November 2003 - Inkscape Devel

New Inkscape man page
by Bryce Harrington 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

Here's my first draft of a new man page for Inkscape. The old one as mostly just a list of options, most of which were invalid. I created this as POD 'inkscape.pod' and generated the man page 'inkscape.1.in' by running pod2man and changing "...Perl Documentation..." to "GNOME Documentation". This is set up to be installed when you run 'make install', so after installation you can view it via 'man inkscape'. Bryce INKSCAPE(1) GNOME Documentation INKSCAPE(1) NAME Inkscape - a 2D vector graphics editing program. SYNOPSIS "inkscape [options] [filename ...]" options: -?, --help -a, --export-area=x0:y0:x1:y1 -b, --export-background=COLOR -d, --export-dpi=DPI -e, --export-png=FILENAME -f, --file=FILENAME -h, --export-height=HEIGHT -i, --bitmap-icons -p, --print=FILENAME -s, --slideshow -w, --export-width=WIDTH -x, --with-gui -z, --without-gui --export-svg=FILENAME --usage DESCRIPTION Inkscape is a GUI editor for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format drawing files, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, Visio, etc. Supported SVG features include basic shapes, paths, text, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, node editing, svg-to-png export, grouping, and more. . The interface is designed to be comfortable and efficient for skilled users, while remaining conformant to GNOME stan- dards so that users familiar with other GNOME applications can learn it's interface rapidly. SVG is a W3C standard XML format for 2D vector drawing, that allows defining objects in the drawing using points, paths, and primitive shapes. Colors, fonts, line thicknesses, and so forth are specified as 'style' attributes to these objects. The intent is that since SVG is a standard, and since its files are text/xml instead of binary, it is be possible to use SVG files in a sizeable number of programs and for a wide range of uses. Inkscape uses SVG as its native document format, and has the goal of becoming the most fully compliant drawing program for SVG files avail- able in the Open Source community. OPTIONS -?, --help Show help message -a x0:y0:x1:y1, --export-area=x0:y0:x1:y1 Exported area in millimeters (default is full document, 0,0 is lower-left corner) -b COLOR, --export-background=COLOR Background color of exported bitmap (any SVG supported color string) -d DPI, --export-dpi=DPI The resolution used for converting SVG into bitmap (default 72.0) -e FILENAME, --export-png=FILENAME Export document to png file -f FILENAME, --file=FILENAME Open specified document(s) (option string may be excluded) -h HEIGHT, --export-height=HEIGHT The height of generated bitmap in pixels (overwrites dpi) -i, --bitmap-icons Prefer bitmap (xpm) icons to SVG ones -p FILENAME, --print=FILENAME Print document(s) to specified output file (use '| program' for pipe) -s, --slideshow Show given files one-by-one, switch to next on any key/mouse event -w WIDTH, --export-width=WIDTH The width of generated bitmap in pixels (overwrites dpi) -x, --with-gui Try to use X server even if $DISPLAY is not set) -z, --without-gui Do not open GUI and do not use X server (only process files from console). Useful for printing SVG documents. --export-svg=FILENAME Export document to plain SVG file (no "xmlns:sodipodi" names- pace) --usage Display brief usage message KEYBINDINGS See keybindings.txt for a listing of keybindings. DIAGNOSTICS The program returns zero on success or non-zero on failure. A variety of error messages and warnings are printed to STDERR or STD- OUT. If the program behaves erratically with a particular SVG file or crashes, it is sometimes useful to look at this output for clues. For example, it may indicate if a given SVG file contains elements or attributes that are not yet supported by the codebase. EXAMPLES While obviously Inkscape is primarily intended as a GUI application, it can be used for doing SVG processing on the commandline as well. (Note though that other SVG tools and libraries such as librsvg may be better suited for production SVG processing.) Printing an SVG file directly: inkscape filename.svg -p | lpr Converting SVG file to a png: inkscape --export-png=filename.png --export-height=400 --export-width=600 Convert an SVG document using items in the sodipodi namespace to plain SVG: inkscape filename1.svg e --export-svg=filename2.svg ENVIRONMENT DISPLAY to get the default host and display number. FILES $HOME/.inkscape/preferences.xml - The user's preference settings. $HOME/.inkscape/extensions.xml - The filter programs to be used in the application. OTHER INFO The canonical place to find Inkscape info is at http://www.inkscape.org/. The website includes links to other relevant documentation, tutorials, user manual, examples, mailing list archives, the latest released version of the program, and more. SEE ALSO gimp(1) NOTES Ctrl & Shift modify dragging behaviour in some modes Shift click/rubberband usually toggles selection Snapping to guidelines/grid work only for certain modes To break line (or add node) select its endpoints It should import png, bmp, jpg, xpm & gif bitmaps and svg vector images. Open can handle only svg graphics BUGS When importing svg generated with ill2svg, all paths are usually grouped. Ungroup these manually. Many bugs are known; please refer to the website for reviewing the reported ones and to report newly found issues. AUTHORS This codebase owes its existance to a large number of contributors throughout its various incarnations. The following list is certainly incomplete, but serves to recognize the many shoulders on which this application sits: John Bintz, Hans Breuer, Bulia Byak, Chema Celorio, Zbigniew Chyla, Kees Cook, Robert Crosbie, Jon Cruz, Danilo Egan, Frank Felfe, Ted Gould, Bryce Harrington, Nathan Hurst, Thomas Ingham, Bob Jamison, Lau- ris Kaplinski, Lynn Kerby, Petr Kovar, Raph Levien, Vitaly Lipatov, Dmitry G. Mastrukov, Michael Meeks, Frederico Mena, MenTaLguY, Yukihiro Nakai, Christian Neumair, Mitsuru Oka, Christian Schaller, Tom von Schwerdtner, Daniel Yacob, Masatake Yamato, This man page was put together by Bryce Harrington <brycehar@...88... rington.com> HISTORY The codebase that would become Inkscape began life in 1999 as the pro- gram 'GILL', the GNOME Illustrator application, created by Raph Levien. The stated objective for Gill was to eventually support all of SVG. Raph implemented the PostScript bezier imaging model, including stroking and filling, line cap style, line join style, text, etc. A Bonobo Raph's Gill page is at http://www.levien.com/svg/. Work on Gill appears to have slowed or ceased in 2000, perhaps in part due to frus- trations dealing with implementing DOM and SVG. The next incarnation of the codebase was to become the highly popular program Sodipodi, led by Lauris Kaplinkski. The codebase was turned into a very usable illustration program over the course of several year's work, adding several new features, multi-lingual support, port- ing to Windows and other operating systems, and eliminating dependen- cies. Inkscape was formed in 2003 by a number of active Sodipodi developers wanting to take a different direction with the codebase in terms of focus on SVG-compliance, interface look-and-feel, and a desire to open development opportunities to more participants. In a way, this direc- tion marks a return to the codebase's Gill roots. COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 by Authors. Inkscape is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GPL. Inkscape 0.36cvs 2003-11-29 INKSCAPE(1)

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Re: GIMP user interface discussion
by bulia byak 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

> > Of course it would be better! So, are you doing it already? When can we expect to see the unsinkability option for utility windows in, say, KDE? > > Well, you're using KDE not me ;) Like I said, Gimp has a much higher profile than us currently. If you push the KDE people they're more likely to listen. We have plans to push for that too, but our main priority is to roll out a program that WORKS NOW. This includes unsinkable dialogs, too. > > > The A4 rectangle in the canvas window is horribly disturbing. > > > > It helps me, but you can switch it off easily. In a next version this preference will be saved for future sessions. > > How about choosing "new" and set A4 to open up an image window, the > edges of which would determine the size of the image, that is A4? The > rulers would then copy the image size. Have you ever worked with any commercial vector editor? They ALL have paper size shown by edges on the canvas, and they all allow to draw both within the paper and outside. That's standard. > > No, WiW is secondary. The biggest problem with Gimp is that dialogs sink. They never do in any Windows or Mac program I've EVER seen. > > :) > > No it's not. The problem with sinking dialogs comes from the > WiW/separate issue. See below. What I am trying to do is to show you that sinking/unsinking dialogs are orthogonal to the WiW. And I'm using Inkscape to demonstrate that. Inkscape has no WiW but its dialogs are unsinkable. > > Besides, what's the purpose of having the main toolbox on the left > while having the other one on the top? It makes no sense. > > > > It makes perfect sence as they are the primary and secondary toolbars, directly linked (change tool on the primary and get all relevant controls on the secondary). > > This is the approach taken by (at least) Photoshop and Xara, and it's very convenient. > > Please compare the following images. > > http://www.suse.de/en/private/products/suse_linux/winerack/images/photoshop… > http://www.pleasewipeyourfeet.com/webtest/pr/gimp.jpg > > Do you really think that having a subtoolbox above the primary toolbox > makes any sense? Have you ever seen trees organized bottom-up? It may be surprising for you, but it's very convenient. Photoshop users were raging when this secondary toolbox appeared (in version 6 I think). Xara is considered one of the most convenient and usable vector app by most people who have ever used it, and it had such a secondary toolbox from the start. > See how many options gimp provides for the brushtool. > How would you fit them in the top toolbar? Plenty of options is not necessarily an advantage. They may be distracting. As for your example: - First, some of the brush options are very unlikely to be needed every time you use brush, and therefore should be removed into an options dialog tab for this tool. - Second, I do indeed think that even all of the Gimp brush tools on your screenshot can be put into a horizontal toolbar without problems. - Third, this actually does not matter - your Tool options is worse NOT because it's not horizontal but because it sinks and grabs focus and clutters taskbar. If it didn't (i.e. if it was transient as are dialogs in Inkscape, or dockable into a document window), the difference between a tool options dialog and our secondary toolbar would not amount to much because both switch their content when you change tools (which is the main point of having such a dialog). > Regarding dialog sinking which you've never seen on any windows/mac app, > to be honest i haven't used PS for a *long* time, just guessing from the > screenshot - the toolbox and docks, how do they behave if you maximise > the image window? Are they always on top? OF COURSE!!! Moreover, MOST people work in Photoshop with their images maximized. This would be impossible if palettes didn't stay on top. And it's pretty much impossible in Gimp for the same reason. > Can you hide them so that all > space on screen belongs to the image window? Yes, easily, just press Tab to toggle all palettes on or off. In Inkscape, we plan to use the ` key for the same because Tab is taken. > It's all the same thing except - if you minimise PS you minimise all, All including dialogs. Believe me, it's a huge difference in usability. > but you end up having a mess on the bottom of the main window when > minimising separate images. > Subtle differences between WiW and non-WiW. I repeat, I don't care about WiW. In fact I like documents in separate windows better, and Inkscape is going to stay that way. What we're speaking about is the behavior of dialogs, not document windows. > BTW Seems like Xara isn't available anymore, just checked the corel > site, or is there any other company providing the sw? See a screenshot: http://www.xara.com/press/graphics/xarax/screenshots/firestorm.jpg This is default interface, pretty cluttered, but in daily work you can easily remove all the toolbars under the menu except the bottom one. That's the secondary toolbar whose content switches as you switch tools. As you can see, quite a lot of options there (shown for the selector tool), all very compact and convenient. > > > As for the transients - as long as 1.) the toolbox and the docks all behave like one group(for the purpose of minimising, > > > bringing forward, always on top etc), > > > and making the image window active switches the images/layers/channels/paths/ dock to that image, it will do a much better job > > > than WiW has ever done. the images should always be kept as separate objects/windows. > > > > Exactly! This is _precisely_ what we're doing in Inkscape and what Gimp refuses to do. > > I don't think so. :) What are you denying? That your description precisely fits the current Inkscape interface? DOwnload the CVS and see for yourself. That Gimp flatly refuses to use transients in the same way? Ask Sven and you'll hear for yourself :) > > I ran the new Gimp and saw severe usability problems at once. You say they can be fixed by changing preferences? Great! But first, not everything can be fixed, and the biggest problem - sinking dialogs - is unfixable. > > Bulia, the main problem is that you're approaching it with destructive > criticism: > > "I ran gimp for the *first* time and *immidiatelly saw* problems A, B, C > which are unsolvable" Hey, I did not call them unsolvable until Sven confirmed that :) > Awwww, c'mon! > > the problem with sinking dialogs or transients or whatever doesn't lie > in the gimp domain, it lies in the freedesktop domain, the freedesktop > proposal should enforce certain rules on Wm for apps like gimp, which > are not WiW. If that it isn't implemented yet, is that a real problem? Of course it is. Users need usable programs NOW. Until there are other widely supported ways to achieve the same goal, we'll use transients. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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release commands
by Kees Cook 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

Say, when we cut a release, can we also run this from the inkscape_web directory on SF: pod2html --cachedir=/tmp --infile=../inkscape/inkscape.pod --outfile=doc/inkscape.html And what do people think of adding a "man page" link to the "documentation.php" file to look at this file? -- Kees Cook @outflux.net

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inkscape_web
by Kees Cook 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

Hopefully I won't get flamed... 2003-11-30 Kees Cook <inkscape@...62...> * ChangeLog: created for us to track website changes * download.php: added CVS snapshot area link and SF download link * includes/navigation.php: added local link for "download.php" again * screenshots/index.php: added version heading to image list I pushed these changes to the main site (and did a chmod g+w). Now other people can get to the CVS snapshots (there didn't seem to be a link anywhere). -- Kees Cook @outflux.net

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Info for Translators
by Bryce Harrington 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

If you're interested in helping with providing translation for Inkscape, here's a good introductory description of how this works: http://www.gtkmm.org/gtkmm2/docs/tutorial/html/ch20s03.html If you're interested in providing translations, download the .po file for your language from here: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/inkscape/inkscape/po/ If a .po file for your language does not already exist, then create one by copying the inkscape.pot file that gets generated when you run make in the codebase. Edit the file to add or correct translations of the English strings, and then upload your work via the SourceForge patch tracker: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=93438&atid=604308 (Check the Upload checkbox and add your file or patch.) We will be cutting the 0.36 release within a week or two so if you want to update the translations for your language, best to get them in now! Bryce

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calligraphic lines
by Robert Crosbie 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

Does it actually do anything? I just get a spew of console output when I try to use it. x_order_2: colinear! colinear! ... Rob. http://members.rogers.com/rcrosbie _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcomm&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.ms…

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[Fwd: [Sodipodi-list] Sodipodi 0.33 released]
by Jonathan Phillips 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

-----Forwarded Message----- From: Lauris Kaplinski <lauris@...39...> To: sodipodi-list(a)lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [Sodipodi-list] Sodipodi 0.33 released Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 19:50:35 +0200 Version 0.33 of your favourite vector drawing application is released. Sodipodi 0.33 release notes ================================= This release incorporates lots of bugfixes and enhancements that have accumulated during the 6 month period. - Experimental spsvgview slideshow program from the same codebase (Lauris) - Page border and paper color can be modified (Lauris) - Text linespacing can be modified (Lauris) - Select all and clear all actions (Masatake) - Support mousewheel (Tomas) - Full in-place Gtk+ IM support (Yukihiro) - Support fonts that have assigned mapping at unicode private area (Lauris) - Works again on 64 bit machines (Mitsuru) - New node joining mode, adding new line between nodes (Bob) - XML editor supports moving of branches (Mental) - Text properties can be applied to multiple text objects (Petr) - Basic support for xml:space attribute (Mitsuru) - Tab cycling mode is configurable (Frank, Lauris) - Repeat transformation method (Lauris) - Bugfixes (everyone) Availability ============== http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=4054 30/11/2003 Lauris Kaplinski ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ _______________________________________________ Sodipodi-list mailing list Sodipodi-list(a)lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/sodipodi-list -- Jonathan Phillips <jon@...15...>

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] calligraphic lines
by bulia byak 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

> Does it actually do anything? I just get a spew of console output when I try to use it. > > x_order_2: colinear! > colinear! > ... Oh, and I just suggested to Bryce that we remove the "colinear" from Release Notes :) Indeed this warning is now only triggered by the calligraphic tool. As for the tool, why, it does draw nice lines and it's fun to play with. I'm not sure about its practical usefulness, but I did not play with it too much. Besides, there are some fixes for this tool in Sodipodi which we need to port over (the person who created this tool originally is now working with Lauris on Sodipodi). -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: GIMP user interface discussion
by bulia byak 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

> Do you really want to drop years of serious UI design work(gimp) just > because > the kde people haven't done their work yet? I never suggested to "drop" anything, only _add_. > Wouldn't it be better to > push hard for the freedesktop standard? Of course it would be better! So, are you doing it already? When can we expect to see the unsinkability option for utility windows in, say, KDE? > no offense intended, but inkscape is pretty much useless for professional work as it is right now. > Take a look at the inkscape screenshot i've made, there are 13! dialogs open. And it's just version 0.36. Please don't dodge the subject. Dialogs reorganization is in our plans (see DialogsReorganization on our Wiki), it's completely irrelevant to what I've been discussing in Gimp. > Where are you going to put them so that they're immidiatelly accesible? If i click on freehand, > i'd like to immidiatelly set the thickness or color of the curves i'd like to draw, How will i do that? See SecondaryToolbar on our Wiki. > Depending upon which tool you choose in inkscape another (sub)toolbox shows up on the top, > so it's either there or it's not, you'll end up looking at a jumping canvas which is just disturbing. Jumping already fixed. > Besides, what's the purpose of having the main toolbox on the left while having the other one on the top? It makes no sense. It makes perfect sence as they are the primary and secondary toolbars, directly linked (change tool on the primary and get all relevant controls on the secondary). This is the approach taken by (at least) Photoshop and Xara, and it's very convenient. > It's not clear which tool is selected. I guess this will be fixed when we return to the standard button widget. > The A4 rectangle in the canvas window is horribly disturbing. It helps me, but you can switch it off easily. In a next version this preference will be saved for future sessions. > > Second, users coming from Windows or Mac will never... > > If you want those users to migrate, the first thing you should do is to look at the UI of all those apps. As i said, > they all look pretty much the same, except that gimp doesn't do WiW and gtk doesn't offer that(luckily!). No, WiW is secondary. The biggest problem with Gimp is that dialogs sink. They never do in any Windows or Mac program I've EVER seen. > There's no space left for innovation here. :) > As for the transients - as long as 1.) the toolbox and the docks all behave like one group(for the purpose of minimising, > bringing forward, always on top etc), > and making the image window active switches the images/layers/channels/paths/ dock to that image, it will do a much better job > than WiW has ever done. the images should always be kept as separate objects/windows. Exactly! This is _precisely_ what we're doing in Inkscape and what Gimp refuses to do. > No ofense intended again, but you guys just installed gimp 1.3.x. toying around with it for a few hours, > it seems like it's not sufficient to realise how well designed the gimp UI really is and how efficient it is. No offence in my comments either. Just first impressions of a new user, which should be at least as valuable to a UI designer as comments from a long-time user. I ran the new Gimp and saw severe usability problems at once. You say they can be fixed by changing preferences? Great! But first, not everything can be fixed, and the biggest problem - sinking dialogs - is unfixable. And second, first-time users don't have to go into preferences; they should get the most usable and _standard_ interface by default. Sinking dialogs are not standard in any UI, sorry. > But keep in mind, that through all those years of gimp development, tons of discussions were going on regarding the UI, > so it's really a great piece of work and it just works. Why would you want to go through all that again? :) > Sorry if i sounded rude but i just fear seeing another promising project going the drain just because the > developers didn't trust something that is actually proven. Don't worry for us. We won't go down the drain, I promise :) -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: GIMP user interface discussion
by bulia byak 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

> '+' is a shift-key for a minority of our users. Do you have any statistics to back this up? Whereas I so have some statistics in my favor. On a default install of Mandrake 9.2, grep /etc/X11/xkb/symbols for layouts containing "[ equal, plus" and those containing "[ plus". You will find 61 layouts where plus is in the shifted position and 52 of those where it's non-shifted. So the majority of layouts seems to be on my side, probably that speaks something about the majority of users too. Besides, don't you think that appealing to the majority is irrelevant here? I'm not asking you to break anything for the "majority" in order to make things better for "minority". I'm just asking to _add_ something that your "majority" won't even notice. As far as I can see, "=" is not used anywhere else in Gimp. Why not make it _another_ shortcut for zoom-in? And finally, you did not give any reasons for not making KP_plus and KP_minus shortcuts for zoom as well. For that, you have no excuses whatsoever :) > You are looking at > this with a very US-centric view. :) I've never been to US. I lived most of my life in Russia and now live in Canada. > But it is tedious to repeat these discussions that we all had on bugzilla and on the > gimp-developer list already. I am not going to argue about The GIMP user interface in > private emails. This should be done on the mailing list. No problem. I will bring it up on the Gimp list after we release 0.36 and collect more usability data and feedback on the new dialogs behavior. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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