January 2012 - Inkscape Devel

support multiple extension locations
by Tim Cuthbertson 05 Feb '12

05 Feb '12

I was looking into how one might provide inkscape extensions using 0install[1], which basically amounts to adding extensions _without_ touching any well-known paths, typically using environment variables. I've done the same thing for gnome-shell, by essentially adding each extension's location to $XDG_DATA_DIRS. So for example to run gnome-shell with the shellshape extension[2], $XDG_DATA_DIRS might contain the following dir: /home/tim/.cache/0install.net/implementations/sha256=2437376cd245ee4f09b0738e1cc7392a04750a9cec4b0875bf71606703d9ee01/xdg which contains a `gnome-shell` directory with the files you would normally put in /usr/share/gnome-shell if you were installing them system-wide. I wondered if this would work for inkscape as well, but after having a look at the source, it doesn't seem likely. Based on the `profile_path` function in inkscape.cpp: - inkscape seems to assume that there will be at most one folder for each of (user, system) level preferences - it assumes preferences and extensions will all live in the same location. These both go against the XDG spec[3], which recommends that config and data live in different locations and should be able to be looked up in a cascading fashion (i.e supporting multiple paths in $XDG_DATA_DIRS). These restrictions also make it very difficult to use 0install to distribute extensions since that would require: - readonly `extensions` directories - all 0install implementation directories must be read-only as they can be shared between users (among other reasons) - cascading lookup of extensions in _all_ paths in $XDG_DATA_DIRS - adding or removing plugins must be possible by affecting what is in XDG_DATA_DIRS, rather than modifying folders in the filesystem. So, I guess my questions are: - am I wrong about my conclusions here? I've looked at the source, but may have missed something. - is there any interest in extending the extension loading mechanism to support loading extensions across all $XDG_DATA_DIRS? Presumably this would be implemented for _all_ data types (gradients, icons, etc) as well as just extensions. Cheers, - Tim. [1]: http://0install.net/ [2]: http://gfxmonk.net/dist/0install/shellshape.xml [3]: http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html

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Mesh gradient status
by Tavmjong Bah 02 Feb '12

02 Feb '12

Hi, I've gotten a number of queries as to when mesh gradients will be available in Inkscape. Some people seem to think that it is a project that is close to being ready... it is not. There is still a lot of work to do and several major issues to be resolved. So I though I would give a status report: At the moment, you can create, edit, save, read in both Coons Patch meshes and tensor meshes (the latter have not been approved by the SVG working group). There are a few nice editing features available: Conical gradients, sampling color from beneath the mesh, toggling between straight edges and curves, etc. However, the code is very buggy. Expect frequent crashes. Save often. Undo does not work for most things. Revert is a poor person's substitute. Before the mesh code can be merged with trunk the following issues MUST be resolved: 1. Meshes have been approved for SVG 2 but the syntax has not been finalized and will not likely be finalized for some time. For meshes to be included in Inkscape we will need to keep them in the Inkscape namespace for the moment and include a fallback mechanism. (Note, there are quite a few nice SVG 2.0 features that we could adopt quickly if we had a way of handling fallbacks: markers that inherit stroke color, solid colors that will eliminate the need for the one-stop gradient hack for creating a palette, etc.). 2. Meshes rely on Cairo trunk. We need an official Cairo release with the mesh rendering code. The last new Cairo release was in Sept of 2010. Who knows when a new release will be made. 3. My code is a hack. There are multiple issues that need to be resolved. The most important one is how do meshes fit into the Private/Vector structure used by linear and radial gradients (Inkscape gradients are broken up into two gradient elements, one that handles the geometric layout and the other that handles the color vector. This allows reuse of the same gradient to be applied to multiple objects. It may not make sense for meshes.) Of course all the crashes must be eliminated. 4. GUI: How should meshes fit into the GUI? Should meshes have their own tool bar? The gradient chooser is not really applicable for meshes and meshes will have lots of their own options: * Mesh creation: * Mesh type: Normal, conical, ? * Number of rows/columns. * Mesh editing: * Show/hide handles. * Make handle smooth/symmetric. 5. Saving to PDF/PostScript needs to be implemented. (Export to PNG works.) I am sure I've missed some. Issues that would be nice to address: 1. Node editing. Gradients implement their own dragger code. It would be nice to be able to use the code from path editing. This would enable things like editing the paths by dragging or selecting a group of nodes and rotate/scale/etc. them together. 2. Auto generating an initial grid based on path shape. 3. Auto fitting. It would be the nice to be able to layout a rough mesh and have Inkscape adjust the mesh to match an underlying drawing. My branch can already set the mesh corner colors by sampling the image underneath which is a real time saver. 4. Auto smoothing of patch boundaries. I have an initial implementation that attempts to make color transitions across patch boundaries smooth. This can certainly be improved. Tav

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Question about tool control bars
by Valerie 02 Feb '12

02 Feb '12

To my understanding, a limitation with tool control bars right now is that they aren't too dynamic. For example, when I draw lines: - I'd like dotted lines and markers to appear in the tool control bar for lines without shapes - But with the "from clipboard" option, I'd like width, repeat style etc. to appear there instead. But without introducing new interface features, the tool control bar is pretty much static right now, so we face all-or-nothing situations. Is it possible to have two layers of tool selection instead? Explanation: Right now: [tool control bar] [t o o l b a r] Proposal: [subtools] | [subtool control bar] [t o o l b a r] I'm asking this because it'd allow for several things: - Consolidate the shapes tools into one button in the toolbar. Instead, sub-shapes appear in the subtools bar. - If more 3D shapes are added, they can similarly be grouped into a single button in the toolbar, while allowing each shape to have its own controls. - When tech-drawing becomes available, they could be accessed from the top-level instead of as LPEs - unshaped line, "from clipboard" line, powerstroke line and maybe other line effects (sketch?) can be treated as separate sub-tools with their own top-level control bars (so you don't need to open the LPE dialogue) - transformation options such as perspective, envelop and envelop deform can become available as sub-tools of the transform tool - composition guides, maybe common on-canvas tiling options (symmetry, radial and normal tiling - anything more advanced must be accessed from a separate panel) become available from top-level - extra mode in text tool for controlling flowing text into shapes? (for graphs and such) Of course, it it's not possible, then that's that. It seemed like a possibility worth asking.

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Image uploading on Inkscape Wiki?
by Valerie 02 Feb '12

02 Feb '12

Recently I've been working on a UI redesign proposal for the Tiled Clones interface, and thought of creating a new page on the Inkscape Wiki to see if it's even plausible. However, when I tried to upload images, I get: The upload directory (public) is not writable by the webserver. A quick search only tells me that it's a permissions problem. I've also noticed that there were no new file uploads since July last year. Has there been a policy change? Any suggestions as to where else to upload them then? In case anybody's curious, major suggestions are: - On-canvas guides - Separation into Symmetries, Radial Clones, Rectangular tiles and Triangle tiles (basically dependent on the guide type) - Move from a floating box to a side-bar dialogue, where you can basically stack symmetries and tilings to a selected object (like with LPEs, so it's easy if you want to make a flower-shaped design then have it fill up the page as tiles, for example) - Top-level options are simple and intuitive to address the main use cases (I'm assuming most users just want to do some basic symmetrical or radial patterns...) - But more advanced options are available by clicking "advanced" and opening a separate box (to avoid cluttering the main dialogue. If the user wants jittery tiles distributed in an outward spiral that change colors and become transparent near the end, surely he can open an extra dialogue) - Presets are also available

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inkscape.org in svg
by john Culleton 01 Feb '12

01 Feb '12

I am doing some experimenting with svg pages in lieu of html. Is there a reason why the inkscape.org front page is not done in svg? -- John Culleton Free list of books for self-publishers: http://wexfordpress.net/shortlist.html "Create Book Covers with Scribus" http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html

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devlibs update?
by Nicolas Dufour 29 Jan '12

29 Jan '12

Hi, Apparently the latest GTK version (2.24.8) fixes lots of Windows issues, including tablet support (details on http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2011-November/msg00026.html). Just tested with a local modified version of Inkscape, based on revision 10922, and I can confirm at least a bug and a regression (#786667 "Color drag and drop broken" and #707255 "Layer dialog - symbols disappear when mouse hover over") are gone. More tests planned later with a Wacom Bamboo tablet. BTW, the current devlibs introduced a regression in the trunk and 0.48.2 version (see #173116 Gtk::PixbufError exception not caught in Windows), and need to be recompiled to to prevent Inkscape from crashing on Windows when opening an invalid image. Krzysztof, would you be willing to update and recompile the devlibs so that more users can test before we release 0.48.3? Regards, -- Nicolas

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Powerstroke requests
by Valerie 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

Awesome! Some feedback of my own: 1) So powerstroke is now available from the shapes drop-down: Very neat! Can the "eclipse" form also be replaced by a powerstroke? It's actually the most common usage scenario. Also, I recommend adding a separation line between the powerstrokes and "from clipboard", to show that they are different functions. 2) Cusp styles are currently either Beveled or Rounded. How complicated is the coding for an "Angled" option? For font designers in particular, thick powerstrokes using successions of angled segments render a bit strangely, when some may be hoping for sharp edges (Example: the letter A with a sharp top) (I thought I suggested this before, but the mail never seems to have reached the mail archive...) 3) Does anybody think he might need an "assymetric" option? 4) +1 on the "Filled Powerstroke" (or whatever it will be called) option in the drop down. As for manually setting the width value for powerstroke points, I suggest click-enter for a numerical box to appear near the point, for the user to input the value. ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:57:42 -0800 (PST) From: Defiant00 <defiant00@...400...> Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Powerstroke requests To: inkscape-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net Message-ID: <1327413462235-4335274.post@...2730...> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hello again, here's some further feedback: 1) A way to directly set width values for Powerstroke points (or at least a command that sets the value to zero without having to directly edit the XML) would be useful. 2) I noticed the 'Triangle in' and 'Triangle out' shapes now use Powerstroke. Is there any chance we could get an extra shape option added to that drop down that produces both a Powerstroke and the clone original LPE at the same time. 3) Adding and removing Powerstroke control points should not require switching to another control and back to have them show up properly. 4) The 'Smoothness' control cannot be dragged (at least on Windows 7). Instead, it changes values by 0.01-0.03 (appears to be random) and then loses focus. Regards, Aaron

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Powerstroke requests
by Valerie 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

Glad to hear that "Angled" cusp style is the highest priority right now! It's probably the biggest thing missing functionality-wise. I'm not surprised that it'd take some time to code though. By the way, the interpolator type I tested most right now is "CubicBezierJohan", yes. Currently it seems to be the algorithm with the most predictable results. CubicBezierFit and SpiroInterpolator do seem to produce some interesting results though, I'm still trying to figure out use cases.

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Merging Export and Create bitmap
by Ivan Louette 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

Hello As I wasn't able to add a mockup png image to the following blueprint I join it to this message. https://blueprints.launchpad.net/inkscape/+spec/merging-export-and-create-b… ivan

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IRC meeting, anyone interested?
by Josh Andler 24 Jan '12

24 Jan '12

Hey All, Who would be interested in a good old fashioned IRC meeting to discuss various things about the project? It seems like other projects seem to be able to pull them together (on a regular basis no less), so why not us? I would especially like if we could get the likes of Krzysztof, Johan, Tavmjong, Jasper, Jon, Alex, Kris, and anyone else who would be interested. This especially goes for anyone who lurks on the devel list who is interested in contributing but still hasn't introduced themselves yet (they're always around). ;) I think it would be good to get people together to help us help each other. I think one of the things we should remember is that sometimes reviewing others work or just answering questions, can be more valuable than actually writing code yourself. I'm not asking for a huge time commitment or anything. If you are interested please chime in with any preferred dates or times so we can coordinate based on global distribution of participants. I'll throw out the 18th as a possible date... mainly because it's not terribly likely that this will happen and the 18th is my birthday so that's my wish. :P Cheers, Josh

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