Call for help: Screenshots needed for 0.46
As we're nearing the release, we need more screenshots to show off the new features in 0.46, to be published at http://inkscape.org/screenshots/index.php?lang=en.
Here's a page describing how to create good screenshots: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/MakingScreenshots. Use the information on that page and the best of the existing screenshots in our gallery as inspiration.
At the very least, we need to illustrate:
- 3D box tool
- SVG filters
- more live path effects (we only have one screenshot for path along path)
- gradient tool's on-canvas mid stops
- a (meaningful) illustration of the color management at work
- new extensions
- new grid and guide features
- perhaps something with custom markers, along the lines of http://needcoffee.deviantart.com/art/Gradients-To-Path-78650259
- any complex, stunning, impressive Inkscape art even if it does not use the new features :)
See the release notes for a list of all new features: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes046
You can send your submissions to me for publishing on the site. Thanks in advance!
Dear Inkscape User List,
A few months ago I wrote to the inkscape user list to ask about the possibility of adding some technical drawing features to your excellent application, and we had a great discussion about how useful snapping to nearest, endpoints, midpoints, intersections, quadrant, tangent, horizontal and vertical would be.
I recently noticed a similar posting [Maximilian Albert] on the 'devel' users list about adding similar features as part of a google soc 2008 project, and I wanted to say how useful I would find this, and hopefully a few people from before could write and add their support.
While I'm not a coder, I was hoping to add a couple of suggestions of my own as a user and avid fan:
- firstly, that the type of snap currently enforced (since several can be turned on at once) is displayed somehow near the cursor, and if several apply at once a key can be pressed to cycle between these
- secondly that snapping can be enabled whenever an input point is required, not just for new shapes. So the center of a translation could be from the midpoint of the side of a hexagon (say) and moved so it's aligned with the corner (endpoint) of a rectangle.
- thirdly that each type of snap could be quickly turned on and off with a simple keypress, and it's status displayed say in the status bar
The corel draw UI which implements this feature is explained in the file:
http://www.corel.com/uk/pdfs/cgs12/cdgs12_snapit.pdf
and autosketch (the first program I used with it) is explained at:
www.lepp.cornell.edu/~draft/ Manuals/AUTOSKETCH_USERS_GUIDE.pdf (p100)
If this feature is not considered large enough for soc, maybe it could be combined with some other technical drawing features like the three point circle, relative coordinates etc to make a larger one
Inkscape is a fantastic application, and with the newly added PDF editing (hence PS editing via ghostscript), technical drawing/snapping is the only barrier to extensive use at my university for publication of academic papers which would be really fantastic for many academics.
Thanks for listening!
Cheers, Alex
A.J. Carter wrote:
- firstly, that the type of snap currently enforced (since several can be
turned on at once) is displayed somehow near the cursor, and if several apply at once a key can be pressed to cycle between these [...]
- thirdly that each type of snap could be quickly turned on and off with a
simple keypress, and it's status displayed say in the status bar
Indeed, it should be indicated somewhere which snap mode is active. I'd prefer to go the status bar route though, because I don't think it's important enough to display it near the cursor. Besides, showing it at the status bar is the easiest thing to implement. Please file an RFE for this in Launchpad and assign it to me.
About the cycling / toggling of the snap mode: if you toggle the visibility of the grid/guides, you also toggle the snapping. This toggling is already linked to keys (# and | ), isn't this sufficiently convenient? Of course there will be use cases for snapping to invisible grids (or not snapping to visible grids), but these are probably much less common. For these special cases one would simply have to open the document properties dialog, that's only little additional effort. I can think of stuff that needs to be fixed or implemented more urgently on which I'd rather spend my precious time ;-).
- secondly that snapping can be enabled whenever an input point is
required, not just for new shapes. So the center of a translation could be from the midpoint of the side of a hexagon (say) and moved so it's aligned with the corner (endpoint) of a rectangle.
I'm not sure that I fully understand what you're trying to explain here: what do you mean with "center of a translation"? Would you simply like to have the midpoint of one of the hexagon's sides aligned to a corner of the rectangle? That will be possible as soon as I implement the snapping of midpoints, which is on my todo list. Currently, we could only snap the hexagon's nodes (endpoints) to that corner.
Regards,
Diederik
-----Original Message----- From: inkscape-devel-bounces@lists.sourceforge.net [mailto:inkscape-devel-bounces@lists.sourceforge.net] On Behalf Of Diederik van Lierop Sent: maandag 31 maart 2008 22:44
Indeed, it should be indicated somewhere which snap mode is active. I'd prefer to go the status bar route though, because I don't think it's important enough to display it near the cursor.
But it would be nice to temporary show next to the cursor what type of snap happened! ;)
Johan
Dear Diederik,
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply (see below).
Indeed, it should be indicated somewhere which snap mode is active. I'd prefer to go the status bar route though, because I don't think it's important enough to display it near the cursor. Besides, showing it at the status bar is the easiest thing to implement. Please file an RFE for this in Launchpad and assign it to me.
I was thinking of the status bar giving a quick indication of which snap modes (insersection, quadrant) are currently globally turned on, since several could be on at once. A single keypress could then visually turn each off at once without loading the document properties tab.
To indicate the current snap as a line is drawn I was thinking of something either floating next to the cursor, or the shape of the cursor changing as it jumps when you are drawing a line and come within a 'snap radius' of an active snapping point (as Johan said).
I think it would be important to indicate to the user in some way whether the system thinks it's currently snapping to a gridpoint or an endpoint if two are nearby and both types of snap are turned on at once.
I've found the following page online with a few screenshots showing corel draw - if you scroll to the bottom of the page and see the image before last. As you see corel shows the type of snap as a line is drawn by the shape of the cursor, and by the floating 'help' message.
http://www.cadintools.com/cdr_tips.htm
I'm not sure that I fully understand what you're trying to explain here: what do you mean with "center of a translation"?
To explain what I was meaning, if you take a look at the final screenshot on the same page:
http://www.cadintools.com/cdr_tips.htm
In this they want to move (translate) the rectange from the upper left position so that it ends up just touching the circle. With the snap enabled as they click to select the rectangle they can pick it up _from_ the midpoint of the right side (so that is where they are 'holding it' as they move) and then release when this point is caught by the quadrant snap of the circle. This guarantees the rectange and circle are perfectly aligned and touching, and applies to all types of snap. When I said 'centre of translation' I was meaning the midpoint of the right side of this rectange in this case, and this centre can be selecting using all possible snap points of an object or group of objects.
I hope that makes what I was meaning clearer ?
I agree with Shawn that with multiple grids possible the on/off snap is a property of each which I hadn't though of before!
Thanks for your time Diederik and for the patience to listen again - I;d lvoe to hear any comments :-)
Alex
Hi,
sorry for chiming in without a real contribution (I haven't had time yet to read the whole thread). But given that snapping is a common issue with tech drawing and CAD, I was considering to include some of it in my GSoC proposal as more advanced features. In particular, "tangent snapping" (of lines to curves, possibly even of arbitrary curves to each other) would be very nice and seams quite feasible using 2geom.
Since I know that Diederik is working on snapping and I don't want to steal his work :), my question is mainly directed at him: Do you think this is a good idea? If so, what else would you consider worthwhile (and don't want to do yourself)?
I'd also be very interested in user feedback on this and on tech drawing in general. As suggested by Bryce, I'm going to set up a blueprint on LaunchPad so that people can contribute ideas directly. Later I'm going to extract a suitable subset of it for my refined proposal. It may take a while before I get to it, though (graduation exams are looming :-/ ).
Thanks to all, Max
P.S.: I saw that this thread originally started on inkscape-user. Feel free to forward it there. I'm not subscribed to this list, though, (and won't be for the near future) so please include me directly in any replies if you want me to read them (I'll try to respond in this case but as I said time is sparse currently so please bear with me if reply is not immediate).
participants (5)
-
unknown＠example.com -
A.J. Carter -
bulia byak -
Diederik van Lierop -
Maximilian Albert