December 2005 - Inkscape Devel

Re: [Inkscape-user] PDF Support in Inkscape
by Bryce Harrington 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

----- Forwarded message from Bryce Harrington <bryce@...961...> ----- Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 18:24:51 -0800 From: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...961...> To: inkscape-user(a)lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] PDF Support in Inkscape Hi all, Great feedback, thanks! And I got a possible solution to this problem that we could implement right now. I took the opportunity here at the desktop architect's meeting to grab Carl Worth and present the problem to him, to get a direct from the horse's mouth on Cairo's PDF. I mentioned that we'd heard that Cairo's PDF export wasn't good, and asked for the skinny on that. Here's the gist. Cairo's original mission was for screen and print perfect PDF, so what you see on the screen is what you get on the printer. Originally this was done by just creating a bitmap snapshot and embedding it in the PDF. This *looked* great, but of course is a heavyhanded solution. Later, someone created a new PDF backend for Cairo, but when they got ready to release 1.0 they saw that it was woefully inadequate, so Cairo 1.0 wasn't able to meet its PDF export capabilities. However, Carl says that actually has been their number one area of focus for the next release. This release is scheduled for Dec 15. He recommends we withhold making conclusions about Cairo's PDF until that release. Also, I asked about some sort of pluggable cairo-based svg-to-pdf converter, and this immediately clicked! He'd written a svg2pdf tool based on (an old) librsvg that does this. This is in the Cairo tree, and my guess is that this is something we could wrap up with an extension and immediately use. Perhaps the inkscape developers who are conversant with Cairo stuff could briefly mind meld with those who do extensions, and we can have Cairo-based PDF export in a matter of days. However, there are some caveats. In theory, this should work on Windows, but Carl's never tested it. So some of our Windows (and OSX) Inkscapers might want to put some time into this, too. I know PDF export is probably *most* important for users on non-Linux platforms so this testing is absolutely critical for y'all. Second, Carl says he's not providing any support for the libsvg module that this tool depends on, and in fact it's missing some features - filters, markers, transparency, etc. that we're definitely going to need. Thus, I think if we are going to invest time and/or money anywhere, this is the spot to do it. I'm not sure exactly what form that'd take - would we migrate code from inkscape into libsvg? Or the reverse? Would we collaborate with the librsvg people? Would we take over maintainership of libsvg? What do you guys think? Are we as a project interested in handling maintainership of libsvg? Regarding Google Summer of Code, I heard that they're also planning a Winter Summer of Code and/or a follow up next summer, but haven't heard confirmation. Also, even if they do, there's no guarantee Inkscape would again be accepted as a project... Also, I think the work may be more than one college kid could handle. ;-) So, I think we need to not count on Google for this one; if we do get in again, I think we'd want to divvy out the work in smaller chunks anyway, so even best case it wouldn't give us a total solution. Someone asked about the check from this last time... Yep, it just arrived via FedEx on Tuesday. :-) Early on we'd thought it might be good to put this towards some sort of sponsorship, so certainly adding it to the pool for a PDF solution is a possibility, if there's a strong enough concensus to use it for that. Btw, Dan Kegel is taking really good, thorough notes on the meeting; Kees and I were sitting next to him and admiring his good note taking. :-) http://kegel.com/osdl/da05.html Also it's kinda cool, Kees and I have had several people come up and say "Thank you so much for Inkscape!" One person said the thing they liked the most was how prolific, friendly, and strong our community was. :-) A couple other notes of relevance to Inkscape... There's something called RUDI that is getting a lot of discussion as a solution to better desktop integration - sounds pretty cool. The C++ ABI breakage has gotten a lot of discussion; Kegel says the gcc devs have committed to stabilizing their ABI so these problems may diminish. There's a strong feeling that there should be a stable package of GNOME/etc. libs for Windows, so each ISV/project doesn't have to statically link and ship their own copies. Carl and Mike Shaffer of Mozilla were discussing a lot about Cairo performance; sounds like there's much work going on in that area. John Waugh of Ubuntu told me about something called 'Dogtail' that sounds like it's a powerful way to do testing, and suggested we use that for Inkscape. An idea occurred to me - some of the exercises we're doing here with pens and cards seem like they'd work *much* better on top of Inkboard. I think it would be useful to record an inkboard session and then create 50+ simulated sessions all talking to the same document, and fix whatever breaks. Inkscape could totally rule as a conference collaboration tool. Bryce On Thu, Dec 01, 2005 at 12:32:01AM -0700, Michael Moore wrote: > > I've been noticing a LOT of requests for PDF/PS support in Inkscape. > > Either export or import or both. > > > > Over the past year or so, I've been fishing around for a volunteer to > > implement this. But unfortunately I'm coming up dry. Ain't no one I > > can find with an itch to implement this, not on a volunteer basis > > anyway. > > > > Can you all tell me what you think? ----- End forwarded message -----

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Compile error for About screen?
by Bryce Harrington 05 Dec '05

05 Dec '05

I just did a cvs up and rebuild, and got this error: /home/bryce/src/Inkscape/inkscape/src/ui/dialog/aboutbox.cpp: In constructor ` Inkscape::UI::Dialog::AboutBox::AboutBox()': /home/bryce/src/Inkscape/inkscape/src/ui/dialog/aboutbox.cpp:88: error: no matching function for call to `Inkscape::UI::Dialog::AboutBox::size_request( )' /usr/include/gtkmm-2.4/gtkmm/widget.h:510: error: candidates are: void Gtk::Widget::size_request(const Gtk::Requisition&) make[2]: *** [ui/dialog/aboutbox.o] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/bryce/Build/Inkscape/inkscape/src' make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/bryce/Build/Inkscape/inkscape' make: *** [all] Error 2 In case this was just due to out of date autoconf stuff, I'm doing a make distclean and a full rebuild. Bryce

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Wiki Spam, more security. time for accounts yet?
by Alan Horkan 04 Dec '05

04 Dec '05

The current anti spam system doesn't seem to be effective anymore and it is quite annoying to use, at least with a login system I only have to worry about it once and then save the settings in my browser. (The notSPAM block must be typed every time and it is quite frustrating even the option to use logins and avoid having to confirm everything each time woudl be a big help). I cleared some SPAM links from the main wiki page inkscape-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net and then noticed the sneaky beggars had added blocks of hidden links which do not actually show up on the page. Even if you decide logins are too much of a restriction, I do hope the security can be cranked up some other way. Sincerely Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

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[Inkscape-tester] inkscape build report
by Bryce Harrington 04 Dec '05

04 Dec '05

----- Forwarded message from root <root@...1070...> ----- Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2005 17:21:03 -0800 From: root <root@...1070...> To: inkscape-tester(a)lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [Inkscape-tester] inkscape build report = Analysis Report for inkscape = Report Time: Sat Dec 3 03:55:34 2005 (Run 876) Snapshot: inkscape-20051203-0220.tar.bz2 Status: finished Platform Unpack Config Build Install WRNS ERRS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ debian x86 0 0 2 7 2 Test Status Score Info ------------------------------------------------------------------------ sut-1 ?? == Errors == ui/dialog/aboutbox.cpp:88: error: no matching function for call to `Inkscape::UI::Dialog::AboutBox::size_request()' /usr/include/gtkmm-2.4/gtkmm/widget.h:510: error: candidates are: void Gtk::Widget::size_request(const Gtk::Requisition&) == Warnings == display/canvas-arena.cpp:87: warning: invalid access to non-static data member `SPCanvasArenaClass::arena_event' of NULL object display/canvas-arena.cpp:87: warning: (perhaps the `offsetof' macro was used incorrectly) display/sp-canvas.cpp:133: warning: invalid access to non-static data member `SPCanvasItemClass::event' of NULL object display/sp-canvas.cpp:133: warning: (perhaps the `offsetof' macro was used incorrectly) removeoverlap/solve_VPSC.cpp:183: warning: comparison between signed and unsigned integer expressions removeoverlap/solve_VPSC.cpp:240: warning: comparison between signed and unsigned integer expressions removeoverlap/solve_VPSC.cpp:244:2: warning: no newline at end of file == Environment Summary == ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7637&alloc_id=16865&op=click _______________________________________________ Inkscape-tester mailing list Inkscape-tester(a)lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-tester ----- End forwarded message -----

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[root@...1070...: [Inkscape-tester] inkscape build report]
by Bryce Harrington 03 Dec '05

03 Dec '05

Some breakage in the codebase; I am guessing this is due to the recent About screen work? I've also run into this issue this morning on my own desktop system. Bryce ----- Forwarded message from root <root@...1070...> ----- Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2005 05:21:03 -0800 From: root <root@...1070...> To: inkscape-tester(a)lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [Inkscape-tester] inkscape build report = Analysis Report for inkscape = Report Time: Sat Dec 3 03:55:34 2005 (Run 876) Snapshot: inkscape-20051203-0220.tar.bz2 Status: finished Platform Unpack Config Build Install WRNS ERRS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ debian x86 0 0 2 7 2 Test Status Score Info ------------------------------------------------------------------------ sut-1 ?? == Errors == ui/dialog/aboutbox.cpp:88: error: no matching function for call to `Inkscape::UI::Dialog::AboutBox::size_request()' /usr/include/gtkmm-2.4/gtkmm/widget.h:510: error: candidates are: void Gtk::Widget::size_request(const Gtk::Requisition&) == Warnings == display/canvas-arena.cpp:87: warning: invalid access to non-static data member `SPCanvasArenaClass::arena_event' of NULL object display/canvas-arena.cpp:87: warning: (perhaps the `offsetof' macro was used incorrectly) display/sp-canvas.cpp:133: warning: invalid access to non-static data member `SPCanvasItemClass::event' of NULL object display/sp-canvas.cpp:133: warning: (perhaps the `offsetof' macro was used incorrectly) removeoverlap/solve_VPSC.cpp:183: warning: comparison between signed and unsigned integer expressions removeoverlap/solve_VPSC.cpp:240: warning: comparison between signed and unsigned integer expressions removeoverlap/solve_VPSC.cpp:244:2: warning: no newline at end of file == Environment Summary == ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7637&alloc_id=16865&op=click _______________________________________________ Inkscape-tester mailing list Inkscape-tester(a)lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-tester ----- End forwarded message -----

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NEW: Ensure selected objects don't overlap each other
by Peter Moulder 02 Dec '05

02 Dec '05

Tim Dwyer from the office next to mine has been working on code to move rectangles by the minimal amount enough that they no longer overlap. Now he's spent a few days adding this to Inkscape (with a little help from me, njh & possibly Brisgeek): in the Align & Distribute dialog box near the existing Clump/Unclump buttons. (Unclump merely reduces overlap, whereas Remove Overlaps completely removes overlap.) You can also think of it like the Distribute edge-to-edge buttons, except that it moves things only enough to ensure that they don't overlap; e.g. if applied to a set of objects that are roughly in a grid arrangement, then the new code probably does what the user wants (preserve the grid nature), whereas existing Distribute edge-to-edge would put the objects in a long diagonal line (unless the user does extra work, acting in small groups at a time). This should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. Interface changes welcome; e.g. I wonder if it should be in the same box as Distribute; though having the separate box does make it clearer that the Hor/Vert Gap settings apply only to the Remove Overlap option. pjrm.

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background icon prerendering performance
by MenTaLguY 02 Dec '05

02 Dec '05

As some of you may have noticed, JonCruz implemented my idea about prerendering the icons as a background task. It seems to work very, very well. Good work, Jon. Basically the idea is that the GUI icons get rendered one-at-a-time in the brief pauses between mouse motions or keypresses, when Inkscape isn't otherwise busy. On my lowly Celeron 500, it takes about 60ms (average) to render a single icon; a few icons take a bit longer (as much as 175-200ms). Even while I'm doing other stuff, it seems to take only 15-25 seconds to get all the menu icons rendered, during which time I can draw or navigate around the fileselector or something (the File menu renders first). By the time I start using the menus, their icons have usually been rendered. Compare this to the situation we used to have: formerly, the first time you clicked on the Object menu, on a machine like mine you were guaranteed at least a: 70ms*16 = 1120ms = 1.12s delay. And that's something of a best case. Let's not even think about what it used to be like when we rendered all the icons up-front at startup time... This is a vivid demonstration of how doing the same amount of work more cleverly can make an application feel a lot more responsive. Anyway, I've refactored the code a little bit and also stuck in some timers to assess rendering performance. The g_warnings are temporary; I'd just like to get a sense of how common it is for the rendering of icons to run over 70ms on different people's machines right now. Ultimately I'd like to get some incremental rendering code in place, not just for background icon rendering, but also for other things, like previews in the file dialog. It's really annoying to select a complex file in the fileselector and have to wait for its preview to finish rendering before you can do anything. -mental

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about curve morphing
by Albert 02 Dec '05

02 Dec '05

Dear all, I am not aware that curve morphing is available in Inkscape. If so please ignore this email. For my own biology research purposes I've implemented the curve morphing algorithm by weighted means of strings, which can morph any pair of Bézier curves (or any other set of points that define a curve) with as many weighted averages as the user desires. The primary use is for reconstructing volumes for 3D modelling purposes, but I believe the ability to create average curves (both open and closed curves work), particularly regarding animated SVG, would be a nice feature to have in Inkscape. I lack the knowledge of the Inkscape code base to plug this in myself. If anyone is interested, I can help and learn about Inkscape in the process. The algorithm consists of an ANSI C python module, with the core functionality separated in a pure C file. The page: http://www.pensament.net/java/CurveMorphing.html Albert -- Albert Cardona Molecular Cell Developmental Biology University of California Los Angeles Tel +1 310 2067376 http://www.pensament.net/java/ http://www.mcdb.ucla.edu/Research/Hartenstein/

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WEBFORM Linux Arts web site
by Joey Cagle 02 Dec '05

02 Dec '05

Message from Inkscape submission form Please note, that the submitter may not read this list. CC your answer to the submitter name: Joey Cagle email: jcagle@...1097... submitted the following: I have just launched a web site called Linux Arts. It\'s at http://linuxarts.caglewebcreations.com. The following is from my About page Many people know Linux as the operating system for programmers and network administrators. Believe it or not, there are great tools for tasks involving graphic design and web site design, digital film making, digital animation, audio recording, and more! Traditionally done on a Macintosh computer, these tasks are being done incresingly in Linux as well. But many people don\'t even know this. For that reason, the Linux Arts web site was created. This is the web site that will keep you updated on the software in Linux used for digital arts. We don\'t just keep up on the big names in open source software like GIMP and Inkscape, but we\'ll also let you know about other Linux software that\'s not so well known as well as software soon to be released. We also keep an eye on the Linux distributions best suited for these tasks, such as medainlinux, Grafpup, SuSE, etc. Finally, we\'re building a community to discuss the Linux software available for your multimedia needs, whether it be from a user standpoint or production standpoint. Welcome to Linux Arts!

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Re: PDF Support in Inkscape
by Jeff Kowalczyk 02 Dec '05

02 Dec '05

Bryce Harrington wrote: > I think if enough people pitched in funds, we could actually make (PDF) > happen. This is one feature I think we as a community could just force > through, by hiring some mercenary to attack and kill it for us, hardcore > style. Sounds like http://fundable.org would be a workable mechanism. Define the feature, announce it here, and let people contribute according to interest level. (I can't clearly find what their 'load' is on funds raised. Fundable.org may be no-load, donation-driven) BTW, would it me more productive to enhance Cairo to convert between various surface/image format backends and the (perhaps unfinshed) PDF backend. Some sort of recording canvas might be needed, but very useful to other Cairo apps.

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