Quick disclaimer: I'm not a developer and can't speak for the dia development team. But I do use it a lot and I thought I'd add my comments.
> I still have not found a decent diagram drawing software for > GNU/Linux with the user interface I want. Dia appears to have > the features, but I do not like the user interface. So I > would like to contribute to Dia: design and implement an > alternative user interface. Ideally this alternative user > interface and the normal one could be toggled. A complete toggle would probably add more confusion than it would solve. Small improvements to the user interface as it is, however, might be quite valuable IMHO. > My idea for the diagram editing software user interface is > also based on context sensitive menus, but slightly different > from Dia and Gimp. The basic idea is the move current context > sensitive menus elsewhere, and move the shape palette into > the context sensitive RMB menu. This would speed up the > initial creation of the diagram. I strongly dislike the need > to drag shapes from palette. You don't have to drag shapes from the palette; just click on the shape, then click or drag in the diagram and the shape is formed. Turn off the 'Reset tools after create' option and dia will not auto-revert to the arrow select tool. This is the same as the way many paletteised applications work. > For example, when I right click on empty space on diagram, I > want to get context sensitive palette of shapes, directly, > not in any submenu, and nothing else than that palette. When > I right click on handle, I want to get palette of suitable > connectors. Left click would still be select, left drag for > move etc. I actually don't like the middle button, because it > is too stiff on my mouse at work, and I have none at home.. Well, your middle mouse button hardware problems are hardly dia's fault then :) But, yes, I agree, dia's menus ought really to have a little more context-sensitivity. Then again, if they change around too much, this would increase the confusion again. "I wanted option X, but now it's under Y/Z, now it's at the bottom of the menu, now at the top... etc." > I would also like to have simpler == faster ways to delete > and duplicate shapes. My vision goes along shift-drag from > existing shape == duplicate with interactive placing, > shift-click/drag from empty space on diagram == paste with > interactive, control-click == cut. I would also like a 'duplicate' menu item. The shift-drag sounds good. But dia can do this right now with copy, paste. It's clumsy, but it _does_ work. Regards Andrew -- Andrew Ferrier email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.new-destiny.co.uk/andrew/ _______________________________________________ Dia-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/dia-list
