Re: Dia development info

[Steve Litt <slitt troubleshooters com>]

On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 15:28:34 -0400
Alejandro Imass <aimass yabarana com> wrote:

> The move to GTK3 and general modernization is a good idea, BUT...
>
> Is it too crazy to take the core values of DIA and think about a
> collaborative and/or Web-based version? 

Not at all. Quickly whip up a tool to easily place a git server at one
or more places, and shellscripts to:

1) Create a new git "project" for the particular drawing

2) Keep pushing and pulling updates every few seconds, and refresh the
   dia screen accordingly.

3) Because different people use different dia versions and setups,
   every push would need to be filtered through a dia native format
   beautifier, which would guarantee lines begin and end at the same
   points, and date and version-based changes are minimized. A minimum
   and maximum version number could be enforced.

When I say "shellscript" I include "Powerscript" for Windows users.

You could whip this up in a few days. So could I, if I had the desire.
Collaboration would be near-realtime, and yet the Dia we all know and
love would remain constant.

[snip]

> For mainstream use, collaboration and the seamless integration with
> other widely used tools such as Attlasian Confluence is essential.

The preceding sentence is an opinion. My opinion is that I've never
heard of "Attlasian Confluence", but I still do the essentials of
diagramming.

> The concept of stand-alone desktop tools is rapidly fading, at least
> IMHO.

True to a significant degree. And directly because of that truth, here
are some other things that are rapidly fading:

* Software use without advertisements or fees.

* Software use without worries of backdoors or "phone-home"
  capabilities.

* Software use without agreeing to a 10,000 word TOS including a
  lose-the-house level indemnification clause.

* Software use without person/vendor communications allowing, in spite
  of the CAN-SPAM Act, the vendor to send spam to the person for
  18 months or something like that, because of the "business
  relationship" between person and vendor.

* Software use without somebody genius enough to set up the server (in
  case one wants to get rid of the preceding few fading points).

As it stands right now, if I want to diagram I just open dia and work.
And if I needed to share, the only necessary addition would be a simple
git server setup and a small, simple suite of shellscripts and/or
Python to interface between dia and git.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
August 2019 featured book: Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
http://www.troubleshooters.com/28