I am updating a book on mathematics (Previous edition)
It contains a couple of dozen diagrams.
The previous version was written in LibreOffice.
The new edition is in XHTML+CSS+SVG
A few shortcomings for this purpose:
The diagrams are often progressive
I needed to be able to easy compare a diagram with the earlier simpler version to make sure they correctly correspond
Design a domain specific mini-language that supports my abstractions
Write an XForms interpreter that displays each diagram, converting to SVG
<data index="1" xmlns=""> <diagram title="3+2=5 as arrows"> ... </diagram> <diagram title="rectangle of 2×3"> ... </diagram> </data>
<dot x="..." y="..."/> <line x1="..." y1="..." x2="..." y2="..." /> <arrow x1="..." y1="..." x2="..." y2="..." /> <arrow2 x1="..." y1="..." x2="..." y2="..." /> <circle x="..." y="..." r="..."/> <text x="..." y="...">text</text> ...
<trigger> <label>prev</label> <setvalue ev:event="DOMActivate" ref="@index" value=". - 1"/> </trigger> <output ref="@index"/> <trigger> <label>next</label> <setvalue ev:event="DOMActivate" ref="@index" value=". + 1"/> </trigger> <svg ...> <xf:group ref="diagram[position() = ../@index]"> ... </xf:group> </svg>
<text x="-10" y="-9" class="text"> <xf:output ref="@title"/> </text> <xf:repeat ref="*"> <xf:group ref=".[name(.)='line']"> <line x1="{@x1}" y1="{0-@y1}" x2="{@x2}" y2="{0-@y2}" class="line"/> </xf:group> <xf:group ref=".[name(.)='dot']"> <circle cx="{@x}" cy="{0-@y}" r="0.05" class="dot"/> </xf:group> <xf:group ref=".[name(.)='arrow']"> ...
This was a quick and slightly dirty solution for a one-off problem
If I'd have needed it more often, I would have generalised it further, and added more primitives.
But this simple solution served its purpose perfectly well.
at="1,2" with 0,0 as default
lines etc either length="" or to=x,y"
general rotation=""