Re: My proposal (Was: Shapes layout proposal)

[Andre Kloss <kloss rbg informatik tu-darmstadt de>]

On 14 Jun 2001, Lars Clausen wrote:

> > 1. Abstraction of subshapes
> Sounds good.  Nothing problematic there.
I'm glad you like it ;)

> > 2. Subshape-Arrays
> With this comes the possibility of multiple levels of nesting and resizing
> based on contents.  Fortunately, there's been a lot of research on that for
> GUIs.  The question is what of it we don't need.  Do we want for instance
> shapes that divide the containers space evenly between them?  
Well, _I_ don't need them. ;) It depends on what is easier to
implement. I think the best solution will be to give the user the most
possibilities to push things to where he wants them.

> > 3. Subshape resizing behaviour
> Also sounds good.  It has always irked me that the UML class is not
> resizable.  And there's no reason why text couldn't resize as well, by
> changing font size (it might not be a fully proportional resize, but the
> shape layout algorithm could take care of that).
This goes in fact beyond the scope of my proposal...but why not? If
someone implements this, fine!

Another point is the behaviour of non-minimal-sized subshapes if a
shape is made smaller. There are some possibilities:
1. Make every subshape smaller if possible
1.1 by the same value (ie. x1=5, x2=27 -> x1'=4, x2'=26
1.2 with the preservation of size relation 
    (ie. x1=6, x2=8 -> x1'=3, x2´'=4, What happens when min(x2)=5?)
2. Take the first subshape and make it as small as needed or possible,
then go to the next and so on until every shape has minimum size.
3. Don't let the user make shapes smaller if it's "filled" with
subshapes. (Zero-implementation)

I think 1.2 is probably the best-looking solution, but It's somewhat
hard to implement, I presume.

> -Lars
cu Andre
-- 
Tolerance rulez, everything else sux! -- Andre Kloss