[Ipe-discuss] ipe features

[Dmitriy Morozov]

> Ipe doesn't use explicit depth values, but simply keeps all objects on
> the page in an ordered list -- the front object is the last one on the
> list.

Ah, that's what I suspected.

> What we could have is a function "Move back/forward one step", which
> exchanges two adjacent positions on the list.

This would certainly improve things a lot. Should I enter a feature
request into the Bugzilla?

> The object menu could also display the rank of the object, and you could
>   set this to a different value to move it up or down at will.

This would be even better. It would also be important to have a feature
where a newly created object is placed immediately after the selected
object in the list as opposed to at the end (to mimick placing objects in
the same depth layer in XFig). This overall solution still does not allow
for quite as much flexibility as XFig allows for with its depth values,
but it would certainly allow for much finer control.

> Perhaps one could then have a mode that displays the ranks of all
> objects at the same time (although computing a good label position will
> be a challenging algorithmic problem).

That sounds like a bit of an overkill to me, but I'm certainly not opposed
to seeing such a mode.

Dmitriy