(mgp-users 00176) Bug-Reports / Feature-Requests

[Simon Budig <Simon.Budig@unix-ag.org>]

Hi all.

First: Im a new user to mgp and Im really happy about this program.
I just subscribed to this list. I have some Bug-Reports and some
Feature-Requests (Version 1.06a).
Since Im really new to this list I have no Idea, if these things
are already well known - I personally think, they will improve
mpg.

Bye,
	Simon

----------------------------------------------

Bugs:
-----------

* Pagecache is not working correctly with "%mark" and "%again"

* empty lines in the preamble should be simply ignored - this would make
  it more readable...

* hgap defaults to something != 0 - this is a bad thing for most european
  fonts

* "%right" does not handle spaces in long lines correctly: it adds them to
  the end of every line, so the text is not at the right border of the screen. 

* mgp crashes for negative size-definitions (see below).


Feature Requests:
----------------------

* relative definitions of size would be great:
     %size 6
     Text in Size 6
     %size +2
     Text in Size 8
     %size -5
     Text in size 3


* I want some kind of styles - the "%tab foo" is a good start (but
  misnamed). IMHO it should go this way:

     %style foo size 12, prefix "Foo ", fore "red"
     %usestyle foo
     Some Text...

  Styles should be defined in the preamble only

  &foo could remain as a shortcut. The advantage is, that you can use the
  styles for cascading style-definitions:

     %style normal font "helvetica", size 4
     %style title usestyle normal, size +3
  

* A kind of nesting styles would be useful:

     %usestyle foo
     %fore "blue"
     This text will be printed with style foo and blue
   
     %(
     %fore "red"
     This Text will be printed red
     %)
     This text will be printed as before - no need to hardcode "blue"
     as color in the text again.

     %page
     The new page will start over with the defaults. Maybe a warning
     of unclosed parentheses should be spit out.


* I want to give borders to the textbox:

     %leftfill 5 90
     this Text starts 5% from left and has the width 90 % of the screensize.


* some kind of positioning would be great (esp. for images):
     %cursor 20 4
     %% place cursor at 20% of the screenwidth and 4 % of the screenheight
     %image "bar.gif"


* please add some kind of plain-color bars - I personally dont like
  the shaded bars.

* as an analogy to the prefix a postfix command could be useful - i.e.
  for adding bars after every list-item.

* "%pcache" in the preamble should set the default for all pages.

* tabs at the start of a continued line should be ignored:

     The following list is important:
     <Tab>    Item 1
     <Tab>    Item 2 with a really long description, that should \
     be in multiple lines...

  Is less readable then:

     The following list is important:
     <Tab>    Item 1
     <Tab>    Item 2 with a really long description, that should \
     <Tab>    be in multiple lines...
  
* The mousecursor should be only visible, when jotting or pressing CTRL

-- 
      Simon.Budig@unix-ag.org       http://www.home.unix-ag.org/simon/