Re: More Shapes: Living Systems Theory

["Ian Smith" <daraknor gmail com>]

I am pretty certain we can do SVG linking by

> Are there any guides for allowing user editable variables in the shape
> definitions? Is it possible to allow a dynamically expanding array of
> values? (Or a collection of objects, each object containing values
> based on the shape type.)

Unfortunately not;  the UML classes would very much like something like
that, too.  The PROP_LIST property is there to handle it, but nobody has
managed to fix up a usable implementation.

We are a nonprofit and currently don't have funds for this. I put my money into the nonprofit rather than take some out, but I might eventually be able to do this. I think prototypes have a higher priority right now. :/ Knowing where to look, I will study the problem for a while. A task like this sounds beyond me and my understanding of Dia, but it really would help. UML would be able to generate much better code from classes I think?

> I would also like to be able to link SVG exported images together per
> the basic standard for xlink. Is there any way to increase the
> attention that these feature requests receive? I recall reading that
> linked documents were very desirable, the SVG output linking should
> only require edits to the exporter and not core engine of dia I think.
> Adding "link" as a property value may be the only necessary
> component.

Would an ext_attribute work for the shapes (assuming somebody adds the
appropriate part to its output for properties named "link")?

 I think that would work great. Being able to create more standardized SVG graphics in general sounds good. Ideally (much later) similar linking functionality will exist in Dia as well, but being able to link images for browsing gives us the ability to output meaningful content. UML would probably benefit from this as well.

--
Ian Smith
SCRI Foundation
Sustainable Civilization Research Institute
http://scrifoundation.org http://sustainametric.blogspot.com
(503) 288-4198