RE: DIA PLUGIN

[Lars Clausen <lars raeder dk>]

On Mon, 2007-09-24 at 11:14 +0200, Cordoba MuÃoz, Oscar (ITP) wrote:
> Thanks for the answer,
> I will try to change dynamically the file ~/.dia/pluginrc. I will be happy if it works.

> I wrote more than one year ago and explained that I am using dia as a
> tool for building physical models rather than only making beautiful
> pictures. For that purpose there are C++ plug-ins where the user
> describes the physics behind the icon that is dragged and dropped in
> the dia kanvas. Once the user double clicks in one icon appears a
> dialog to insert what he defined as input in the physical description
> of an icon. The user who describes the modelling properties of an icon
> does not know anything related to dia and that is because I wrote
> another plug-in that makes that works. This special plug-in needs to
> be loaded before any other. So far I have linked the special plug-in
> when building the others, but it will not happen any more. I have
> already found a solution for my problem, so do not worry about this.
> As the plug-ins loading order is very OS dependant, I have changed the
> way to load and the code checks if the special plug-in was loaded
> before, otherwise is dynamically done. Hope it serves as an answer.

Ok, so the loading is not a problem anymore.  Is the dialog popped up a
properties dialog or something else?

> I wonder if I can review issues that were not solved in the past. I
> need to identify each specific connection point within a component
> when making connections in dia diagrams. Long time ago I sent you an
> easy piece of code to do that. Will it be possible to get that in
> future versions?

Feel free to bring it up, I've had periods where I didn't answer mail
that ought to be answered simply due to real life pressure.  I take it
you're referring to this part:

> For some plug-ins would be interesting that when the user places the
> pointer over a connection a brief description or keyword appears
> showing information. I have found one option for dia developers to be
> considered in following versions. Perhaps a different alternative
> would be much better. Anyway, I would like to ask you to include this
> feature in following versions. 

That is an interesting feature.  Since the name is not used at the
moment, it doesn't interfere with other objects.  Your code has the name
turn up in the statusbar, which I don't think is necessarily the best,
I'd actually suggest a tooltip-like popup.  But I don't see any
fundamental problem with having a way to show the name.  I guess the
next thing will be a description field:)  

> I do not know if you are interested in the use of dia I usually do. If
> the answer is yes, please let me know and I will give you further
> details. 

While it's an interesting way to use Dia, it seems to go somewhat
outside Dia's primary purpose, so there's limits to what I'd tweak Dia
to support for it.  But I'd love to hear more details, and it'd be great
if you could put them up on the Dia Wiki (you can just make a page off
of http://live.gnome.org/Dia/Examples) -- there may be others out there
looking for how to do that kind of thing.

-Lars