Re: XFig vs. dia 5:1

[Alan Horkan <horkana tcd ie>]

On Sun, 14 Jul 2002, ml wrote:

> while I like dia more than XFig because of it's cool GTK+

> 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.

i assume you did find the dashed lines feature which is set from the
bottom of the toolbox window.

> 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.

a script/plugin to do a bit of post processing might be an appropriate
workaround.  cant help you with this one.

> 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.

Group resize
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59880
(if dia used the votes feature in bugzilla i would vote for this)

and
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59881
i think this is a duplicate, i would appreciate if some one with the
necessary bugzilla permission would look at it
(or even better would be if the developers would increase my bugzilla
permssions).

> 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.

when you say libraries i assume you mean the Sheets of pre existing Shapes
as opposed to libraries of the .so and .dll variety.

i vaguely recall someone pointing out an Xfig to SVG converter
and Steffen was working on SVG import although i dont know if he still is.
(if dia used the votes feature in bugzilla i would vote for this too)

Any shapes in particular?  I like drawing new shapes for Dia when i am
not too busy.

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

If you can reproduce these crasher bugs please file them in
bugzilla.gnome.org
If you can run a debugger and send (as a link not as an attachment)
stack traces i am fairly sure Cyrille said he was willing to look at
them.

> 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+? :-)

interoperability might be a better way to spend coding effort but to each
his own, good luck if you do decide to port it.  "XFig versus Dia" this is
not a fight, if both work well together and both allow people to get stuff
done and choose the best software for the job then we all win.  (i am
probably taking you too literally).

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://matrix.netsoc.tcd.ie/~horkana/