- Inkscape Devel - Inkscape Mailman

Re: [Inkscape-devel] [Inkscape-user] In praise of Inkscape
by jiho 28 Apr '07

28 Apr '07

On 2007-April-28 , at 06:27 , Albert Cardona wrote: > We use Inkscape to make posters for scientific meetings. The ease with > which we can create beautiful, unintrusive text boxes and flow > charts is > unparalleled. And of course cartoons of all sorts. I can't hardly > believe we used to bring in PowerPoint for the task! those nightmarish > days are over. Plus, Inkscape intergrates very well with the host OS, > i.e. dragging and dropping images and text just works. > > In this regard, I must mention that exporting to PDF is a big deal. > Figuring out the exact dimensions of the poster relative to the final > print is some sort of obscure magic for us, simple mortal users. With > PDFs, printers (or their drivers) have zero problems to scale on > the fly > and thus generate perfect maximized print outs of our gigantic > posters. That's very nice to know! I also use Inkscape to do scientific posters and as I don't want to bother with scaling computations I usually design it directly at final size. Inkscape deals as easily with a 1m*1m page than with an A4 one and it allows me to specify sizes (including font sizes) in cm and get a better feeling of how big things will actually be. In addition, raster images (jpeg, png, tiff and the like) are often imported among the scalable objects and having them included at their final size allows me to know how pixelized they will appear in print. > What surpises me, though, is that exporting to PDF seems to leave > images > uncompressed, resulting in 300+ Mb posters. I don't know which pdf exporter you used (regular PDF or Cairo PDF) but at some point these exporters "rasterize" some elements (another reason why designing the poster at final size in interesting: these elements still look sharp and crisp). Transparent areas or gradients for example are converted from scalable entities to a bunch of pixels. Given how big posters usually are it implies creating a large number of pixels hence the size. Nevertheless I never experienced such large sizes! > In short: congratulations! And keep at it! We take time to tell our > visitors (at the poster, during the conference) how the poster was > made, > since they usually comment on how beautiful it looks (no kidding). > Inkscape, Blender and ImageJ are always mentioned. I usually include inkscape logo in a corner of the poster, together with the website address, to give credit to the Inkscape team for their work. Inkscape logo is so nice and original that it can even attract readers! There is section on the website dedicated to use cases of Inkscape in "real life". What about adding a part explaining the design of scientific posters? I had prepared a few screenshots some time ago and I re-wrote accompanying texts (see below - please correct my english where necessary). What do people think? Is it good enough for the website? BTW Bryce or anyone, it seems I can't connect to inkscape.org currently (I get a 104 error: "Connection reset by peer" from osuosl) -------------------------- A scientific poster has to be precisely organized, full of information, yet visually attracting to gather a large audience. Furthermore it should be printable at different sizes (final size poster and handouts). Inkscape gives us scalability and an unparalleled ease of use which allow to meet these goals elegantly. It make you forget the nightmarish days when you used PowerPoint for the task! The poster below was designed entirely in Inkscape for presentation on a 4-foot-high by 8-foot-wide poster board (1.2m x 2.4m). The page size was set up to be the final printing size because Inkscape deals with it as well as with an A4 page. http://jo.irisson.free.fr/dropbox/inkscape/ poster_publish_ghostscript.pdf [WARNING: big file. 7.5 Mb] Temporarily masking layers and using the outline mode allowed to work on this complicated file (> 5000 paths, large amount of text) while keeping things responsive enough even on a mid level laptop. http://jo.irisson.free.fr/dropbox/inkscape/poster_inkscape_outline.png The gradients and scripts from the "Effects" menu helped to create an attractive look [note: this was pre 0.45 so blur was not current yet]. The bitmap tracing feature and Open Clipart Library provided scale independent eye candy for some illustrations. http://jo.irisson.free.fr/dropbox/inkscape/poster_inkscape_eye_candy.png The text was flowed into custom shaped frames so that it had a "clever" position with respect to the graphics. It was edited though the Text Tool palette which was easier on the eye and helped to focus on content rather than on layout for a while. http://jo.irisson.free.fr/dropbox/inkscape/poster_inkscape_text.png All scientific plots were produced in scalable formats and converted to SVG. They were therefore completely editable within the poster which allowed to have a unified look (for the fonts, line width, colors etc.). The "Apply style" command (SHIFT+CTRL+V), the styles bar and the swatches panel, helped to work with styles quickly and easily. http://jo.irisson.free.fr/dropbox/inkscape/poster_inkscape_style1.png http://jo.irisson.free.fr/dropbox/inkscape/poster_inkscape_style2.png Finally the SVG file was exported to EPS or PDF for print. The text was converted to shapes to avoid font problems when bringing the file to the printing company. The PDF scaled down nicely to fit an A4 and hence serve as handouts. -------------------------- JiHO --- http://jo.irisson.free.fr/

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] In praise of Inkscape
by Bryce Harrington 27 Apr '07

27 Apr '07

It's great to hear you're getting good use of inkscape. I'll forward this along to the development lists. Thanks, Bryce On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 09:19:27AM -0500, Shane A. Stillwell wrote: > Hello, > > I'm not much of a graphics developer, but every now and then I need a > graphic for a website I'm doing. I've only been using Inkscape for about > 6 months and I really enjoy it. > > Recently I put a copy of Adobe Illustrator on my Macbook Pro and thought > "Surely this industry standard powerhouse package is more powerful than > Inkscape." Wrong! I quickly learned that the simple things I took for > granted in Inkscape are not possible in Illustrator (at least not > intuitive enough for me to find after hours of searching). > > For example, adding corners to a star on the fly, editing the radius of > a rectangle, and so on. > > The blurring feature in the latest version really put Inkscape on a > whole new level. It was pivotal in creating the main graphic for this > website (http://www.wildpaddle.com). > > My only lament is that Inkscape requires X11 on Mac. > > Thank you so much for such an excellent product! > > -- > Shane A. Stillwell > Shane@...1730... > http://www.wildpaddle.com > 218-390-5493 (mobile)

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Information around Inkscape
by yemanja 27 Apr '07

27 Apr '07

Hello everybody, Firt of all, I'd like to thank all the individuals involved in the creation and development of such an efficient and enjoyable software. Now, allow me to introduce myself. I'm a French writer and have regurlarly contributed articles about Inkscape to the French Magazine "Linux Pratique". I had the opportunity to write a book about Inkscape for Pearson Education France (Edition). This book will be officially published in France this coming May 12th. The editor has accepted to print one special issue sooner, for the upcoming Libre Graphics Meeting. Cedric Gemy (Pygmee) will bring it with him and will have it on display for all to see. I hope that it will bring you much happiness and help promote our beloved Inkscape. Of course, all the illustrations of the exercise is book, including the cover, were made with Inkscape. Some Inkscape users artists have contributed too. Regards, -- Elisa de Castro Guerra (yemanja)

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] NEW: touch selection
by jiho 26 Apr '07

26 Apr '07

On 2007-April-14 , at 01:08 , bulia byak wrote: > On 4/13/07, jiho <jo.irisson@...400...> wrote: >> Indeed, it seems the selector tool is out of modifiers. In fact there >> is already a conflict: you used ALT for touch selection which steels >> it from "Select under". > > Nope, it was just a bug that I just found myself and fixed :) > Alt+click selects under, Alt+drag selects by touch. No conflict here. > Should work properly now, please test. That was quick! > [...] >> I am studying keys.svg and trying to come up with a decent solution >> but I guess there is a point when a toggle will be needed to >> accommodate for different sets of behaviors. > > Maybe... but I'll keep trying :) OK, so I have some more meat for you to bite in then ;) I studied keys.svg and experimented with a test drawing (http:// jo.irisson.free.fr/dropbox/selection_test_case.svg) and I concluded that the current behavior is: Clic = selects Shift+clic = toggles selection Ctrl+clic = selects within group Alt+clic = selects under Ctrl+Alt+clic = when the selection is empty, first selects in group and then further clics select under, through the group and possibly underneath ; when a group is already selected, selects underneath it without entering the group Shift+Ctrl+clic = toggles selection, entering in groups Shift+Ctrl+Alt+clic = when the selection is empty, adds to selection, then adds to selection underneath (entering in groups), and then toggles the selection of the front most object ; when a group is already selected, adds to selection under the selected group, then adds to selection underneath (entering in groups if necessary), and then toggles the selection of the front most object ; (wow that was complex... and not very useful probably) Drag = select what is inside Shift+Drag = add to selection what is inside Ctrl+Drag = move object hor/ver when selection not empty ; select first touched object and moves hor/ver when selection empty Alt+Drag = move object when selection not empty ; touch selection when selection empty Shift+Ctrl+Drag = identical to Ctrl+Drag Ctrl+Alt+Drag = move object hor/ver when selection not empty ; does nothing on empty selections Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Drag = idem (move object hor/ver when selection not empty ; does nothing on empty selections) I think I was exhaustive. Most of it is really great (for me, one of Inkscape main strengths) but some details could be improved which would leave room for even greater improvements! Proposed changes: => Ctrl+Alt+clic should display the first described behavior, even there is a group selected first (this would probably make things work the same for Shift+Ctrl+Alt+clic also). I think it is more consistent with the idea that Ctrl selects inside groups and does not contradict the idea that alt selects underneath the currently selected object => Shift+Drag should _toggle_ the selection of what is inside the selection rectangle and not just add. I cannot count the times when I would have had the use for this behavior in the past. In addition it is more consistent with Shift+clic toggle behavior. => Ctrl+Drag and Shift+Ctrl+Drag behavior is strange when the selection is empty, I think it could (should?) do nothing => similarly Alt+Drag behavior is odd when the selection is not empty. IMHO, Alt+Drag should always draw a scribble selection path now. It is more useful. (=> It would be nice if scribble paths could have the same visual aspects as rect selections) And in the end, long term improvement: => Create full "contact" and "encircle" selection modes: . In encircle mode rect selections behave as now, scribble selection paths are automatically closed and only objects inside are selected (i.e. lasso tool) . In contact mode, rect selection behave as in AI, scribble selections paths are left as is (i.e. not closed) and behave as now Switching between the two would be most convenient through a modifier key. If the last two changes above are done, Ctrl+drag and Ctrl+Alt +drag are freed and could be used. If we consider that Ctrl switches to contact mode, we have: Ctrl+drag = contact rect selection and Ctrl +Alt+drag = contact scribble selection, and Alt+drag becomes encircle scribble selection. Otherwise, this could be achieved via a toggle (shortcut: m for "selection Mode", can't find a better one). The "issue" with this is that rect selection is probably more useful in encircle mode while scribble selection is probably more useful in contact mode so the toggle state should be independent for these two selection types (so that is is possible to switch from encircling-rect-mode to contact- scribble-mode by just pressing Alt, without having to pass through m- Alt-scribble-m). What do you think? JiHO --- http://jo.irisson.free.fr/

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] gcc 3.3 bug: configure -Wno-pointer-sign test uses wrong compiler
by John Faith 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

[3rd attempt to send this.] Hello, I was curious if anyone had a chance to think about this bug or if anyone had a minute to try a quick experiment. In configure.ac, there is a block used to check if gcc can use -Wno-pointer-sign in CFLAGS. Unfortunately, the "AC_LANG(g++)" means that g++ is used for this compile test when gcc should be used, CLFLAGS is ignored, and the test always passes. For gcc4 this doesn't matter, but this breaks gcc3 when building in src/libcroco. If anyone with gcc 3 or 4 could try a reconfigure, that would be helpful to see if this fixes other environments with gcc <4 and also does not break gcc4. Adding "AC_LANG_PUSH(C)" and "AC_LANG_POP" around the AC_COMPILE_IFELSE in configure.ac seems to fix this problem (see patch below which is also in tracker #1702352). I've tried this patch on gcc3.3 OS 10.3.9. After changing configure.ac, run ./autogen.sh then ./configure. For gcc<4, the final bit of configure output should not have -Wno-pointer-sign in CFLAGS. Thanks in advance! , John Index: configure.ac =================================================================== --- configure.ac (revision 14797) +++ configure.ac (working copy) @@ -33,16 +33,18 @@ dnl These next few lines are needed only while libcroco is in our source tree. AC_PROG_CC AM_PROG_CC_C_O +AC_MSG_NOTICE([Testing -Wno-pointer-sign]) if test "$GCC" = "yes"; then # Enable some warnings from gcc. + AC_LANG_PUSH(C) # -Wno-pointer-sign is probably new in gcc 4.0; certainly it isn't accepted # by gcc 2.95. ink_svd_CFLAGS="$CFLAGS" CFLAGS="-Wno-pointer-sign $CFLAGS" - AC_COMPILE_IFELSE([int dummy; -], , CFLAGS="$ink_svd_CFLAGS",) + AC_COMPILE_IFELSE(AC_LANG_PROGRAM([]), AC_MSG_NOTICE([ compiler supports -Wno-pointer-sign]), CFLAGS="$ink_svd_CFLAGS") CFLAGS="-Wall -Wformat-security -W -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 $CFLAGS" + AC_LANG_POP fi dnl Honor aclocal flags

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Canvas rotate
by Tom Lechner 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

Hi, From: Jon Phillips <jon@...235...> > I also notice that Alt+middle drag is currently free. So I think it > would make sense to enable it to rotate the canvas as well, > push-style, in addition to Alt+mousewheel that would rotate it by > increments (especially since in at least some devices, the mousewheel > is the same as middle button). Alt+double middle click could then > reset it back to zero angle. I have alt-(various mouse buttons) currently set to do window and workspace management things. Makes node sculpting a little troublesome sometimes (but if I click first, then press alt, seems to work ok). To not use alt for such things, from the beginning I've programmed my Laidout program to have: plain-right-click be context sensitive help, shift-right-drag shifts (pans) the canvas around control-right-drag scales the canvas (centered on mouse) shift-control-right-drag rotates the canvas (centered on mouse) Right now in Inkscape, control-R-drag seems to pan, (shift or control)-R click without dragging zooms in and out. What if it was more like the above? From: Jon Phillips <jon@...235...> > Yep, that is the fun of Inkscape-style development :) Welcome aboard > and good luck! Personally, what I would like as well is custom > document sizes, possibly from the outlines of SVG ie, weird shapes > that can be folded into packaging, t-shirt designs, etc...cheers! Another thing I'm designing into Laidout! Though right now, it can only do polygonal non-rectangular pages. Someday it'll be any bezier path, so I can do layout on, for instance, the shape formed by the intersection of several cylinders, which makes faces whose sides are sine waves. Of course, objects going over page boundaries is rather a chore to make work in an expected way, but it's worth it in the end. From: "Alexandre Prokoudine" <alexandre.prokoudine@...400...> > If you get far enough, there is another long time awaited feature > that would make a perfect sense when canvas rotation is implemented: > arbitrary guides ;-) Another future Laidout feature! If by arbitrary guides you mean arbitrary bezier paths, especially for text. Whenever I make up a new resume, I find myself wanting to make tabstops lie along some funky curve, rather than a boring old straight vertical line. Another guide idea I'm working on is "2-d guides" for help in importing multiple images, a kind of a distribution tool, to distribute into 1 or more specified regions with specified orientations, whether to rescale objects to fit, and whether to dump objects into a space as a kind of stream. One application of this is dumping in 4 photos into 4 sections on a page, so that each image is the maximum size it can be within each section, rotating the photo if need be. All of these things would be awesome in Inkscape! Tom http://www.tomlechner.com http://www.laidout.org

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PNG-Export without antialiasing/blur
by Bernd D. 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

We would use Inkscape for drawing lithography mask. The document size and the PNG output size is 16384*16384 pixel. The exposure time per pixel is coded in the pixel color (non linear). So we need a PNG export without antialiasing/blur. I have found the getUseAntialias in filedialog.cpp. But I think this is a unused function yet. Is this right? Then I have found in png-write.cpp: 335 // export with maximum blur rendering quality 336 int saved_quality = prefs_get_int_attribute ("options.blurquality", "value", 0); 337 prefs_set_int_attribute ("options.blurquality", "value", 2); I have set options.blurquality to zero, but this has no effect for the exported png!? I'm running out of ideas. Could someone give me a hint, Please? Thanks Bernd Derer __________________________________ Yahoo! Clever: Stellen Sie Fragen und finden Sie Antworten. Teilen Sie Ihr Wissen. www.yahoo.de/clever

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Fontconfig, font clutter and high-level apps like Inkscape
by Donn 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

Hello, I have no experience in C/C++ coding and little with GTK - other than my small (insulated) experience via wxPython. So, please read in that light. (This is part of my mini-crusade to reduce font clutter on Linux.) 1. I gather fontconfig makes it possible for apps to filter a list of fonts into their choosers. 2. The list of ALL fonts installed on a system should *not* (IMHO) be shown by default in a chooser. 3. I don't know if the Inkscape coders can control what appears in that font chooser, or if it's a stock GTK thing. Either way, I think you guys have the best chance of changing it. 4. There should be a *minimum* filter of the type: User OR System-wide fonts. I would rather see *my* fonts, as in $fc-list : file | grep "\.fonts" than a list that is 700-odd fonts long and hellishly hard to use. >From a Linux-fonts pov, I am starting to see that an app like Fonty Python is actually artificial to the fontconfig master-plan. Each high-end app that uses fonts should have access to a stock *font manager* built-into GTK/QT/Blah/Blah so that users can manage fonts and developers don't have to worry about it. Am I on the right track here? Is it possible to make a minimum filter (sys vs user) in Inkscape? Even through font-chooser clutter, Fonty Python can play a role and be useful for the time being -- I hope that new font manager due in KDE4 will be the incentive to do the same in GTK, but until then, an app that let's us control what fonts appear in the User's zone will be handy. If the fonts can be filtered as suggested, then font management by an external app like Fonty Python really does become much easier. Donn. Fonty Python. -- snappy repartee: What you'd say if you had another chance.

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Fontconfig, font clutter and high-level apps like Inkscape
by Donn 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

> Just my OS X centric opinion once again because I think that, in this > domain, Mac OS X/Cocoa gets it nearly as right as possible. Font > management is done at the OS level and every Cocoa application > (Cocoa on Mac OS X = GTK or KDE on Linux) gets for free: > I have to say "wow". I dont know what systems OSX uses, I imagine it's not fontconfig but rather Apples' proprietary and patented font stuff. I could be wrong. Still, I think that a very minimum level of font "filtering" should be a priority for the various GUIs under Gnu/Linux because apps like Inkscape and Blender and Gimp and Scribus are starting to make it a real designer's platform. Fonty Python sounds a little like "Font Book" in function. Perhaps not as sophisticated, but it's aim is to put *only* the fonts a designer wants into their user zone. Ideally, design programs (or their gui toolkits) should respect that and allow the user to *at a minimum* filter the view and see *only* their user-zone fonts. Thanks for the insights, /d

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Canvas rotate
by Derek Hinchliffe 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

Hi all, I've had an idea that I'd like to try to implement in Inkscape and I'm hoping someone better acquainted with the code base can suggest ways it can be done and where to start. The idea: allow the view of the canvas to be rotated (around the current mouse cursor position) using keystrokes. I see three keystrokes being required: rotate anti-clockwise, rotate clockwise, and reset to normal. Only the view of the canvas is rotated, and I see it mainly being used when freehand drawing with the calligraphy or pencil tools using a tablet. My particular reason for wanting it is that I find it much easier to draw steady freehand curves with my wrist as a pivot, so when I am drawing on paper I often rotate the page to suit. My questions: 1. Is the architecture of the Inkscape canvas suited to implementing this, or would is require major changes? 2. I have tried to work my way through the source relating to canvas drawing but I'm still not sure what layer I should be looking at. Any hints on what object(s) I should focus on? 3. Any comments as to how to approach it? Should I focus on trying to rotate the view of the canvas, or should I look at applying a (temporary) rotation to the entire SVG file? Any thoughts appreciated! Cheers Derek

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