On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 10:56:02AM -0700, Joshua A. Andler wrote:
So tomorrow is Tutorial Tuesday... because it sounds good like that.
=)
I can't wait! :) I'm a big user of the tutorials; I've been pretty excited about the cleanups.
Well... I think I've learned my lesson about guessing when I'm going to have something done. =) So... today is Tutorial Thursday!! Heh, it's a good thing there's a second T day in the week (although Tuesday had a better ring to it).
I'm having issues with cvsNT so I can't up these to CVS in the moment, instead they can be grabbed from:
They are all there except for the Calligraphy one I'm still working on. Following is the text from it so if anyone wants to contribute or give some feedback before I commit it all to SVG that would be great.
--- One of the many great tools available in Inkscape is the Calligraphy tool. These short notes should help you become acquainted with how our tool funtions as well as some basics & techniques of the art form.
General information about the Art of Calligraphy
Going by the dictionary definition Calligraphy means "beautiful writing" or "fair or elegant penmanship". Essentially, Calligraphy is the art of making beautiful or elegant handwriting. It is a fine art of skilled penmanship. It may sound intimidating, but with a little practice, anyone can become quite proficient at it.
Some 500 years ago, long before the printing press was around, calligraphy was the way books were made. A scribe had to hand write every individual copy of every book or publication. The hand writing was done with a quill and ink onto materials such as parchment or vellum. The lettering style applied was one of the period book hands like Rustic, Carolingian, Blackletter, etc. Obviously, we are working in the digital realm with Inkscape, so it is a little different. One great benefit is that it we have "undo" at our disposal.
Today, there are three main types or styles of calligraphy: (1) Western or Roman, (2) Arabic, and (3) Chinese or Oriental. This tutorial focuses mainly on Western calligraphy with only a glimpse at the other two styles, as the other two styles tend to use a brush instead of a pen, which is not currently how our tool functions.
The Calligraphy tool:
Switch to the Calligraphy tool by pressing Ctrl+F6 or by click on its toolbar button. On the top toolbar, you will notice there are options for Width, Thinning, Angle, Fixation, Mass & Drag.
PIC OF TOOLBAR
Width: The width of the calligraphic pen (relative to canvas size).
Thinning: how much velocity thins the stroke (>0 makes fast strokes thinner, <0 makes strokes broader, 0 makes stroke independent of velocity)
Angle: The angle of the pen's nib (in degrees; 0 = Horizontal, has no effect if fixation = 0) Note: Angle can be changed mid-stroke by using the up and down arrows.
Fixation: How fixed is the Pen's angle (0 = always perpendicular to stroke direction; 1 = fixed)
Mass: How much inertia affects the movement of the pen.
Drag: How much resistance affects the movement of the pen.
All of the above options greatly affect how the tool behaves. Unlike the shape tools, selecting strokes that you have created and modifying the variable controls will not affect have any affect (on those strokes).
Following are a handful of examples of those options in action using the word Inkscape.
INKSCAPE default options
INKSCAPE modified Width
INKSCAPE modified Thinning
INKSCAPE modified Angle
INKSCAPE modified Fixation
INKSCAPE modified Mass
INKSCAPE modified Drag ---
I'm sure I can go much more in-depth, and I plan to. I do however vote that Bulia does the actual calligraphy for the examples as I have been unable to come close to what he prepared for screenshots.
-Josh