Jpgfdraw 0.5b released
The vector graphics application for LaTeX users Jpgfdraw beta version 0.5b has been released today.
The author Nicola Talbot announced:
Jpgfdraw is a graphics application written in Java. You can use Jpgfdraw to:
- Construct shapes using lines, moves and cubic Bezier segments;
- Edit shapes by changing the defining control points;
- Incorporate text and bitmap images (for annotation and background effects);
- Extract the parameters for TeX’s parshape command and for shapepar (defined in the shapepar package);
- Construct frames for use with the flowfram package;
- Pictures can be saved in Jpgfdraw’s native binary format (JDR) or native ascii format (AJR) or can be exported as:
- a pgfpicture environment for use in LaTeX documents with the pgf package;
- a LaTeX2e package based on the flowfram package;
- an encapsulated postscript file;
- a PNG image file;
- an SVG image file;
- Incorporate text and bitmap images (for annotation and background effects);
- Alternative text may be specified for use when exporting to a LaTeX file (e.g. if the text contains symbols or if it should be set in maths mode);
- Mappings may be used to specify what LaTeX font declarations should be used when exporting to a LaTeX file.
That sounds very promising. I made a quick test today with Ubuntu Linux 8.04. After installing sun-java6-jre I downloaded and installed jpgfdraw-0.5b-us. It worked immediately. For the test I created a drawing and exported it into a pgf picture, tex format. After including it into a tex document and compiling I got the error Illegal unit of measure (pt inserted). It was caused by the numbers of the export file, they were using a comma instead of a decimal point. That problem is mentioned in the Jpgfdraw FAQ, but contrary to the FAQ it is still occuring with version 0.5b as I noticed using the locale de_DE.UTF-8.
After correction It worked perfectly, the drawing was displayed with high quality. Jpgfdraw could establish itself as a very useful tool.
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