Subject: Re: MSC-News: Yet Another HMSC editor
From: Aldo Buratti (buraldo#maganet.net)
Date: Sun Nov 29 1998 - 16:57:13 GMT
The originator of this message is responsible for its content.
-----From Aldo Buratti <buraldo#maganet.net> to mscnews -----
Thanks to everybody for comments and support.
In particular I'd like to reply to Oystein Haugen
Oystein Haugen wrote:
> I miss copy / paste very much - otherwise to use these diagrams, I have
> to go via Postscript print which is very cumbersome. Also within the
> diagram, such copy/paste functionality is a "must". Furthermore I would
> like to have selection of multiple nodes by repeated clicking (and
> holding shift down) as is normally the case in other editors. Space
> selection is not always enough.
I'm working to for a better HMSC editor.Selection of multiple groups of nodes is
one of these enhancements, together with
cut/copy/paste functionalities.
On the other hand, methods for exporting diagrams in other formats is not planned.
Postscript output is one of these method, even if I understand that it is not a
handy way of
working. The other method I suggest is by means of bitmap "snapshots"; I remind
you
that on W95/W-NT platforms, pressing <Alt><PrintScreen>, you can get a snapshot of
the active window (in the clipboard), then you can paste this snapshot in every
program
for Image Processing , if necessary you can retouch it, and then save it in a
bitmapped
format. This is the way I produced the samples in the original e-mail.
On Unix platforms there are other similar utilities bundled with the standard set
of
programs.
> Finally, I must remind you that MSC references have rounded corners
> while your reference symbols are plain rectangles.
OK, that's true, but ... my justification is that :a) boxes with rounded corners
are "heavy"to draw
b) in an HMSC, plain rectangles does not conflict (there is no ambiguity) with
other
graphical symbols
"Small is beatiful" is one of the deepest truth of computer science (altough is one
of the
most difficult to follow); this is the reason of our minimalistic approach (or lazy
approach,
isn't it?).
> Good luck. I hope you are making an editor for simple MSCs as well?
Well, an MSC editor is a more complex product; <Irrational Numbers> started
building a
prototype of a full (!) MSC editor (including the "general order" symbol), but when
we
tried to add "inline expressions and gates" the SW architecture collapsed. It was
too slow
and unmanageable from an engineering point of view. So, we are evaluating a
completely
new redesign and a new implementation with a more efficient language
(...Python...).
Sincerely,
Aldo Buratti
----------------------
<Irrational Numbers>
Milano
-----------------------
-----End text from Aldo Buratti <buraldo#maganet.net> to mscnews -----
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