Ideas around printout

[franz-hoepfinger-4diac]

while
#2637
is a pure bug-report about only Printout not working,
this Discussion is to start a broader Range about Printout.

see¹

Architecture

Coordinate Origin

to achiev this, a Coordinate System which is already present in the Editor must be visible.

this can be achieved by a Coordinate Origin.

Looking to a very nice Editor, Fusion360 Electronics from Autocad, they realize it with such a cross:

this identifies the (0;0) koordinate.

then all FBs can be placed by the current solution (drag and drop) but also by directly entering coordinates (in Properties)

Page

next Step would be to enable the Editor (like the Subapp FB Network) to have multiple Pages:

a FB Network must have 1 Page at least, and can have unlimited Pages.

Frame

there needs to be a Library called "Frames" and it contains multiple Frames.

Every Page can have 0 or 1 Frame.

(in Fusion 360 you can place 0, 1 or multiple Frames on a Single page, but this makes things compilcated.)
I would opt for 0-1 Frame per Page always.

the Frame should be on Coordinate (0,0) always.
(in Fusion 360 it is possible to place the Frame wherever you want, but this makes things complicated)

I would opt for (0;0) coordinate always.

Unbenannt.pdf

A Frame is exactly sized, Examples for Frames are:
https://gist.github.com/franz-hoepfinger-4diac/4d2750bcc08ae42d695acb8b4a004aee

A user can edit the Frames Library, or make a own Lib with own frames.
e.g. he can use a Company Logo on the Frame Docfield.

the Frame has according to the IEC Standard Columns and Rows.
here a good practice List, how many columns and rows are pracitcable:
https://gist.github.com/franz-hoepfinger-4diac/aeec60275d5dca428cb109603547f448

Labels

a Line (Event, Data, Adapter) can go from one Page to another.

therefore you can place 2 Lables.

the first Label points to Page 4, Column 1, Row B,
the second Label points back to Page 3, Column 4, Row B.

Printout

shows an Example for a Print Dialog.

Important topics:

Page-Limit: If you have a A3 Frame on a A4 Paper you get this:

if you put Page Limit to 1,

i reduces the scaling to 0,73 instead of 1, so the A3 page is scaled down to A4.

this should be the only Option to scale Function Blocks in Size, other than that a FB should have a Fixed Size relative to the real World Dimensions.

As a Reference,
(i am not a big fan of Inch, but this works Quite Well)

0.1 inch is the pin-to-pin Distance of a FB.

giving an Example:

here i set the Grid to Visible, and you see the Lines are 0.1 inch Distant.

then you can set a 0.05 Grid, so keeping the Distance of the FB Inputs at 0.1, the Lines can have 0.05 Distance.

Everything just suggestions.

Footnotes

1. IEC 61082-1 ↩

[franz-hoepfinger-4diac]

Just thinking more about it:
the Page could already have the Size, (A4, Landscape, Portrait, whatever)

and GEF could render it as a DropShadowBorder

Photo comes from Libre Office Writer.

then the Page Size is independently settable by the Page, and not dependent of the Frame.

if no Frame placed, the References would look like this:

this is because the column and row cannot calculated.