XFig vs. dia 5:1

[ml <ml knorke in-berlin de>]

Hi,

while I like dia more than XFig because of it's cool GTK+
GUI, there are some features I miss desperately.  Maybe I
just don't know, how to use dia rightly:

1. Hatches: XFig has all kind of lines and other patterns
   to fill shapes with.  In many cases this is better than
   using colours, e.g. if it is for printing and no colour
   printer available.  I did not find any hatches in dia.

2. LaTeX special fonts: XFig allows to mark text as
   "special".  If exported to "Combined PS/LaTeX (both
   parts)" the result can be included in a LaTeX document
   while all fonts are the normal LaTeX fonts.  This
   makes the resulting DVI look very consistent.  I did
   not find this feature in dia.

3. Resizing of groups: XFig allows compound objects (or
   groups in dia jargon) to be resized.  I don't need to
   explain why this is good :-)  I didn't manage to resize
   groups in dia.

4. Libraries: XFig has some interesting element libraries,
   much like dia, but different.  I don't know whether one
   import them in dia, but that would be nice.

5. Stability: XFig is (at least for me) a little bit more
   stable than dia.

Maybe these are some suggestions for dia, maybe some of the
functions are already there (but I did find them), or maybe
one could port good ol' XFig to GTK+? :-)

Cheers!