Re: [office] Image in custom shape

[Ming Fei Jia <jiamingf@cn.ibm.com>]

Hi Christian,

> Christian.Lippka@Sun.COM wrote on 10/31/2008 04:52:45 PM:
>
>
> Subject:
>
> Re: [office] Image in custom shape
>
> Hi Ming Fei,
>
> what is the added benefit over just using a group with a custom shape
> and an image?
Good question. Before submitting the proposal, I have considered the group option. Group is also a solution to combine custom shape and image, and current ODF spec also does not support to group image and custom shape. But I think on one hand the group operation is a little complex for users. On the other hand, the real background of this proposal is that we try to solve a MS Office interoperability issue. MS Word supports that custom shape can contain picture, chart,wordart,etc. For a long time, we often got the  customer reports that Symphony can not show the MS Word document that contains custom shape with image inside. This proposal does not include chart or other objects in custom shape because we got seldom reports for those although maybe those are also good features. If we use group as a work around to solve this interoperability issue, the ODF editor needs to calculate the image layout automatically and this layout calculation is difficult to be consistent with the behavior in MS Word. MS Word just inserts image in custom shape as character. So seems only allow custom shape to contain the native image, can this interoperability issue be solved completely. Of course, welcome any other solutions.

>
> The proposal allows zero or more draw:image elements, what if more than
> one image is available. Will they paint over each other or
> will it be defined like in the draw:frame that only the first one is
> painted?
This is the layout issue. The current iteration of the proposal missed the description text for this. I proposed that the image anchor is as character. So all the contents in custom shape will be flat and no layout paint over issue. I will update this description in the next iteration if no one disagree.
>
> Since the draw:image itself has no position nor size, is this feature
> desired as a background image in the size of the custom shape or
> should it be clipped by the custom shape geometry?
This feature is desired to put the image in custom shape, not as a background. The image anchor is as character, i.e. the layout is the same with text layout. Just take the image height/width as one character's height/width in custom shape. This layout is consistent with MS Word.

>
> Maybe there is a use case here that I don't see but for me this does not
> look consistent, having a shape inside a shape.
Besides the description in the current proposal, the other real use case is just the above mentioned - to solve an MS Office interoperability issue. Maybe I need to update that on wiki. Addtionally, I think draw:image is not a shape in ODF spec. So there is no the case that a shape is inside a shape.

>
> Best Regards,
> Christian
>