dia-installer.de / Documentation / Manual

Dia

Kevin Breit

Henry House

Judith Samson

Alan Horkan

Thomas Harding

Mark Dexter

Hans Breuer

This is version 0.97.2 of the Dia manual.

Copyright © 2004, 2009 Kevin Breit, Henry House, Judith Samson, Alan Horkan, Mark Dexter

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. You may obtain a copy of the GNU Free Documentation License from the Free Software Foundation by visiting their Web site or by writing to: Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

Many of the names used by companies to distinguish their products and services are claimed as trademarks. Where those names appear in any GNOME documentation, and those trademarks are made aware to the members of the GNOME Documentation Project, the names have been printed in caps or initial caps.

Revision History
Revision 0.97+git2011-04-25hb
Work in progress for dia-0-98
Revision 0.97.22011-04-25hb
Actually describing noteable new features/behaviour of dia-0-97.x
Revision 0.97.02009-02-20sdteffen
Bumping dates and revisions to show progress for 0.97 release
Revision 0.5-22008-05-27HDG
dropping HTML entities, making dia-1.xml independant from dia-cmdline.xml, dropping file extension from graphics

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
1.1. Introduction
2. Quickstart
2.1. What Can You Do?
2.2. Starting Dia
2.3. Creating a Canvas
2.4. Making a Diagram
2.5. Saving and Printing Your Diagram
2.6. Running Dia From the Command Line
2.7. Who Does Dia Appeal To?
3. The Canvas
3.1. Canvas Introduction
3.2. Grid Lines
3.3. Rulers
3.4. Background Color
3.5. Zooming
3.6. Other View Menu Options
3.7. Undo and Redo
4. Objects and the Toolbox
4.1. Dia Toolbox Overview
4.1.1. Modify Control
4.1.2. Textedit Control
4.1.3. Magnify Control
4.1.4. Scroll Control
4.1.5. Basic Objects
4.1.6. Special Objects
4.1.7. Default Color, Line Width, and Line Style
4.2. Using Objects
4.2.1. Adding Objects
4.2.2. Moving Objects
4.2.3. Resizing Objects
4.2.4. Deleting Objects
4.2.5. Connecting Objects With Lines
4.2.6. Entering Text
4.2.7. Aligning Objects
4.2.7.1. How To Align Objects
4.2.7.2. Left, Center, and Right Align
4.2.7.3. Top, Middle, and Bottom Align
4.2.7.4. Spread Out Horizontally and Vertically
4.2.7.5. Align Adjacent or Stacked
4.2.7.6. Align Connected
4.2.8. Grouping Objects
4.3. Object Properties
4.3.1. Sources of Default Properties
4.3.2. Changing Object Properties
4.3.2.1. Changing Properties for One Object
4.3.2.2. Changing Properties for a Group of Objects
4.4. Colors
4.4.1. Select Color Box
4.5. Diagram Tree
4.5.1. Opening the Diagram Tree
4.5.2. Working With the Diagram Tree
5. Basic Objects
5.1. Basic Objects Introduction
5.1.1. Text
5.1.2. Box
5.1.3. Ellipse
5.1.4. Polygon
5.1.5. Beziergon
5.1.6. Line
5.1.7. Arc
5.1.8. Zigzagline
5.1.9. Polyline
5.1.10. Bezierline
5.1.11. Line Properties
5.1.11.1. Line Width
5.1.11.2. Line Color
5.1.11.3. Line Style
5.1.11.4. Arrows
5.1.12. Image
5.1.13. Outline
6. Special Objects
6.1. Special Objects
6.1.1. Special Object Categories
6.1.1.1. Assorted
6.1.1.2. Chemical Engineering
6.1.1.3. Chronogram
6.1.1.4. Circuit
6.1.1.5. Cisco - Computer
6.1.1.6. Cisco - Misc
6.1.1.7. Cisco - Network
6.1.1.8. Cisco - Switch
6.1.1.9. Cisco - Telephony
6.1.1.10. Civil
6.1.1.11. Cybernetics
6.1.1.12. DIN Electrical
6.1.1.13. ER
6.1.1.14. Flowchart
6.1.1.15. FS (Function Structure)
6.1.1.16. GRAFCET
6.1.1.17. Istar
6.1.1.18. Jackson
6.1.1.19. KAOS
6.1.1.20. Map 3D Isometric
6.1.1.21. Misc.
6.1.1.22. MSE
6.1.1.23. Network
6.1.1.24. PLC Ladder
6.1.1.25. Pneumatic/Hydraulic
6.1.1.26. SADT
6.1.1.27. SDL
6.1.1.28. Sybase
6.1.1.29. UML
6.1.2. Organizing Sheets and Objects
7. Selecting Objects
7.1. Selection Introduction
7.2. How To Select Objects
7.2.1. Selecting a Single Object
7.2.2. Deselecting Objects
7.2.3. Selecting Multiple Objects
7.2.3.1. Shift+Click Selection
7.2.3.2. Select By Area
7.2.3.3. Select All
7.2.3.4. Select None
7.2.3.5. Select Invert
7.2.3.6. Select Transitive
7.2.3.7. Select Connected
7.2.3.8. Select Same Type
7.3. Working With Selected Objects
7.3.1. Operations on All Selected Objects
7.3.1.1. Move Selected Objects
7.3.1.2. Copy, Cut, Paste, Duplicate, Delete
7.3.1.3. Working With Individual Objects
7.3.1.4. Creating an Object Group
8. Loading and Saving Diagrams
8.1. Loading and Saving Introduction
8.2. File Types
8.2.1. Dia Native Diagram Files
8.2.2. Import/Export Formats
8.2.3. Exporting Only Formats
9. Customization
9.1. Preferences Dialog
9.1.1. User Interface
9.1.2. Diagram Defaults
9.1.3. View Defaults
9.1.4. File export favorites
9.1.5. Grid Lines
10. Managing Layers
10.1. Introduction to Layers
10.2. Managing Layers Basics
10.2.1. Create a New Layer
10.2.2. Selecting Layers
10.2.3. Ordering Layers
10.2.4. Deleting Layers
10.2.5. Renaming Layers
10.3. Viewing Layers
11. Custom Shape Module
11.1. Custom-shape Module introduction
11.2. Shapes
11.3. The Shape Description
11.3.1. Style attribute
11.3.2. Recognised drawing elements
11.4. Shapes in Shapes aka. Subshapes
11.5. Extented Attributes
11.6. The Sheet description
11.7. How Dia helps to create and manage sheets and shapes.
11.8. Design Notes
12. Dia command line
12.1. Introduction
12.2. Command line manual
13. Authors
14. License
14.1. License

List of Figures

1.1. Sample Flowchart Diagram
2.1. Sample Network Diagram
2.2. Dia tabbed diagramming
2.3. Dia Startup
3.1. Diagram / Properties / Grid
3.2. Snap-To-Grid Toggle Button
3.3. Ruler With Arrows Circled in Red
3.4. Changing Background Color
3.5. Toolbox Magnify
3.6. Canvas Zoom
3.7. View Menu Zoom Options
3.8. View Menu
4.1. Dia Toolbox
4.2. Modify Control
4.3. Textedit Control
4.4. Magnify Control
4.5. Scroll Control
4.6. Special Objects
4.7. Default Color, Line Width, and Line Style
4.8. Restore Default Colors Button
4.9. Reverse Colors Button
4.10. Default Line Width
4.11. Arrow and Line Style
4.12. Object Handles
4.13. Line Handles
4.14. Line Connected
4.15. Fixed Connection Point
4.16. Middle Connection Point
4.17. Edit Menu Text Commands
4.18. Objects / Align Options
4.19. Before Left, Center, Right Align
4.20. Align Left
4.21. Align Center
4.22. Align Right
4.23. Before Top, Middle, Bottom Align
4.24. Align Top
4.25. Align Middle
4.26. Align Bottom
4.27. Before Spread Out Horizontally
4.28. After Spread Out Horizontally
4.29. Before Spread Out Vertically
4.30. After Spread Out Vertically
4.31. Align / Adjacent
4.32. Align / Stacked
4.33. Before Align Connected
4.34. After Align Connected
4.35. Before and After Group Create
4.36. Default Text Properties
4.37. Default Box Properties
4.38. Color Listbox
4.39. Select Color Box
4.40. Diagram Tree
5.1. Basic Objects
5.2. Zigzagline Right-Click Menu
5.3. Polyline Right-Click Menu
5.4. Bezierline Right-Click Menu
5.5. Standard Line Properties
5.6. Line Styles
5.7. Line Caps
5.8. Line Arrows
5.9. Image
6.1. Assorted
6.2. Cisco - Computer
6.3. Cisco - Misc
6.4. Cisco - Network
6.5. Cisco - Switch
6.6. Cisco - Telephony
6.7. Flowchart
6.8. Misc
6.9. Network
6.10. UML
6.11. UML Class Properties
6.12. Sheets and Objects
7.1. Selected Object
7.2. Select By Area Example
7.3. Select Menu
9.1.  User Interface
9.2. Diagram Defaults
9.3. View Defaults
9.4. File export favorites
9.5. Grid Lines

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