This file contains some possible things to do in future versions of xfig. ------------------ FORMAT 4.0 example ------------------ #FIG 4.0 Res 1200/500 (use 1200 for inches, 500 for metric) Bounds 300 500 3045 9302 (optional bounding box from figure compound) Orient Landscape Units Metric Uscale 3cm=1ft (screen ruler scale) Pjust Center (page justification) Psize A4 Pmag .9 (print/export magnification) Pages Multiple Smag .4 (screen magnification [zoom]) Backg ivory (canvas background color which is used by fig2dev too) GIFTransp None (GIF transparent color) JPGQual 75 (JPEG quality) Margin 15 (number of pixels for margin for bitmap export) UCol 35 #440033 (User colors) Line ... (PolyLine separate from Box and Polygon) Box (three subtypes) Box-Arcbox ... Box-Normal ... Box-Picture ... Poly ... Spline ... Arc (three subtypes) Arc-Open ... Arc-Pie-Wedge ... Arc-Elliptical ... Text ... Ellipse ... Layer FirstFloor 10 (number is drawing order or depth) .... ENDLayer FirstFloor Compound ... ... ENDCompound ********* NOTES about FORMAT 4.0 ********* Change line thickness to float for finer precision Separate dash/dot length from the gap Enhance pattern fill allow "transparent" fill so that only the pattern lines fill the shape, not the background color. Enhance all objects to have cap_style type for dotted lines Allow selecting linecap type for dotted lines for closed splines, boxes and ellipses Rotatable boxes - store width, height, upper-left corner and angle only Background color for text (or "None") to allow background (ala XDrawImageString) Note: need to add flag/call to text rotation code to do this Honor fractional text sizes (float). Currently, xfig reads the size as float but converts to integer internally. No need for duplicating first point at end for polygon in file itself Use PIX_PER_CM = 500 instead of 450 (w_setup.h) Need to rescale older (3.2.0 and older) metric figures by difference Add canvas background color to Fig file add option to specify default color in fig2dev Add elliptical arcs Importing of Fig files as pictures Add new font choices done by Ian Cameron Smith (clint@hermit.org http://www.hermit.org/) Some kind of color pallette which is global (remains around between drawings) o Also library of color pallettes? *** END OF V4.0 IDEAS *** ---------------------------------------------------------- The following DON'T require a change to the file protocol: ---------------------------------------------------------- Have "static objects" which aren't erased when new figure is loaded. This way you can have a template into which figures may be merged. Option for grid to be constant screen-size (independent of zooming) Allow picking of points that aren't on the positioning grid Recursively uncompound objects with one click Re-render imported EPS files (using gs) at new resolution when zooming LARGER Moving object when point_posn mode is on should first move object to closest positioning grid position then allow movement from there. Look in ../AppPlusS/XCC.c for code to allocate colors using any valid visual/depth/colormap. Mode to rotate objects using only the mouse (requires new mode button) Create resource for "print" command (e.g. lp, lpr, whatever) which uses meta- notation to place filename (e.g. print_command: "lpr -P%p %f" where %p is the printer string and %f is the filename) Allow option of vertically centering text either using the ascenders/descenders (the current method) or not Allow vertically-aligned text "top" would mean the insertion point specifies the line over the top of the text "middle" would mean that it specifies the midline of the text (I'm not sure how this is defined, perhaps the average of top and base or top and bottom. "base" would mean the line under all letters which do not hang down. For example, g and j extend below the baseline. "bottom" would mean the time under the bottom of the text including descenders. Change eps_bitmaps so that background is transparent; i.e. stipple Extend smart links to work for SCALE, MOVEPT and perhaps EDIT, UPDATE. Could also extend them to work for arc-type links and for ellipse/circle objects and objects inside compound objects. Also, at the moment smart-links only work for one end of a link if both ends of the link happen to touch the object being operated on. To fix this would require changing the F_linkinfo structure to have left_endpt, left_prevpt, right_endpt, right_prevpt fields instead of the current endpt, prevpt and two_pts fields. Generalize align mode (like glue mode) to allow arbitrary tagged objects to be aligned rather than just compounds. Make a raise/lower depth feature A 'gravity' mode whereby points placed by aiming and clicking are brought not to the closest fiducial point of a figure, but to the closest continuous point on the figure (applies only to circles, arcs and straight lines), taking into account constraints of angle (like manhattan constraint). Example 1: I click near the circumference of a circle. The point is placed exactly on the circumference, closest to where I clicked. This is very useful for getting lines to touch circles exactly in points other than the E, W, S, or N extreme. Example 2: I am in manhattan constraint, and I click near a random-slope line. The point is placed on the line in the one place consistent with the manhattan constraint.