On Sat, 2005-08-20 at 11:18 -0400, Greg Steffensen wrote:
I'm releasing version 0.31 of the Clip Art Navigator. This is the first release that I believe is ready for general use. Get it from
http://download.berlios.de/ocalhelper/clipartnav-0.31.tar.gz
Installation is now much simpler. Basically, just extract it and its ready to use. The only dependencies are Python 2.4, GTK 2.6, and PyGTK 2.6 (even Inkscape isn't required). However, Inkscape and PyXML are both reccommended. The package can be used both as a standalone program (the main executable is clipartnav.py) and as an Inkscape extension.
It isn't necessary, but you'll almost certainly want to setup a local clip art repository for it to use first. Instructions are in the README, but basically, just extract an OCAL release somewhere (I reccommend /usr/share/clipart), run the included "indexClipart.py" script on that directory (with the optional verbose flag... for example, "python indexClipart.py -v /usr/share/clipart"),
Have you talked to Jonadab and Bryce about this indexing system? Also, it would be good to check to see if the clipart folder has been indexed, and if not, then index it. Also, the indexing script should be able to take path to the clipart and also, write the index out to that path, and if there is no path passed, seems like if there is one defined in the conf, it should process there, and then if there is not one defined in conf (or if the one in the conf isn't valid), THEN parse the current working directory. It seems to only do the current working directory right now...(I'm not going through the code btw right now)
and then update the config file (clipartnav.conf) so that the "repodir" setting under the "localocal" section matches the directory you just indexed. To install for use with Inkscape, just copy the contents of the package (without the top level directory) to your Inkscape extensions directory. Adding a GUI for this process is high on my todo list.
I should note that remote OCAL access is currently SLOW... on the order of 1 minute for a search that returns 5 images when I use it. To turn off the OCAL module, just remove the word "ocal" from the "modules" setting in the configuration file.
Wait, its not clear to me what the module OCAL does. If that is for the web service, then maybe that should be called ocal-net or something similar.
I believe that the code is currently ready to be preliminarily checked into Inkscape CVS. The main question I have about that right now is how to deal with the configuration file. The script searches for the config file both in the Inkscape extensions directory and in the ".inkscape" directory in the user's home dir (both can be used simultaneously... conflicting settings favor the user file). The extensions dir seems like a pretty dumb place to put a configuration file; is there a better location I should use?
Has anyone answered this yet? I'm not currently sure, but I agree with you that there might be a better place for conf files for extensions...I can see as more and more extensions get added that this folder is going to grow. Maybe a better strategy is to have folders for each extension in the extensions folder, and then inside that folder could be any type of file related to the extension. I think this is how plugins are handled on Photoshop and Illustrator.
The problem with the user folder is that its per user; you'd have to create one for every Inkscape user on the system, and it seems more logical to make the main config file, at least, be system wide.
Right I agree, and its good to have the user config file override the system-wide one...agree!
Feedback greatly appreciated. I've got good internet, and check my email like its my job, so if you have problems getting it to work, please let me know.
Cool!...Trying to give you good feedback!
Jon