Re: UML and Fonts when changing monitor resolution

["Cameron S. Watters" <cam-listsubs h2os org>]

BAH> > I've been using dia 0.88.1 for a short while now and have been pretty
BAH> > happy with it. Recently, I had to adjust my monitor's resolution in X from
BAH> > 1600x1200 to 1280x1024. When I did so, all of my UML diagrams went wonky
BAH> > on me. None of the connection lines lined up correctly (some would
BAH> > magically go back into place when I selected one of the objects) and many
BAH> > of my class labels exceeded the width of the actual class shape/box.
BAH>
BAH> To solve the problem of lines ending up "disconnected", perhaps you can use
BAH> the same workaround that I outlined in an answer on 2002-01-21 to
BAH> eg_lwkae@stu.ust.hk in the thread "Predict the size of a UML class".
BAH>
BAH> Not a perfect solution, but it works reasonably well...

I saw that. This is the lesser of my two problems as Dia seems to do what
you describe pretty well if I make sure the lines actually attach to the
connection points of the various objects. The only problem is that when
switching between resolutions, some objects have to be moved slightly in
order for the connection lines to remain straight (i'm anal ok?).

BAH> > Any suggestions for a solution to this problem? I've read in the archives
BAH> > that fonts seem to be an issue. Is there any way to lie to Dia about the
BAH> > fonts that are there?
BAH>
BAH> What about scaling the entire diagram down to a lower factor? This should
BAH> cause smaller fonts to be selected as well.

My document was built scaled down to 25. Also, changing the scale doesn't
seem to do anything for me on screen WRT font size. It just makes the page
borders on the background move.

New question (which may be beyond the scope of questions that people care
to answer on this list):

I tried exploring the font system in the source to figure out how to fool
it into using different fonts without recompiling, but wasn't able to find
anything conclusive. Maybe redefining all of the font mapping in font.c
and then a recompile would solve my problem? Or alternatively, is there an
area of the source that I could modify the calculation done by the
umlclass object that determines it's width? It's obviously basing this
determination on some assumptions about how fonts are rendered (and they
happen to be wrong for my setup). If I could modify the math it's doing, I
might be able to approach something more accurate for my system.

I realize this is a horrible hack that wouldn't necessarily be portable
across releases of the software, but it's kind of annoying. Also, is there
a way to recompile just the uml objects' library without recompiling all
of dia? That sure would make playing with this a lot easier.

Or just tell me to bug off if this question is beyond the scope of the
list.

--cameron