I have found a large number of additional shape files for Dia at
http://dia-installer.de/shapes/index.html.en
(this is the link to the English page).
There is also a downloadable program to install them, which I sort of tried and did not succeed with. However, in looking at the existing files in my Dia PA installation I figured out how to install the additional shapes. Here's the procedure:
1. at the link above, download the zip file for the shape set of interest.
2. While it can be extracted, the installation can be done without actually extracting the zip.
a. Open the zip. It will contain a folder called shapes, which in turn contains a folder named for the shapes in question.
b. drag the shape-name folder to \PortableApps\DiaPortable\App\Dia\shapes, creating an additional folder in the shapes folder.
c. There will also be a folder called sheets, which in turn will have a file with the shape-name and an extension of .sheet.
d. drag the .sheet file to PortableApps\DiaPortable\App\Dia\sheets
The new shapes will be available the next time Dia is started.
Question: Should any edits be made to the installer.ini file that resides in PortableApps\DiaPortable\App\AppInfo? The contents of my file are shown below.
[OptionalComponents]
OptionalComponents=true
OptionalDirectory1=App\Dia\locale
OptionalDirectory2=App\Dia\lib\locale
OptionalDirectory3=App\Dia\share\locale
OptionalDirectory4=App\Dia\help\eu
OptionalDirectory5=App\Dia\help\fr
OptionalDirectory6=App\Dia\help\pl
[FilesToPreserve]
PreserveFile1=App\Dia\dia\dia-python.dll
PreserveFile2=App\Dia\bin\dia.pyd
PreserveFile3=App\Dia\*.py
[FilesToRemove]
RemoveFile1=Data\settings\.dia\pluginrc
RemoveFile2=Data\settings\.dia\menurc
I am afraid that all the new shapes will be lost during a new install.
Thanks,
JK
EDIT: Not being a frequent poster, I remembered that I should have searched this topic before posting. Duh! I see that there is a post about a portable version of Diashapes, the program I tried in non-portable version to install the additional shapes. The posting indicates it is available on the Dia Portable home page, which I do not see. I am pretty sure the method I give above is right (I have already used it). My question about installer.ini remains. JK
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The link has been removed, see here for details. It'll be added again after the next Dia Portable release.
It's recommended to install additional shapes to \DiaPortable\Data\settings\.dia\shapes or \sheets. Diashapes Portable uses that path too and at that location all files will be preserved on upgrade.
Adding the shapes to the \DiaPortable\App\Dia directory isn't and won't be supported! These shapes will be lost on upgrade or new install.
Thanks Bart. I moved the shape and sheet files as per your information and Dia Portable found them fine on launch.
JK
DiaShapes 0.2.2 is out, or are we talking the next release after that?
We are talking about the next Dia release, not Diashapes.
Ahh, sorry. It was late when I posted that, was tired, and must have misread it.
Hopefully it won't be too long before a new version is out. It's been almost 18 months since an official release, with constant bug fixing going on.
Dia Portable 0.97.2 has been released, so Diashapes Portable 0.0.1 works again.
Get it here.
For future releases, would it just make more sense to just pre-install them all? They don't take up much space and nothing seems to be added to the repository anymore.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
As soon as someone makes new shapes (and uses a free license) and sends a note to Steffen Macke, the shapes will be added. At the beginning of Diashapes Portable there were 6 additional packages in the repository. Now there are 17 and growing.