September 2005 - Inkscape Devel

win98 crash on startup with 2.8 libs
by bulia byak 21 Sep '05

21 Sep '05

I spent half the night debugging this crash today - gdb no longer works, so I had to do this by scattering printfs in the code. I localized it to this: gtk_option_menu_set_menu(GTK_OPTION_MENU(us->menu), m); in spus_rebuild_menu() in unit-menu.cpp. It's called when the first units menu for the selector toolbar is created. Both pointers are valid. I know gtk_option_menu is deprecated, but it must not crash! We have lots of old code with gtk_option_menu and absolutely no resources to rewrite them all. If I comment that line out, it goes farther, but eventually still crashes somewhere. I have no energy left to figure out where. Now, there's also an error box with the same "pango error" as the one I fixed for 0.42.2. As I understand it, it's caused by the crash handler's attempt to write prefs on exit. The prefs file is read OK but writing it out is broken (again). However, this only happens after the gtk_option_menu crash. My conclusion: We have to roll back to 2.6. The gtk 2.8 seems to be really really broken on win98. I don't see how we can work around this. Opinions? -- bulia byak Inkscape. Draw Freely. http://www.inkscape.org

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Translating Xlink attributes?
by Colin Marquardt 20 Sep '05

20 Sep '05

Hi, I think translating the Xlink attributes (shown in the link properties dialog of a linked object) is too specific. Anyone wanting to make sense of the attributes would have to know http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-xlink-20000703/ and the link in the TRANSLATORS comment anyway. Don't you agree that these strings should show up in non-interpreted English? If so, these strings should not be marked as translatable. Here is an example: #. TRANSLATORS: for info, see http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-SVG-20000802/linking.html#AElementXLinkArcRole… #. For situations where the nature/role alone isn't enough, this offers an additional URI defining the purpose of the link. #: ../src/dialogs/object-attributes.cpp:42 msgid "Arcrole:" Cheers, Colin -- <jeff> so tell me, what will xemacs do for me? <Ueberluser> I don't know. It's an editor. Do you need an editor? <jeff> I guess not.. i just use VI

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Re: Using Inkscape
by Gavin Band 20 Sep '05

20 Sep '05

(Bulia Byak wrote that he had changed the minimum zoom size in CVS, so I could see my file - but I lost the email) Thanks - I will check it out. gav.

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Press
by unknown＠example.com 20 Sep '05

20 Sep '05

All this talk about website redesign and reorganization makes me wonder. On many commercial websites I see a "For the Press" section. Should inkscape have one of those? Also, since the question has come up multiple times can we attach licensing information to each screenshot on the website. I noticed the gamemap example does this. Would someone who knows how place a PD designation next to both of my screenshots? Aaron Spike

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SVG in the press
by Taraben, Adib 20 Sep '05

20 Sep '05

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2394080884.html

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Usage Notes
by Michael Wheeler 19 Sep '05

19 Sep '05

Hi all, When I have opportunities, I like to try out Inkscape for some of my freelance work and take notes. My freelance work is mostly doing artwork for those t-shirts you see in kiosks at the mall. Think "Coolest Grandpa in the World". A lot of tracing and finishing of scanned drawings. Anyway, I realized that I had a lot of notes from over several months and I thought I'd finally gather them together and send them to the list. I love the MMB panning and zooming, especially now that I can MMB pan even while I am in the middle of drawing a path with the pen tool. Is there any reason that Shift+MMB+drag couldn't serve the same function as LMB+drag with the zoom tool (zooming in on the area you've just dragged a box around)? I think it would really complete the middle mouse button as a document navigation tool. Shift+MMB+drag currently just pans the document, the same as regular MMB dragging. Dialogs pop-up to the front whenever I hover for more than a second over a toolbar button or menu. They appear to pop up simultaneously with the tooltips. This is under Win2k, It works correctly in Ubuntu. Is there any way that the HSL color picker could be fixed so that changing the value of one component would not affect the values of the other components? For instance, setting S to 0 often snaps H to 0 also. Other, less drastic value changes occasionally occur too. It is frustrating to pick out the exact hue I want, only to have it change when I start tinkering with the saturation or lightness. Align nodes is nice, but it would be more useful if there was an option to align to the center or average of the selected nodes. I love the node editing tool, especially now that i can drag curve segments and double click to add nodes! I use Illustrator at work and at home for freelance jobs and I must say that the path editing UI is one area where I find Inkscape to be head and shoulders above AI. The only problem is the speed. Forgive me for mentioning it (since I know everyone is aware of the slow rendering), but more than any other drawback this is the one that can turn using Inkscape from a pleasure into a headache. I've brought this up before, and people mentioned profiling, but it is a little bit over my head. I don't know if it is still worth doing, but some instructions are available at http://wiki.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Profiling for those who would like to try (maybe this page should be linked to the TestingInkscape page?). Anyway, I hope these notes are helpful. -Mike

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Connector avoidance fix for ellipses and translated objects
by Michael Wybrow 18 Sep '05

18 Sep '05

Hello, I have posted a fix for the previously discussed problems with connector avoidance for circles, ellipses and arcs as well as translated objects. I am curently in the UK with a very bad internet connection and very limited computer access so I can't easily read mail or get on Jabber to tell where we are in the release. For this reason I have put the patch in the tracker: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1294687&group_id=… If the release hasn't already happened can someone please apply the patch before it does! Also, please check it compiles fine because while I fixed the problem on my laptop, I had to copy the changes by hand to get them anywhwere near the internet, and coulndn't connect to any of the machines at Monash where I would actually have been able to compile the change. I'll try to check replies to this message in the list in the next day or so. I'm back in Australia in a week so \i'll talk to you all then. Thanks, Michael

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Is pressure sensitivity supported in X11 running under OS X?
by Jonathan Chetwynd 18 Sep '05

18 Sep '05

Is pressure sensitivity supported in X11 running under OS X? if it is, what configuration instructions are there? if not, what is the issue, and why hasn't it been fixed in the past three or four years? regards Jonathan Chetwynd please take care when replying not to copy across lists. Howtos for linux X11 regarding pressure sensitivity: http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/index.php/howto/inputdev http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-25151.html Wacom or other tablets use pressure sensitivity and applications such as GIMP and Inkscape use this facility, when available. Adobe Illustrator is a commercial application frequently used with wacom tablets and OS X. http://lists.apple.com/archives/X11-users OS X X11 mailing list archive

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Inkscape stats 9/15/05
by Ben Fowler 18 Sep '05

18 Sep '05

I would respectfully disagree with both of the substantive points in this thread(!): On 9/16/05, Nicu Buculei <nicu@...398...> wrote: > Bryce Harrington wrote: > > > > [ snip ] > > > Where the project needs help right now is in closing bugs. > > We have our bug tracker quite well under control, but there > > are 258 open bugs, and it would be wonderful if we could cut > > that down significantly before the 0.43 release. If you can > > code, please check out if you can help close one or two, ... I am sitting on three patches, waiting for a thaw so that I can commit without endangering other's activities. There was never much of a thaw after 0.42! Ideally, the tree should be open just after a release for new work including patches for minor bugs, also for developers' prized features, as there will be a period for stabilisation before the next release. Just before a release, the emphasis should be on testing, packaging and to a lesser extent on 'blocking bugs'. Cutting down the number of open bugs by commiting is highly likely to expose other bugs or problems with the code that require stabilisation and should be done (IMHO) early in the release cycle. I suspect that I am missing something ... Personally, I would suggest that some manageable number bugs (somewhere between 10 an 50 given the number of developers) are marked as must fix before 0.43 and patches for other bugs (the 'minor bugs' I mentioned above) are held over. Ideally this should be based on the importance to the end-user rather than priority or ease of fixing. (High priority and easy to fix bugs should most certainly be fast tracked, but again, at the beginning or in the middle of a release cycle). > Other projects keep from time to time some events called "bug > party", when people clean the bug/feature tracker, collaborating > over IRC and closing as much as possible as DUPLICATE, WON'T > FIX, INVALID, RESOLVED or prioritizing. It may have the benefit > of attracting new contributors and giving non-developers a way > to contribute. > > What do you think about the opportunity/usefulness of such a > bug party? > > At 258 bugs and 448 RFEs the number may be small enough and > the action not needed. I wholeheartedly agree with these data and your suggestions, until the last line, where there is the implication that 250 open bugs is a small number. Really, we should be aiming at zero bugs, and should have 10 or fewer open ones. I would urge every effort to getting non-coders interested in triaging bugs and assigning priorities at all times. It is especially helpful to have end-users prioritising bugs, as bugs which do not impact the user community can be left to a future when there is more time. I also note that many of the open bugs refer to the Windows operating system, and unless those they are easily reproducible they may never get seen by a developer unless the user community can get behind them and insist that (some of) such bugs are indeed important. Finally, if we are going to have hundreds of open bugs, we should consider an even/odd policy, and do 'bug fixes only' for even numbered releases ... That may not desirable if we have a large number of RFEs and/or features which developers are interested in. Certainly in the proprietary world, there are products which have benefitted from a period of stability in which six months of the developers time was spent on stabilisation, performance and bug fixing rather than new features. Ideally we need to know whether the user community would vote for quality and bug fixes or new features ... Ben

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Is pressure sensitivity supported in X11 running under OS X?
by Jonathan Chetwynd 17 Sep '05

17 Sep '05

Is pressure sensitivity supported in X11 running under OS X? if it is, what configuration instructions are there? if not, what is the issue, and why hasn't it been fixed in the past three or four years? regards Jonathan Chetwynd please take care when replying not to copy across lists. Howtos for linux X11 regarding pressure sensitivity: http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/index.php/howto/inputdev http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-25151.html Wacom or other tablets use pressure sensitivity and applications such as GIMP and Inkscape use this facility, when available. Adobe Illustrator is a commercial application frequently used with wacom tablets and OS X. http://lists.apple.com/archives/X11-users OS X X11 mailing list archive

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