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#inkscape-user-support channel
by Vladimir Savic 27 Aug '07

27 Aug '07

There are many users that come on #inkscape irc channel to ask user questions. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to open another channel for user questions? That way we (users) will not bother developers if they don't want to be disturbed. And questions will be more on-topic that way. We can then track down frequent FAQ and move them to inkscape wiki. Of course providing basic informations to newly appeared users where to find documentation - like wiki, address of faq, location of keybindings file etc. Thanx in advance, Vlada

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Slower snapping between 0.45 and devel
by jiho 27 Aug '07

27 Aug '07

Hello everyone, I noticed a non negligible difference in responsiveness between Inkscape 0.45 and current devel version on a "complex" (4000 objects) drawing... in the wrong way unfortunately (current devel is slower than 0.45). Since disabling snapping altogether in devel remedies to the slowness I think it involves snapping. I tried to test both version with the same parameters and selected these options (and only these): 0.45 snap nodes to objects snap to objects paths snap sensitivity 10 devel snap nodes snap to paths snap sensitivity 10 And the devel version is still slower than the released version. In fact it will hang for a little while (like 1-2 sec with 100% CPU usage) before first moving the objects, subsequent movements being a little bit faster (but still slower than 0.45). Here is the file on which I remarked it, for you to test: http://jo.irisson.free.fr/dropbox/inkscape/slowSnapper.svg try selecting the text objects at the bottom and moving them for example. Since I know the snapping code is begin worked on now, I thought I would report this. Thanks in advance for any improvements. Cheers, JiHO --- http://jo.irisson.free.fr/

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NEW: four more modes in Tweak tool
by bulia byak 27 Aug '07

27 Aug '07

Of the four new modes, two are for editing path shapes (Attract and Repel) and two are for coloring objects (Color Paint and Color Jitter) . I also renamed Melt to Shrink and Inflate to Grow as discussed before. * The Attract and Repel modes work by moving each affected point on a path towards (Attract) or from (Repel) the cursor point. In some cases this may look similar to Shrink and Grow, but the difference is that shrinking/growing moves paths perpendicularly to the path in each point, whereas attracting/repelling moves them to or from the cursor regardless of the path shape. These modes are similar to the Pinch effect in ; you can use them for various central-symmetric distortions in parts of your paths. Color-changing modes The Color Paint and Color Jitter modes, unlike the path editing modes, change the colors of objects instead of their shapes. Yet they share enough common features with the path-changing modes to be part of the same tool: These modes also use a circular soft-edged brush controlled by the Width and Force parameters on the Controls bar and affected by the pen pressure (if you have a pressure-sensitive tablet). * Color Paint applies the style of the tool to the selected objects under the brush. The style of the tool is visible in the style swatch at the rightmost end of the tool's control bar; it can be changed by clicking on the color palette or by any other style assignment command, such as Fill and Stroke dialog. (Note: unlike all other tools, in Tweak tool in Color Paint mode you cannot assign style directly to selected objects; any style-setting command changes the tool's style instead.) The fill from the tool's style applies to the fills of the painted objects, and the stroke applies to the strokes. If the tool's style has no fill or no stroke, it won't affect fills or strokes, correspondingly. For example, if you want to color the fills of objects blue but leave their strokes untouched, assign blue fill to the tool's style (just click blue on the palette) but set its stroke to None (middle-click the Stroke swatch in the statusbar). Similarly, master opacity in the tool's style This mode allows you to literally paint over objects, shifting their colors towards the target style of the tool. For example, if you paint with yellow fill over a blue-filled object, the object will become greenish blue, then green, then yellowish green, and end up being exactly the green color you're painting with. This speed of this gradual transition depends on the Force and pen pressure; also, objects touched by the periphery of the brush are less affected than those hit by the brush center. Overall, using this tool is very similar to a soft brush in a raster editor such as Gimp or Photoshop. * Color Jitter mode does not apply any color, but instead jitters (randomizes) the colors of the objects it touches. The force of the action determines how strong is the randomization, i.e. how far the colors deviate from the original values. This mode does not use the tool's style. Both modes work on flat fills and gradients; for gradients, the tool takes into account not only the position of the entire object with gradient, but also the position of each gradient stop relative to the brush. This means that, for example, you can change the blue color only in an object filled with blue-red gradient simply by painting over its blue end with a brush small enough to not touch the red. Channels Color Paint and Color Jitter honor the Channels control. This control comprises the four buttons: H, S, L, and O, which allow you to turn on and off the tool's action on the object's hue, saturation, lightness, and opacity, correspondingly. For example, if you want to raise the saturation of some part of your drawing without changing the hue, select some maximum-saturation color (e.g. pure red) and turn off all Channels buttons except S. Similarly, you can replace the hues without affecting saturation or lightness (only H pressed), or lighten/darken all colors without changing their hues and saturation (only L pressed). Pressing O allows you to apply the master opacity from the tool's style to the master opacity of objects (but not fill or stroke opacity). Usage notes Color painting with Tweak tool is similar, but not exactly analogous to bitmap painting. Even though the tool itself works as a soft brush, it still applies its color to vector objects, which behave as vector objects usually do. For example, if you want to change the tint of the face in your drawing, and if a hand in the drawing is part of the same object as the face, that hand will change its tint too even if it's located far from the point you are painting. (We foresee a "fracture" command in one of the next versions of Inkscape which will help you turn a monolithic object into a mosaic of small fragments that will be then easy to paint with Tweak tool.) Still, even with this limitation, color painting is a novel way of dealing with vector drawings which allows you to quickly and intuitively make adjustments which would be awkward and slow with traditional approach. Drawings containing patterns or scatterings of small independent objects are best suited for color painting with Tweak tool. Examples include: * freehand drawings with Calligraphy pen, consisting of many separate strokes; * gradient meshes imported from Adobe Illustrator files (Inkscape renders these meshes as lattices of small polygons; while there's no direct support for gradient meshes in Inkscape yet, color painting on such lattices is almost as good); * text converted to paths and with Break Apart command applied so that each letter is a separate path; * patterns made with the Tile Clones command; note that you need to unset the fill and/or stroke on the original object and use the Color tab to assign some initial color to the clones - this will make them paintable with the Tweak tool without unlinking. Moreover, color tweaking can be useful for compositions with a few objects or even for single objects. Unlike all other color selection methods, painting with the Tweak tool implements the color mixing metaphor which is much more familiar to traditional artists than RGB sliders or even the color wheel. For example, start with a rectagle of pure blue color; then, pick different colors by Color Paint and apply light touches with minimum Force and minimum pen pressure: add a little green, a little brown, a little yellow, etc. until you have the exact hue you need. Similarly, you can whiten or blacken any hue by admixing white or black. You can also use color tweaking to add a tint, darken/lighten, saturate/desaturate, or color jitter your entire drawing. Just select all in all layers, zoom out, choose a large brush width so it covers all of the drawing, and apply a little color tweaking (with minimum Force) that will therefore affect all visible objects. -- bulia byak Inkscape. Draw Freely. http://www.inkscape.org

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Alt-mouse
by Thomas Worthington 27 Aug '07

27 Aug '07

An awful lot of Inkscape's functions (I notice that the new touch selection is another one) seem to be relying on the alt-key being held down and various things done with the mouse. To say that this is a pain under Linux is an understatement since alt-mouse is used by window managers to allow quick manipulation of window sizes and positions, which is vital on large screens. Given that Inkscape is only one app and alt-mouse is effectively in use by every other app on the system for something else, is there any easy way to change these shortcuts to something like meta-mouse or something (anything!) else? Is it the case that most Inkscape developers are using Windows and are simply not aware of how difficult these alt-mouse shortcuts make it for Linux users? Thomas Worthington

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LPE crashes
by lapnect 26 Aug '07

26 Aug '07

I have just played with LPE and I found two ways to crash Inkscape (current SVN trunk). The first way: - draw circle - do *not* convert it to path - select that circle and copy it (ctrl+c) - draw line using freehand tool and select it - press ctrl+shift+7 - press 'Apply' - click on 'Paste' icon The second way: - draw circle - convert it to path - select that circle and copy it (ctrl+c) - draw line using freehand tool and select it - press ctrl+shift+7 - press 'Apply' - click on 'Paste' icon - press ctrl+z (undo) Hope it will be helpful :) -- lapnect

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Fwd: SSnapping (AutoCAD way)
by Joshua Blocher 26 Aug '07

26 Aug '07

I havn't had the chance to watch the video yet, but would something like snap targets work. Let me explain. Targets would be a symbol that appear on viable snap positions I imagine it as a bullseye that appear as soon as you start dragging a node.When you get near a target the it changes from red to green to indicate where its snapping to probably not the best colors for colorblind people but you get the idea. You even as far as different shapes for different snap types. Small coloured squares/dots for grid snaps. Bullseye/circle coloured for nodes I'm not sure to do for line maybe just highlight it. and of course since this is inkscape an option or key combo to toggle them on and off. Joshua L. Blocher verbalshadow On 8/26/07, Jed Frechette <jedfrechette@...400...> wrote: > On Friday 24 August 2007 1:33 pm, Diederik van Lierop wrote: > > The object snapper in ACAD is a bit different: if only snaps after > > clicking the left mousebutton; this way ACAD can show what point will > > be snapped to before doing the actual snapping. Inkscape however snaps > > instantly while dragging: it cannot show what it will snap to, because > > it already has snapped by that time. The only thing we could do is show > > afterwards where it has snapped, which is only useful in cases where > > this is not immediately obvious. For example in selections with a large > > number of nodes, nodes being very close to each other, or at low > > snapping sensitivity. > > Good point, but I still think an on canvas "post"-snap indicator could be > useful. I seem to run in to the non-obvious corner cases pretty regularly. Is > my node snapping to the path or a node on the path? Is the upper left corner > of the bounding box snapping to something on the edge of my drawing or is the > invisible center of rotation snapping to something else? etc. Sometimes I > have no clue what is being snapped to. I suspect bugs in in these cases but I > haven't been sure how to debug them, if anyone has any hints I would be glad > to followup. > > In practice, whenever I'm using snap heavily I simply keep the snap dialog > open and constantly adjust the settings to get what I want. I suspect I would > still need to do this even with a snap indicator but hopefully to a lesser > extent. Of course, I don't know how typical my usage is and unfortunately I > don't have any time to look at the code myself so take my opinions for what > they are worth. > > Best, > > -- > Jed Frechette > http://jdfrechette.alturl.com > > 3722 Dead, 27186 Wounded > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. > Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. > Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. > Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ > _______________________________________________ > Inkscape-devel mailing list > Inkscape-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-devel >

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Improvements in filtering framework
by Niko Kiirala 25 Aug '07

25 Aug '07

I committed (actually a week ago) some improvements in filtering framework. The main part of this improvement is the new NR::FilterUnits class, which provides tools for handling different coordinate systems in filters. Another big part is moving code for preparing pixblocks from NR::Filter to NR::FilterSlot, where it more conveniently belongs. This means, that now all pixblocks a filter primitive can receive are in same coordinate system. (this fixes bug #1768003) Filter primitives can affect, what this coordinate system is, by overriding the get_input_traits function. Example from gaussian blur: FilterTraits FilterGaussian::get_input_traits() { return TRAIT_PARALLER; } At the moment, the only other possibility is TRAIT_ANYTHING, which is the default, and specifies that filter doesn't care, what the coordinate system is like. (feBlend and feComposite are like this, for example) TRAIT_PARALLER means, that x- and y-axis of the object must be paraller to x- and y-axis of the input image. For example, feGaussianBlur requires this, as the deviation is specified along object x- and y-axis. Only FilterGaussian has this implemented now, it should be implemented in other filters, that need it. I made it use bitfields and called it traits, because I think that this can have a wider use. For example, many filters need 32-bit RGBA images with premultiplied alpha as inputs. We could specify this as trait and move the handling code from the filter primitives to FilterSlot. Also, I'm thinking, that Filter::render and FilterPrimitive::render should be changed to take FilterUnits as an input instead of Matrix. This would give these functions more tools to figure out, where things should be placed, how large the affected area should be, where the bounding box corners are etc. Helper functions for calculating distances, transforming points from user coordinates to image coordinates etc. can also be added to FilterUnits, so that they don't need to be implemented in filter primitives. -- Niko Kiirala

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Tango Icons
by Ryan Lerch 25 Aug '07

25 Aug '07

I was reading the release notes for the upcoming GIMP release (http://gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.4.html ), and I noticed that they are updating their icon set to one that adheres to the tango guidelines. I was wondering what everyone thinks about using the inkscape tango icons set(http://gnomelook.org/content/show.php/Tangofied+inkscape+icons+set?conte nt=48140 ) as default. I know that the current revision of this icon set is incomplete in some parts (eg: Tweak and Bucket Fill.) Just thought I would throw the idea out there. Cheers, ryanlerch

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Time to start thinking about a release?
by john cliff 24 Aug '07

24 Aug '07

Hi Guys, Just thought with the SoC over it might be a good time to start thinking about release schedules again, or at least discussing them. Seems like a lot of fun stuff in the SVN build that people want to get their hands on and with the SoC deadline past locking down HEAD shouldnt be as much of an issue. Anyone got something their in the middle of that would be worth waiting for? Any passionate fors or againsts? lets hear what y'all think... Cheers Sim

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Gradients and Pattern Libraries
by ryan lerch 24 Aug '07

24 Aug '07

After a discussion in the IRC channel about gradients and patterns, i have a few queries about them: 1. Do the inkscape/share/patterns and inkscape/share/gradients actually do anything in Inkscape yet? 2. Is there anyone planning to create code for a gradients or pattern library in inkscape, so they can be browsed and imported into the current document. 3. What would be the format for keeping, say gradients in a library? cheers, ryanlerch

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