December 2004 - Inkscape Users

My impressions on Inkscape
by Jozsef Mak 28 Jan '05

28 Jan '05

As a long time Macromedia Freehand user I was curious about the latest release of Inkscape, which I have been testing for about a week. These are my observations. Inkscape's interface is so unintuitive that it almost hurts. The layout and the look and feel of the various panels and dialog boxes are awful. They lack coherence, functionality and are badly implemented. Examples: the Object properties palette is a puzzle; I expected that this would be one of the most important panels where the essential parameters of the selected object can be found and edited. I've found nothing to edit there. The font palette looks like it was borrowed from an office suite. The implementation of gradients are so weird that hard to describe. The Export Bitmap dialog box is poorly designed, the window wouldn't even close after saving files. The program lacks the tool to group panels into different panel groups. In addition, most of the features are incomplete. The new text on path is nice but, if you design a circular logo, most of the time, you would want to put text on the top and on the bottom of the circle. Can you do this in Inkscape? I couldn't figure out. Also when export text on path, it exports the path as well, which is unacceptable. Another example: the implementation of patterns. It is nice to have it but it is basic to have the tool to edit it after applied to a shape (moving, scaling and so on). Without this the feature has limited use. I also couldn't rename pattens but stuck with the generic names. I missed the preset zoom settings at the left bottom corner, as well. A word on priorities. In my view adding features should proceed from the most essential toward the less important. At the hart of a vector drawing program one expect to find tools, such as swatches, gradients, tints and pattern palettes and the capacity to to export and import them from one document to the other. Symbols are also essential to work efficiently. Until they are implemented pointless adding less commonly used ones like bitmap tracing, for instance. Any graphic artist can tell that this is a relatively seldom used tool in the actual work environment. By the way, I liked the Tracing Bitmap tool. What impressed me in Inkscape is the ingenious and interactive ways it allows to edit shapes. Also the fact that I could stroke path with gradient without first expanding it. I found great that I could export a selection rather than the entire ardboard; this feature dearly missed even in adobe illustrator. I also liked the options on the upper menu bar. This helps setting parameters effortlessly and it eliminates the need of dealing with additional dialog boxes which are always nuisances. I liked the layers and the fact that they are collapsible�-one more thing less cluttering the work environment. Would be nice if I could move object from one layer to the other with a click of a mouse. My conclusion: before adding additional features polish up and complete the existing ones. Also before go on adding more tools implement the fundamentals (swatches, tints, gradients, patterns, symbols and so on) and redo the interface from scratch. jozsefmak

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Using Post-Script Fonts in Inkscape
by sp_lists＠...391... 10 Jan '05

10 Jan '05

My last action was to use Post-Script Fonts in Inkscape, those, wich installed with Adobe Type Manager. I can see the fonts in other applications (OpenOffice, FreeType in GIMP) but not in Inkscape. Any suggestions? Feature request? THX Stefan Pampel

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CFV: Update Inkscape FAQ
by Bryce Harrington 31 Dec '04

31 Dec '04

Here's another Call for Volunteers... The Inkscape FAQ is pretty good, but it's been a long time since someone did a thorough review of it and brought it up to date. We need someone who is reasonably knowledgeable about Inkscape to go through it and bring it a little more up to date. I think it probably also ought to have a table of contents with links to the Q's... 1. Save this webpage to your disk: http://inkscape.org/faq.php 2. Open it in a text editor 3. Review/revise each question 4. Add new questions you think are worth putting in 5. Remove any questions that are obsolete 6. Post your results here for a web guy to put on the site If you already have access for updating the Inkscape site, feel free to commit and update directly. Bryce

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CFV: Inkscape Examples Webpages
by Bryce Harrington 31 Dec '04

31 Dec '04

Hi all, Felix made a good suggestion to start posting some 'Call For Volunteers' on tasks that new folks would find straightforward to work on. Here's the first. A while back I started an 'Inkscape Examples' section on our website. We've got a couple things posted, but it's been largely neglected. We need a volunteer to take charge of beefing this section of the website up. This task requires good HTML skills (PHP helps too). No Inkscape development knowledge is needed. Art/design talents will also be pretty important. The purpose of the Inkscape Examples site is to show off different _ways_ Inkscape is used. It's needs to go beyond just showing off new features (we use the Screenshots page for that), but must be complete works. It's not intended to be simply a place for users to post their work (we have a Gallery section, plus OCAL and Deviant art for that), but rather to provide _one_ example of different _type_ of use. It's not intended to teach people how to use Inkscape (we have the Tutorials for that), but more to inspire and entice people into using Inkscape in new ways. Ideally, the site should have a listing of different types of things that can be made with Inkscape, with each having a link to a set of pages describing that thing. (Sort of like a woodworking magazine article showing how to build a cabinet.) For example: * Web site design * CD booklet * Portrait * Presentation * Cross-stitch pattern * Icon set * Landscape design * Org chart * Company logo * etc. Also, there could be examples of different art "styles". For instance, creating 'distressed' art like Brisgeek is into right now, or using the Trace Bitmap feature to artify a photo, or creating three dimensional effects via spherical gradients. "Presentations" could have a link to a page containing an example presentation that someone made, a set of steps for how the user created their presentation, problems/solutions encountered, and the source files for review. Sort of like an article in a woodworking magazine explaining how the author built a table. I think this effort could be done by just collecting examples of work other users have done and posted, interviewing the creator, and writing it up into a decent example, and putting it onto the website. I'd bet, if done well, you could also get it published in an online magazine like OS News. If you want to work on this, your first step will be to go ahead and put together an example of something, and post it here. We will also need someone to take care of editing/reviewing examples and posting them into the website, so if you're interested in doing that, send me your SourceForge ID. Bryce

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Re: [Inkscape-user] proposed change to icons
by Ben Crowell 31 Dec '04

31 Dec '04

After posting on inkscape-user and increasing the sample size, it seems to me that there is a clear consensus in favor of the new style. Bulia wrote: >There's no need to argue. Ben, you can continue working on the new >icon set, and when you are ready we will ship your icons.svg alongside >the old one, so people can choose whichever they like. Trent, the same >for you: you are welcome to develop a set of icons that work best for >your black background, and we'll ship them also. When there's at least >one complete set besides the old one, we can make a preference with a >UI to choose one of them on load. The real issue is whose icons will be the defaults. Since most people seem to like mine better than yours, I think mine should be the defaults. I would like to request a clear decision on this from the core developers before I invest a lot more time on the icons.

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proposed change to icons
by Ben Crowell 31 Dec '04

31 Dec '04

On inkscape-devel, I've proposed some changes to some of Bulia's icons. Some people seemed to like the new versions better, and some didn't. We didn't seem to have a statistically significant sample of opinions, so I'm reposting now to both inkscape-devel and inkscape-user. I've made some changes to the icons in the copy of Inkscape I have running on my own machine. If other people agree that this is an improvement, I'll do some more work in the same style. Here is a screenshot: http://www.lightandmatter.com/proposal.png The rotation and flip tools are my new versions, and next to them you can see the lower and raise icons in the original style, with the greenish-yellow color. My idea here was to tone down the colors a little, and also use transparency to create more of a visual impression of the object rotating. It's meant to look like the new Gimp 2.0 icons, which IMO are very professional looking. The svg from which the icons were constructed is here: http://www.lightandmatter.com/icons.svg Please give an on-list opinion in binary, 0=don't change, 1=change. (The icons can be tweaked more later, of course, if there is a consensus for it.)

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Newsforge Inkscape article (fwd)
by Bryce Harrington 30 Dec '04

30 Dec '04

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 07:16:33 -0800 (PST) From: Jiaxiang <jwasheville@...12...> To: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...69...> Subject: Newsforge Inkscape article Good day, Bryce. Did you catch this article about Inkscape on Newsforge.com? http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/12/23/1638201 -Joshua __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Dress up your holiday email, Hollywood style. Learn more. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com

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Re: Re: [Inkscape-user] proposed change to icons
by request＠lists.sourceforge.net 30 Dec '04

30 Dec '04

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Re: [Inkscape-user] proposed change to icons
by request＠lists.sourceforge.net 30 Dec '04

30 Dec '04

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Re [22]
by Enid Kirk 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

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