it
  is to implement.
- how do i join an arrow to the somewhere on a zigzag, poly or
  bizier? I could create a mini-shape (but i cant move this
  minishape, as i would stretch it by click+drag)...
  ex:
      +--+--+          +--+--+
      +text1+---+      +text2+
      +--+--+   |      +--+--+
                |         |       +--+--+
                +---------+------>+text3+
                                  +--+--+
- Trapezoids aligned using "centered" produce angled connecting arrows:
      +--+--+          +---+-+
       +text1+          +text2+    note :
        +--+--+          +-+---+   the conn.points are not
           /      vs       |       at regular intervals in
          /                |       the "nicer" right example.
      +--+--+          +---+-+     Is this possible?
       +text1+          +text2+
        +--+--+          +-+---+
  This looks rather "unclean" -- I assume I could change the shape
  file but I haven't had time to look into such work. Ideas?
- Beziers are immensly powerful. What exactly do symmetric/
  smooth/cusp control do? -- did I miss that in the documentation?
- Documentation, in section Customisation talks about menu
  File->Preferences ? I first thought I don't have that menu then
  realised it meant the menu on the main toolbar rather than the
  currently opened file. Maybe this could be a bit clearer?
- the suggestions for a more functional "Diagram tree" as in
  http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=103987
  would be great. especially showing layers
- the suggestions for easier layer management as in
  http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59105
  would be equally useful. this _could_ be combined with the
  diagram tree (above) -- but I'm too new to this project
  to understand how things inter-relate.

Other stuff
- file > save/open: could '.dia' be added as extension by default?
  could there be a file filter for .dia files in the file > open
  dialog?
- Opera[2] supports SVG but opening a SVG exported
  from Dia results in huge text (and an error: "Warning: The svg
  root element has not opened the svg namespace.") -- I presume
  this is an Opera bug. any ideas?


I'm sure there is more, but this is discouraginly long as it is. I hope  
you take my comments in a positive way: I think Dia is a very neat program  
and am happy to work with it. (Whether my work mates will allow me to use  
it is another thing...)

thanks for your time and patience,
  Mischa

[1] http://www.google.com/search?q=flow+chart+open+source
[2] web browser -- http://www.opera.com

--
Mischa Oliver Altmann

personal website: http://www.altmann.at/~mischa

A: 13 Bentley Grove
   Leeds, LS6 4AT
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