On Thu, 21 Dec 2006, Taco Hoekwater wrote:

Aditya Mahajan wrote:

...

definedash [[myeven]] [[on 3 off 3]] ;

beginfig(1) draw (0,0)--(100,100) dashed myeven ; endfig ; end;

Is there a better way to do this in metapost?

Not really, I think. A dash pattern like

definedash [[stutter]] [[on 3 off 3 on 1 off 3]] ;

is allowed, making a true key-value solution almost impossible. (and I expect similar situations with just about everything)

I am not too much worried about key-value assignment, but want a more familar (Contextish) interface. For example, I want to be able to do definelines [[verythin =.25bp, thin=.5bp, thick =1bp, verythick=1.5bp]] transale internally into different pen shapes and then say setupdraw[[lines=thick]] which will store the pen "thick" in an internal variable (say _draw!pen_). The macro draw will start with pickup pen _pen_ ; So that I can say setupdraw[[thick]] draw (0,0)--(10,10) ; .... setupdraw[[thin]] draw (10,0)--(0,10) ; ..... etc. Basically, provide a layer of emulation around metapost, so that it appears to be more "intuitive". One thing that I am struggling with right now is to implement something equivalent to \dosingleempty, so that both draw (0,0)--(10,10) ; and draw [[thick]] (0,0)--(10,10) ; work. A lot of times, I find myself wanting to use different settings for draw and fill. Right now drawoptions specifies the options for both draw and fill. That is why, I want something like setupdraw[[lines=...,color=...,options=....]] and setupfill[[lines=...,color=...,options=....]] etc. Right now, I am just experimenting on how difficult it is to have a consistent layer to do all this. Aditya