GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 455400
Improve Documentation for Text Entry
Last modified: 2011-06-01 15:52:43 UTC
Hi. I just started using Dia and it's working very well for my purposes (creating flow charts for a web site). I have a suggestion to improve the documentation. I was having a hard time figuring out the best way to enter and edit text inside an object. I think I have figured out how to do this, although I could easily have missed some important stuff. The documentation in this area seems almost non-existant. I think it would be very helpful for new users to add something like the following to the help file, perhaps under Objects / Using Objects / Text Entry. If there is something I can do to help with this, please let me know. Thanks. Mark Dexter PROPOSED HELP TEXT FOR Objects / Using Objects / Text Entry Text can be entered by selecting the object and then typing the text. The font, size, and other formatting properties can be changed by double-clicking the object. Here are some important tips regarding short-cut keys when entering text. 1. The normal Copy / Cut / Paste keys (CTRL-C, CTRL-X, CTRL-V) don't work for text. They work for entire objects. Instead, use CTRL-SHIFT-C, CTRL-SHIFT-X, CTRL-SHIFT-V to copy / cut / paste just the text in an object. Note that when you paste text into an object, the text is formatted according to the Dia object properties, not the text source. 2. You cannot select a section of text inside an object with the mouse (this moves the object). You can insert characters at the current cursor position just by typing. You can delete the character to the left of the mouse using Backspace. IMPORTANT NOTE: The DEL key deletes the entire object, not the text to the right of the cursor. Use SHIFT-DEL to delete the text to the right of the cursor. (Use Edit / Undo or CTRL-Z if you delete an object by mistake.) To delete all of the text in an object, use the Cut (CTRL-SHIFT-X). 3. If you are using a non-default font or font size, one trick for productivity is to create a pallette of empty objects with the desired font settings on a separate diagram. Then copy and paste these objects onto your working diagram as you need them (i.e., instead of using theh toolbar).
Hello. I just realized there is an error in the proposed text. There does not appear to be a shortcut key for copying text. So point (1) above should be changed as follows: 1. The normal Copy / Cut / Paste keys (CTRL-C, CTRL-X, CTRL-V) don't work for text. They work for entire objects. Use CTRL-SHIFT-X to cut and CTRL-SHIFT-V to paste just the text in an object. There is no shortcut to copy just the text. Note that when you paste text into an object, the text is formatted according to the Dia object properties, not the text source. Thanks.
Your proposed text has now been added to the XML.
Hi Lars. I've been working on a pretty large addition to the entire English documentation set. It started out with the comment above and I keep finding other areas where I wanted to add more documentation. I was e-mailing with Thomas and he provided me with instructions on getting DocBook set up. He also suggested that I process the DIFF file from bug# 439974 before starting work on my changes. So at this point, I started with the XML files at revision 3732. I then processed the DIFF file from bug# 439974 (i.e., patch -p0 < diff-doc-en.diff). At this point, I have made significant additions to a number of the XML help files and have added about 50 screenshots. I am planning to finish my work by tomorrow at the latest. My plan was to create a DIFF file with all of these changes and also upload a ZIP file containing all of the new PNG files. Is this what I should do? Should I incorporate the latest XML changes before I create my DIFF file? Would it be helpful to send a preview of what I've already done? If I upload a Windows CHM file could you look at it to see if you think my changes are valuable? Or is there some other format that would be better? I apologize for being new at this. Thanks for your help. Mark Dexter
Everybody starts out being new, no need to apologize. Most likely, the differences are big enough now that it'll be overall easier if I unpatch what I've taken from this bug so far if needed. Go ahead with a patch + zip file for PNGs. A preview in PDF would be nice, I cannot read CHM files.
Created attachment 93511 [details] [review] Diff file with documentation changes. Relative path: doc/en/ This patch contains the changes to the doc xml files done for this bug. The path of the files is doc/en/<file>. Graphics files included in separate zip file (graphics-20070811.zip).
Created attachment 93512 [details] [review] Part 1 of 2 zip files with PNG files for documentation changes. This is first of two files (was > 1 mb). This includes the 4 prior PNG files.
Created attachment 93513 [details] [review] File 2 of 2 containing PNG file for documentation changes File #2 of 2. Includes 4 PNG files from prior documentation version.
Ok. I'm done with the documentation. Here is what I have done. 1. Did major edits to the following XML files: usage-quickstart.xml, usage-canvas.xml, usage-objects.xml, usage-objects-basic.xml, usage-objects-special.xml, usage-objects-selecting.xml. Added documentation for items not previously documented (e.g., Diagram Tree, Sheets and Objects, etc.) and expanded other documentation. 2. Added 78 screenshots (for a total of 82). 3. Minor edit to authors.xml. (Still need to fix broken links and bad e-mails). 4. Uploading diff file doc-20080811.diff which has changes and graphics-20070811a.zip and graphics-20070811a.zip, which contain the PNG files (including the 4 previously used). These changes obsolete the following bugs: 347209, 439974, 144128. Please let me know any comments or suggestions to improve. Or if I didn't do something right in the process. Thanks. Mark
Created attachment 93546 [details] [review] Zip file of 11 resized screenshot files These are all changed to less than 550 pixels wide, which I think will fit in the PDF format.
Created attachment 93560 [details] [review] Revised diff file with changes - relative path doc/en Contains corrections from Thomas and myself, including typos, misspellings. Also contains a little new content to document Undo/Redo and some View menu options not documented elsewhere (e.g., full screen, new view, clone view, refresh).
Created attachment 93561 [details] [review] Screenshot file for view menu new content One more screenshot for new View menu content.
Created attachment 93584 [details] view-menu.png - screenshot for additional content added added content to document view menu options
I uploaded a sample pdf file on my website: <http://tom.harding.free.fr/vrac/dia.pdf>
Thanks for this great contribution and sorry for not noticing it earlier, It is now commited to svn and I hope I did not break anything in the merge process. Of course after this long delay some of the document should be updated for upcoming 0.97 - especially the text-edit-mode and some dialogs have changed. Other notable new future can be found in http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/dia/trunk/NEWS?view=markup 2009-01-31 Hans Breuer <hans@breuer.org> * doc/en/*.xml : remove undefined entity '.&pngfile' * po/POTFILES.in lib/sheetc : more strings to translate ;) * doc/en/Makefile.am : added new images ('make distcheck' passes) [ Huge documentation update from Mark Dexter, bug #455400, hope I didn't break anything during merge. ] * doc/en/*.xml doc/en/graphics/*.png : 1. major edits to the following XML files: usage-quickstart.xml, usage-canvas.xml, usage-objects.xml, usage-objects-basic.xml, usage-objects-special.xml, usage-objects-selecting.xml. Added documentation for items not previously documented (e.g., Diagram Tree, Sheets and Objects, etc.) and expanded other documentation. 2. Added 78 screenshots (for a total of 82). 3. Minor edit to authors.xml. (Still need to fix broken links and bad e-mails). 4. Updated images. These changes obsolete the following bugs: #347209, #439974, #144128.
The doco updates are great. Dia 0.97 will contain the new text edit mode, and this new documentation doesn't mention it, and so were wondering if you'd be able to add the new Text Edit mode before the final 0.97 is made? Text edit can be entered using the Text Edit tool, or selecting text (or object with text) and pressing F2 (keyboard), or holding the mouse button down for 1sec (see bug #570304). Thanks!
Hi Robert. I'm happy to look at this again. How do I get the .097 version for Windows? I don't have the ability to easily compile it from the SVN. Is there a Windows compiled version around that I can use for creating the documentation? Thanks. Mark
Mark, 0.97 prerelease 2 has just been let out of the bag. The windows version is here http://dia-installer.de/dia-0.97-pre2.php Are you on the dia mailing list? It's only 5-10 emails/day worth joining.
AFAICT the only thing remaining here is (missing) text editing update. Thats's now also covered by bug 648251 - closing this one as obsolete.