More MetaPost text positioning.... Was: Dia ChangeLog report for 2006-02-20 04:00:00 UTC (Mon 20 Feb)

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

> --- ChangeLog.previous 2006-02-18 05:00:14.000000000 +0100
> +++ dia-cvs-snapshot/ChangeLog 2006-02-20 05:00:06.664989232 +0100
> @@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
> +2006-02-18  Hans Breuer  <hans breuer org>
> +
> + * plug-ins/metapost/render_metapost.c : text position gives the
> + baseline neither top nor bottom. ( Rob McDonald, #331491 )
> +
> + * plug-ins/wmf/wmf.cpp : finally respecting the print margins
> + ( Rob McDonald, #331371 )
> + * plug-ins/wmf/wmf_gdi.h : some more constants not useful
> + without a GDI printer (driver)
> +
>  2006-02-17  Hans Breuer  <hans breuer org>


Hans,

I'm not sure what final solution you settled on for #331491, but wouldn't
you know it, things seem more nasty than I had thought.... (you probably
came to this conclusion yourself.)

When I try to use a UML diagram, because each of the lines in the middle box
are positioned separately, they end up not being spaced evenly.

It turns out that MetaPost positions text based on the bounding box of that
particular text element.  So, the left, right, top, bottom, etc. commands
are difficult to apply correctly.  I.E. if you position the words: dog cat
sea This puny.  And you try to align them by their tops, bottoms, or
middles, you'll get a zigzag of words.  Some poke down, some poke up, some
do both, and some do neither....

To me this is lousy design of MetaPost, so I'm going to ask for a workaround
in comp.text.tex (If you want to follow any discussion).

If we come to some sort of answer, I'll let you know.  The only solution I
see right now would be to typeset all 'related' text in one shot, that way
it is properly aligned from the start.  Then, it would need to be positioned
all at once.  I'm not a fan of this approach because of its obvious lack of
robustness and general hackish nature.

Thanks,

           Rob

Here is a better link to the MetaPost users manual
http://www.tug.org/tutorials/mp/mpman.pdf