On Wednesday 10 December 2003 13:10, Nathan Hurst wrote:
G'Day! Peter and I have been working on a new grids and guides idea which extends the control handle idea of Dia and Visio 'correctly' (We can justify this claim quite strongly). There is a test bed version of it at:
http://bowman.csse.monash.edu.au/~pmoulder/guides-LATEST.tar.gz
To run it you will need python-gtk2 and python-numeric (also called numpy).
Please run it and tell us if the behaviour feels right - it is easier to try variations whilst the code is python, rather than C++ (although it is easier to know whether the behaviour feels right once we implement it in inkscape proper)
Feel free to ask questions about our intentions, and suggest extensions that would be helpful. Clearly the prototype is but a taste of what can be done with this new approach (We have several whiteboards worth of ideas to implement :), but it is important to work out the basic interface now.
Guides/grid/snapping are killer features... thanks for investigating in this field !
In particular, what do people think about the two tools behaviour?
Little lost at first try but getting back and 3 minutes of more "methodic" test later it seems to be good...
Should this be folded into a modifier key on the selection tool? Can it be done well with only one tool? Is the breaking of constraint behaviour (which control point disconnects when you move something) reasonable, or can you suggest a better heuristic? (Currently the rule that is broken is chosen arbitrarily, perhaps it would be better to break the oldest created relationship, or perhaps the least recently moved?)
Seems like this is going to be the hot point ! For sure, it's what lost me at first try, but feel like for dumbies like me, arbitrarity (english ? :-P) is not so good as, from definition, it's not predictable and makes anticipating the way you're going to draw quite impossible.
What do people think of the indicators for how control points are connected to guide lines and guide points? Suggestions?
AFAIC... excellent !
In case you're wondering, our intent is to provide Dia level diagraming support, as well as strong CAD type design elements. Some things which From architectural CAD point of view, it would be very nice to be able to get
rid of orthogonality. I mean: - set the angle between "vertical" and "horizontal" grid lines (instead of 90°) - set the angle of angle of "vertical" and "horizontal" guides
we know how to do, but haven't added include: adjustable spacers, enforced alignment and distribution, clipart with programable control handles (like visio), and many other goodies :)
Still have to check Visio to understand more clearly what's in your brilliant minds
BTW, subscribed to this list as soon as I discovered yall had forked from Sodipodi and didn't got time to wish Inkscape my bests... so that's done now ! ;-) Hope I'll find time to build Inkscape this week and report my feelings.
Best regards
Tarax
PS: Just leading my first fights with programming and Python, let me thank you, Peter and Nathan, for providing such an "example" graphics Python/GTK app :-))) Spéciales dédicaces !