Hi again,
looking at pathscatter.py, I got some questions concerning the programming of (path-modifying) python extensions:
1) Is it possible to use more or less the same code in a standalone script? And/or what is your preferred way of developing extensions, i.e. reload the module etc.?
2) The code seems to use many helper functions from modules in the "extensions" directory, for example in the "bezmisc" module. I was surprised to see that they are all based on pure Python. Wouldn't it be more convenient and efficient to have (more of) inkscapes C routines available? (For instance, there must already be code for beziers, for computing point/slope at t, converting to parameter form etc.)
3) Along the same lines: The code (e.g. in bezmisc) does not seem to make use of any special classes, but handle point-by-point as coordinate pairs. AFAICS it would be much more efficient to at least make use of numpy, e.g. for polygonal coordinate data.
4) Is it possible to query the length of a path? Actually, I have searched for this functionality already in the GUI itself, but could not find it. Did I overlook something? For pathscatter, it could be useful to preview the number of copies that would fit along the path, for instance.