eureka!!!!

[Hunter Peress <hu peress mail mcgill ca>]

Dia over gimp. gimp over dia.

To start, simply make dia able to access one/many of the gimp's layers.

Better integration to follow.

How? bonobo: http://developer.ximian.com/articles/whitepapers/bonobo/

For now, it will have to be: use dia-> gimp, since dia is far less
complex. Eventually, gimp might support reverse bonoboing.

Please say you understand the magic. Dia is young, starting bonobo now
is excellent! Im emailing the gimp people shortly after we confer a
little here. we have the chance to make dia THE drawing sublayer to
gimp.

Basic idea:
  -full bonobo support on dia end. 
  -access dia as a layer of a gimp image.
  -be able to use full gimp features on dia as if its an image.

Heres where its not so basic:
  when you make a change to dia how is it reflected in gimp
  either:
    -send gimp knowledge of each object and treat each object as a
     a selection in gimp
    or:
    -need other ideas here. 

I'll help but I know nothing about bonobo currently. everyone should try
to attract some bonobo knowledgable people.

Lets do this!
-Hunter.