Re: Sanpping objects to grid by middle instead of corner

[Hans Breuer <hans breuer org>]

At 15.08.2010 03:56, Jon Oesterheld wrote:
> Yes I checked the first attempt to answer my question. The out side of
> the shape always snaps by the corner.
>
> Resizing the object so that it aligns with other items that are snapping
> to the grid seems kinda, I don't know...odd.
Aligning the position but not the sizes looks odd to me. But serious:
I think you are rejecting that *working* solution too fast.

> I resize objects so that they fit into the diagram.
And the size of the diagram is determined by what? One of the behaviors of 
Dia is that some (if not most) objects default size is too large to do a 
moderately complex diagram for e.g. A4.

But instead of resizing every object to some better size it is much easier 
to adjust the page scale.

> I think of 'Snap To Grid' as just that.
Yes. And my proposal was to snap to grid not only one point of the object 
but two or more.

> I appreciate that patches are excepted and I would provide them if I
> knew how.
First of all a viable approach to solve the problem needs to be found (aka. 
requirements engineering;) Than some coding skills would be required.

> How about this, is there a way to add the alignment features available
> in the properties of the text fields to the shape properties?
All the object specific solutions would probably need a modification *per 
object* (there are around 900 with the default installation last time I 
looked.)
> There it
> is possible to have the text align to the left, center or right (text
> alignment) and top, center or bottom plus first line (vertical text
> alignment) and that works great.
Doing this for just the object you are currently interested in would create 
more inconsistency accross objects, which I'd like to reduce, not increase.
But maybe a 9th handle should be added to every element (similar to the 
adding of the "main point" some years ago; and at the same position).

Still this would be effort for many objects, but the coding skills to do 
that would be moderate. There is one 'prototype' object to test the grid 
snapping of handles again: the "Standard - Ellipse" (which drives me nuts, 
becuase it is woring too differently from all the other objects).

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