Hi,
I've been playing with the Gaussian Blur filter for updating my book and have a couple of comments:
1. In the release notes it states that one can achieve a different blur in the vertical and horizontal directions by first stretching a path, then blurring it, and finally shrinking it back. This appears to work only if the path does not have a "transform" attribute after it is stretched. The SVG standard includes a provision for separate x and y blurring and Inkscape seems to have the code in nr_filter-gaussian.cpp to handle this; this seems to be a more natural way to achieve the desired result. A second blur slider could be added. Or what about using "Blur Handles" that function like the rectangle tool corner radius handles?
2. The term "Blur Radius" in the release notes should be defined. A look at the code reveals that it is the Standard Deviation of the Gaussian. This definition maybe has only meaning to the mathematically astute but one should be able to come up with a meaningful definition.
3. Why is a filter object created (or renamed) every time a blurred object is moved? The filter parameters don't change. Why would the filter object ever be renamed? This leads to the general question of how Inkscape handles SVG files that come from other sources. A number of people have complained about Inkscape mangling their files and I think that this is one example of that.
Tav