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tutorial for making tikz/pgf library

I want to write a TikZ-based package. What TikZ/PGF-specific things should I be aware of? For those who've written such packages, what do you wish you'd known when you started out?

The ultimate goal is to write to be able to draw illustrations of common Computer Science data structures.

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ipavlic
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  • Perhaps something for a community wiki to be fleshed out to a full-blown tutorial? – ipavlic Feb 23 '12 at 09:21
  • @percusse If you look at the comments at that question, you will see that Andrew Stacey suggested a question like this one. I am not asking for complete tutorials, I am asking for personal experience, and there is plenty of that on TeX-SX. – ipavlic Feb 23 '12 at 09:31
  • I didn't suggest that someone ask a question like this. I suggested that Sam alter his question to one like this. As it is, I agree with the duplicate in that any answer here could easily be an answer there. However, as it stands I find this too broad. If you want this to stand as an independent question, find a particular aspect of writing the package that you want to know about and ask about specifically that. As it seems that you have a specific package in mind, my only advice is to start writing it and ask about specifics as you go along. – Andrew Stacey Feb 23 '12 at 09:39
  • @AndrewStacey I thought that three months were long enough for Sam to change his question if he wanted to. It also looks like you yourself changed your position on whether a question might be appropriate since then. I'll delete the question if the community agrees that it is not appropriate here. – ipavlic Feb 23 '12 at 09:47
  • I think that if anyone had any obvious bits of general wisdom then they could have added them to Sam's question. So whilst, for example, I could try to write an actual tutorial, it would be a lot of time and effort. At the other extreme, I could say some obvious things like "I wish I'd learnt more about pgfkeys at the start" or "Catcodes are a pain in the neck" but those wouldn't really help. So I don't think that either question is a good fit for the site. However, it's not a bad question so I'm happy for one such to stay as a place where someone could record such hints and tips ... – Andrew Stacey Feb 23 '12 at 09:54
  • ... if they wanted to. But I don't see the need for two such questions. The big difference (as I see it) is that you have an actual package in mind, in which case you are in a better position than Sam as you can just start writing it and ask questions as you go along. Something like "I'm writing a TikZ package about X and want to provide a way for the user to style Y. What options are there for me to get that information?" (that's off the top of my head, it might need a little work). – Andrew Stacey Feb 23 '12 at 09:56
  • @ipavlic I think I have to apologize for marking the question without an explanation. We are having "answer the unanswered questions" sessions and usually most of the unanswered questions gets closed as too local or duplicates but that question does not. Because it's a valid question and has a non-trivial answer so I don't mean that this question has no value. In fact it is a general and tough question however one copy of such a question is enough to demonstrate the difficulty and writing a library is a very, very specific task. I try to find my way through reading other libraries code. – percusse Feb 23 '12 at 09:59
  • @AndrewStacey I see. I'll close this question, and write more specific new ones. – ipavlic Feb 23 '12 at 09:59
  • @percusse No problem, I now voted to close as well. Should I delete instead? – ipavlic Feb 23 '12 at 10:02
  • Don't delete. It's an okay question. To me, deletion says "It should not have been asked" whereas this was reasonable to ask, but what I'm trying to say is that there is a better route to your goal. – Andrew Stacey Feb 23 '12 at 11:02
  • Sorry I took so long to get back to these questions... My weak excuse is that I had some job applications that distracted me from making diagrams. – Sam Lisi Feb 23 '12 at 19:57

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