RE: What do you _really_ want? [was RE: [Inkscape-devel] SVG Linking]
Alan
and want to be able to add arbitrary name value pairs to objects rather than using any namespaces in particularly?
No. I have an XML Schema that conforms to "Topic 5 : Features" of the OPenGIS Abstract Specification. That is, it contains elements that are "geographic" (for which Inkscape provides a very convenient means of maintenance) as well as other domain-specific attributes that are associated with these geographies. These are ussually simple string types. When I proposed the capability of providing a form of name-value-pair maintenance capability I was envisaging a simple means of maintaining these attributes (in the hope of the availability of an imminent solution). If such capability were thought to be appropriate then of course the mechnism by which this would be achieved would be up to the Inkscape community. I have no intent in providing users with the ability to define arbitrary name-value pairs.
Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that you are using Inkscape for diagramming
Inkscape is a vector graphics editor
Dia is for Diagrams http://gnome.org/projects/dia/
Rather than being concerned with identifying the (presumably mutually exclusive) domain of descriptive terms, I would prefer to deal with the more practical issue of which tool is most suited to my applications development problem.
A brief examination of the capabilities of DIA indicated that it follows an "Object-Connector" paradigm. This does not suit my purpose of manipulating geographic entities. These are arranged and transformed spatially in a multitude of ways according to the desires of a user. I've been able to demonstrate the rich capabilities of Inkscape in achieving these spatial operations. I've not seen anything in DIA that comes close.
The question is "will Inkscape support the maintenance of domain-specific attributes associted with geometries(while admitting that such capabilities may be rudimentary), or will shapes only ever be shapes"
Regards
Endre
-----Original Message----- From: Alan Horkan [mailto:horkana@...44...] Sent: Wednesday, 24 November 2004 3:43 AM To: NAGY Endre Cc: Inkscape is a vector graphics editor Subject: What do you _really_ want? [was RE: [Inkscape-devel] SVG Linking]
On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, NAGY Endre wrote:
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:40:05 +1100 From: NAGY Endre <Endre_NAGY@...561...> To: bulia byak <buliabyak@...400...> Cc: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: RE: [Inkscape-devel] SVG Linking
Bulia
Thanks for responding
I take your point about distinguishing "editing" from "viewing". I was ignorant of the existance of inkview.
To quote my original mail
My purposes are not the rendering of HTML but rather the invocation of a program. Does inkscape support this and how.
My original post was
grasping at a solution for my posted Feature
Request "1070754 - Maintaining Attributes in Users Namespace". In essence, the request was for some capability that allowed for the maintenance of the attributes of a shape that are defined in the namespace of the user (e.g if a line represented a road then I would like to define the name of that road).
Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that you are using Inkscape for diagramming and want to be able to add arbitrary name value pairs to objects rather than using any namespaces in particularly?
HTML was very clever in simple the way it did meta data tags, basically it provided a single tag and two attributes and from there users could create as many of their own name (Author) value (authorname) pairs as they would like by specifying new values for content and name everytime.
<meta content="Author" name="authorname"> <meta content="desc" name="description">
(Dia users have been asking for the ability to tag objects with all kinds of information for ever and that has only confirmed my belief in the need for a meta data system that would be simple and extensible at the user level rather than requiring an extended predefined schema).
You can see OpenOffice.org offers a similar ability to have an unending set of name value pairs
http://books.evc-cit.info/ch02.php#meta-xml-section this screenshot shows it reasonably well the numbered labels are the names and the text entries are the corresponding values, and the popup shows they are arbitrary pairs. http://books.evc-cit.info/figures/ooo.ess.0203.png
Let me use this opportunity to say that I hope parts of the Oasis standardized namespaces could be reused by Inkscape rather than creating more things in the inkscape: namespace. I hope to do more reading soon and recommend what custom tags and markup that it migth make sense to drop in favour of an open and standardised namespace shared by a variety of other applications.
From the perspective of the users of the application that I'm developing, this activity is part of the process of "svg creation" not of "svg use" (by which I mean, analogously, "editing" not "viewing").
Even if my guessing is way off a better less evasive description of what you are actually trying to do, the specific end result you are trying to achieve will better enable the developers to help you than specific example problems. If you are really lucky it might even allow them to indirectly help you by doing things they were planning on doing anyway at some point.
Any thoughts ?
Endre
Sincerely
Alan Horkan
Free SVG Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org Dia is for Diagrams http://gnome.org/projects/dia/ Inkscape, Draw Freely http://inkscape.org Abiword is Awesome http://abisource.com
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Btw, I've added a couple of comments to the relevant RFE http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1070754&gro...
pjrm.
On Thu, 25 Nov 2004, NAGY Endre wrote:
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 16:42:30 +1100 From: NAGY Endre <Endre_NAGY@...561...> To: Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> Cc: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: RE: What do you _really_ want? [was RE: [Inkscape-devel] SVG Linking]
Alan
and want to be able to add arbitrary name value pairs to objects rather than using any namespaces in particularly?
No. I have an XML Schema that conforms to "Topic 5 : Features" of the OPenGIS Abstract Specification. That is, it contains elements that are "geographic" (for which Inkscape provides a very convenient means of maintenance) as well as other domain-specific attributes that are associated with these geographies. These are ussually simple string types. When I proposed the capability of providing a form of name-value-pair maintenance capability I was envisaging a simple means of maintaining these attributes (in the hope of the availability of an imminent solution). If such capability were thought to be appropriate then of course the mechnism by which this would be achieved would be up to the Inkscape community. I have no intent in providing users with the ability to define arbitrary name-value pairs.
Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that you are using Inkscape for diagramming
Inkscape is a vector graphics editor
Dia is for Diagrams http://gnome.org/projects/dia/
That is my signature it is designed to be dirt simple and be straighforward and provide relevant link text it is not intended to imply that Inkscape is not for Diagrams or that Dia cannot be used for drawing (I would hope that Dia could share much of the Inkscape code and libraries at some point in the future, and although I'm sure Inkscape will become excellent for certain types of diagrams I wouldn't ever expect anyone to want to do UML Diagrams in Inkscape). I just want to clarify that I was not in any way trying to dissuade you from using Inkscape or implying that you should use Dia (and I wouldn't recommend Dia until I knew what problem you were trying to solve).
All I was trying to do was get you to explain in more detail what you were trying to do. Simple straightforward questions are all well and good but it usually helps to provide the extra information as well in case the developers might find it useful.
The question is "will Inkscape support the maintenance of domain-specific attributes associted with geometries(while admitting that such capabilities may be rudimentary), or will shapes only ever be shapes"
I would hope so, eventually but only the developers themselves can say where in the long term plans they would see this kind of functionality.
Sincerely
Alan Horkan
Free SVG Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org Dia is for Diagrams http://gnome.org/projects/dia/ Inkscape, Draw Freely http://inkscape.org Abiword is Awesome http://abisource.com
By chance I happened to read today an interview with the principle author of sketch/skencil, Bernhard Herzog. He said that his paid work was with http://www.intevation.net/, who among other things work on http://freegis.org/. Please have a look at that site: it contains many tools. You might consider using skencil (http://www.nongnu.org/skencil/, or the more memorable http://www.skencil.org/) instead of inkscape for your work, especially if you're willing to pay Intevation for Bernhard to customize skencil for your needs. In any case, skencil has better support for user extensions than Inkscape at present if you want to work in-house. Skencil is written mostly in python, which facilitates writing customization in python (an excellent language for small jobs like scripting). I notice that http://www.nongnu.org/skencil/addon.html includes a plugin written by the aforementioned Intevation.
To my knowledge, skencil has no support for "glue", btw.
Inviting you to look at freegis.org and skencil should in no way be taken as dissuading you from using Inkscape: as I mentioned privately, we at Monash would be interested in hearing what you're doing and whether it's appropriate for us to work in that area (in which case we'd be more interested in using Inkscape than Skencil). I mention skencil and freegis.org only in the hope of finding the best tool for the job.
pjrm.
participants (3)
-
Alan Horkan -
NAGY Endre -
Peter Moulder