@ThomasH Use $$ or eqnarray and you will get a review very soon. ;)

:)

@DavidCarlisle Hmm, I though there is a \declarenewmathfunction similar to \newcommand which does essentially what I have done, i.e. a math function that simply will be replaced by its definition.

While I got some pgf people around, I got another quick question @zeroth has posted this pgf answer.

I tried that in my code (uncommented it, ofc) but I got no printout in the log at all

@ThomasH Hm, I usually use \typeout or \errmessage.

@Qrrbrbirlbel Thanks, I'll try those

@ThomasH The first one will simply be sent to the log. The second too, but the editor usually highlights it. So you do not need to scroll through the log.

@ThomasH Well, okay, maybe I really add an answer to your question. Does your shape actually have some text? I could see a text that is above the top (horizontal) line ...

@Qrrbrbirlbel odd, there wasn't meant to be one, anyway

@ThomasH I meant, I could see a useful implementation if the node text is placed above the top line.

@Qrrbrbirlbel Ah, yes, you could place text there, but seeing as I'm trying to draw crochet pattern symbols, you really wouldn't :)

@ThomasH Crochet? People will do everything with TeX! :D

@Qrrbrbirlbel I know :D I don't do crochet, but my girlfriend does, and she prefers the actual graphical patterns over the textual ones. It's amazing how much the text instructions look like programming instructions though, so I got to thinking ...

Could you link me to a picture of how such patterns usually look like? Preferably where I can recognize this T pattern?

Doesn't have the T pattern in it, unfortunately, but this site lists all the symbols

NB: These two particular instances are not referring to the same pattern

@ThomasH Next step would be to translate a textual description to an actual figure, but oh well …

@Qrrbrbirlbel yep, my girlfriend hasn't come across a pattern yet that includes both, so I'll be depending on her transcribing a pattern for me to do that

@Qrrbrbirlbel expect some more tikz and Latex questions before that happens though :) I got virtually no clue how Latex works under the hood

@ThomasH I probably would define a few more keys, say /crochet/height and /crochet/width. It looks like the double crochet shape is about 1.5 times high as the half double crochet. I wouldn't want to rely on minimal heightand width. But that's maybe just me.

@Qrrbrbirlbel I've been thinking about that and leaning towards it. The minimum height is there because I wanted to keep complexity down as I start off :)

I'll be adding my own keys as I go along

What do you think? Comment is it works... Too localized or duplicate?

@Qrrbrbirlbel any recommendations though on how to structure them? Should I do a general crochet/width or make them all specific to the individual shape (crochet/hdc/width) ?

@ThomasH Well, it depends on how the shapes are related to each others. They reminds me of circuits.

As I said, I would introduce a generic height key and would base the heights of the other shapes on this. If they are in fact related. Or what does the height represent?

@Qrrbrbirlbel From what I've deduced so far, their size, placement and rotation is somewhat given by their relative location to each other

Is it a actual length in reality?

No actual length, it's simply for display purposes

Then I would use an extra key...

But you will need a certain number of chains (the small ellipses) to connect to a hdc for example

By the way, your picture doesn't show.

I'm not sure how much I can automate the generation of the pattern from the instructions, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Hmm, it does for me ... but I can also just post the link

@ThomasH It say "forbidden". Try to upload the picture via the upload... button.

@ThomasH Well you can always say \tikzset{/crochet/height/.style={/tikz/minimum height=#1}} or \tikzset{/tikz/minimum height/.append style={/crochet/height=#1}}.

And you have compatibility issues solved if you change your approach midway.

Look at that, there's an upload button ...

@ThomasH Hm, well that's a project. :)

@Qrrbrbirlbel Tell me ... But what else would I do ... work?

@Kurt Hmm? I read that is does not work. We have to wait for images. But in my eyes it is off-topic.

@ThomasH Hehe, yes, I rather answer such interesting question (where the project behind really asks for a package) than to do the things I should do. Though, nobody pays me to compile MWEs. :(

@texenthusiast Maybe it's bad English: No one of all known TeX distributions (BTW we didn’t mention W32TeX at all) does include all stuff you can find on CTAN.