Re: [Re-posting] Adding object-specific properties to custom objects

["Marco Contenti" <m contenti libero it>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Horkan" <horkana@maths.tcd.ie>
To: <dia-list@gnome.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 5:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Re-posting] Adding object-specific properties to custom
objects


> I'd really like to see some sort of generalised name value pairs, which is
> pretty close to what you seem to be doing.
> I'd like for it to be possible for uses to select an object and add as
> many of these name/value pairs as possible.
this is not exactly what I mean, I'd like that each object of a given type
could allow the user key in a set of values depending on the object type,
e.g. talking about electric schematics, giving each resistor an ID, ohm
value and power rating ("R101, 1 kohm, 1/4W"), with these three attributes
described along with the "resistor" object type, so that whenever you create
a new resistor on your schematic you can fill in these three attributes.

> properties is probably a
> sensible choice, if you can take a look at SVG and or the markup from
> OpenOffice.org and borrow if practical because we will likely want to be
> able to convert Dia to those formats more than any other so keeping new
> stuff similar will help future developers.
names can be changed easily, even at end of development. I think that any
change in file format should be carefully studied and agreed upon before
being incorporated in a standard. I expect some contribution from the
community on this topic.

> Very roughly I'm thinking user/developer types should be able to specify
> metadata like descriptions when creating origninal shape files but that no
> modifications should be happening to shape files by end users and the
> extra information would be stored in the .dia file.  (hope that makes
> sense and if it doesn't I'm sure I'll get a swift beating with the
> cluestick from the developers).
if the object type determines the data (see above), metatdata can't be but
either in .shape files or hard-coded! However, I agree with you not to allow
modifications to shape files by end users. Simply there should be some
user-friendly tool to create and edit shape info, perhaps made by extending
the present shape export filter, or using XSLT, but this is another story...
(I also have a few ideas on this, anyway).

Regards.

Marco