Units rehash
by Tavmjong Bah
Hi,
I have been living, breathing, and even dreaming units the past couple
of weeks. My understanding of what Inkscape does and what it should do
has evolved over the time period but now I think it has pretty much
solidified. I thank all those that have given feedback.
I've tried to put all this knowledge at one place:
wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Units_In_Inkscape
Conclusions:
1. There are only three attributes that matter:
* The SVG root 'width'
* The SVG root 'height'
* The 'viewBox'
Together they define a mapping of the real world to 'user units', in
particular they define a scaling factor.
Introducing an additional attribute 'svgUnit' is probably unwise.
The document class should have a member function that returns the scale
based on the above attributes. Note: the SVG spec allows non-uniform
scaling and an offset which Inkscape handles without problem so a
Geom::Affine should really be returned.
2. The user should be offered the possibility of changing these
attributes in a simple way that makes sense to a non-expert:
* Change page size:
The 'width' and/or 'height' are changed to the new page size with
the 'viewBox' changing to keep the same scaling factor. This is what
Inkscape does now and has in the past.
* Change page scale:
The 'viewBox' is changed to set the a new scale factor (the page
remains the same size). The GUI should offer the ability to pick a
suitable scale factor (e.g. 1 mm == 1 'user unit') from a drop-down menu
as well as allow the knowledgeable user to pick a custom scale by
setting the 'viewBox' directly (via an expandable section that is
normally hidden, like the as is done with the margin settings). Changing
the scale factor will result in already existing objects (shapes, paths,
text) changing size relative to the page. (Trying to keep the relative
sizes constant is difficult and error prone except in the one possible
case of wrapping all the content in a group and applying an inverse
transform to the group.)
With these transforms in mind, it is easy to see what should be done
with the 90 dpi to 96 dpi transition. The main problem is for drawings
of a specific size like A4 where the width and height are defined in
pixels using 90 dpi. To 'fix' these files, change the width and height
to use 'mm' or 'in' and then add an appropriate 'viewBox' to set the
scale of the 'user unit' to 90 dpi.
3. Guides/Grids/3D Box Tool
Guides, grids and the 3D box tool coordinates should be stored as
'user units'. This can be seen by the simple exercise of asking what one
would expect to happen under the above transformations:
Consider drawing a rectangle, duplicate it and then covert the
duplicate to guides. As the page is resized and rescaled one expects the
guides to stick to the rectangle's edges.
Trunk already has code to define guides in terms of 'user units'.
This code should be back-ported to 0.91. It should be relatively easy to
handle the 3D box tool coordinates the same way. Grids are a bit more
problematic because they allow (actually require) the use of unit
identifiers (which are not allowed for guides and 3d box tool
coordinates). If the unit identifier is not 'px' then there will be a
problem between 0.91 (90dpi) and trunk (96dpi). We can offer an
extension to make this conversion for grids and 3D box tool coordinates.
Tav
8 years, 5 months
Fw: is 48.5 changing?
by Shlomi Fish
Next time, please reply to all recipients.
Begin forwarded message:
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2014 11:40:12 -0500
From: john Culleton <John@...1202...>
To: Shlomi Fish <shlomif@...2985...>
Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] is 48.5 changing?
On Wed, 3 Dec 2014 19:11:25 +0200
Shlomi Fish <shlomif@...2985...> wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> On Wed, 3 Dec 2014 10:44:50 -0500
> john Culleton <John@...1202...> wrote:
>
> > If I refer to inkscape 48.5 in a book about
> > cover design, am I OK with using the current
> > version of 48.5 or are there still changes
> > being made?
> >
> > I update 0.91 nightly but not 48.5 However in
> > the world of Scribus I update both 1.4.x and
> > 1.5.0 nightly because changes are still being
> > made in the "stable" product.
> >
>
> First of all - it's not "48.5" - it's
> "0.48.5" (with a leading zero). And otherwise,
> 0.48.5 is the version of a specific release -
> if there's going to be a new one in the 0.48.x
> maintenance branch, it will be "0.48.6".
>
> Hope it helps.
>
> Regards,
>
> Shlomi Fish
>
> P.S: your E-mail address's name part reads
> "john Culleton" with a lowercase "j", while you
> have a capital "J" in the username and in the
> signature. Is that on purpose?
>
Hmm. I'll search in my mail browser for that
mistake. My email adresses proper all are in
lower case only: john@...1202...,
sales@...1202... etc. use all lower case
letters. They are easier to remember that way.
Sorry about the dropped 0 in 0.48.5.
"Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus"
or words to that effect.
--
John Culleton
Wexford Press
Free list of books for self-publishers:
http://wexfordpress.net/shortlist.html
Updated PDF e-book: "Create Book Covers with
Scribus 1.4.5" coming soon at
http://www.booklocker.com/!
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/
Freecell Solver - http://fc-solve.shlomifish.org/
On the Road (and on the Internet), don’t be right — be smart!
Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .
8 years, 5 months
is 48.5 changing?
by john Culleton
If I refer to inkscape 48.5 in a book about cover
design, am I OK with using the current version of
48.5 or are there still changes being made?
I update 0.91 nightly but not 48.5 However in
the world of Scribus I update both 1.4.x and
1.5.0 nightly because changes are still being
made in the "stable" product.
--
John Culleton
Wexford Press
Free list of books for self-publishers:
http://wexfordpress.net/shortlist.html
Updated PDF e-book: "Create Book Covers with
Scribus 1.4.5" coming soon at
http://www.booklocker.com/!
8 years, 5 months
Downloads Exception
by Martin Owens
Devs,
Launchpad have allowed my request for a downlaods size exception to
expire. (which I'm not happy about) But this does leave us with an
important todo item, we must find a new home for our downloads before
the 0.91 release because of the very unsafe nature that sourceforge has
become.
We do know these things:
* Launchpad can only host our windows and source packages, Max OSX is
too large.
* Our website would not cope with our download traffic.
* We have no mirrors, official or otherwise.
If you have any ideas how we can solve this problem, please discuss
here.
Martin Owens,
8 years, 5 months
Visual Align interaction proposal
by Jared Meidal
Hi Martin,
I love seeing this alignment video reemerge, I'm looking forward to easier alignment on the canvas. Thanks for pushing for good UI for this.
I recently tried out the newest Paint.NET and found their manipulation UI interesting. When moving a mouse cursor out on the edge/margin of an object the courser icon changes and rotation is possible automatically.
Could something like this be a consideration if you are wanting to keep the number of layers of interaction (three click-cycles) down? Perhaps moving to the margin or waving around the cursor of a selection of objects would force a hovering alignment tool to appear?
Just putting this out there as if you need more ideas. (I haven't seen Fernando's attachment that was scrubbed for me in the mailing list)
--Jared
8 years, 5 months
0.91pre3 crash on OS X importing of graphics
by Jared Meidal
I'm happy to see a dmg build for 0.91! Thanks for packaging this.
So far I feel it is operating in parity of performance with the 0.48.5 X-11 app I've been using. Very glad to see the performance has not digressed.
However I filed a bug because of the consistent crash I receive on two Yosemite Macs when attempting to import a raster file, or copy/paste from the desktop or GIMP.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1398521
I'd like to see this be fixed before release, so happy to do any more package testing if needed.
--Jared
8 years, 5 months
Contest
by Jabier Arraiza
Hi to all.
I get some interesting info about a contest to use Europeana Cataloge of
art.
Here are the link:
http://pro.europeana.eu/web/europeana-creative/news/-/blogs/design-challe...
Im thinking on expand open-clip art import to allow europeana content.
Im not sure if is allowed by licensing, etc. and if seems a good proyect
to Inkscape. Also if anyone want to join on this proyect, specialy Open
Clipart imports devs -sure i reuse a lot of code- are greatly welcome.
Regards, Jabier.
8 years, 5 months
