A few questions

[Greg Titus]

On Monday, February 4, 2002, at 03:47  PM, Warren Nagourney wrote:
> Couldn't I create an arc as a shape by entering the appropriate 
> commands in my private shapes.graffleshapes file? I assume it would use 
> "curveto" instead of "lineto", but I could use the existing shapes text 
> file as a guide. I believe the commands are standard Cocoa drawing 
> commands, such as those used in NSBezierPath (which I have experience 
> with). Once I have an arc on a palette, I could modify its shape and 
> orientation using standard OG tools.

Yes. You should be able to take this and save it to a file 
(Arc.graffleshapes?) and put it in your Library/Application 
Support/OmniGraffle/Shapes folder:

{
     shapes = (
         {
	   ShouldExport = YES;
	   InspectorGroup = 1000;
             ShapeName = Arc;
             StrokePath = {
                 elements = (
                     {element = MOVETO; point = "{-.5, 0.5}"; },
                     {
                         control1 = "{-.5, -.052285}";
                         control2 = "{-.276142, -0.5}";
                         element = CURVETO;
                         point = "{0, -0.5}";
                     },
                     {
                         control1 = "{.276142, -0.5}";
                         control2 = "{.50, -.052285}";
                         element = CURVETO;
                         point = "{.50, 0.5}";
                     }
                 );
             };
             TextBounds = "{{0.1, .3}, {.8, .7}}";
         }
     );
}

This is copied from the SemiCircle shape, but I:

1) Removed the bottom line from the StrokePath so it's just an arc 
instead of a semi-circle.
2) Changed the name to Arc.
3) Changed the inspector group to 1000 so this shape gets sorted to the 
bottom of the shape inspector
4) Added "ShouldExport = YES", which tells Graffle that the definition 
of this shape needs to be copied into any Graffle file where there is an 
instance of the shape. This means that you can send your Graffle 
documents to someone else who doesn't know what an "Arc" is, and the 
document will still work correctly for that other user.

If you place the Arc.graffleshapes file in the right folder and restart 
Graffle, you should find the new shape at the bottom of the Shape Info 
panel. You can change any graphic into this shape and use it that way, 
or add that graphic to a palette, and use the palette.

> The Vellum trimming tool (shaped like a stiletto) allows one to remove 
> a line segment (or curve) between any two points defined usually by the 
> intersection of other lines with the one being trimmed. This allows one 
> to construct very clean diagrams out of simple connected shapes. Vellum 
> has a brilliant user interface which has tools like this one and others 
> involving "smart snapping" (called the Drafting Assistant).

Cool. That does sound interesting.  We'll have to check it out.

	-Greg