September 2013 - Inkscape Devel

[Tracing] Tutorial
by Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira 29 Sep '13

29 Sep '13

I started to write a tutorial explaining how to use and how to extract the best results from the recent "Trace Pixel Art" dialog. I have one question to the devs (su~v suggested me to ping Martin): Should I integrate this documentation with the already existing tracing documentation potrace-related or should I write a new page "from scratch"? I'll start to write it right now, in parallel, so when you respond to the email, I'll be able to take a quick action of merge, quick-fix any wrong references after the "merge" and send it to the repository. One-page Advantages * User won't be misinformed (misthinking that Inkscape has only a GUI for one tracer) Disadvantages * Bloat? Maybe it will confuse the user -- Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira https://about.me/vinipsmaker

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IRC and Website
by Martin Owens 29 Sep '13

29 Sep '13

Hey Guys, I've added an embeded irc chat feature to our staging website: http://staging.inkscape.org/en/community/discussion/ This works, but for one flaw: the inkscape irc channel only works for registered users. I need to point our website at a channel that could be more open to people joining from our website. Should we have an #inkscape-user irc channel and keep that open? Martin,

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fyi: Screen capturing tool
by Johan Engelen 28 Sep '13

28 Sep '13

Hi all, I just saw this great bug movie by ~suv: https://launchpadlibrarian.net/151627755/ellipse-tool-r12602.gif ~suv used a tool called LICEcap: http://www-dev.cockos.com/licecap/ I think it is a great tool for bug-reports and for small feature demos. Unfortunately, although it can capture mouse clicks, I think it does not capture modifier key status (Ctrl+click for example)... Cheers, Johan

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measurement tool
by Dmitry Kirsanov 28 Sep '13

28 Sep '13

The new tool is nice, but how do I set the origin to anything other than the lower left corner? I want to use it to measure distances between arbitrary points. There must be a shortcut (such as Shift+click) to set the origin, and the current origin must be indicated on the screen at all times while the tool is active. The shortcut to set the origin must be added to the tool's statusbar hint. Also, "Font size" must be removed from the tool's controls - it's pure UI preference, not something you change in the document, so its presence here is quite confusing. I'd suggest placing it into the tool's page in Preferences. There's a funny bug: when I drag with Ctrl to snap and stretch the angle to 180 degrees, the circle arc turns into an ellipse.

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Rev 1 Maths
by Martin Owens 28 Sep '13

28 Sep '13

Hail Devs, In display/sodipodi-ctrl.cpp:133 has some interesting maths. It does int((float(value) - 1.0) / 2.0 + 0.5) ... which is a bit redundant. My tests in python show that this produces the same output as int(float(value) / 2.0)) for all ints and floats. But this code has been there since MentalGuy committed rev 1. and It's passed through 2 developers since who thought it was sane. So I guess I need to make sure this isn't some C++ trick before I simplify it. Best Regards, Martin Owens

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Update on the Metadata refactoring
by Christoffer Holmstedt 28 Sep '13

28 Sep '13

Hi everyone In the beginning of the summer I set out to refactor the metadata code for Inkscape. In the end this turned out to be a bit bigger project than expected (as always? ;) ) but here is a short update. The last update was from the beginning of July which showed a GUI mockup [1] for the metadata tab. After that the gui was to be implemented in Inkscape but we weren't sure if the mockup was what we really wanted. Therefore in July/August we moved to python to be able to faster create and iterate over a prototype. The prototype can be found at github [2]. The goal in the long run is to create a C or C++ library with Gtk+ container which is ready for use in e.g. Inkscape that can handle everything that has to do with attribution and licenses. Related to this, work has also been done with a firefox plugin [3] and with mediagoblin. Code can be found on Github [4]. The short term goal here is to be able to show the "lifespan" of an image, "Creation -> Upload -> Download -> Create a derivative work -> Upload", and the attribution and license should stick with the image. So when it comes to the metadata refactoring it's pretty far away at the moment for pushing to trunk in Inkscape. I've now started my full time studies again so my goal for the fall is to at least take care of some bugs and try to learn a little bit more about the Inkscape codebase. [1] http://commonsmachinery.se/2013/07/inkscape-a-new-gui-to-manage-metadata/ [2] https://github.com/commonsmachinery/rdf_metadata [3] http://commonsmachinery.se/2013/09/pasting-images-attribution/ [4] https://github.com/commonsmachinery Regards -- Christoffer Holmstedt

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videos
by Jabiertxo Arraiza Cenoz 27 Sep '13

27 Sep '13

Hi to all. I made videos of two brach: BSpline+Spirolive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvDBXXaY6Og#t=157 Bend From Clipboard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owBLWJ2RvLA Thanks Vinícius for the idea! Regards, Jabier.

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[Units] Comments
by Tavmjong Bah 27 Sep '13

27 Sep '13

Hi, First, congrats to Matthew for some very nice work. I've just given the latest code a quick test and I've got a few comments. I certainly haven't thought thing through carefully but I would be interested in what others think. I start by opening a new (from Templates) Letter in landscape mode. 1. The Template dialog tells me I am about to create a 612x792 pixel drawing. But the size of the drawing in the SVG file is set to 11in x 8.5in. Pixels are no where to be seen. 2. I create a default grid. The grid spacing is in "pixels" or 1/90 of an inch. I would expect it to be in fractions of an inch (1/4 or 1/10). 3. I set the grid to 1/4 of an inch with major grid line every 4 lines. Looks good. Now I create a rectangle 1 in x 1 in. Ooops, it is 0.99999988 x 0.99999988 according to the XML dialog. 4. I use the XML dialog to set it to exactly 1 x 1. Hmm, why isn't it 1in x 1in? 5. Ah ha, the viewBox is set to 0, 0, 11, 8.5. This means that the "user unit" aka "px" is equivalent to 1 inch. Maybe this isn't so bad, but it means I can't mix different units inside the SVG file. If I use "1in" for a dimension, it will be interpreted as 90 user units or 90 inches. My 20 "pt" text is stored as 0.277777776px in the SVG file (and shows up as 19.99 in the font-size widget). My thinking is that it might be better to set the viewBox to 0, 0, 792, 612 and then explicitly use dimensions with "in" if that is what the user wants. Tav

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[Bend from Clipboard] Presentation and request for help with selection
by Jabiertxo Arraiza Cenoz 26 Sep '13

26 Sep '13

Hello to all. I made a new branch [1:bendFromClipboard] that make a bend liveeffect with a full draw in clipboard using pen or pencil stroke. It use the combo box in pen/pencil toolbox. I have this on mind time ago but need to credit Vinícius for the videos about his "Trace Pixel Art" feature, that refresh me. The code is working, need review -im not a c++ developer- and has one bug with selection. I explain: When all is done i call to "selection->set(obj)". "obj" exist but this code is ignored. I test it with second optional parameter to true and the same. Thanks in advance for test, reviews, help and feedback. Jabier. [1:https://code.launchpad.net/~jabiertxof/inkscape/bendFromClipboard]

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Staging website - graphics sources
by Jared Meidal 26 Sep '13

26 Sep '13

>> Jared, >> >> The deed is done, if you check >> http://staging.inkscape.org/en/community/gallery/ you'll find my new >> brochure django-cms plugin being used. It pulls in an rss feed, allows >> you to control how indexed entries are enabled from different sources. > Sorry, but I don't see how showing arbitrary images on our website is > going to benefit the project. > > Alexandre I'm new to this Inkscape dev community, but one thing I greatly appreciate about the project (besides it being inherently FLOSS) is that what flows from it being opensource is the user and dev community. Therefore, I see this dynamic user gallery, which is not strictly curated, as a natural outflowing of the philosophy and use of the project itself. I hope that makes sense, and it may not be where everyone else is at, but I think it's a natural bridge to connect the userbase artwork into how we want to represent the software. By not filtering (or curating, or soliciting) the images we run the risk of hosting "arbitrary images," but so far I see it worthwhile, and at the same time strengthening our bond between devs and users. If we had a simple way to showcase excellent artwork examples, and had those assets already available, I would be happy to consider another solution. But feeding the activity of an another active site into ours is the best I've currently seen to solve this. (If any artists are out there listening and want to submit artwork for the website, I would think now is the time and place to do so!) Let me know any other ideas Alexandre! --Jared

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