On Wed, 23 Jun 2004, Trent Buck wrote:
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 11:08:56 +1000 From: Trent Buck <fubarbaz@...104...> Reply-To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] Exporting question
Quoth Bryce Harrington on or about 2004-06-22:
For cartoon work, you may eventually want to do text bubbles.
Maybe this could be expanded into a module kinda like we have already for markers (arrow head & tails).
Generic text bubble tools would be great.
...One thing I'd love to be able to use Inkscape for is Dia/Visio style diagrams. ATM it's a tough decision between a Inkscape's superb interface and a Dia's slightly better flowchat support.
People also praise Dia for its typesetting. Dia already uses Pango and there are a variety of TeX tricks that you do with Dia that I'm assured are very useful and have been used by several book authors. Dia already does layers. Dia has a whole lot of Selection tools, although I expect Inkscape will soon gain many of these features.
I can assure you the Dia developers/maintainers are very receptive to patches.
If you have an interface improvement you would like to make to Dia please do send patches, filing a bug report might also be a good idea but patches are particularly welcome. (Dia has long had the option of a menubar in the document window, even before the GIMP or Inkscape, the developers are more than happy to let users have what the want and let them get the job done).
I jokingly used the subject line "Dia versus Inkscape" but really I'd like to be able to use both and have Dia focus on flow charting and diagramming from preset shapes and have Inkscape for creating original shapes and generally more creative drawing rather than structured diagramming.
I say Dia maintainers because Dia has no where near the amount of active developers that Inkscape has so opportunities for shared infrastructure would benefit both projects. Read on if you are interested in the various ways that you could help if you were interested.
Dia uses a subset of SVG for its Shape files, and if someone helped improve the SVG support in Dia it would make direct interoperability easier or alternatively adding an exporter to Inkscape would be great (authoring shape files in Dia is not fun at all).
Dia can open DXF (autocad) files, and Xfig files, as well as export to DXF, CGM, EPS, HPGL, PNG, TeX, SVG, WPG. If Inkscape were to use/share and help develop any of those libraries it would be of significant benifit to both projects. (Dia for Windows also uses the Windows GDI to export to WMF).
Even better would be a standardised interface for Vector Graphics programs analagous to what GDKpixbuf does for Raster graphics would benefit all GTK applications not just Dia or Inkscape.
It is part of the Inkscape developement roadmap to devolve the Vector Canvas back to GTK. When that happens Dia would be a prime candidate to use it, the rotation features will be particularly welcome as they were something no one particularly wanted to add just for Dia.
I'm sure there are plenty more other ideas I have not mentioned. Unfortunately I have more time and ideas than I do ability to implement them. If you have questions about Dia feel free to ask me offlist and I'll do my best to answer them.
Sincerely
Alan Horkan
Microsoft could shit in a box and most people would buy it.
I've used Microsoft Works too ;)