Hi all,
I think Gez posted the most compelling reason to get rid of pdf and the like in the save as dialog. Inkscape will happily destroy the multipage document with prepress ready infromation with its own export file. If all you do with it is edit an image that doesn't need to go to print that's fine, but I guess those that are accustomed to using Adobe software with its extended pdf files that enable editing it with retaining all the extra stuff Adobe puts into to it to enable a prepress work flow in their own format will have been swearing at the current method.
I saw multipage support on the todo list. Would be a nice start for better pdf support. CMYK is another one of the desires related to that. But even then I would really suggest making SAVE only save to Inkscape native and get the rest where it belongs in the export formats with their limited support. I haven't worked in print for quite some time now, but used to dabble around with postscript fill rasters quite a lot to get different effects on similar ink percentages. When using 2 colour print and a varnish, you could create really nice effects with that. None of such information would be maintained in an Inkscape PS export either.
They are lossy export filters. Hence they should be in the export menu. The work flow in Inkscape is not ideal when you destroy half the info with a program that seems to claim to save all those file types as if it where native. Whether you put opening a file in the import or open dialog doesn't matter all that much as long as it is clear that the output file is an export or information gets lost by saving it as InkSVG.
While following the discussion on SVG2 it became clear that the focus there is web content and for that Inkscape pretty much does everything you'd desire. However, as it turns out Inkscape is a really good and useful vector editor that has found its way into the prepress world and others despite its shortcomings in those fields, I would really like to see a work flow philosophy that reflects those shortcomings for the casual and first time users to prevent them from totally screwing up their work. Otherwise they will be disappointed. I guess that is what drove the Gimp to separate it as well.
No Johan,.. it's not okay. Its like boiled and poached eggs. Similar results but different using the same tools and ingredients. But the end result differs through the method.
Jelle