On Wed, 8 Dec 2004, Bryce Harrington wrote:
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 21:09:12 -0800 (PST) From: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...260...> To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape on LWN
Peter pointed out that LWN is featuring Inkscape on its Front page this week. http://lwn.net/
Bryce
Vector graphics with Inkscape
December 8, 2004
This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier.
With the release of Inkscape 0.40, we decided to take a look at the latest release and get up to speed with the status of the project. Inkscape started as a fork of the Sodipodi project, but has evolved into a robust project in its own right.
obligatory Sodipodi comparison ;)
We installed the Inkscape static RPM on a SUSE 9.2 system to see what the program is capable of, and whether Inkscape was stable and feature-complete enough for productive use. The Inkscape download page on SourceForge includes source packages, RPMs and Windows binaries.
static builds were such a good idea.
To test Inkscape we started off by creating basic basic shapes using Inkscape's rectangle and ellipse tools and fiddling with color fills, stroke styles, rotation and so forth just to get a feel for Inkscape's tools. It took about fifteen minutes for this writer to get comfortable with the Inkscape interface.
That seems a bit long.
With an application like Inkscape, using a mouse (or tablet) is almost unavoidable.
really? I hope that inkscape will be fairly usable for people with only a mouse but I dont think we are any worse here than any other graphics software.
However, Inkscape's shortcut keys allow the user to perform a lot of actions, such as selecting different tools or raising and
who lack a background in art and design. The Inkscape interface also features context help for most tools as well as context-sensitive tips in the bottom status bar.
For the most part, this writer found the interface to be straightforward and intuitive. The "Vacuum Defs" item under the File menu was a bit of a puzzler at first, though it was finally determined that it was for removing unused information from the defs tags in a document. We presume this is a good thing.
*cough* told-you-so *cough*
It is unusual to have a menu item that to the average use has no noticable effect and if this is really necessary I think it would work better as a global preference.
Some of Inkscape's functions can be used without even needing to start the Inkscape GUI. For example, inkscape file.svg -e file.png will convert an SVG file to a PNG. This can be particularly useful for users who wish to convert a number of SVG files into PNG format.
-e for export presumably
Dia uses -e too gimp doesn't have an equivilent command line option abiword uses --to=format or -t
It is a good sign that Dia and Inkscape have the same arguments for this functionality, might be worth encouraging other projects to do similarly.
SVG experts can edit an SVG document directly, if they so choose, by using Inkscape's built-in XML editor. Very few users will be likely to need this tool, but it's there for those who need or want to edit a document's elements directly.
It is a very good sign that the author doesn't consider it necessary to use the XML Source Editor.
Inkscape may not be at the same level of functionality as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw, but it's certainly capable of creating some excellent graphics -- even if this writer isn't quite up to the task of fully exploiting its potential. With other open source applications like The Gimp and Scribus, Linux is a serious contender for users who are looking for a desktop publishing platform.
The good publicity continues.
- Alan