New Features in xfig 3.2.1 (Released Jul 1, 1998)

# New Features in xfig 3.2.1

(Released Jul 1, 1998)

Preview of figure is created when you single click on a filename in the popup file panel. It also shows the size of the figure.

Library feature - load a library of Fig objects and pick and place objects from the library on the canvas where you want. See the man pages for details, and see Examples/Libraries for some examples. From Stephane Mancini (mancini@elecsrv.enst.fr) with modifications by Brian V. Smith

Preview of library objects in library popup similar to figure preview by Brian Smith

The library objects in the Electrical and Logic libraries were done by Peter Hiscocks (phiscock@ee.ryerson.ca)

Xfig tutorial (PDF) in Doc/xfig-howto.pdf. Also available from the Help menu. Written by Peter Hiscocks (phiscock@ee.ryerson.ca)

"make install" installs the Fig object libraries to the library directory. The default is $XFIGLIBDIR/Libraries (/usr/lib/X11/xfig/Libraries), which may be changed in the Imakefile.

When pasting a Fig object from the xfig cut buffer it appears under the mouse (or near the mouse if pressing the "Paste" button) where it may then be moved around on the canvas before pressing mouse button 1 to place it.

Unit box in upper-right corner now shows the scale (e.g. 1cm=3km) This necessitated making the top ruler a little narrower to make the unitbox fit. If the mode panel is on the right side, the side ruler is made wider to fit the unit box above it.

The path of imported pictures is saved as relative path if picture is in subdirectory of main figure file, else it is saved as absolute. from T. Sato

When drawing a line, moving a point on a line, or adding a point to the end of a line, the angle to horizontal is shown in the message window

Pressing -I turns on and off new feature that draws red horizontal and vertical lines near the line you are drawing, or point you are moving, to indicate rise and run. Also, the length is shown next to and above the horizontal and vertical line respectively, and the actual length of the line is shown near the line itself. The command-line argument -showlengths (resource Fig.showlengths) will enable this feature as xfig starts.

Print popup button is active even when print panel is up which makes it easy to force it to the top of the window stack if it is hidden

Pressing the File button in the command panel while the Export panel is up will popdown the export panel and popup the file panel. The converse is also true - if the Export button is pressed while the file panel is up, the file panel will be popped down and the export panel is popped up.

When merging a file/figure into the current figure it is made into a compound object first

Merging a figure keeps the file panel up to be able to merge more figures

Better memory allocation for temporary arrays when drawing objects - may be slightly faster now from T. Sato

Freehand line/polygon drawing - use mouse button 2 to start after choosing polyline. As the mouse is moved points are added to the line or polygon. NOTE - this changes the line drawing behaviour: Mouse button 3 is now used to create a single-point object.

Whole window screen capture in addition to area capture in picture object popup. The behaviour of the mouse has changed with this - Mouse button 1 captures whole window now and mouse button 2 is used to capture area of screen.

Characters added to Fig*browse_panel*mask*string to include .tif and .sld files

If xfig is started without a filename, the default filename is empty instead of unnamed.fig. This forces the file panel popup when save is done, to enter a new file name.

Variable time delay for popup information balloons, specified in milliseconds (-balloon_delay; resource Fig.balloon_delay)

If you enlarge the File, Export or Library panels only the file list area is enlarged to show more files

New "spinner" widgets to increment/decrement values in popup indicator entries (e.g. line thickness indicator popup)

Option of using either absolute values for arrowhead sizes or multiple of current line length (see arrow size popup)

Arrowhead thickness, width and height can be set explicitely in bottom panel for creating arrowheads. Update button also copies arrowhead size info to/from objects and indicator panel. The arrowhead width and height parameters are now the same units as the arrowhead thickness, which is units of line thickness, not 1/1200 inch as they were in previous versions of xfig.

Color popup menu in popup edit panel handles lots of colors better

Option of smaller icons for the mode panel (left side) by compiling with USESMALLICONS in Imakefile. See the Imakefile for details. Also see Fig.ad. Look for "icons". From Andrew Morgan (morgan@physics.ucla.edu)

New grid and point positioning setting at 1/8" (or 2mm in metric mode)

When moving, copying, moving a point of or adding a point to objects, all the "grab corners" of the other objects in the figure disappear to make the figure less cluttered. They reappear when the operation is complete.

Pull-down menu buttons have an arrow icon to show that it is a pull- down

Units such as "i" for inches and "c" for cm may be entered following coordinates in popup edit panel for editing objects (e.g. 3c for 3 cm). From Rick Richardson (rick@dgii.com)

When importing a picture file (eps, GIF, etc) xfig is more intelligent and faster about deciding the format

"Integer area zoom" option in zoom popup - if checked, when using the mouse to zoom an area of the canvas, the zoom amount will be an integral value (e.g. 2, 3, 4)

Compose key LED may be turned on for multi-key characters (e.g. a-umlaut etc) on Sun Sparcstations. See README file about COMP_LED. from Hans Werner Strube (strube@swing.physik3.gwdg.de)

New fig2dev driver for tk (tcl/tk) - Generates tk canvas and canvas objects. From Mike Markowski (mm@udel.edu)

Added "Alt" key definitions to the accelerators in Fig.ad to accomodate those machines which don't have a Meta key

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