[Ipe-discuss] PGF package on IPE

[Otfried Cheong]

Yves.Pocchiola at space.alcatel.fr wrote:
> I tried to use the PGF TEX  macro package in the minipage items of IPE.
> PGF package can create graphics in a similar way to PSTRICKS but with the
> advantage that it can generates both POSTSCRIPT and PDF outputs. PGF is
> used by example for graphics programmation in the latex-beamer package in
> the realisation of presentations.
> The result of my test is that the PGF graphics is present in the IPE PDF
> output file but doesn't appear on the screen of IPE.
> Could PGF be  fully supported by IPE as it can easily generate PDF ouputs ?

Well, I'm sure that not every PGF feature works inside Ipe (have you 
tried include an image?).  Other things will probably break when you try 
to save as Postscript.

In principle, the text renderer could be augmented to display more of 
PGF, but the question is whether this is desirable.  On one hand, it is 
hard to explain to users what is allowed and what is not (the current 
explanation is easy: don't use any package that relies on generating 
Postscript/PDF directly).  On the other hand, it may be useful in the 
future if Ipe understands in detail what the information inside a text 
object means (in terms of PDF), and 'supporting' packages that generate 
PDF literals breaks this.

In the long run, one should be able to use Ipe features to achieve 
anything that you might want to do with PDF.  Can you post an example 
file of what you are currently using PGF for, so that I can either 
change my mind or figure out how one should do that in Ipe?

Cheers,
   Otfried