Re: Creating a line with a set length

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Sun, 9 May 2004, whitty reeve wrote:

> Date: Sun, 09 May 2004 11:49:47 -0800
> From: whitty reeve <whitty reeve com>
> To: dia-list gnome org
> Subject: Creating a line with a set length
>
> How would i go about creating a line with the length of 3.14.

3.14 inches, centimetres?
(i would have asked pixels but you cannot have partial pixels)
no one ever converted Dia to work with old measurements so inches would
actually be quite difficult.

if you want 3.14 centimetres then you can just do you best to draw a line
using the ruler indicators to guide you (which is what I just tried and
is reasonably workable for straight horizontal or vertical lines).

if that isn't accurate enough then you could save your Dia file (making
sure compression is turned off) and the using a text editor directly edit
the coordinates of the line in the Dia XML.

there are probably other ways of trying to achieve this too that I have
forgetten or overlooked.

> If there is no way,

there is no specific 'measuring tool' or automatic feature like that yet
included in Dia but I'm sure the developers would very much welcome any
patches you care to contribute.

> how hard would it be to add it to the program,

if you know C programming or possibly Python programming it is probably
something you will be able to do.

> where would i start? If it's hopless for me to do my self, when can i
> expect it to be added, if ever?

as with all open source projects it gets done when there is a developer
interested in doing it (and you can always try and make a developer more
interested by offering a small donation or otherwise helping out and
offering encouragement).

if you would like for there to be a way to draw lines of a specified
length then you should probably add an enhancement request against Dia in
to Bugzilla  http://bugzilla.gnome.org
if this is a feature you have seen in other programs it is helpful if you
can describe where you saw it and how it worked (screenshots too if
relevant) to make it as easy as possible for a developer to know exactly
what needs to be so that if they are intersted they dont have to spend to
much time thinking about it and can get on with exactly how it should be
done.

Hope that helps.

sincerely

Alan Horkan