Re: Creating new shapes with "extra"properties

[Hans Breuer <hans breuer org>]

At 02.12.2009 21:45, Sarah Mount wrote:
> Is it possible when creating a new shape to create new properties that
> go with that shape?
Yes, documented in http://git.gnome.org/cgit/dia/tree/doc/custom-shapes

> For example, would it have been possible to
> implement the UML - Class shape in XML?
No, there are many shapes implemented in XML - where the above mentioned 
documentation does apply. Some other "shapes" are called objects, because 
they are implmented in C. UML - Class is one of them. (Actually the bare 
metal below the shape facility also is implemented in C. See objects/custom)

> If not, is it possible to "give" a new shape extra properties by
> defining a Python plugin which would pop up a dialog box asking the
> user to enter values for each custom property?
It depends. If for your use case an extra menu entry and an extra dialog is 
acceptable, you could use the currently hidden facility to store arbitrary 
string dictionaries (key,value pairs) with the every Dia object.
See e.g.: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/dia-list/2009-March/msg00099.html

My dot2dia.py script makes some use of it, see: 
http://git.gnome.org/cgit/dia/tree/plug-ins/python/dot2dia.py

-------- Hans "at" Breuer "dot" Org -----------
Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to
get along without it.                -- Dilbert