Just to join the brainstorm: maybe we could look at the autocad way of dealing with things here? AutoCad uses (used?) a DOS-like command bar on the bottom of the screen, where you could enter coordinates directly. For example, if you want do draw a line, you can just click on two different places in the screen, and the line would be created. But, you could also use this command-line instead. First clicking the line icon, then clicking this bar, then entering (for example)
5,5 [enter] 10,20 [enter] But,...
One could also input
5,5 [enter] @5,15 [enter]
Where the "@" would indicate relative coordinates compared to the previous point.
Also, AutoCad would give you the oppurtunity to enter
0,0 [enter] @20<10
Creating a line 20 millimeters long at an angle of 10 degrees.
I am not saying that we should implement it in exactly this way, but the @-way of thinking might help?
Maarten
-----Original Message----- From: inkscape-user-bounces@lists.sourceforge.net [mailto:inkscape-user-bounces@lists.sourceforge.net] On Behalf Of Alexander Roalter Sent: 2. juli 2007 14:08 To: Inkscape User Community Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] A question about node positioning.
Aaron Spike wrote:
Alexander Roalter wrote:
In addition to such input/spinboxes, is there any chance these input boxes could learn some basic mathematics (like +,-,/ and * and parenthesis), which would be really great, as otherwise you always have to use a calculator to place e.g. objects equal distances left and right of say a vertical line.
You're asking to move whole objects, which is quite a bit different from moving single points. I think it will take some major UI creativity to put such a feature in a toolbar. Perhaps a textual notation like you suggest. How will you distinguish between negative movement and coordinates that are already negative? There are already a number of ways to move whole objects available. The align and distribute dialog and the transformation dialog may be used together to achieve what you want. You can use the align dialog to make sure the object is positioned exactly upon the line, and then use the transformation dialog to specify the relative movement for the offset
of the object.
w/ align dialog and transformation, sure this can be achieved (and I'm trying to use these functions to get to the results I want). Still this requires careful planning beforehand, whilst with positions I could select an object, give it the x-coordinate 10, and the other object -10-375.223 (if 375.223 is the width of the object), and both objects would be distant 10 from the vertical line at 0. But you're right. I could create an object which serves as reference and has its left border exactly at 0, and use it to help align both other objects to it, and then move them apart...
As for the input line in toolbars, I thought more of a c like syntax (as you would type in any program). There are plenty of flex/yacc defintions out there defining how such an arithmetic input line has to be implemented. They teach this in sophomore year at Computer Science. Maybe I can cram up some of my old notes...
-- cheers, Alex
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