[vox-tech] Rant: LaTeX graphics programs

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Fri 29 Apr 05, 10:46 AM, Jonathan Stickel <jjstickel at sbcglobal.net> said:
> >
> >My hat is off to anyone on this list who is actually handy with this
> >monstrosity.
> 
> Well, I think I'm rather handy with Xfig.  It certainly does have a way 
> of doing things that is quite different from most "drawing" programs. 
> But once I figured out its quirks I actually like it.  The only thing 
> that gets to me is when typing in a box, the mouse cursor MUST stay in 
> the box.
 
My hat's off to you.   ;-)

I don't suppose you have any idea how to generate something that looks like
a mechanical spring (a coil)?  Can't find it in any libraries.

I can actually use Dia's inductor coil (a spring is an inductor of sorts).
But there are things I need in xfig that I can't do with Dia.  Dia is really
limited...

> >Dia's interface is OK, but doesn't give me a lot of control over the
> >objects.  Its font stuff almost never works right when you view the final
> >LaTeX dvi/postscript.  Dia also seems to have wierd scaling issues when
> >exporting to tex format.  Also, Dia is WYSIAWYG (what you see is almost 
> >what
> >you get).
> >
> >What I really want is a program like Macromedia Flash that can export to a
> >LaTeX picture environment format.

> I prefer to create an eps/pdf which I then insert, and it doesn't matter
> so much to me how that eps/pdf is created as long as it looks right.  It
> seems that you want figures to be a Latex picture that you input.  One

Well, I don't mind if I simply get a ps/pdf.  What I care about is being
able to edit the picture in a vector manner at a later date.  Once you
generate the postscript, you lose that ability, to my knowledge.  The
picture needs to be saved in the internal format of the application used to
generate the picture.

> possibility is to make an eps with some other program (Dia?), convert to
> xfig with 'pstoedit', and then convert the xfig to Latex picture.  I know
> it's not ideal, and maybe the figure gets garbled along the way, but you
> could try it.

Hmmm.  I guess I can try that.

Is it possible to use Dia's coil and turn it into a library element for xfig
(so I can scale it and all that good stuff).  That would make me really
really happy...

Thanks!
Pete

-- 
Every theory is killed sooner or later, but if the theory has good in it,
that good is embodied and continued in the next theory. -- Albert Einstein

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