Flow Chart Drawing For LaTeX/LyX

[Rich Shepard]

The last time I tried counting I found more than 17 different vector
drawing applications that are suitable for use with LaTeX/LyX documents.
I've used Tgif, Xfig, jpicedt, IDE, and PSTricks. Each has strengths and
weaknesses, so I use whichever seems to be the best for a particular type of
illustration.

What I want to draw now are software flowcharts that illustrate how a
model is structured and how data flow from one component to another. What
would be ideal is a set of primatives for various standard nodes: data
entry, decision points, printer, database storage, etc.

Does anyone know of any such library of pre-built images that can be
incorporated into a larger figure?

TIA,

Rich

[Niels Muller Larsen]

Post by Rich Shepard
The last time I tried counting I found more than 17 different vector
drawing applications that are suitable for use with LaTeX/LyX documents.
I've used Tgif, Xfig, jpicedt, IDE, and PSTricks. Each has strengths and
weaknesses, so I use whichever seems to be the best for a particular type of
illustration.
What I want to draw now are software flowcharts that illustrate how a
model is structured and how data flow from one component to another. What
would be ideal is a set of primatives for various standard nodes: data
entry, decision points, printer, database storage, etc.
Does anyone know of any such library of pre-built images that can be
incorporated into a larger figure?
TIA,
Rich

Take a look at Dia (http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/)

- --
Virtually

Niels M?ller Larsen
MSc Networked Information Engineering

Gammel Holmevej 19
DK8270 H?jbjerg

Mobile: [phone]
Web: http://x15.dk / http://deformation.org
Public key: 0xD4DB4A5E
(http://keyserver.veridis.com:11371/search?q=0xD4DB4A5E)

[Rich Shepard]

Post by Niels Muller Larsen
Take a look at Dia (http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/)

Thank you all. Dia it is.

Rich

[Steve Litt]

Post by Rich Shepard

Post by Niels Muller Larsen
Take a look at Dia (http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/)

Thank you all. Dia it is.

I've been using Dia for years. It's good.

When using Dia, I'd suggest you first get your fonts right with one box, and
then copy that box elsewhere. I know of no way to globally change fonts
(other than tweaking with Dia's native XML using Vim).

If you are ever interested in changing your drawing programatically, see this:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200103/200103.htm#_learningfromthemasters

I typically use Dia, and then as a final step convert to .gif before
incorporation in LyX or HTML. If you find a way to use native Dia files
directly in LyX (or HTML without requiring special browser plugins), please
let us know.

Thanks

SteveT

Steve Litt
Author:
* Universal Troubleshooting Process courseware
* Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist
* Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
* Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
* Rapid Learning: Secret Weapon of the Successful Technologist

http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore
http://www.troubleshooters.com/utp/tcourses.htm

[Rich Shepard]

Post by Steve Litt
I've been using Dia for years. It's good.

Thanks, Steve.

Post by Steve Litt
When using Dia, I'd suggest you first get your fonts right with one box,
and then copy that box elsewhere. I know of no way to globally change
fonts (other than tweaking with Dia's native XML using Vim).

OK.
The first steps will be creating UML diagrams of our approximate reasoning
model.

Post by Steve Litt
I typically use Dia, and then as a final step convert to .gif before
incorporation in LyX or HTML. If you find a way to use native Dia files
directly in LyX (or HTML without requiring special browser plugins),
please let us know.

I'll probably export to .png because that's the format of the screen shots
and I might as well be consistent in the graphics formats. I view the
developing users manual using pdflatex and the .png files work perfectly in
there.

Rich

[Jean-Pierre Chretien]

Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 16:20:31 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Flow Chart Drawing For LaTeX/LyX

[...]

What I want to draw now are software flowcharts that illustrate how a
model is structured and how data flow from one component to another. What
would be ideal is a set of primatives for various standard nodes: data
entry, decision points, printer, database storage, etc.
Does anyone know of any such library of pre-built images that can be
incorporated into a larger figure?

What abour GasTeX ?
http://www.lsv.ens-cachan.fr/~gastin/gastex/gastex.html
Rather automata-oriented, but...
Examples of integration in slides exist.

[Jean-Pierre Chretien]

Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 08:09:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Flow Chart Drawing For LaTeX/LyX

Post by Steve Litt
I've been using Dia for years. It's good.

Thanks, Steve.

Post by Steve Litt
When using Dia, I'd suggest you first get your fonts right with one box,
and then copy that box elsewhere. I know of no way to globally change
fonts (other than tweaking with Dia's native XML using Vim).

OK.
The first steps will be creating UML diagrams of our approximate reasoning
model.

Post by Steve Litt
I typically use Dia, and then as a final step convert to .gif before
incorporation in LyX or HTML. If you find a way to use native Dia files
directly in LyX (or HTML without requiring special browser plugins),
please let us know.

I'll probably export to .png because that's the format of the screen shots
and I might as well be consistent in the graphics formats. I view the
developing users manual using pdflatex and the .png files work perfectly in
there.

IMHO, it's a pity to export to bitmap diagrams which have such a strong vectorial nature.
The UML diagrams which are in the xfig library do not fit your needs ?
In addition, the xfig inset in lyx works great.

My little 0,5E...

[Rich Shepard]

Post by Jean-Pierre Chretien
IMHO, it's a pity to export to bitmap diagrams which have such a strong
vectorial nature. The UML diagrams which are in the xfig library do not
fit your needs ? In addition, the xfig inset in lyx works great.

Jean-Pierre,

It has been at least six years since I looked at xfig. Then I found the
learning curve steep and used Gri instead. However, I agree that UML
diagrams should remain vector format. Do I have issues mixing graphic
formats (e.g., png and eps) in the same document?

Thanks,

Rich

[Rich Shepard]

Post by Rich Shepard
It has been at least six years since I looked at xfig.

Well! xfig used to be a drawing language, now it's a GUI application.
Imagine that.

Rich

[Steve Litt]

Post by Rich Shepard

Post by Jean-Pierre Chretien
IMHO, it's a pity to export to bitmap diagrams which have such a strong
vectorial nature. The UML diagrams which are in the xfig library do not
fit your needs ? In addition, the xfig inset in lyx works great.

Jean-Pierre,
It has been at least six years since I looked at xfig. Then I found the
learning curve steep and used Gri instead. However, I agree that UML
diagrams should remain vector format. Do I have issues mixing graphic
formats (e.g., png and eps) in the same document?

You're right about it being a shame to lose the vector informaton, but when I
investigated xfig back around the turn of the century, it seemed too
mouse-centric, and too difficult to use. The back end native file format
might be better, but as I remember drawing was painfully slow and quirky.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Author:
* Universal Troubleshooting Process courseware
* Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist
* Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
* Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
* Rapid Learning: Secret Weapon of the Successful Technologist

http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore
http://www.troubleshooters.com/utp/tcourses.htm

[Jean-Pierre Chretien]

Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 08:23:45 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Flow Chart Drawing For LaTeX/LyX

Post by Jean-Pierre Chretien
IMHO, it's a pity to export to bitmap diagrams which have such a strong
vectorial nature. The UML diagrams which are in the xfig library do not
fit your needs ? In addition, the xfig inset in lyx works great.

Jean-Pierre,
It has been at least six years since I looked at xfig.

The looks are the same, but it improved a lot, specially about the combined export (pdf available)
and the libraries.
And the combined export solves one of the main drawbacks, that is to insert type3 fonts in the
document through the selected fonts in xfig: the textual part of the document can be written
with the document fonts, not the LyX fonts (and latex math is understood).
For example, if I select the component/interface diagram of the UML library
and select the special flag for the "Component" word, it will be exported as
\begin{picture}(3948,1111)(3205,-4837)
\put(3926,-4353){\makebox(0,0)[lb]{\smash{{\SetFigFont{12}{14.4}{\sfdefault}{\mddefault}
{\updefault}{\color[rgb]{0,0,0}Component}%
}}}}
\end{picture}%
As you may see, it uses document defaults, the size, family, series, and shape only being extracted from
the font selected in xfig.

Then I found the
learning curve steep and used Gri instead. However, I agree that UML
diagrams should remain vector format. Do I have issues mixing graphic
formats (e.g., png and eps) in the same document?

Not in LyX, due to the great work of the developers to make graphic conversions
transparent, so that compilation with latex or pdflatex is equivalent.

But in fact eps belongs to latex and png to pdflatex, and it's
an exclusive or.

Personnally, I compile in latex when there are a lot of figures,
because dvi does not load the figures (latex needs only the bounding box)
and is thus faster, I compile with pdflatex when there are many
screenshots.

Regards

[Paul Smith]

Post by Jean-Pierre Chretien

Post by Rich Shepard

Post by Jean-Pierre Chretien
IMHO, it's a pity to export to bitmap diagrams which have such a strong
vectorial nature. The UML diagrams which are in the xfig library do not
fit your needs ? In addition, the xfig inset in lyx works great.

It has been at least six years since I looked at xfig.

The looks are the same, but it improved a lot, specially about the combined export (pdf available)
and the libraries.
And the combined export solves one of the main drawbacks, that is to insert type3 fonts in the
document through the selected fonts in xfig: the textual part of the document can be written
with the document fonts, not the LyX fonts (and latex math is understood).
For example, if I select the component/interface diagram of the UML library
and select the special flag for the "Component" word, it will be exported as
\begin{picture}(3948,1111)(3205,-4837)
\put(3926,-4353){\makebox(0,0)[lb]{\smash{{\SetFigFont{12}{14.4}{\sfdefault}{\mddefault}
{\updefault}{\color[rgb]{0,0,0}Component}%
}}}}
\end{picture}%
As you may see, it uses document defaults, the size, family, series, and shape only being extracted from
the font selected in xfig.

Post by Rich Shepard
Then I found the
learning curve steep and used Gri instead. However, I agree that UML
diagrams should remain vector format. Do I have issues mixing graphic
formats (e.g., png and eps) in the same document?

Not in LyX, due to the great work of the developers to make graphic conversions
transparent, so that compilation with latex or pdflatex is equivalent.
But in fact eps belongs to latex and png to pdflatex, and it's
an exclusive or.
Personnally, I compile in latex when there are a lot of figures,
because dvi does not load the figures (latex needs only the bounding box)
and is thus faster, I compile with pdflatex when there are many
screenshots.

Inkscape seems particularly apt to produce flowcharts, as it has got
the 'connectors' features, making the arrows connected even when one
moves the connected frames. And it can save the pictures as vectorial
eps, pdf, and so on.

Paul

[Paul A. Rubin]

Post by Paul Smith
Inkscape seems particularly apt to produce flowcharts, as it has got
the 'connectors' features, making the arrows connected even when one
moves the connected frames. And it can save the pictures as vectorial
eps, pdf, and so on.

Inkscape looks pretty nice, but unless I'm missing something, it does
not support embedded LaTeX commands (and in particular math formulas)?

/Paul

[Paul Smith]

Post by Paul A. Rubin

Post by Paul Smith
Inkscape seems particularly apt to produce flowcharts, as it has got
the 'connectors' features, making the arrows connected even when one
moves the connected frames. And it can save the pictures as vectorial
eps, pdf, and so on.

Inkscape looks pretty nice, but unless I'm missing something, it does
not support embedded LaTeX commands (and in particular math formulas)?

That is true that it does not support embedded LaTeX commands in
general, but one can virtually insert anything LaTeX can output (math
formulas included) by converting from eps to svg (the Inkscape's
format). The final picture (with the math formulas inserted) looks
great and it is vectorial, scalable.

Paul

[Paul Smith]

Post by Paul Smith

Post by Paul A. Rubin

Post by Paul Smith
Inkscape seems particularly apt to produce flowcharts, as it has got
the 'connectors' features, making the arrows connected even when one
moves the connected frames. And it can save the pictures as vectorial
eps, pdf, and so on.

Inkscape looks pretty nice, but unless I'm missing something, it does
not support embedded LaTeX commands (and in particular math formulas)?

That is true that it does not support embedded LaTeX commands in
general, but one can virtually insert anything LaTeX can output (math
formulas included) by converting from eps to svg (the Inkscape's
format). The final picture (with the math formulas inserted) looks
great and it is vectorial, scalable.

To illustrate what I said, I am sending a small svg picture with a
math formula produced with LaTeX.

Paul

[Jean-Pierre Chretien]

Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 11:58:15 +0100
Subject: Re: Flow Chart Drawing For LaTeX/LyX

[...]

To illustrate what I said, I am sending a small svg picture with a
math formula produced with LaTeX.

Thank you for this example.
To illustrate the difference in handling between Xfig and Inkscape, here is a beamer
slide with both formulas:
SVG integral is Paul's saved as eps
Xfig integral is an external inset of the formula in a rectangle.
As you may see, the beamer fonts are respected in the xfig inset.

If I add in preamble mathserif option to the beamer document class,
I get the second result.

IMHO, xfig is more powerful, as there is no need to change the fig file
to adapt to document default changes to familiy, series and shape.

[Paul Smith]

Post by Jean-Pierre Chretien

Post by Paul Smith
To illustrate what I said, I am sending a small svg picture with a
math formula produced with LaTeX.

Thank you for this example.
To illustrate the difference in handling between Xfig and Inkscape, here is a beamer
SVG integral is Paul's saved as eps
Xfig integral is an external inset of the formula in a rectangle.
As you may see, the beamer fonts are respected in the xfig inset.
If I add in preamble mathserif option to the beamer document class,
I get the second result.

The inferior quality of my example as it appears on your beamer
presentation is because you took the screenshot of the kpdf output.
You will not notice any difference if you use acroread. (A screenshot
is attached.)

Paul

[Curtis Osterhoudt]

Subject: Re: Flow Chart Drawing For LaTeX/LyX
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 14:38:52 +0200 (MEST)

Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 11:58:15 +0100
Subject: Re: Flow Chart Drawing For LaTeX/LyX

[...]

To illustrate what I said, I am sending a small svg picture with a
math formula produced with LaTeX.

Thank you for this example.
To illustrate the difference in handling between Xfig and Inkscape, here is a beamer
SVG integral is Paul's saved as eps
Xfig integral is an external inset of the formula in a rectangle.
As you may see, the beamer fonts are respected in the xfig inset.
If I add in preamble mathserif option to the beamer document class,
I get the second result.
IMHO, xfig is more powerful, as there is no need to change the fig file
to adapt to document default changes to familiy, series and shape.
--
Jean-Pierre

I'm not trying to side-track this discussion, but there's a bit of an
issue I've had with XFig itself (before I incorporate its figures into LyX,
which works fabulously). I can start XFig so that all NEW text has the
"special" flag and LaTeX fonts. However, if I want to edit a file in XFig
which has been created elsewhere (I often produce plots in .eps format in,
say, Mathematica, then use pstoedit to turn it into XFig format), the fonts,
of course, don't have these special flags. I have written a Mathematica
program to correctly set these flags in the XFig files, but one has to have
Mathematica!. So my question is:

Is there a simple program to set these things (special flag, LaTeX
fonts, perhaps some nice feature like scale-fonts-to-60%-of-original-size)?
Is there some switch in pstoedit that I'm missing? Or is there a simple
regex way from bash? I'll eventually get another way figured out; it's not a
pressing concern.

Thanks,
Curtis O.

[Ingo Klöcker]

Post by Curtis Osterhoudt
I'm not trying to side-track this discussion, but there's a bit of
an issue I've had with XFig itself (before I incorporate its figures
into LyX, which works fabulously). I can start XFig so that all NEW
text has the "special" flag and LaTeX fonts. However, if I want to
edit a file in XFig which has been created elsewhere (I often produce
plots in .eps format in, say, Mathematica, then use pstoedit to turn
it into XFig format), the fonts, of course, don't have these special
flags. I have written a Mathematica program to correctly set these
flags in the XFig files, but one has to have Mathematica!. So my
Is there a simple program to set these things (special flag,
LaTeX fonts, perhaps some nice feature like
scale-fonts-to-60%-of-original-size)? Is there some switch in
pstoedit that I'm missing? Or is there a simple regex way from bash?
I'll eventually get another way figured out; it's not a pressing
concern.

The XFig format is a pretty simple text format. I've once written a
small script (in Perl I think) which scales an image without changing
the font size. (XFig does also change the font size when one scales an
image.) It shouldn't be hard to write a script which does what you
want. I've attached my script to give you a starting point.

Regards,
Ingo

[Curtis Osterhoudt]

Subject: Re: Flow Chart Drawing For LaTeX/LyX
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 23:11:10 +0200

Post by Curtis Osterhoudt
I'm not trying to side-track this discussion, but there's a bit of
an issue I've had with XFig itself (before I incorporate its figures
into LyX, which works fabulously). I can start XFig so that all NEW
text has the "special" flag and LaTeX fonts. However, if I want to
edit a file in XFig which has been created elsewhere (I often produce
plots in .eps format in, say, Mathematica, then use pstoedit to turn
it into XFig format), the fonts, of course, don't have these special
flags. I have written a Mathematica program to correctly set these
flags in the XFig files, but one has to have Mathematica!. So my
Is there a simple program to set these things (special flag,
LaTeX fonts, perhaps some nice feature like
scale-fonts-to-60%-of-original-size)? Is there some switch in
pstoedit that I'm missing? Or is there a simple regex way from bash?
I'll eventually get another way figured out; it's not a pressing
concern.

The XFig format is a pretty simple text format. I've once written a
small script (in Perl I think) which scales an image without changing
the font size. (XFig does also change the font size when one scales an
image.) It shouldn't be hard to write a script which does what you
want. I've attached my script to give you a starting point.
Regards,
Ingo

Thank you much, Ingo. That's exactly the sort of thing my program did, but
this will probably be considerably easier (command line!). Great!

C

[Jean-Pierre Chretien]

Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 13:59:30 +0100
Subject: Re: Flow Chart Drawing For LaTeX/LyX

Post by Paul Smith
To illustrate what I said, I am sending a small svg picture with a
math formula produced with LaTeX.

The inferior quality of my example as it appears on your beamer
presentation is because you took the screenshot of the kpdf output.
You will not notice any difference if you use acroread. (A screenshot
is attached.)

My point was not about quality od the output, but about adaptation do document fonts.

However, what I did was to export tp eps (to get a vector graphics eps)
and then to run pdflatex on the lyx file (which in turn runs epstopdf of the vector graphics
eps to get a vector graphic pdf).
Direct export from svg to pdf does nor crop the figure,
otherwise I would have tried direct export to pdf.

Looking closer to the eps file, it is a set of GS command to draw the formula: no fonts
in it, nor of course in the converted pdf file:
-> pdffonts integral.pdf
name type emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ------------ --- --- --- ---------

Thus it seems that Inkscape draws the formula in vector graphics.

I use Inkscape 0.43 (Nov 30 2005)
Maybe a more recent versioon does a better job with eps and pdf exports ?

[Paul Smith]

Post by Jean-Pierre Chretien

Post by Paul Smith

Post by Paul Smith
To illustrate what I said, I am sending a small svg picture with a
math formula produced with LaTeX.

The inferior quality of my example as it appears on your beamer
presentation is because you took the screenshot of the kpdf output.
You will not notice any difference if you use acroread. (A screenshot
is attached.)

My point was not about quality od the output, but about adaptation do document fonts.
However, what I did was to export tp eps (to get a vector graphics eps)
and then to run pdflatex on the lyx file (which in turn runs epstopdf of the vector graphics
eps to get a vector graphic pdf).
Direct export from svg to pdf does nor crop the figure,
otherwise I would have tried direct export to pdf.
Looking closer to the eps file, it is a set of GS command to draw the formula: no fonts
-> pdffonts integral.pdf
name type emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ------------ --- --- --- ---------
Thus it seems that Inkscape draws the formula in vector graphics.
I use Inkscape 0.43 (Nov 30 2005)
Maybe a more recent versioon does a better job with eps and pdf exports ?

It is correct your guess: Inkscape draws the formula in vector
graphics. You can export a cropped pdf picture directly from Inkscape:
fit page to selection in Document Properties. However, my svg picture
is already cropped; so, you just need to save it as pdf. Anyway, it is
true that formulas are drawn, but it does not really matter, in my
opinion, as you can always change the fonts with which LaTeX draws the
eps formulas.

Paul

[Rich Shepard]

Post by Paul Smith

Post by Jean-Pierre Chretien
As you may see, the beamer fonts are respected in the xfig inset.

The inferior quality of my example as it appears on your beamer
presentation is because you took the screenshot of the kpdf output. You
will not notice any difference if you use acroread. (A screenshot is
attached.)

All,

I'm sorry that my request for vector drawing suggestions raised
testosterone levels so high. That was not my intent.

The point that _I_ think is important is the number of choices available
to those of us who work in a F/OSS environment. It doesn't matter one bit --
at least to me -- what approach is used; they all work and each of us is
comfortable using a different application to reach the same end point. Heck,
I got excellent LaTeX fonts in my Tgif figures, too.

I think the count of vector drawing applications (point-and-shoot, coding,
whatever) is about 18. This does not include data plotting applications (of
which I know of about a half-dozen). Those stuck behind closed Windows
should appreciate that we have a plethora of choices, not the only one that
comes out of Redmond. As this thread illustrates so well, each choice has
its following who are passionate that their comfortable way is The One True
Way.

The same response of "Oh, yeah? Let's put 'em on the bar and see who's
bigger" used to regularly occur on the local linux/UNIX user group's mail
list. Someone would ask how to accomplish a task and within a few hours
solutions were presented as: bash shell scripts, grep, perl, python, ruby,
lisp, sed/awk, and so on.

IMNSHO, the major point is that we have multiple ways of accomplishing the
same tasks and reaching the same goals. In the end -- on paper or projected
on a screen -- they all work. None is better or worse, they're just all
different. Is it Emacs or Vi? Xfce, Gnome, or KDE? One of the 200+
distributions? Who really cares? Perhaps some, but not me.

You're both correct, and I am grateful to learn from both of you how you
use your tool of choice. Thank you very much for that.

Carpe weekend,

Rich

[Stephen Harris]

Post by Rich Shepard

Post by Jean-Pierre Chretien
As you may see, the beamer fonts are respected in the xfig inset.

IMNSHO, the major point is that we have multiple ways of accomplishing the
same tasks and reaching the same goals. In the end -- on paper or projected
on a screen -- they all work. None is better or worse, they're just all
different. Is it Emacs or Vi? Xfce, Gnome, or KDE? One of the 200+
distributions? Who really cares? Perhaps some, but not me.
You're both correct, and I am grateful to learn from both of you how you
use your tool of choice. Thank you very much for that.
Carpe weekend,
Rich

Many roads lead to Rome but that doesn't mean they all take
the same time to get there or are equally as free of bumps.

http://www.maa.org/editorial/mathgames/mathgames_08_01_05.html

Lists a lot of drawing programs. The program I read most
recommended is OmniGraffle (4 Pro) which comes with Macs.
I'm also envious of BBedit.

[Curtis Osterhoudt]

Subject: Re: Flow Chart Drawing For LaTeX/LyX
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 09:12:06 -0700

Post by Rich Shepard

Post by Jean-Pierre Chretien
As you may see, the beamer fonts are respected in the xfig inset.

IMNSHO, the major point is that we have multiple ways of accomplishing the
same tasks and reaching the same goals. In the end -- on paper or projected
on a screen -- they all work. None is better or worse, they're just all
different. Is it Emacs or Vi? Xfce, Gnome, or KDE? One of the 200+
distributions? Who really cares? Perhaps some, but not me.
You're both correct, and I am grateful to learn from both of you how you
use your tool of choice. Thank you very much for that.
Carpe weekend,
Rich

Many roads lead to Rome but that doesn't mean they all take
the same time to get there or are equally as free of bumps.
http://www.maa.org/editorial/mathgames/mathgames_08_01_05.html
Lists a lot of drawing programs. The program I read most
recommended is OmniGraffle (4 Pro) which comes with Macs.
I'm also envious of BBedit.
--
Stephen

Thank you for that link, Stephen. It looks like I'll find a lot of useful
stuff there. However, at least some of the information on it is incorrect.
For example, Dia has been available on Linux for *at least* 6 years, though
that webpage claims it's only available for Windows. People should probably
look in to each of those programs if they look at all interesting,
regardless of what OS they use.

Curtis

[Wolfgang Engelmann]

Post by Curtis Osterhoudt

Post by Stephen Harris
http://www.maa.org/editorial/mathgames/mathgames_08_01_05.html

in the list for vector drawing programs Pyx is missing, which one should also
consider.

http://pyx.sourceforge.net/

Wolfgang

Post by Curtis Osterhoudt

Post by Stephen Harris
Lists a lot of drawing programs. The program I read most
recommended is OmniGraffle (4 Pro) which comes with Macs.
I'm also envious of BBedit.
--
Stephen

Thank you for that link, Stephen. It looks like I'll find a lot of
useful stuff there. However, at least some of the information on it is
incorrect. For example, Dia has been available on Linux for *at least* 6
years, though that webpage claims it's only available for Windows. People
should probably look in to each of those programs if they look at all
interesting, regardless of what OS they use.
Curtis

[Paul Smith]

Post by Rich Shepard

Post by Paul Smith

Post by Jean-Pierre Chretien
As you may see, the beamer fonts are respected in the xfig inset.

The inferior quality of my example as it appears on your beamer
presentation is because you took the screenshot of the kpdf output. You
will not notice any difference if you use acroread. (A screenshot is
attached.)

All,
I'm sorry that my request for vector drawing suggestions raised
testosterone levels so high. That was not my intent.
The point that _I_ think is important is the number of choices available
to those of us who work in a F/OSS environment. It doesn't matter one bit --
at least to me -- what approach is used; they all work and each of us is
comfortable using a different application to reach the same end point. Heck,
I got excellent LaTeX fonts in my Tgif figures, too.
I think the count of vector drawing applications (point-and-shoot, coding,
whatever) is about 18. This does not include data plotting applications (of
which I know of about a half-dozen). Those stuck behind closed Windows
should appreciate that we have a plethora of choices, not the only one that
comes out of Redmond. As this thread illustrates so well, each choice has
its following who are passionate that their comfortable way is The One True
Way.
The same response of "Oh, yeah? Let's put 'em on the bar and see who's
bigger" used to regularly occur on the local linux/UNIX user group's mail
list. Someone would ask how to accomplish a task and within a few hours
solutions were presented as: bash shell scripts, grep, perl, python, ruby,
lisp, sed/awk, and so on.
IMNSHO, the major point is that we have multiple ways of accomplishing the
same tasks and reaching the same goals. In the end -- on paper or projected
on a screen -- they all work. None is better or worse, they're just all
different. Is it Emacs or Vi? Xfce, Gnome, or KDE? One of the 200+
distributions? Who really cares? Perhaps some, but not me.
You're both correct, and I am grateful to learn from both of you how you
use your tool of choice. Thank you very much for that.

Maybe, Rich misunderstood me. I did not mean to be defending Inkscape
against Xfig (or any other program). My only intent was to illustrate,
to the public of this list, the possibilities of Inkscape, specially
regarding the insertion of math formulas. I am not enough literate
regarding drawing programs to be able of judging one better than the
other one.

Paul

[John Pye]

Hi,

For UML diagrams, consider taking a look at Gaphor which is a purpose
built UML program that runs on Linux, Windows & Mac (using Python and GTK+).

It's also worth taking a look at Graphviz (dot, neato), especially if
you think you might like to automate the production of your diagrams.

Cheers
JP

Post by Rich Shepard
The last time I tried counting I found more than 17 different vector
drawing applications that are suitable for use with LaTeX/LyX documents.
I've used Tgif, Xfig, jpicedt, IDE, and PSTricks. Each has strengths and
weaknesses, so I use whichever seems to be the best for a particular type of
illustration.
What I want to draw now are software flowcharts that illustrate how a
model is structured and how data flow from one component to another. What
would be ideal is a set of primatives for various standard nodes: data
entry, decision points, printer, database storage, etc.
Does anyone know of any such library of pre-built images that can be
incorporated into a larger figure?
TIA,
Rich