Dia VDX plug-in 0.1

[Ian Redfern <Ian Redfern LogicaCMG com>]

I've been working on a plug-in for Dia to allow it to read Visio VDX
files.

The first version, which works on all my simple test files, is at
http://www.redferni.uklinux.net/dia/vdx - afraid it's very much a
testbed at this point, and the code is, ahem, wildly inelegant.

I have the following problems:

Not enough sample data. If anyone can send me any simple VDX files (with
screenshots of how they ought to look), I'd appreciate them,
particularly ones with text and curves. All mine are Visio 2002, so
modern ones would be good - I only have samp_vdx.vdx for modern Visio,
and that's very complex.

No support for EllipticalArcTo. Visio doesn't seem to use splines; it
uses parts of ellipses. I think Dia's standard arc object can handle
this, but I haven't done the algebra yet, and I need some samples to try
with.

No boxes/polygons/Beziergons/groups yet, just discrete lines. We'll need
this for fills.

No support for Masters (library shapes, borders etc.). A major internal
rewrite is needed for v0.2 to handle this - it's just recursion.

Text positioning is probably wrong - I need some samples to work from.

Export work won't start until I've got import working.

VSD support is still a distant dream - but since the contents are
supposed to be the same as VDX, it makes sense to start with VDX.

I've not done XML parsing in C before, and it shows - I may switch to a
generic string-based internal model, rather than C structures, as it's
much more flexible.

If anyone would like to assist with this, or has advice, they're very
welcome! 
--
Ian Redfern (Ian Redfern LogicaCMG Com)



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