On 22 nov. 05, at 04:27, bulia byak wrote:
So, with 0.43 finally out, let's all return to development. The 0.44 will be a "long" "development" release, so you all have plenty of time to try your wildest ideas. (If you start right now, that is :)
I was about to report my "experience" in using Inkscape for the production of scientific illustrations. Now appears to be a good time. Sorry its a long email...
So first of all: it mostly works just great! Inkscape allowed me go completely open source in my scientific workflow (**see below) and produce more easily illustrations which look as good or even better that what I used to do with illustrator. But... everything can be better, isn't it? So here are my problems/suggestions/... I tried to put them in decreasing order of importance.
1/ The bigger problem is probably that few scientific softwares produce plots in SVG (damn, why is that?!). They all export EPS and the first problem is to get these EPS in Inkscape. At least on OS X, EPS import does not work because Inkscape cannot find pstoedit or ghostscript, though they are installed from fink. Where does inkscape takes the PATH from? With my fink tree added to the PATH in .bashrc or .profile in my home (.profile is the default) it does not work. With uberconverter on the way I hope all this will be solved in a not- so-far-away future.
2/ After some pstoedit command line stuff a second problem arises: all files converted this way are displayed fine in Inkscape but behave strangely: any new element is enormous, no dashes can be applied to existing strokes... This is all related to some strange transformation matrices. And some magic (from my point of view at least): copy-pasting all elements in a new document solves everything. Is there a reason why what is done when copying and pasting should not be done when opening the file?
Link to the RFE: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=1119025 These two problems where really show stoppers and took most of my time dedicated to the illustrations. Basically, once I had correct SVG in Inkscape, all was quite easy. For additional information, I tried to update the wiki page about a possible XML repair service in Inkscape. http://wiki.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?XML_Repair
3/ I found the Open/Save As/ menus not optimal. - Open: "All images" shows images (raster formats) but also vector documents. I would expect "All images" to be raster only... In addition, for a vector editor, I find it strange to have bitmaps listed here. They would be more suited only in the import menu IMHO. - Import-Export bitmap: Fine. - Save-Save As: This was discussed before but nothing happened: I think that "Save" should only save to formats where all data is kept. So eps, tex and others might be better suited under an "Export to vector" menu item. Even plain SVG maybe. In addition, from a workflow point of view, svg was my editable format and eps was my publishing format but I could only "save as" eps. So it was not possible to work on an svg document and export from time to time to my publishing format to see what it looks like integrated in my final layout. I had to work on a file which was said to be an eps (but wich was not), save from time to time and not forget to save to svg at the end. If something happens in between (power failure or whatever) I might loose changes that I thought I saved because they are not kept in the eps (transparency and all). IMHO, the "export to vector" is the way to go. This might lead to a little re-formating of the import menu too: why a single import menu and two export menus. Having Import bitmap, Import vector, Export bitmap, Export vector would seem logical and is good to educate people on the difference. If not, a "Save a copy" option would definitely be handy. RFE: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=1282332
4/ Well real PDF export would be great, for nice keynote talks with beautiful transparency effects and all... Everybody knows. RFE: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=864260
5/ Arrows are important and svg markers are great. They could be even better if they followed the style of the stroke they are applied to. Well this is already known but I mentioned it for the record. The possibility to design new custom markers would be useful. Currently the markers menu induces a lot of scrolling. Could it be displayed as a grid (I think at the difference between grid and list view in The Gimp)? Similarly, designing new dashes patterns and a more compact dashes menu would be useful. Finally, the ability to displace the "Mid Marker" along the path would be great. Bug about marker color: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php? func=detail&aid=995815&group_id=93438&atid=604306 and many duplicate RFEs about coloring markers!!! http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=1361470 http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=1338697 http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=952769 http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=955240 http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=1144920 RFE about displacing mid marker: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php? func=detail&aid=1365433&group_id=93438&atid=604309 RFE about marker and dashes menus: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php? func=detail&aid=1365442&group_id=93438&atid=604309 RFE about designing new markers and dashes: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=93438&atid=604309
6/ Text on path is good but, here again, the ability to displace the text along the path would make it much more valuable. RFE about displacing text on path: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php? func=detail&aid=1365450&group_id=93438&atid=604309
7/ Node snapping is the way to go for precise work. Nevertheless, it would be handy to have an option to put stroke inside or outside a shape (which is currently only partially feasible by snapping bounding boxes). But apparently it sound difficult in SVG. Related to snapping, "smart guides" would be useful (even if the Align and Distribute dialog already does a good job). By smart guides I mean snapping aligning and snapping to the center of a neighboring object, or snapping at equal distance between two objects. This is likely to be CPU hungry tough. RFE about stroke inside/outside: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=1038990 http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=1283673 http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=987784 RFE about smart guides: somehow: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=903328 mine: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php? func=detail&aid=1365461&group_id=93438&atid=604309
8/ "Font find and replace" would be a valuable addition to the Text and Font dialog. Sometimes you just get busted by a journal who wanted helvetica and times only and want to resubmit quickly to an other one who wants geneva and times new roman... RFE: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php? func=detail&aid=1365463&group_id=93438&atid=604309
9/ Latex typesetting would be awesome (typesetting not graphical editing which seems impossible). I thought it could be done with a simple extension (as one feature request mention): calling latex on a text box, getting resulting ps, pstoedit it to svg and import the svg... but pstoedit traces the fonts and it looks terrible. I remember a linux vector editor which could typeset text boxes with pdflatex and include the pdf... but I cannot remember the name and can't find it (and it's not dia, sketch, karbon or sodipodi. xfig can do this but it was an other one). Could it be possible to do that in Inkscape? RFEs: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=1210763 http://sourceforge.net/tracker/? group_id=93438&atid=604309&func=detail&aid=1191893 (in the comments)
10/ The "Grid" effect is useful but why is it limited to a maximum of 10 pixels grid squares? (in addition the unit is not displayed in the effect's dialog).
I filled some feature requests for the features which were not already requested.
- Snapping. Lots of problems have accumulated in that area. User
complaints are regular. Someone (probably me, though volunteers are welcome) just needs to lay out a plan and attack this methodically.
I hoped that "put stroke inside" and "put stroke outside" while still snapping to nodes could be included in this plan but the comments in the RFEs seem definitive. Is it really impossible? even this a hack using inset and outset?
- More connectors work (Michael) - specifically, I would love to
see an option for connectors made of hor/vert segments only. This seems to be the most useful in practice. (And if we have Path Effects working, one of the first effects I'd like to see implemented is Round Corners. Any effect will be transparently applicable to connector lines.)
I hope this will develop well. A suggestion: if objects could be made avoidable/ignored from the left click menu it would be useful. As a side note, my personal favorite for this kind of work is Omnigraffle (but it does not even have the possibility to make objects avoidable!). Michael you probably know about it. If not, I think the older version (2.0) is available free of charge on their website. If Inkscape connectors could match the usability of Omnigraffle it would be... cool ;-)
** For those who still have time to loose after this long email, here is a (confidential because not already published) draft of my article: "Movement analysis routine and circular statistics using free software". All vector illustrations are made with Inkscape. With such a title it would have been a shame to use something else that free software to write and illustrate the article!!! http://jo.irisson.free.fr/dropbox/inkscape/draft.pdf
JiHO --- Windows, c'est un peu comme le beaujolais nouveau : a chaque nouvelle cuvee on sait que ce sera degueulasse, mais on en prend quand meme par masochisme. --- http://jo.irisson.free.fr/