[PD] notes/questions from a beginner

[Jonathan Wilkes]

Looks like you already implemented a lot of the features in DD that I've been thinking about:
* decent zoom capability
* customizable fonts
* balloon tips (although I hate balloons and used a Firefox-style notification area which can also be accessed by the user)
* ttk::notebook in a centralized "Preferences" window
* canvas/wire/box/etc. colors

* snapping to grid
* editmode crosshairs

Questions:
* for customizable fonts, why did you let the user specify the size?  If you just have a hardcoded box height and character width (for, say, DejaVu Sans Mono) and automatically size any custom font to fit those specs, then you can guarantee that the graphical diagram will be pixel exact across platforms, with the only variable being the _exact_ font size.  (And since the font metrics are the only thing that cannot be guaranteed to be the same across platforms, then it should be fitted to the boxes, and not the other way around.)  Granted you'd have extra space at the right side of the box when variable-width fonts are used, but that's a small aesthetic price to pay for guaranteed vertical wire connections on ancillary inlets.

* what's the current status of Desire Data?  There are a great deal of features that would be good to port to (any flavor of) 0.43, but I'm not sure how the work of porting stacks up against the work of just updating/bugfixing DD.

* has anyone used tkzinc?  On the one hand, all the new feature requests I've seen for future versions of tk canvas have the caveat that they are already implemented in tkzinc, (item grouping, transparency, full text rotation, etc.) but it seems like an unmaintained library at this point.

***

Since I now have a copy of DD compiled, might as well try out the keyboard patching magic... :)

-Jonathan


>________________________________
>From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca>
>To: Stephen Lavelle <analytic at gmail.com>
>Cc: pd-list at iem.at
>Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 1:22 PM
>Subject: Re: [PD] notes/questions from a beginner
>
>On Tue, 23 Aug 2011, Stephen Lavelle wrote:
>
>> 1 - Inlets/outlets too small for me to accurately click on (touchpad) - checking on pd-dev, they can be visually reskinned, but their actual clickable size can't be changed.  [ so I guess this one has been responded to, but might as well repeat it ]
>
>I once had written a zoom feature for pd, but it used a much different framework, so, it can't be ported to regular branches of pd (vanilla, extended, L2ork).
>
>However, it would be possible to make one using a wrapper around TkCanvas objects, so that they pretend being in one set of coordinates while being in another set. It's not a small task.
>
>If I were to do it, I'd use the poe.tcl framework, and I'd start from the unfinished tkzinc wrapper that you both can find in the DesireData distribution, and I'd look again at what «def Canvas item» does in DesireData. There are other ways, but that example gives you the tricks you need to know.
>
>> 4 - is there a shortcut for deleting connections?  something like ctrl+click would save me a lot of time.
>
>it's click,delete instead.
>
>> 5 - is there a way to type numbers directly into a number box? clicking+dragging, or pumping them in via a message, doesn't feel good to me.
>
>click,digits,return.
>
>_______________________________________________________________________
>| Mathieu Bouchard ---- tél: +1.514.383.3801 ---- Villeray, Montréal, QC
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