Re: newbie questions

[Andrew Hall <ahall coxnews com>]

Alan,

Thank you very much!  I just needed to click on the Assorted menu, or
look close and see the arrows by it.  I will see if I can track down the
help issue and get back to you. 

Drew

On Wed, 2003-05-28 at 15:22, Alan Horkan wrote:
> On 28 May 2003, Andrew Hall wrote:
> 
> > Date: 28 May 2003 14:38:01 -0400
> > From: Andrew Hall <ahall@coxnews.com>
> > Reply-To: dia-list@gnome.org
> > To: dia-list@gnome.org
> > Subject: newbie questions
> >
> > Greetings,
> >
> > I have a few newbie questions if anyone has the time.
> 
> Sure,
> but to be honest I dont have the time but I like to encourage people to
> use Dia (and help make it better for all of us, I'm selfish like that) so
> I'll do my best to help.
> 
> > 1.  When I add new image, and double click it to define an image file to
> > use, the dialog presented to select an image, keeps dumping me into my
> > home dir.  I must manually go to /usr/X11R6/share/gnome/dia/shapes to be
> > able to select an image.  Any way to get the dialog to remember that
> > location?  Any other way to add an image?
> 
> You are going about this the wrong way, please bear with me if my
> explanation is too pedantic.
> 
> Assuming you are running Dia 0.91 (not that it makes a huge difference)
> there is the toolbox window and the document window.
> 
> You can click on the buttons on the toolbox to select a shape you want to
> draw such as a Rectangle, Elipse, Polygon, Line and so on.
> 
> If you want to use the predefined shapes you will need to look just
> below the buttons on the toolbox.  In 0.91 there is a label Assorted, and
> below that is displayed a sheet full of basic geometric shapes.  In 0.90
> if i remember correctly Chrongram is the first displayed sheet.  The sheet
> contains more buttons, each being a predefined shape.  Click on on of the
> buttons and then go to the document window and use the mouse to draw a
> copy of one of those shapes.
> 
> 
> 
> Click on the word "Assorted" and you will see that this item is in fact a
> menu.  The menu list all the avialable sheets and there are a good variety
> of shapes available.
> 
> Here is a fairly nice screenshot of Dia which has been changed to use the
> Network sheet (i dont know what language that is but i could probably
> figure it)
> http://linux.nctu.edu.tw/web/moto/screenshots/images/dia-zh.jpg
> 
> > 1.1  What is the difference between a .shape and a .png?  If I select
> > any .shape I receive a broken image message.
> 
> Dia is a Vector Graphics program, programs such as xfig, sketch,
> sodipodi, Adobe Illustrator are also vector graphics programs.
> Vector graphics specify points and lines (.svg, .ai), as opposed to Raster
> graphics programs such as the Gimp, Ms paint which specify the colour and
> location of each and every pixel.
> 
> The insert image tool is for embedding Raster Graphics such as PNG or JPEG
> files in your Dia Drawings.
> 
> The .shape files are definitions of reusable shapes, the toolbox window
> provides a nice and relatively easy way of using this predefined shapes.
> 
> > 1.2  Any images for vendor specific hardware?  I see a cisco directory,
> > but the images in there are not very life like.  Any images for vixel,
> > network applicance, sun etc, etc.
> 
> The images are tiny and only really intended as icons, the Shapes if you
> use them properly are better.
> 
> We dont have extensive lists of Hardware diagrams.
> An interesting approach i saw with Dell equipment was to sign up to the
> Dell Image archive and use the product photos in your diagrams.
> 
> If and when we hook up libwmf for WMF support we should have a better way
> to import these kinds of graphics from other programs.
> 
> > 2.  Help does want not work.  I get the following error:
> 
> Cant help you with this.
> 
> Hope that helps.  If it doesn't then ask again and I'll try and come up
> with a better answer.
> 
> Sincerely
> 
> Alan Horkan
> http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
> 
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