Re: Feature proposal: custom connection point method

[Michael Ross <michael e ross gmail com>]

I am with you on the "solution space."  But I thought telling a story about it might be more persuasive, and encourage others to chime in.

My first remembrance of this desire is to make a variable resistor on the fly.  We have nice resistor shapes, if I could pop a couple connection points onto it to attach a zigzig with an arrow, I could just move on to the next thing. 

It is a convenience.  You can't expect the author of a shape to have the same connection needs as the users.  I would find this useful with many of the technical shapes - hydraulic symbols, chem E, etc.  

If this was slick and easy then authors wouldn't have to put a buynch of extra CPs in their shapes.

There are probably better ways that fit with programming needs, but I have to leave the solution space to others.

Thanks for your attention,

Mike

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 10:56 AM, Hans Breuer <hans breuer org> wrote:

At 02.10.2011 05:30, Michael Ross wrote:

Salutations,

I had a discussion with Cedar about a new feature. Cedar asked me to try to
describe it to the forum.

It is a recurring theme of sorts where people want shapes to have
connections points (CP) that were not placed in the shapes by the author.

Before jumping to the solution space, I think it is important to undestand the problem, which frankly I do not.
At the moment I can't remember any case, where I wanted to add arbitrary connections points. At least not after the addition of the "whole object connection point", aka. mainpoint. [1]

So please describe the use case where additional connection points are deemed to be necessary. Maybe even with a sample diagram illustrating the problem.

It would be nice to have a way to add connection points to any shape.  I
think of this as an on the fly option - you do it on a whim.

>From the implementation point of view I would be also interested in the requested subset of DiaObjects to have dynamic conection points. (If that subset would include "UML - Class" I see exploding complexity, because UML - Class already has dynamic connection points by attributes and methods lists.)

I imagine calling up the Properties, the pick the new Custom Connection

Point (CCP) [...] just trying to sell the idea.

If I would design the custom connection point feature it most certainly would be started from the context menu, similar to Polygon's "Add Corner".
Given the right subset of DiaObjects it should not be too difficult to add this feature, I think. I can give more detailed pointers to someone interested in giving it a try, but dont plan to do this myself.

I have a laborious work around that I came up with.  I create a polygon and
arrange the points and valleys where I want connections, then I turn the
polygon line color to the background color.  All that remains visible then
is the CPs.  This polygon can be grouped with any shape to provide
additional CP locations.  Or I can develop the polygon over top of the shape
I am enhancing.

What shapes need such treatments. If these are specific ones maybe extra connection points should be added at the source for the benefit of all?

This is better than my previous overuse of the annoying CP in the Electric
sheet.

I thought this wo be a work-around of connecting two lines, which seems to be a completely sparated problem?

Regards,
       Hans

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

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