[Ipe-discuss] Re: Ipe-discuss Digest, Vol 4, Issue 7

Rainer Typke rainer.typke at cs.uu.nl
Mon Feb 21 12:22:41 CET 2005


>>This is also already possible, but in a kind of geeky way: Select the
>>object(s), and do a "Copy".  Then paste into your favorite text editor (I
>>use Emacs).  Edit the XML description of the object(s), and copy them back
>>into Ipe the same way.
> 
> This is wonderful. I had no idea this was possible, and I don't think you
> have it in the manual. This idea should be used much more often for
> different programs.

This is not only useful for editing, but also for generating new Ipe
files from scratch. See http://datamill.info/emd.0.html for an
illustration. The whole Ipe file there is generated by a script in the
form of an XML file, and Ipe is then called to turn it into a nice
bitmap for online viewing.

  > What do you mean by visually appealing? After having started to use the
> third button for selection I think selection works as good as it could.
> Scrolling through different objects with the space bar takes some time to
> get used to but then works fine. 

Ipe's user interface is probably something that stands in the way of it
becoming more popular. IMHO, one should stick to standard user
interfaces as far as possible.
One example: In nearly all GUI applications, the context menu of an
object can be brought up by right-clicking on it. I can't imagine any
valid excuse for deviating from this standard. (Some operation occurring
more frequently than bringing up a context menu is not a valid excuse -
the damage done by hiding the fact that there is a context menu at all
outweighs the benefit of being able to save a few microseconds, but only
after carefully reading the manual word for word).
There are a few other things like that. As long as Ipe is only meant for
weird computational geometry geeks, this is fine. But I think it could
be very useful for more normal users as well if it would behave more
like a normal GUI application.  Of course, this does not change the fact
that it already is a great piece of software.

Cheers,

Rainer





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