OpenTemplot

[graeme]

Well, we are still chipping away, mostly thanks to the efforts of Alistair at the moment, domestic affairs having me bogged down somewhat until the end of this month.

One thing that has become clear, though, is that our goal of feature parity with T2 is some way off yet.

A couple of factors contribute to this. First is the fact that the focus at the moment is on the internals. Aside from my early work to create pdf output (which is still only about 75% complete) almost none of the major gaps are being addressed.

Also, in T2 we have something of a moving target, and so we will be playing catch-up for some while to come, I believe.

One danger here is that calling our efforts "Templot3" is a bit misleading, and we run a real risk of irritating future users coming new to the project, who will (quite reasonably) expect T3 to be everything T2 is but with lots of whizzo new features.

We therefore plan to revert to the once-in-vogue name OpenTemplot to avoid this problem, and also in truth to better reflect our primary goal – ie to replace the proprietary bits of Templot 2 with unencumbered alternatives.

Onward and upward!

Graeme

 

[Martin Wynne]

@graeme @Alistair Ward

Hi Graeme,

Good to hear from you.

I do look in at the github page quite often, but try as I might I still can't fathom what's happening or what it all means. For example I see something like this: model/curve/curve.pas which makes no sense to me. I don't have a file called curve.pas in T2, and I'm mystified what it might contain or why you have created it? And why it lives in a sub-folder structure?

But keep up the good work both.

https://github.com/openTemplot/templot3

I'm aware that I got only half way through posting the T1 files -- since when I have made so many changes to most of them that I would need to start again at the beginning. At present most of my time is being spent on dxf_unit.pas and chairs_unit.pas for the 3-D exports.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Paul Boyd]

Hi Graeme and Martin,

One danger here is that calling our efforts "Templot3" is a bit misleading,

Is there not also the danger that Templot2 may itself become Templot3 one day? Or at the rate it’s going, Templot3D

Cheers,
Paul

 

[graeme]

Hi Graeme and Martin,



Is there not also the danger that Templot2 may itself become Templot3 one day? Or at the rate it’s going, Templot3D

Cheers,
Paul

Hi Paul,

Yes, indeed - another good point.

I can't imagine a need to change the name from Templot 2, but if it were needed I suspect we have muddied the Templot 3 waters to such an extent that the next step for Templot 2 would be to go straight to Templot 4 (Templot4D? )

Cheers,
Graeme

 

[graeme]

@graeme @Alistair Ward

Hi Graeme,

Good to hear from you.

I do look in at the github page quite often, but try as I might I still can't fathom what's happening or what it all means. For example I see something like this: model/curve/curve.pas which makes no sense to me. I don't have a file called curve.pas in T2, and I'm mystified what it might contain or why you have created it? And why it lives in a sub-folder structure?

But keep up the good work both.

I'm aware that I got only half way through posting the T1 files -- since when I have made so many changes to most of them that I would need to start again at the beginning. At present most of my time is being spent on dxf_unit.pas and chairs_unit.pas for the 3-D exports.

cheers,

Martin.

Hi Martin,

Well for all the good stuff on the internals I would have to defer to Alistair, but the main focus at the moment is to identify (especially core) concepts which are currently conflated in large source files and tease them out into their own classes and files to make the code more approachable.

Of course, this also means that although modules are generally smaller, there are more of them, which in turn increases the need to introduce some hierarchy (directories) into the source code to aid in navigation.

Or something like that.

 

[graeme]

Rather sadly, one of the areas I have put some effort into is producing PDF output. There is still some way to go on this, but I say rather sadly because it has occurred to me that perhaps none of it is needed.

On Windows, Linux and Mac there are now 'printer' drivers available which will write your output to a PDF file rather than a physical printer. Given that this capability is now available outside the application as a 'system' level function (and thus maintained by someone else) such a feature within the application itself becomes redundant and thus bloats it for no real benefit.

The one area where we would lose out is the fact that PDF files currently have their own settings for line width, colour, etc., but I think that could be handled with some kind of 'theme' (i.e. named group of settings) capability for output, which could then be applied to physical printer printing as well as to PDF output.

It has taken me quite some time to accept this (I really have spent quite a bit of time on this code) and I am reasonably sure there is no downside to removing everything related to PDF from the application.

However, I am concerned that I may have overlooked something, so I would be interested to hear any thought anyone may have on the matter.

Thanks,

Graeme

 

[Martin Wynne]

@graeme

Hi Graeme,

Good to hear from you.

You have not been wasting your time. Various PDF generator programs as virtual printers were available long before I added the native PDF code to Templot.

The thing you are overlooking is that the object of the PDF output is to create track plans, not text-based documents.

Track plans are big. Using the native PDF output you can very easily create a PDF page 5 metres long by 1 metre wide, just by changing the sizes on the PDF dialog.

Such large-size PDF files can be printed by commercial copy shops on wide-format roll-paper printers, as used for CAD and engineering drawings, advertising banners and posters.

However, if you try to create such large custom page sizes in Windows, it gets tricky, and when you try to print to them it fails or goes wrong.

I regard the integrated native PDF output as an essential feature of Templot, and there are many users making use of it. There would be a very considerable downside to removing it.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Matt M.]

Hi Graham,

I'll add that the embedded OS programs change and you can end up with very wild results.
Apple did something during the year and I find that some things I try to save as PDFs using
the OS program become corrupted. Crushed or missing lines of type and such.

So I agree with Martin that Templot having an embedded PDF output is a good thing.

Regards, Matt M.

 

[graeme]

Gents, thanks for this. It is exactly what I was looking for.

Obviously disappointing that we can't take a step in the direction of simplification, but a big chunk of me is pleased I have not been wasting my time.

 

[Matt M.]

Hi Graeme,

Apologies for getting your name wrong in my last message. Was in a a hurry and didn't double check
what I was writing.

Matt M.

 

[graeme]

Hi Matt,

Absolutely not a problem. I have been called a lot worse.

Thanks for the correction, though.

g