Nice work so far, here are some initial thoughts only. I will try to help give more fleshed out thoughts tomorrow...
On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 12:58 PM, Tavmjong Bah <tavmjong@...8...> wrote:
What is the purpose of Inkscape? What are its main functions?
Creating vectorized drawings, from serious artwork to technical
illustrations. A good summary of Inkscape functions can be found at:
It doesn't sound "friendly" to non-professionals. Maybe "anything from doodling or making a flyer, to serious artwork and technical illustrations" instead? I just don't want to discourage anyone or possibly discount the work of our young users such as the 4th graders out in CA who have been using Inkscape in their curriculum for a few years.
Who developed it?
A team of volunteer developers. The original developers were mostly
artists who were looking for a tool that allowed them to create the art they envisioned.
More of my "let's be inclusive" stuff (plus wanting to generalize a little less)... I don't know that I'd narrow it as "mostly artists". Illustrators, comic artists, graphic designers, software developers, etc that all had a number of different goals. I only break down the "artists" thing further because some people really primarily identify themself as something specific. Less specific phrasing can in many cases entice someone who may not otherwise be grabbed by word "artists".
Can you provide some screen shots or URLs with visuals of Inkscape?
Certainly. [HELP WANTED, I assume that he'll want something he can use
on his website.]
We have permission to use these images on our website, it was never explicitly agreed that we could use them for promotion elsewhere though. I can seek permission with a few people to get some nice stuff if you'd like (the arrangement though has always been a link to the original artist... so if it goes on his site, that would be a consideration).
- I understand from a user of Inkscape that it has not been upgraded in
a while. Are there any plans to upgrade it soon?
We will have a major upgrade in the very near future. Inkscape's rendering engine underwent a complete rewrite resulting in a significant speed up in rendering complex drawings while reducing memory use. There were a number of regressions that have had to be dealt with. We are down to a small number of blocking bugs (one?).
Currently 2 blocker bugs and 83 open "regression" tagged bugs milestoned for 0.49. Since these are things that previously worked, the fewer that are open at the time of release the better off we'll be.
Cheers, Josh
P.S. Martin covered one of the other things I was going to comment on. :)