July 2004 - Inkscape Devel - Inkscape Mailman

Inkscape 0.39
by Ted Gould 20 Jul '04

20 Jul '04

= Inkscape 0.39 = We are pleased to announce the Inkscape 0.39 release. The most important change in this release is the switch to the Pango library for font handling and Unicode support; a lot of work also went into new SVG features, export/import, UI, and usability. Here are the highlights: * Pango: smoother text display, auto kerning, better i18n (automatic font substitution, right-to-left text, bi-directional text), less platform dependence * New SVG features: markers (aka arrowheads), clones (svg:use), pattern tiles, RDF metadata; many SVG compliance bugfixes * New dialogs: Preferences, Find, Metadata * New and improved import/export file formats: PS, EPS, AI, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, Sketch, Dia, and more * Pure convenience: usable dropper, scale switches, Commands bar, more tool controls (including rounded stars), more import formats, more paper sizes, Revert command, edit inside group, better selection cues, spell checking, window layout configurable, streamlined Fill & Stroke, snapping improvements, better rounded corners in rects, path reversing, persistent rotation crosshair, per-object export hints, and much more * Internals: speedups, more C++ification, garbage collection, SigC++ signals, wider use of new data structures, extensive cleanup * Plus: new documentation, new translations, lots of assorted bugfixes (the infamous "freeze when dragging outside of window" bug on Windows is gone!) The team has placed a great deal of scrutiny into fixing bugs, and while this was not a primary focus as it had been for 0.38.1, we expect this release will be at least as stable as the last. Many thanks go out to all of the users that took the time to write bug reports, you make Inkscape better. For tons more details, see the Release Notes for 0.39: http://www.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes039 Screenshots: http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/ Download your packages (Linux, Windows, Mac OSX): http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93438

3 2

[Fwd: Re: [Scribus] linked text]
by Jon Phillips 20 Jul '04

20 Jul '04

SCRIBUS meeting after release of 0.40? If agree, I will place on roadmap. Jon -----Forwarded Message----- > From: Craig Bradney <cbradney@...242...> > To: Jon Phillips <jon@...235...> > Cc: Peter Linnell <scribusdocs@...84...> > Subject: Re: [Scribus] linked text > Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 11:38:16 +0200 > > Hi Jon > > yep.. for sure.. We will have another meeting. We just need to make a > date and have it. I guess it would be more worthwhile after your 0.39 > release and our 1.2 release. > > Of course.. we are always happy to have one before! > > Craig > > On Sat, 2004-07-17 at 06:36, Jon Phillips wrote: > > I like that. You guys are doing a great job. Hopefully sometime this > > summer we could have another get together between scribus and inkscape > > developers... > > > > Jon > > > > > > > > On Wed, 2004-07-14 at 04:53, Craig Bradney wrote: > > > Yes.. but we need some other code written first, as well as our 1.2 > > > targets to be met. Once the "other code", ie our new text importers are > > > finished, we can investigate the auto update stuff. At a guess it wont > > > be that hard, but no guarantees for before 1.2 at all. > > > > > > Craig > > > > > > On Wed, 2004-07-14 at 03:16, Jon Phillips wrote: > > > > But I've proposed this previously as a great addition to SCRIBUS. It > > > > would dramatically increase the ability for editors and designers to > > > > work together, but not in the same app. > > > > > > > > Jon > > > > > > > > > > > > On Tue, 2004-07-13 at 01:57, Craig Bradney wrote: > > > > > On Tue, 2004-07-13 at 09:58, vaise@...462... wrote: > > > > > > Hi everyone ! > > > > > > I use Scribus 1.0.1 on Mandrake 10. > > > > > > When I insert a text frame, I can Get Text, no problem. But I would like the > > > > > > scribus document to be "linked" to the text file. When the .txt file is > > > > > > modified, the scribus document should change too (next time it is opened of > > > > > > course). > > > > > > Maybe this fonctionality does not exist in 1.0.1 ? > > > > > > > > > > > > Dsant > > > > > > > > > > Hi > > > > > > > > > > No, there is no possibility to do this in any version. > > > > > > > > > > Craig > > > > > > > > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > Scribus mailing list > > > > > Scribus@...119... > > > > > http://nashi.altmuehlnet.de/mailman/listinfo/scribus -- Jon Phillips PO BOX 948667 LA JOLLA, CA 92037 USA USA.PH.858.361.2811 jon@...235... http://www.rejon.org Inkscape (http://inkscape.org) Open Clip Art Library (www.openclipart.org) CVS Book (http://cvsbook.ucsd.edu/) Scale Journal (http://scale.ucsd.edu/)

2 1

0.39 PR
by Jon Phillips 20 Jul '04

20 Jul '04

Bryce and all, Could we circulate the PR for this release and place on the wiki prior to being sent. That way we can add our two cents. I think we need to be more descriptive in our releases about what is done and what could be accomplished with new features. http://www.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?AnnouncementPR Jon -- Jon Phillips PO BOX 948667 LA JOLLA, CA 92037 USA USA.PH.858.361.2811 jon@...235... http://www.rejon.org Inkscape (http://inkscape.org) Open Clip Art Library (www.openclipart.org) CVS Book (http://cvsbook.ucsd.edu/) Scale Journal (http://scale.ucsd.edu/) -- Jon Phillips PO BOX 948667 LA JOLLA, CA 92037 USA USA.PH.858.361.2811 jon@...235... http://www.rejon.org Inkscape (http://inkscape.org) Open Clip Art Library (www.openclipart.org) CVS Book (http://cvsbook.ucsd.edu/) Scale Journal (http://scale.ucsd.edu/)

2 1

Current libs in Win32 build
by Bob Jamison 20 Jul '04

20 Jul '04

Getting the Win32 build working with the new libs is still a work-in-progress. However, here are the current libs I am using, FYI: atk 1.6.0 boehm-gc 6.2 freetype 2.1.7-1 gettext 0.13.1 glib 2.4.2 glibmm 2.4.3 gtk+ 2.4.3 gtkmm 2.4.4 gtk-wimp 0.6.0 jpeg 6b-3 libart_lgpl 2.3.14 libcroco 0.6.0 libiconv 1.9.1 libpng 1.2.5-1 libpopt ? <static> libtiff 3.6.1-2 libxml2 2.6.9 pango 1.4.0 sigc++ 2.0.3 zlib 1.2.1 A few of these I have built myself. Others are binaries built by others, over which we have no control. Bob

5 5

RE: [Inkscape-devel] Test strategy
by Gazal, Geraud (MED) 19 Jul '04

19 Jul '04

> Either Wiki or CVS would be suitable places for storing it. There are > roughly equal pros and cons both ways. Wiki would be more widely > accessible to more people, but CVS would allow a little more > flexibility > for manipulating the document (e.g., grep, txt2pdf, etc.) -> workaround : HTML format ( portable, plus support usefull things such as images, links, tables...) maintained in the CVS and linked to a wiki page ? > It may be worthwhile if we have better ideas for the > categorization, to > alter the bug tracker to match. Those categories were decided when we > first started the project, and probably need updated to match what we > people actually support bugs about. If anyone has ideas for > improvements let me know and I'll apply them. Yup, this is directly linked to the test process. I'm preparing (70% done) it. > A subcategory of this is 'Compliance testing', which validates the > features against a spec - in our case the W3C SVG spec. There may be > other specs we can test compliance against, although some (like the > GNOME Human Interface Guidelines) will generally not be automatable. Ok, got it. Will take a look at Gnome HIG see what can be done there (not my #1 priority, but kept on the list) Already diving in SVG standards, plus test tool suite. > There is also performance testing, which can be done in a variety of > ways. For example, startup timing, function-level profiling, etc. > > Also, we should include memory error testing ala purify and valgrind. Already in mind for the categories. > > > Tests: > > Build > > Linux (Debian / Gentoo / Slackware / Mandrake / Fedora > / Suse / Others) > > Windows (98 / 2000 / XP) > > MacOS (X) > > BSD (Free / Open) > > Other Unices (Solaris / Irix) > > Note that an important condition for distros is what installation > options were used. For example, a pure-base SuSE > installation will not > include developer tools like gcc. Most distros also have installation > options which will end up lacking the -devel libs that > Inkscape needs to > compile. So each of these will require specification as to which > installation options must be used during setup. Argh, sounds complicated. The best thing, I suppose is to identify a maintainer by distro (ala Mandrake) and ask them to write down the specs for their respective distro > > Notice : should be automated (example see : > > http://public.kitware.com/Dart/HTML/Index.shtml) > > Interesting - have you used this system? Yes, that's why I was thinking about it :) But I'm trying to find even better and flexible > > - open Inkscape, launch reference editing sequence, > export result as > > bitmap and compare with a reference bitmap provided by a reference > > application on the same sequence (Inkscape itself for non > regression, Batik > > ?) > > Previous sequences can be combined in one in order to save > time, but then > > analysis of results can become more complex. > > Note, I developed a way using motion tracker software to calculate a > "percent similarity" rating given an Inkscape-generated png against a > Batik-generated png, that makes the analysis work easier. There's a > glitch that'll need to be worked out, in that the original > SVG's contain > the description in the image, which throws off the comparison. Simply separate analysis of pixels and metadata (I'm quite used to it : have worked on the dicom standard for 3 years) > > > Verification of robustness > > - testing memory leaks (not a specialist of this : I need help) > > This is an area where our work as testers is really cut out for us, > because there is a ton of memory issues in the codebase, and > we need to > be able to categorize in a way that makes them accessible to the > developers. Right now there's such an overwhelming number that > developers wouldn't know where to start, so if in testing we can > triage and prioritize the "top 10" or whatever, it would make > the fixup > work more tractable. Right. But in fact, as for unit tests, this part of the verification is hard to manage by testing team. It's mainly up to coders to operate this. Testing team can provide help (crash report, reproducibility of malicious scenarii...) but (for example in my case) are not code/design wizzards able to slalom in the memory/architecture maze. > > - provide a shaker tool (this tool would launch > Inkscape and then start > > a predefined number of pseudo-random commands -logging each > action). The > > goal is to detect crashes and analyse their conditions with the logs > > Another idea along these lines is to fire a variety of signals at it, > and detect if it behaves correctly. Just need a few precisions so that I understand better > Again, this plan looks very good, I'm looking forward to > this. I have a > feeling that since there is a *huge* amount of improvement we can gain > by taking a systematic approach to it like this. I think > it'll also be > very intriguing to figure out how to effectively meld systematized > testing with open source practices, and to see how much can be > accomplished in doing so. Ok, I'm pleased if you find the approach interesting. Regards, Matiphas

2 1

Re: Extension Proposal (First Draft)
by Gazal, Geraud (MED) 19 Jul '04

19 Jul '04

Hi Bryce, just need a small precision (paragraph 8.1) You mention plugins as loaded as dynamic objects (so/dll) ans thus being c/c++ (or somewhat compiled). I was wondering about let's say, something written in Python (because I appreciate this language, and because it is availabe on nearly all platforms). Python (or perl, ruby...) programs can nearly behave as dynamic objects. Would it be considered as a script or a plugin ? Main only concern is will it be possible writting plugins in interpreted languages (small memory print, easier to develop/maintain, often more portable...) Regards, Matiphas

2 1

ATTENTION: libgc dependency
by MenTaLguY 19 Jul '04

19 Jul '04

Please note that sometime in the next few weeks we'll be introducing a dependency on the Boehm garbage collector (libgc), and that said library must be compiled with C++ support enabled. I'd encourage all packagers/autobuilders to investigate whether there will be any problems for them. -mental

2 1

Report for 2004-07-18 18:00 GMT-0500
by unknown＠example.com 19 Jul '04

19 Jul '04

Hi. I have some bad news. Unfortunately, the last build attempt at compiling Inkscape CVS was very unsuccesful. I'm sorry, I really tried hard. Really. Here is the LOG file, and I hope that helps.

6 5

AW: [Inkscape-devel] Plain svg format?
by Taraben, Adib 19 Jul '04

19 Jul '04

>On Sun, 2004-07-18 at 20:01, bulia byak wrote: >> Yes, and I'm thinking about _why_ this may be needed, and can only >> think of the two reasons above. > >IMO, the most fundamental (if not most common) reason is to yield an SVG >document which will validate against the SVG DTD. > >Having elements in any non-SVG namespaces would (afaiK) prevent that. > >Of course, I'm not really sure most folks care about DTDs much anymore, >given they don't play well with namespaces in general. > >-mental I care. In my special purpose inkscape is not only a drawing program but a (_THE_) svg-editor. Adib.

2 1

ATTENTION: gtkmm upgrade
by MenTaLguY 19 Jul '04

19 Jul '04

I've just comitted Aubanel's gtkmm upgrade patch. You will need to rerun autogen.sh. >From now on, libgtk+ >= 2.4, libsigc++ >= 2.0 and libgtkmm >= 2.4 are required for Inkscape. I have tried to carefully test and build, but this did require some autofoo changes I do not fully understand. So be aware, and if you have any problems please help me track them down and fix them. -mental

5 9