On Wed, 8 Mar 2000, Jamie Zawinski wrote:
> Hi there, I've just started using Dia, and I think it's great!
> It does almost everything I needed, and was pretty easy to figure
> out. I do have a few suggestions/complaints, though:
>
> - My menu keybinding changes are not saved across sessions (that is,
> when I type a key on a menu item to change the accelerator.)
I guess we could use the code in gimp that does this. If dia is compiled
with gnome support, gnome-libs takes care of this.
>
> - I really want to be able to resize grouped objects.
Currently resizing is handled on a per object type basis in the callbacks
for movement of a handle. This would probably require adding another
object method for resizing in order to get it working correctly.
>
> - I really want freehand rotation of grouped objects. And mirroring.
I have been looking at doing server size rotation of fonts, which will be
needed. I think it would probably be possible to implement rotation of
objects with a filter between the real renderer and what the object uses
to render itself.
>
> - I really want non-rectangular opaque shapes (e.g., closed filled
> poly-lines.)
These shouldn't be too difficult to add. The primitives are already
available in the rendering code -- there just isn't a polyline object to
take advantage of yet.
>
> - There doesn't seem to be a way to set the default line thickness or
> the default line/fill colors. Actually I think it would be good if
> when I added a new line/box, it had the parameters of the last one
> that I added (so if I make a box yellow, then add another box, it
> will be yellow by default.)
You can set the default line thickness, line style, colours and arrows
from the toolbox. Maybe it would be good to save those default values
between sessions.
>
> - When I'm in the color selector, I should be able to click on another
> object (or, even better, any pixel on the screen) and use the color
> I pointed at.
Dia uses the standard GTK colour selector widget, so this is probably best
suggested to the GTK guys.
>
> - Having to click Ok twice to change the color of an object -- once
> in the color selector, then again in the properties dialog -- is a
> hassle.
>
> - I've wanted "Copy Layer" a few times. And "Select All."
>
> - There should be a middle-button menu on image objects for setting
> the image file: it took me a while to figure out that you did this
> by double-clicking on the image icon before creating one.
>
> - I'd like finer control of the grid: for example, I'm making some
> maps, and I'd like to see grid cells numbered for each square foot,
> but I'd like objects to snap to every six inches. I guess what I
> really mean is that I'd like the "snap" grid and the "visible" grid
> to be different. The rulers should track the "visible" grid.
Good idea.
>
> - The Properties dialog should always display the props of the selected
> item: it's confusing that it gets out of sync with the item I'm
> currently manipulating.
This also sounds like a good idea. What do others think?
>
> - The cursor keys should scroll the window.
>
> - Shouldn't the "Save As" and "Export" dialogs be the same thing?
Currently dia can only open files saved in dia's native format, so in a
way having the two options is there to prevent people creating a nice
diagram and saving it in CGM or EPS and finding they can't edit it again.
>
> - The ability to read Illustrator files would be great. Dia doesn't
> know what to make of the few EPS files I tried.
Apparently sketch (http://sketch.sourceforge.net/) can import illustrator
EPS files. If you want to try that one out, it is probably best to go
with the 0.6.x version, since the 0.7.x development versions are a bit
sparse featurewise, as Bernhard is converting it over to using gtk.
>
> Well, that's about all I can think of for now. Thanks for a cool
> program!
Thanks for your suggestions.
>
> --
> Jamie Zawinski [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.jwz.org/
>
James.
