January 2015 - Inkscape Announcements

[Inkscape] Inkscape Version 0.91 is Released!
by Bryce Harrington 31 Jan '15

31 Jan '15

The Inkscape community proudly announces the release of Inkscape 0.91. https://inkscape.org/en/download/ Inkscape is a drawing and painting tool similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, and Xara X, but with features, new tools, and interface style of its own. It emphasizes the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format, but reads and writes a wealth of other formats including PDF, so it is an easy complement to your other graphics and desktop tools. Best of all, Inkscape is created *by* the community *for* the community: Inkscape is 100% Open Source and freely available to everyone in the world. This release marks the culmination of a multi-year effort to switch to a new internal graphics rendering engine, Cairo. This brings performance enhancements and more accurate rendering of drawings. Thanks go especially to Google for sponsoring much of this work. A new Trace Pixel Art feature enables creation of vector art from bitmaps, sprites, and icons. A new Symbols Library provides reusable graphics elements - you can even read in Visio symbol libraries. New Snapping options and improved Snap preferences make it easier to quickly place items in the alignments you need. The tools for arranging objects offer several new ways to position the elements of a drawing. Tons of other little improvements have been made across all the other tools as well. Several new file formats are supported, including FXG, SIF and HTML5 export; and VSD and CDR import. EMF/WMF are now readable and writable for all platforms. And XCF, PDF, EPS, and PS+LaTeX support are improved. Inkscape has a rich Extension ecosystem, which is well known for bringing clever, cool, and innovative new ideas. Over a dozen new extensions are added in this release, including an Isometric Grid Generator, a Bitmap Cropper, a Text Extractor and a Text Merger, an HSL Adjuster, a Font Replacer, a Voronoï Diagram Creator, and more. The above barely scratches the surface of all the new stuff included in this release. For the full story, including examples and screenshots, please see our detailed Release Notes: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.91 The Inkscape developers plan to meet for a 3-day Hackfest in Toronto at the end of April 2015. You can help us to improve Inkscape by donating to help cover travel, room and board so our international volunteer developers can attend the hackfest in person: https://inkscape.org/en/donate/hackfest/ Bryce

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[Inkscape] Inkscape Version 0.91 is Released!
by Bryce Harrington 31 Jan '15

31 Jan '15

The Inkscape community proudly announces the release of Inkscape 0.91. https://inkscape.org/en/download/ Inkscape is a drawing and painting tool similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, and Xara X, but with features, new tools, and interface style of its own. It emphasizes the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format, but reads and writes a wealth of other formats including PDF, so it is an easy complement to your other graphics and desktop tools. Best of all, Inkscape is created *by* the community *for* the community: Inkscape is 100% Open Source and freely available to everyone in the world. This release marks the culmination of a multi-year effort to switch to a new internal graphics rendering engine, Cairo. This brings performance enhancements and more accurate rendering of drawings. Thanks go especially to Google for sponsoring much of this work. A new Trace Pixel Art feature enables creation of vector art from bitmaps, sprites, and icons. A new Symbols Library provides reusable graphics elements - you can even read in Visio symbol libraries. New Snapping options and improved Snap preferences make it easier to quickly place items in the alignments you need. The tools for arranging objects offer several new ways to position the elements of a drawing. Tons of other little improvements have been made across all the other tools as well. Several new file formats are supported, including FXG, SIF and HTML5 export; and VSD and CDR import. EMF/WMF are now readable and writable for all platforms. And XCF, PDF, EPS, and PS+LaTeX support are improved. Inkscape has a rich Extension ecosystem, which is well known for bringing clever, cool, and innovative new ideas. Over a dozen new extensions are added in this release, including an Isometric Grid Generator, a Bitmap Cropper, a Text Extractor and a Text Merger, an HSL Adjuster, a Font Replacer, a Voronoï Diagram Creator, and more. The above barely scratches the surface of all the new stuff included in this release. For the full story, including examples and screenshots, please see our detailed Release Notes: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.91 The Inkscape developers plan to meet for a 3-day Hackfest in Toronto at the end of April 2015. You can help us to improve Inkscape by donating to help cover travel, room and board so our international volunteer developers can attend the hackfest in person: https://inkscape.org/en/donate/hackfest/ Bryce

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Re: [Inkscape] [Inkscape-devel] inkscape-0.91pre4 source tarball
by Bryce Harrington 23 Jan '15

23 Jan '15

On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 05:32:25AM -0700, Brynn wrote: > Regarding > > > One of the major remaining tasks we have is to write up release > > announcements. The drafts are being developed here: > > > > http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php?title=AnnouncePlanning091 > > Assuming the draft shown there is the current working draft, I would suggest > "Everyday people" might come across in a negative way. At least, it makes > me feel a little offended. I think there could be a better way to indicate > that people use Inkscape for all kinds of reasons or purposes, beyond > professional ones. Good point. Perhaps more emphasis on the types of *drawings* would be better than the people. > And I think more emphasis could be given to non-professional uses, because > in reality....or at least in my experience, Inkscape is used more by > non-professionals than by professionals. > > I didn't change that wiki draft, because I haven't been in contact with that > group, and don't want to offend anyone; and also, because I have no positive > concept of marketing, and won't be able to write my thoughts properly (to > sound like marketing). > > Easy suggested changes: "Other people", "People", "Non-professionals" (to > replace "Everyday people"). As Tav alluded to, we've generally drafted two separate announcements - a formal one that we intend to work more like a news release and be disseminated far and wide on a large variety of news sites. And a second informal one to be sent to blogs and more community oriented places, more conversational in tone. For the latter, informal press release, I definitely agree we should focus to more everyday type users. The formal one may have longer legs if we more emphasize the professional uses of the program - that is to say, more news sites may pick it up and distribute it to more people if it sounds like a professional scale tool. But again, we may be better off focusing on the professionalism of the *drawing* more than the professionalism/non-professionalism of the person doing the drawing. > More involved suggestions: Here are some of the non-professional uses that > I've come across, in my participation in forums: > > - someone making a new icon for their business > - someone making a layout for their business card, or letterhead, or etc. > - someone drawing a banner for their Facebook, or a website, or even for a > brick and mortar business > - people making drawings for use with digital home/craft cutter machines, or > vinyl cutting or laser etching, or wood routing (CNC), or even using > Inkscape drawing for a digital metal cutting machine > - someone making illustrations for a book they wrote, or pamphlet or flyer > for their business > - someone making a holiday card or party invitation or poster > - someone making decals for their motorcycle > - someone making decals for their model cars, trucks, etc. > - people making designs to be printed on fabric (t-shirts, sweatshirts, > hats, etc.) > - people trying to develop their artistic and design skills > - having fun Right, so half of those I would call "professional uses" even if the artist isn't doing it professionally. This is a good brainstorming list. We could pick out 3 to 5 items to make mention of in the release, perhaps even include examples of those they can see if they click-thru the links to our website? > So those are not just "everyday people". They are business owners, or > leaders of organizations, or teachers, or parents. (and actually, teachers > ARE professionals, even though not professional artists) > > Maybe instead of the sentence starting with "Everyday people", it could be > something like: Many non-professionals use Inkscape for things like: " and > then list a few of those things? Or, "Inkscape is used for professional-quality drawing, like: ..." > Just a couple of thoughts :-) Keep 'em coming brynn! Bryce > Thanks for listening, > brynn > > > -------------------------------------------------- > From: "Bryce Harrington" <bryce@...22...> > Sent: Monday, January 19, 2015 1:42 AM > To: <inkscape-announce(a)lists.sourceforge.net> > Cc: <inkscape-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net> > Subject: [Inkscape-devel] inkscape-0.91pre4 source tarball > > > Download it at: > > > > https://inkscape.org/en/download/ > > > > Tagged on the release branch as: > > > > INKSCAPE_0_91_PRE4 > > > > This likely is the last pre-release before our official release. There > > are a few more remaining changes that Josh and I are aware of, but > > nothing to cause undue delay. Hopefully the release will be finalized > > within the coming week. > > > > Please make sure any bugs you find are properly recorded in the bug > > tracker[1]. If you find particularly serious issues, please also make > > sure the issue (and any work-arounds) are detailed in our Release > > Notes[2], and hopefully we can tackle them in future point releases. > > > > Packagers, if you haven't already I recommend using this release as an > > opportunity to try out the new package upload system on the main > > website. Make sure to set your uploads as Mirrored, so we can start > > utilizing the new mirroring service. Please see Martin's tutorial > > posted on Dec 31st, and contact him directly if you need permissions or > > help uploading. > > > > One of the major remaining tasks we have is to write up release > > announcements. The drafts are being developed here: > > > > http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php?title=AnnouncePlanning091 > > > > It needs formal and informal announcements written. To see what we need > > to make it look like, see: > > > > http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php?title=AnnouncePlanning046 > > > > In particular we'll need to identify a few volunteers to send the > > notices out. I can take care of a portion of the notifications but > > there's quite more to do than I'll have time for, and so would > > appreciate any help. > > > > Bryce > > > > 1: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/ > > 2: > > http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.91#Known_issues > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > New Year. New Location. New Benefits. New Data Center in Ashburn, VA. > > GigeNET is offering a free month of service with a new server in Ashburn. > > Choose from 2 high performing configs, both with 100TB of bandwidth. > > Higher redundancy.Lower latency.Increased capacity.Completely compliant. > > http://p.sf.net/sfu/gigenet > > _______________________________________________ > > Inkscape-devel mailing list > > Inkscape-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > New Year. New Location. New Benefits. New Data Center in Ashburn, VA. > GigeNET is offering a free month of service with a new server in Ashburn. > Choose from 2 high performing configs, both with 100TB of bandwidth. > Higher redundancy.Lower latency.Increased capacity.Completely compliant. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/gigenet > _______________________________________________ > Inkscape-devel mailing list > Inkscape-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel

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[Inkscape] inkscape-0.91pre4 source tarball
by Bryce Harrington 19 Jan '15

19 Jan '15

Download it at: https://inkscape.org/en/download/ Tagged on the release branch as: INKSCAPE_0_91_PRE4 This likely is the last pre-release before our official release. There are a few more remaining changes that Josh and I are aware of, but nothing to cause undue delay. Hopefully the release will be finalized within the coming week. Please make sure any bugs you find are properly recorded in the bug tracker[1]. If you find particularly serious issues, please also make sure the issue (and any work-arounds) are detailed in our Release Notes[2], and hopefully we can tackle them in future point releases. Packagers, if you haven't already I recommend using this release as an opportunity to try out the new package upload system on the main website. Make sure to set your uploads as Mirrored, so we can start utilizing the new mirroring service. Please see Martin's tutorial posted on Dec 31st, and contact him directly if you need permissions or help uploading. One of the major remaining tasks we have is to write up release announcements. The drafts are being developed here: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php?title=AnnouncePlanning091 It needs formal and informal announcements written. To see what we need to make it look like, see: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php?title=AnnouncePlanning046 In particular we'll need to identify a few volunteers to send the notices out. I can take care of a portion of the notifications but there's quite more to do than I'll have time for, and so would appreciate any help. Bryce 1: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/ 2: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.91#Known_issues

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