Re: Unresolved questions

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004, Lars Clausen wrote:

> Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 21:23:29 +0200
> From: Lars Clausen <lars raeder dk>
> Reply-To: discussions about usage and development of dia
>     <dia-list gnome org>
> To: discussions about usage and development of dia <dia-list gnome org>
> Subject: Re: Unresolved questions
>
> On Thu, 2004-08-12 at 20:34, Jim Clark wrote:
> > I am:
> > 1) A new list member
> > 2) A neophyte flowcharter
> > 3) A Linux very-un-power user
> > 4) Quite familiar with GIMP
> > 5) Not a programmer in any way
> > 6) Using Dia 0.93 on RH 9
> >
> > -> When showing my boss the beauties of Dia, he wondered about a
> > dropshadow on the chart, which the flowcharts he has been given as
> > models have. We can live without it, but I see the discussion came up
> > two years ago and disappeared. Is there a way to do it, either
> > exporting as a layered image or a transparent png or within the
> > program itself? (I notice the splashscreen has a drop shadow.)
>
> There's not really an easy way to do it.  The splashscreen is an
> artistic impression:)  A way to make the background of PNGs (optionally)
> transparent would be nice.  It shouldn't be impossible, but I can't see
> the right way to do it (in lib/dialibartrenderer.c or app/export_png.c).

Ideally (and I know I do a bit too much idealism and not enough code) we
would have an Import/export section to the preferences dialog and we would
have a suitable place to set these options.  There would also be an
"Options" button on the file chooser so that users could configure these
options quickly if they need to, without forcing using to see an
unnecessary dialog every time they save.

Perhaps we could give some greater meaning to the layers, and if the
background layer is removed then the background would be treated as
transparent?  I guess I've been using the gimp a lot recently to be
thinking this way, so it is not necessarily a great idea but I thought I'd
throw it out there anyway.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
http://advogato.org/proj/OpenClipArt.org/