Radial anchoring?
 

Here's something I'd love to do but just can't figure out how:

I want to create a large, circular diagram where there would be text in various bands out from a central point. The text would be radial, meaning that the text radiates out from a single point, not along the circumference of the circle.

I would love to anchor one end of all my text objects at the diagram centrepoint, and know that if I grab and move the selection handle at the other end, I can alter the stretch and angle of the object but am still constrained by the "pin" at the other end meaning they all line up nicely, pointing back to the middle.

I remember another program, ages ago (Infini-D) where I had a fine degree of control over axes of freedom. I could constrain an object to one or more linear dimension, but also anchor an object so that it could only rotate around a defined point. Can Omnigraffle do this or should I make it a feature request?

Thanks in advance.

I can just see someone telling you to write an applescript to do it...

Short of manually rotating the text, I don't think you'll be able to do that. The way I understand it, 'text' is of a similar class to 'shape', whereas your question is wishing it were descended from 'line'.

Lines have certain behaviours, one of which is fixing to a magnet / magnetic surface, but the handles on shapes do not. You only have to look at the symbols that are used to represent those handles: shapes (including text) have square handles, lines have diamond-shaped handles to indicate their different behaviours.

To get a diagonal line, you specify two points and OG draws between them. To get a diagonal shape, you specify a shape and a rotation on that shape. Different concepts.

So that's why I don't think you'll be able to do that in its current incarnation.

Joe

There might still be a viable hack:
1. Attach x lines to one single (central) magnet
2. Write x text shapes
3. Drag each text shape ONTO a line so that it becomes a "label"
4. In the lower section of the 'Property: Geometry'-inspector choose 'Parallel' (or 'Perpendicular', whatever effect you are aiming at) to properly align the label's orientation with the line
5. Arrange the lines around the central magnet as you wish
6. Set the color of the lines in the 'Style: Lines & Shape'-inspector to 'white'
(or whatever background color there is)

Here we go...

Be.

That's an excellent solution. Only the last step should be set the line colour to completely transparent (rather than background colour). I would say uncheck the 'stroke' box but you're not allowed to (and that makes sense...)

The one problem is selecting the line again (a little tricky but doable) and making sure that the line's long enough to accomodate the text.

[QUOTE=JoeWass;8607]That's an excellent solution. Only the last step should be set the line colour to completely transparent (rather than background colour). I would say uncheck the 'stroke' box but you're not allowed to (and that makes sense...)

The one problem is selecting the line again (a little tricky but doable) and making sure that the line's long enough to accomodate the text.[/QUOTE]

Just move the radial lines to a different layer and hide that layer.