Provide option to set text orientation for Measure Path extension

[ottadini]

I read inside measure.py that there's a TODO for implementing an option to keep the rotation of text 'upright'. I guess in this context that upright means horizontally oriented - like this text you're reading, as opposed to flowed along whatever path the tool is used on.

I would find this very useful, as many times I have some very small sections of a line, which when measured with this tool, result in overlaps and therefore truncated text. The only way to view the text is to (1) select it, and then (2) open the 'Text and Font' dialogue.

Inkscape Version 0.48.2.

[Alvin Penner (apenner)]

attached is a modified version of measure.py. A drop down box has been added to allow a choice of display style. The default is text on path, as before. If a different option is chosen, then the text will be displayed as a straight line, at the specified angle. This text is a stand-alone object, not attached to the original path. If this style is chosen, then the vertical Offset parameter will be applied in the opposite direction for the Length option compared to the Area option, so that the two texts will not lie on top of each other.

[Alvin Penner (apenner)]

and the .inx file as well. Both these files need to go into the directory Inkscape\share\extensions\.

[Alvin Penner (apenner)]

committed to bzr rev 11074

[ottadini (ben-harrison)]

Alvin, thank you for the fast response!

I receive an error when I run the new extension, which is due to a version incompatibility of 'simpletransform.py':

My Inkscape version number is Inkscape 0.48.2 r9819, and simpletransform.py is dated:
harb@joan:/usr/share/inkscape/extensions$ ll simpletransform.py
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6999 2011-10-07 16:58 simpletransform.py*

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "measure.py", line 199, in <module>
    e.affect()
  File "/usr/share/inkscape/extensions/inkex.py", line 215, in affect
    self.effect()
  File "measure.py", line 147, in effect
    mat = simpletransform.composeParents(node, [[1.0, 0.0, 0.0], [0.0, 1.0, 0.0]])
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'composeParents'

[Alvin Penner (apenner)]

sorry, I am attaching a new version of simpletransform, taken from current trunk of Inkscape. This will contain the new routine that is needed. I forgot about this change in the dependency. There should be no more problems with compatibility because a new routine was added but nothing was taken away. This can go into the same directory as the above.