Re: Math shapes?

[Lars Clausen <lars raeder dk>]

On Sat, 2006-11-11 at 13:20 -0800, Rob McDonald wrote:
> Would it be worthwhile revisiting the concept of a LaTeX-based text
> renderer?  Text in Dia could be based on the normal, built-in fonts,
> or on a LaTeX renderer.
>
> For on-screen work, Dia would fork a LaTeX process to generate bitmaps
> for the text display.  A similar procedure would work for each of the
> output formats.  High resolution bitmaps, eps, pdf, or just plain
> LaTeX for MetaPost and PsTricks.

That's a lot nicer solution.  I gave it some thought once, and there
shouldn't be a problem in getting appropriate bitmaps out of LaTeX.
Just cache them like images, and they're fine.  The text editing would
probably have to be in the properties dialog for now, until I get around
to embedding proper GtkEntry widgets in the canvas.

> This would instantly give Dia all the text rendering (formulas, etc)
> power of LaTeX.
>
> > From my point of view, the major hurdle is finding a small LaTeX
> distribution which can be embedded with Dia.  Alternatively, you can
> hook into the user's already installed LaTeX.  While there are a lot
> of distributions, working with TeTeX (Unix) and MiKTeX (Windows) would
> cover 99% of users.  (MiKTeX is being ported to Unix, it has some nice
> features and may come to dominate that side as well)

Definitely don't want to embed a LaTeX in Dia.  There should just be an
option to specify path and options.  I would in fact rather not have to
explicitly support any particular TeX distribution.

-Lars