On Sat, Apr 23, 2005 at 11:41:04PM +0000, Jonathan Leighton wrote:
I've thought about ideas like having a default svg pop up on first use, that points out the tutorials and such.
I think this is a Very Good Idea, myself. It come up instead of the default blank page, and be like a "Getting started page" -- something like this:
[suggested page content]
What does the list think of such a page?
Suggested implementation is to have the SVG file saved as share/templates/default.svg. (If this implementation isn't considered appropriate, then see file.cpp:sp_file_new_default for what code should be changed.)
It should include prominent instructions how to make a blank document be the default. Currently there is no good way for people without write access to the directory where inkscape was installed. One way of providing a good way is for the places in file.cpp and interface.cpp that consult INKSCAPE_TEMPLATESDIR to consult ~/.inkscape/templates as well. See dialogs/swatches.cpp:loadEmUp for some code to copy. To make it easier still, there could be a new entry in the file menu equivalent to `save as ~/.inkscape/templates/default.svg'. Don't let the coding work of this paragraph put you off: the initial version of the document could have text from this pararagraph as part of the instructions :) .
Ideally, the document should be written in docbook format for subsequent conversion to SVG: see the thread on tutorials conversion. (Of course, this shouldn't stop people from using plain text or SVG format as starting points for the content, working from Jonathan's suggested text.)
pjrm.