Just a few quick questions

[R P Herrold <herrold owlriver com>]

On Sat, 29 Sep 2001, Alexander Larsson wrote:

> I got this to my private address. Forwarding to list.

ooohhh ... list traffic.  Have I got questions.  I have
reviewed the FAQ and the websites listed below, and have a
couple of questions.

----------------------

I've been running dia-0.88 and love it -- but there are always
'nits'.  I looked for a Bugzilla to file a crash I had, and
for filing RFE's both at http://www.lysator.liu.se/~alla/dia/
and http://www.gnome.org/gnome-office/dia.shtml ... I have
probably overlooked some obvious link, but that's never
stopped me from making mistakes before.  <smile>


RFE 1.  On the crash, I left it running for 48 hr when I was
called unexpectedly away from the office, and upon returning,
as I went to use it, it cored.  Implies a memory leak in some
event loop.  No big deal.  I should have saved before walking
away.

But then, I thought, programs are supposed to protect their
users; why _not_ have the program commit a well-known named
temporary file (.dia-backup.N) for open drawings every N
minutes (configurable), and remove it/them when a Save, a
SaveAs, or an Exit discarding changes is taken.

Upon starting, check for that well known name (possibly
suffixed 1 through M if multiple drawings were open at crash),
and left behind.  Word Perfect 5.1 (geez - ten years ago) was
smart enough to protect its users.

... and if found offer to re-cover by opening them; if
declined, discard them.


RFE 2.  The alignment of 'connection links' is tough for me --
I am over 40, and my eyes and hands are starting to be not as
sharp as they once were.

Can a feature be added to cause the available 'target'
connection points 'light up' within a given radius (or easier
to code +/- h+v box around the dragged end) of pixel's as an
endpoint is dragged near them?  Dragging connection wiring on
a schematic, with a faint target is too touchy for me to do
reliably.


RFE 2a.  It would be neat if the 'nearest' one was 'magnetic'
when, say, a Shift key was pressed and the interior mouse
button released, as well.  Sort of a 'snap to' for linking.


RFE 3.  Default paper paper preference options.  For the life
of me, I cannot not see how to set it as a global Dia option
[i.e., letter, portrait] so that it does not need to be re-set
at the start of each drawing.  Could one exist or be more
obvious?


RFE 4.  _Is_ there a Bugzilla?  My particular thought is that
it might also be used for submitting custom shapes with the
file upload tool, as well.  The doco at
http://www.lysator.liu.se/~alla/dia/faq.html#AddingShapes is a
bit unclear on the procedure for submitting a collection.

Also, the op-amp in the electric component shapes is 'upside
down' with the + input on top, as I code with OpAmps, and
reverse from the Don Lancaster work on the subject -- probably
20 years old by now, but the one I 'cut my teeth' with.

-- Russ Herrold