Re: help wanted, trying out a few ideas for post 0.94

[anthonym overture com]

If you are looking into keybindings a couple that I've really wanted
(and vaguely recall existing at some point), are for Group and Ungroup.

It seems that I'm often grouping and ungrouping while moving things
around and hunting through the menu is tedious.

Also, alignment operations might be nice to have in hot keys.

One question for the group, is it possible to access alignment operations
via the python scripting?  I'd love to have a keybinding which would do
the equivalent of aligning 2 objects middle and center.  I often do this
in order to get boxes of text, I'll draw the object, draw the text centered,
then align center and middle (via many menu dives), finally group them.

If the scripting would allow me to automate this sort of action, or if
I've completely missed something and there's some easier way to do it
I'd love to find out.

I think all the keybindings and renamings you mention sound fine.
Looking forward to more keybindings.

-Anthony


On Fri, Jul 16, 2004 at 12:00:31AM +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
> 
> since Dia compiled so nicely I've been trying out a few ideas
> some of which are simple and others that I haven't got working yet but I
> would appreciate help with (help, advice towards figuring it out myself
> as much as possible)
> 
> http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~horkana/dia/menus.c
> I'll provide proper patches later when I've got the ideas sorted out
> 
> the gist of it is, more keybindings [1], some renaming [2] and more menu
> items to take advantage of the features of Dia I have only recently begun
> to appreciate [3].
> 
> [1] I wanted to add keybindings using some of the Function keys (F8, F9)
> but the keybindings for the toolbox seem to be in a differnt context to
> the bindings in the document window, so if the toolbox is out of focus
> they are not much use.
> This fits in with an idea I have that I would like to make the File and
> Help menus in the Toolbox and the Document Window more consistant with
> each other.  I mentioned yesterday that I was hoping to have the recent
> files in both File menus, and although it could be be made optional I'd
> prefer to always put them in a submenu 'Open Recent' (like the Gimp
> does) and keep the file menu uncluttered.  I haven't tried doing this yet
> but I hope it will be easy enough (dont laugh if it is trivial, these
> things are always easy in hindsight when you know how).
> Going against consistancy but following the Gnome Guidelines I added
> Preferences to the bottom of the edit menu and it feels comfortable (and
> i used the letter E as the mnemonic so that you can go Alt,E,E to quickly
> access the preferences even though the Gnome HIG has been misleading
> people to do it differently).
> 
> 
> I added a keybinding for Select, Connected  Ctrl+Shift+T because it is
> similar to Transitive ctrl+T.
> 
> Added Ctrl+R to Show Rulers but I need to lookup how to also allow
> Ctrl+Shift+R to try and placate Gimp users.
> 
> Redraw F5
> Select Invert Ctrl+I
> 
> ... probably a few others I'm forgetting but I'll worry about that when
> I'm making proper patches.
> 
> 
> [2] I renamed Objects to just Object because that seems to be the
> convention when naming menus (File not Files, Image not Images, Layer not
> Layers).
> When I added the keybinding Ctrl+I for Invert it also appeared in the menu
> for the other 'Invert' so I figured I could get away with it by renaming
> the other Invert to Inverse.
> 
> [3] Layers, I have turned around completely from not understanding how
> useful they can be to wanting to use them everywhere.  I have been using
> Layers a lot with the Gimp, I wrote scripts to provide New Layer from
> Cut/Copy that I'm rather proud of which make it very quick and easy to
> create a new layer.  Also Inkscape is working towards
> adding Layers like functionality and I took a closer look at Adobe
> Illustrator.
> I think more people would appreciate the Layers features if they had
> menu items, making them more discoverable and allow them to have
> convenient keybindings.  "money for old rope".
> however I'm pretty clueless about how to get started on implenting the
> hooks and callbacks to the existing functionality.
> 
> There is plenty of exisiting functionality, New Layer, Delete; Arrange
> Forwards, Backwards; Show All/None, Current Only, Invert; Layer properties
> (ie rename the layer).
> I should be able to figure out eventually how to add easier features like
> Duplicate Layer, New Layer from Cut/Copy, and Merge (hopefully very
> similar to grouping and ungrouping)
> 
> (Alt+L is being used as shortcut for Tools/Line which would need to be
> changed but I'm sure Dia will have single letter bindings again whenever
> the text entry is overhauled).
> 
> Hope these ideas are of interest and you can nudge me in the right
> direction with relevant examples and documentation on how to implement
> them.  Please do let me know what you all think of the ideas good or bad.
> 
> Sincerely
> 
> Alan Horkan
> http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
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> 

-- 
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Anthony Molinaro                                 <anthonym overture com>