Re: PyDia and Metapost

["Rob McDonald" <robm asdl gatech edu>]

> Sure - if you have Python installed as well as a compiled version of Dia's
> Python bindings (pydia) as well as Gtk+ Python binding (pygtk).
>
> The latter is only required to run Dia Python plug-ins with GUI like
> group_props.py. Other stuff implemented in Python like diasvg(_import).py
> or codegen.py will work without pygtk.

Ok, I'll hack on that for a while...

> Fixing the Metapost plug-in would first require to reproduce the issue on
> a developers machine. One step in that direction would be a complete bug
> report including all the necessary files and steps description to
reproduce
> and understand the bug :
>
>   - sample diagram
>   - sample integration in Latex (command line, tex 'container' file)
>   - suggested (manually modified) .mp output of Dia
>
> Even better would be a thorough analysis of the transfer function for the
> text size. It may be just a linear scale, but it also may depend on the
> diagram size, the TeX environment or something completely different ...

Ok, I'll work on putting together a simple example as well as an analysis of
what I think is going on.

First, a simple question.  What the heck does the font size in Dia mean?
Visually, a font size (cmr10) of 0.30 looks to be about 10pt on screen in
Dia.  It comes out about 18pt in LaTeX through MetaPost.  Also, I think the
positioning issue is as simple as positioning the text using the wrong
vertical reference point (text baseline vs. text box center.)

I would really like a font size that could be deterministically controlled.
Set it to 10pt, have it come out 10pt.  Where 72pt is known to be 1 inch
high.  A font size of 0.30 doesn't mean much to me....

> Being able to compile Dia should be enough:
> http://dia-installer.sourceforge.net/compiling.php

Thats a bit of a handful, I'll see if I can make progress on getting all
that pulled together.

> Not really. But if the info requested above would be available I may be
> interested enough to look into it.

Thanks.  Hopefully I can provide some helpful input.

           Rob