Re: Diashapes 0.2.2 released

[Steffen Macke <sdteffen gmail com>]

Hi Roland,

On 08/27/2010 03:33 PM, Roland Stigge wrote:
> needing to synchronize with external shape repositories when getting dia
> files from "friends".
>
>   
I'm not suggesting that you get it from "friends". I hope to provide a
service that makes it extremely easy for everyone to get those shapes
from the Dia Shape Repository.
> separate them from official dia shapes, e.g. "Other sheets" -> "Extra"
> -> "..."
>   
Given the amount of sheets available, this sounds like a good idea.
Patches are welcome.
> Further, I often read the opinion that by providing the open shape
> interface, we empower users to create their own shapes. In practice, I
> observe that only a very small percentage of users actually "draw" their
>   
True. But that's a little bit of a hen and egg problem: Why should the
ordinary user do this if there's no chance for him to distribute his
shapes? I just try to look at who is able to create
shapes - in my eyes virtually any Dia user - and try to encourage them.
It's my vision to raise that percentage of users. Yes, we can.
> own shapes - they are no vector graphics designers and won't even find
> the diashapes installer themselves if I don't give them a hint.
>   
True. But what keeps us from making Diashapes more prominent (or
bundling it with Dia)?
> Regarding the concern that additional shapes create package bloat: The
> currently freely available sheets are ~120k, whereas dia is ~8900k, both
> gzip compressed. That's only about 1.3 percent growth... :-)
>   
True. But what's the number of shapes that made it into Dia during the
lifetime of Diashapes compared to the number of shapes in the Dia shape
repository. And once again: what about the quality/backwards
compatibility issue? Once we've got things in the Dia package, they're
"written in stone". Having them on a second level allows us to apply
some finishing touches before we move them to Dia. It also allows us to
see if things are really popular enough to shift them to the Dia package.

If you create a little shape and would like to share it, do you want to
wait for next Dia release? Or keep nagging "where's the release, I want
to share my shape"?

Again: I'm not opposed to packaging and also not opposed to packaging
more shapes into Dia. If you want to merge the shapes from the Dia Shape
Repository straight away, go ahead. But please stand up if there are
problems due to this decision.

Regards,

Steffen