On Fri, 2005-03-18 at 12:23 -0500, Kevin Wixson wrote:
Jon Phillips wrote:
Well, where do we go from here. I think this is of vital importance. Here is the wiki item that describes what we discussed oh so long ago:
... PS: Man, talk about a monopoly....Pantone has the monopoly on color!!!
Just throwing this out there: Is there any way, once there is a "swatch" dialog/palette/window in Inkscape, for users to import a set of swatches from some sort of file? Several free swatch libraries could be bundled with Inkscape, but somehow people could get the Pantone library from Pantone if they needed it.
http://www.pantone.com/products/products.asp?idSubArea=0&idArea=3&id...
The above link shows an application that provides the following support for applications to use PMS: "Plus, any application that accesses the Windows System Color Picker or Mac OS X color picker."
So, what I'm thinking is that users who want to use PMS download and install this $50 program, and somehow Inkscape is capable of using the functionality it provides to select PMS colors.
Yeah, that sounds reasonable...except its only for windows/mac...
...or...
There's a link there to inquire about PMS integration with applications that don't currently support it. Maybe Pantone could be convinced to create and sell some sort of file that would be compatible with a standard open source color management / library system that could be shared across open source applications. Download/buy once, use in Scribus, GIMP, Inkscape, Open Office, etc.
That is an interesting idea. I wish I had more time to do tasks like this. Maybe you or another interested party could ask and find out? I have found these projects not very willing to talk with ppl. without money in hand ;(
Unfortunately, unless someone wants to come up with new ink formulations, license those formulations under GPL (or patent equivalent), convince some manufacturer to produce the inks and then convince some printing companies to buy the inks and use them, there is no alternative to somehow supporting PMS.
Right, I think the best way to do things is to develop our color standards and then provide an easy way to let users set color. And tell them how they can pick PMS colors and plug them into our apps, but not actually do it.
Jon