December 2010 - Inkscape Devel

Re: [Inkscape-devel] inkscape.org update needs [text]
by Leo Jackson 30 Dec '10

30 Dec '10

Chris, I wanted to make a comment about the text shown in the mockup there. This part: "which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux" Quite besides putting your fellow FOSS project last in a list of supported operating systems, especially since many distros package and release Inkscape ready to install and windows and macosx don't. It's quite simply a question of popularity. The list of operating systems goes by general OS popularity - and quite reasonably too. Linux users will expect it to go in that order, whereas if you put Linux first, I think many Windows and OS X users would be put off it as "a Linux thing" that just happens to have been loosely ported to Windows/OS X. Yes true order is right. But worse is the confusion of "Linux". Does this sentence mean that Inkscape will work on Android? Will it work on my TiVo or my Home brew Wii? It is nonsense to claim to run on Linux when linux is a kernel which can't run Inkscape in most cases. I disagree very strongly with your case here. "Linux" is a generally recognised family of operating systems. In the lingua franca, "Linux" means these operating systems, not the kernel as a technical definition of Linux may be. And there isn't really any way I think it can be improved without it becoming too verbose (frankly I think even one word more in each of the places where Linux is mentioned would be too verbose, the brevity of "Windows", "Mac OS X" and "Linux" is important, and on your later points a group of three is in a literary manner far more pleasing than four or five items would be). I don't believe anyone will get confused and expect it to run on any mobile browsers. The downloads page will also have OS-sniffing and so present the most likely of the three options first, including highlighting the relevant option (e.g. Mac OS X 10.4 users will get that button glowing and the others slightly faded, Ubuntu users will get a sentence on how to get it in Ubuntu highlighted in some way). It would be more clear and honest to say "which runs on Gnome/Linux" or "FreeDesktop Linux" or just "Fedora, Debian and other awesome Free Desktops". If you start putting in some particular flavours of Linux then you get bickering about which ones get included. And if you're of the opinion that Android and such aren't marketed as Linux and there for won't be confusing. Think about the way Ubuntu isn't marketed as Linux either (because it isn't true and because it's not helpful to scare away new users), will we have "which runs on Linux and Ubuntu" to account for that? No. Ubuntu is still recognised as Linux. And putting this in combination with highlighting the relevant information on the download page, I don't think it'll be an issue. Some people are adopting GNU/Linux as the operating system. Free Desktops include and not limited to Gnome, KDE, Xfce, and others. The lack of consideration that Linux distros are given by the Inkscape website is currently frustrating. The install for Windows and Mac is easy, but we don't have a single deb, apt link, or ppa and instead ask users to compile. Please consider rectifying and please start with the text on the front page. You're right about the need for more information on how to source Inkscape; I don't believe you're at all right about starting with the text on the front page. What it says is correct. The modifications only need to take place on the download page. So very true and easy to do. Regards, Leo Jackson

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Submission Process
by Martin Owens 30 Dec '10

30 Dec '10

Hey guys, I'm not sure I can remember if I need to do anything special for my recent submission of a branch on launchpad for review and merge. Does Inkscape follow the normal launchpad workflow since it's on launchpad? https://code.launchpad.net/~doctormo/inkscape/barcode-refactor/+merge/44768 Let me know if there is anything special I need to do to make sure this gets put into the right pile. Martin,

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inkscape.org update needs [django and video]
by Ian Caldwell 30 Dec '10

30 Dec '10

hello all! just wanted to update you all on the website we're making some good progress and things are starting to come together for the website, We're currently in the process of having the pages mocked up and then translating those to html/css and django. we do however need a couple things.. 1. We need someone to develop a good quality video for our about page it'll be a brief overview of inkscape and will hopefully be less than 2-3 minutes. - It would be great to include a couple brief interviews of prominent companies that us inkscape for their everyday work. If you're able to submit interviews in video format to add to the video it would be great too! It will essentially be a promo video - Here's an example of where the video would go ( http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41698/mockup-about_1.1.png) 2. if you're skilled in Django and willing to take on various features of the site such as i18n (localization). so if you're willing to help either email me here or join us at irc.freenode.net and join #inkscape-web Thanks and happy holidays! Ian "Inc" Caldwell

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Poppler internal API problem
by Krzysztof Kosiński 30 Dec '10

30 Dec '10

We are still using the internal Poppler API to import PDFs. This is very bad, since the internal Poppler API is not stable, and will keep breaking. (We already don't build with poppler > 0.12.1) How about using the public Glib API to render to a Cairo SVG surface instead? This is how pdf2svg works, and to be honest I had to use that utility several times to augment Inkscape, because it handles text much better. What are the advantages to using internal Poppler API directly? Regards, Krzysztof

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What's left to do before 0.48.1?
by Krzysztof Kosiński 23 Dec '10

23 Dec '10

Hello Looks like nearly everything is done for 0.48.1 now: https://launchpad.net/inkscape/+milestone/0.48.1 The remaining unclosed issues are minor: 427514 only result in some confusion when working with 2 windows at once, 520521 is a build system improvement and 510618 is a connector-related quirk we can live with for now. There's also the bezier stamping regression, but I don't think the feature is used often enough to warrant further delay; the same effect can also be achieved with some more work using Ctrl+D. Is there anything else holding up the release 0.48.1? There are several important bugs fixed in it, so I think it's important to push it out as soon as possible. Regards, Krzysztof

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Rev. 9970: Compile error and startup segfault
by Maximilian Albert 23 Dec '10

23 Dec '10

Hi, I'm having a few problems after my last pull (I'm at rev. 9970 at the moment). Firstly, I couldn't compile straight away because widgets/icon.cpp uses the GStatBuf type which AFAICT was newly added to glib in a recent version (the latest version on Ubuntu 10.04 is glib 2.24.1, which doesn't know it). Would it be possible to recode this so that the latest version supplied by Ubuntu (or other distros, for that matter) is sufficient? After installing glib 2.26.1 from source, I managed to compile Inkscape but now it crashes on startup (see backtrace below). Any ideas? Thanks, Max ------------------------------------------ Program received signal SIGABRT, Aborted. 0x0012d422 in __kernel_vsyscall () (gdb) bt #0 0x0012d422 in __kernel_vsyscall () #1 0x01728651 in raise () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 #2 0x0172ba82 in abort () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 #3 0x0166952f in __gnu_cxx::__verbose_terminate_handler() () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 #4 0x01667465 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 #5 0x016674a2 in std::terminate() () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 #6 0x016675e1 in __cxa_throw () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 #7 0x005fd090 in Glib::FileError::throw_func(_GError*) () from /usr/lib/libglibmm-2.4.so.1 #8 0x0060ae82 in Glib::Error::throw_exception(_GError*) () from /usr/lib/libglibmm-2.4.so.1 #9 0x005fd5ef in Glib::Dir::Dir(std::string const&) () from /usr/lib/libglibmm-2.4.so.1 #10 0x0832bbb8 in IconImpl::validateCache () at widgets/icon.cpp:421 #11 0x0832cdac in IconImpl::prerenderIcon (name=0x985e1f4 "edit-select-all-layers", lsize=GTK_ICON_SIZE_SMALL_TOOLBAR, psize=22) at widgets/icon.cpp:1337 #12 0x0832e237 in Inkscape::queueIconPrerender (name=..., lsize=Inkscape::ICON_SIZE_SMALL_TOOLBAR) at widgets/icon.cpp:1311 #13 0x085f8118 in create_action_for_verb (verb=<value optimized out>, view=<value optimized out>, size=Inkscape::ICON_SIZE_SMALL_TOOLBAR) at widgets/select-toolbar.cpp:387 #14 0x085f9866 in sp_select_toolbox_prep (desktop=0x8e78db0, mainActions=0x98e7e60, holder=0x8a4daa0) at widgets/select-toolbar.cpp:405 #15 0x08355dd5 in setup_aux_toolbox (toolbox=0x9229f30, desktop=0x8e78db0) at widgets/toolbox.cpp:1902 #16 0x0834b204 in Inkscape::UI::ToolboxFactory::setToolboxDesktop (toolbox=0x9229f30, desktop=0x8e78db0) at widgets/toolbox.cpp:1668 #17 0x08383184 in Inkscape::UI::UXManagerImpl::connectToDesktop (this=0x97c68e8, toolboxes=..., desktop=0x8e78db0) at ui/uxmanager.cpp:230 #18 0x08320b67 in SPDesktopWidget::createInstance (namedview=0x8a5b950) at widgets/desktop-widget.cpp:1464 #19 0x08320c82 in sp_desktop_widget_new (namedview=0x8a5b950) at widgets/desktop-widget.cpp:1413 #20 0x0809655f in sp_file_new (templ=...) at file.cpp:126 #21 0x08096934 in sp_file_new_default () at file.cpp:178 #22 0x08086565 in sp_main_gui (argc=1, argv=0xbffff754) at main.cpp:982 #23 0x080886d3 in main (argc=1, argv=0xbffff754) at main.cpp:717

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potrace 1.9 is available
by Alexandre Prokoudine 22 Dec '10

22 Dec '10

Hi, Potrace 1.9 was released yesterday "The xfig and eps backends were improved, and a fixed pagesize PDF backend was added. Support for BMP version 4 and version 5 files, as well as top-down BMP files, was added. Minor speed improvements to Potrace and major speed improvements to mkbitmap. A Gaussian blur option was added to mkbitmap. Libtool is now used to build and optionally install the Potrace library. An optional simplified progress bar was added for dumb terminals. This release also contains some portability improvements, cross-compilation improvements, and minor bug fixes." Anything we need to backport? Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

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[website] Discussion on the wiki
by Ian Caldwell 22 Dec '10

22 Dec '10

hello, This email is sent on behalf of Steven M. Ottens. I've been pondering the wiki-issue ever since I sent my mail on site/menu-structure to Ian. A few observations: -The current wiki is a MediaWiki-wiki, which is the same as Wikipedia and as such quite known to a broad audience. -A wiki is inherently different from a pre-structured website. -We want to have both a structured website guiding the various target groups towards the info they need and have a dynamic place where new info is quickly (and chaotically) added. -We want to point people towards the more chaotically but richer information source that is the wiki from the structured website -Any 'fixed' content system is not a wiki. I've had experiences with various combinations of plain HTML, blogs, CMS and wiki's and there is no holy grail which will do everything perfect. So I think we shouldn't try to get the wiki into Django. The wiki is the wiki and people are reasonably aware of the principle of a wiki. That being said, currently the wiki is a whole separate entity which I never ventured into until today. There is a wealth of information there, but it is hidden behind the simple link 'wiki' So I don't think we should try to create a design which forces the wiki to behave as the rest of the site, but to create a separate (but similar) design for the wiki to make it clear for the users they are in the wiki with a clear way back to the site. Also we should make more appropriate links from the site to the wiki. There are many topics in the site which are also discussed in the wiki, we should link to those. I came up in my restructuring mail with 'landing pages' on various topics. Having various main pages in the wiki which reflect the menu-structure in the website might create a stronger bridge between the two, without restricting the wiki to the website-structure. Regards Steven note: I know making a difference between the wiki and 'the website' isn't entirely fair, the wiki is part of the website etc etc. It is just a quick way to get the message across (I hope)

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Lock the group from editing
by Yu-Chung Wang 20 Dec '10

20 Dec '10

Is there any API which can prevent the group from editing by the users? My situation is that I add some elements in the python extension. However, I don't want them to be changed by the users. I know that it's impossible to prevent user to delete them from the XML editor. However, I hope want to limit it from editing in the UI.

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A proposal for the filter tool (and the others)
by Teto 20 Dec '10

20 Dec '10

Hi! First, I have to say that I do like inkscape, that I use everyday, sometimes just for fun. But, like all free softwares, it has few problems. Some are not important, others may become disabling. Obviously filters belong to the second category. Not because there are buggy (they aren't), but because the rendering engine is just too slow, when you are using few "big" filters in a big picture and you want to export in a big size, it takes centuries. I'm not complaining, I take a coffee during the export, but well... And it has other few problems like "what you see is not really what you get". More than this, useful features are missing: using filter in another filter, disable/mask an effect without remove it, things like that. Again, I'm not complaining, developing a soft like Inkscape is a hard stuff, and you, developers, do a great job. First remark: When we watch filter structure closely, it's very similar to "path effects" and even "stroke" or "shape". You have an object that you change with effects: colors, shape, style and so on. For fun, again, I use UDK (Unreal Development Kit) to develop games (mostly to understand how they work). I suppose that many people know this kit, if not, search "Epic Unreal Development Kit". In this kit, like all other game development kits, you apply materials to 3D objects, that are basically textures improved with a lot of effects to fake light, glow, deepness, relief and so on. To create these effects, you use a GUI (attached picture) where you start with the 3D object (the big rectangle on the left) and put on it effects, which can be modified by sub-effects, which can be etc. The attached picture is obvious, and shows clearly how it works, I think. What do I want to say? I think that many tools/operations of Inkscape can be done via a GUI like this. - Everything can be a "basic" object: line, stroke, shape, geometric shape, group, clone. - On these objects you can change 4 things: shape (fill or edge) and color (fill of edge). That's all. - For the effects available you find all tools available in "filter" or "path effects", like bending, matrix operations, styles... - So when I want to put a "object on fire" effect on a circle, I click on it, a window like the attached picture is opened, I can see the object "circle" on the left, and few effect already attached, like fill color and the type of the stroke for the edge. I'm choosing the filter "on fire" in the library, and put it. I'm using dashes to tell where it's used, configuring it, closing the GUI, and the effect appears. - You see also what I mean: With this system you can create you own effects and use them like "basic effect" in other filters (missing feature in the actual filter tool). - It's the same for the objects themselves. For instance you could have a 'group' with effects (filter, transparency,...) with many sub-objects/shapes with their own effects. - Many existing GUI/tools in Inkscape could disappear with this one, and changed by "basic effect objects" attached on shapes/strokes: Tools filter, path effect, color, text, transform, tiling, distribute, 'rows and columns'... I do know that the work for this is huge (another summer google contest?). You have to start from scratch, basically. And I read somewhere that for futures versions, Inskcape will merge "filter tool" and "path transform tool" in order to unify all this stuff. I agree, it's essential for my point of view, if you want to continue improving your great tool without too much trouble. My idea can be useless, because the concept doesn't fit with the .svg specifications (I'm thinking about colors or edge thickness, for example, that are directly in the object definition, while filters are stored in <svg:defs>). Or compatibility with other softs that reading .svg. Or maybe you don't care. But implement this and many expensive professional vectorial tools will become "old-school" immediately ^^ ... Sorry for the length. And sorry if I seemed arrogant or smug, it wasn't my intention, English is not my native language. I just had this idea this morning. My 2 cents, François. PS: About the actual filter tool: Maybe I missed something, but the tool "snapshot picture behind the object and use it" is missing, and could be useful for effects.

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