Thanks so much for this useful plugin! It already helped me export a lot of diagrams for presentations, so I happily donated
I only found it to be more click-intensive to get the desired result than IMHO necessary:
The basic diagram export has no customizable options so itâs not always useful. IMHO, customizable settings would help here.
The split into 3 different options is a bit unintuitive IMHO. âExport for publicationâ canât save all diagrams from the file, just from a sheet, while âMass exportâ can do both (although called âtablesâ there?!?).
Therefore, I suggest:
a) to consolidate the export options into âquickâ & âadvancedâ or something like this. The latter getting all the nice options & a step-by-step-workflow, while the former being configurable via the global plugin settings.
b) or, to merge all currently 3 options into a single dialogue which would by default suggest the last used settings, so a single additional click would lead to a quick export, while each option to adjust the export would be just on click away.
Please let me know what you think about these suggestions.
The chart export functionality has evolved slowly over time. First the was only the âquick-saveâ command, which does nothing else than copy the current chart to the clipboard, then use IrfanView to save the clipboard contents to file; alternatively, if IrfanView is not available, it uses a Visual Basic command to save a very âbasicâ, low-resolution version of the chart. The batch export feature originally served to quickly export many charts in this way.
The âexport for publicationâ command was developed separately. Only recently I merged some of its functionality into the batch export feature. Youâre right, it could probably be organized in a cleaner way.
What kind of settings in the basic diagram export are you missing? Do you mean a way to edit IrfanViewâs plugin options?
Iâll think about re-designing these commands. However, I put more mental effort into a potential rewrite of the Toolbox using modern programming tools, as the current code base is hard to maintain.
The options are not really missing, it just would be great to assign the parameters from âexport for publicationâ-function as a default for the quick export. IrfanView: Not sure, sorry. Iâve used it for basic image editing before, but never dived into plugin options.
Ah, ok, I get it. So this would be the new ability to define profiles, then maybe two different commands: 1) Export with last profile, and 2) Export, but show list of profiles first, and allow creation of new profile. Or should it really be 1) Export with default profile, and 2) Export, but show list of profiles firstâŚ
The size of the charts of course would have to be determined by the user every time the command is issued.
The configurable options that are saved in a profile would thus be the file type (TIF/PNG/EMF), resolution, and color type.
I would vote for the 2nd idea. Profiles are a neat idea, esp. in the long-term (of a userâs life) because more projects, posters, publications aggregate. Such a function would IMHO fit well into an âadvancedâ or something option than into âquick exportâ. But somehow, it should be assignable to the âquick exportâ-function also. Along again with an option to make âquick exportâ ask the user for a certain profile each time
Stepping a bit back again to explain my thinking here: Generally (and Iâm not sure if itâs even feasible) I think offering both a radically simple (on the front-end, but yet customizable in the settings) export option and one with all the paramerters would cater to the maximum number of users. To keep the former easy to use, it would need sensible defaults and the ability to pull output options from the advanced export, maybe via a user prompt like âSince your last quick export, you seem to have edited the advanced parameters. Shall I use those for quick exporting from now on?â Vice versa, the advanced export could offer a check-box like âuse these settings for quick export from now onâ.
Hi cemibu, if youâre still subscribed to this thread, check out the new alpha versions of the Next Generations series at xltoolbox.sourceforge.net/blog/tags/alpha
