Re: Text rotation

["Michael Ross" <michael e ross gmail com>]

I regularly move between programs to do what I want, but I would prefer not to.  I often annotate graphs and photos - rotated text in Dia would be nice.  Glad you like the idea too.   I only use Gimp for the perspective function to square up scanned graphs.  I like Inkscape better for graphics that don't involve shapes and diagramming (Inkscape arrows are weak, but editing bezier is better).  I prefer Dia for most of this.  

I wish I could drag and drop images, 
or better yet get them to update semi-automatically (an update function that can be run with a keystroke or property action) after tormenting them in other programs. 
I would like to make layers variably transparent.
And get better control of the text.

I could quit updating to the next level then.  I would like to open up Dia and stay in Dia.

I don't mean to start a thread about this.  Just running off at the mouth.

Mike

On Nov 12, 2007 1:12 PM, Lars Clausen <lars raeder dk> wrote:

On Mon, 2007-11-12 at 11:43 -0600, Jim Clark wrote:
> Hey folks,
>
> My 2 mini-euros worth. I use text rotation in Dia all the time. How?
>
> Well, I never use Dia diagrams as my final format. I always export to
> png and use those in my web pages. And fire up Gimp to do my final
> touch up. It is easier to crop to the dimensions I need, clean up a
> messy arrow, or move text over a pixel or two. I can easily rotate
> text (or anything else) in Gimp.
>
> So all this anguish seems misplaced to me. Dia is not a text, or
> graphics, manipulation program.

Dia is a diagramming program, indeed.  Part of diagramming well is being
able to label your arrows well.  For a slanted or vertical arrow,
rotated text looks a lot better.  While your solution with Gimp may
solve the problem for your needs, lot of people use other forms of
output, such as Postscript, SVG or LaTeX, where rotating the text can be
messy.  There's definitely also something to be said for avoiding the
roundtrip to another program for final touch-up.  That's why I think
rotated text is important to get in Dia, even more so than pattern fill
and shadows (alas, it is also harder than those).

-Lars

_______________________________________________
Dia-list mailing list
Dia-list gnome org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/dia-list
FAQ at http://live.gnome.org/Dia/Faq
Main page at http://live.gnome.org/Dia

-- 
Michael Ross
=================================
Cycling in Central North Carolina
Schwinn Voyageur 11.8
Linear LWB, Greenspeed GTO, BikeE CT, AT