September 2015 - Inkscape Users

Choosing an Open Font for Inkscape "Draw Freely".
by C R 23 Sep '15

23 Sep '15

Hello fellow Inkscapeists! I'm C.Rogers, and I'm involved with the official tutorial videos, and some of Inkscape's logo and branding materials. TLDR: We are voting on an Open Font replacement for the "Draw Freely" Tagline. Jump down to the link and click it to see what the options are. Since the feedback so far has been good on the dev user-tutorial thread, I'd like to reach everyone I can to make this decision, in case not everyone is paying attention to the video tutorial stuff, so here's another opportunity to vote! In short: we'd like to replace the "Draw Freely" tagline with a font which we will use as an official font for the Inkscape project. The main reason for this is that the currently used font is proprietary, and the general consensus (via mailing list and #inkscape) is that we'd like to replace it with an open alternative. Reasons for this are: 1. We can not change the font - Thus, we are unable to add extra character support for other languages. 2. We can not use the font elsewhere without paying more license fees, and we would like to be able to use the same font on the website, in tutorial videos, and other user documentation. 3. We can not distribute the font with Inkscape materials without paying license fees. 4. Our users can't use the font in their own materials without paying license fees. 5. Open fonts rock, in all the same ways that Open Source software rocks, and contributes to creative freedom, which is in line with the project's creedo "Draw Freely". Thus, I have pillaged Google's collection of fonts which are composed of fonts with the SIL Open Font license, and Apache Licenses, pulling out all the ones that looked scripty/handwritten. I have written a page that allows a preview of each of them along with the Inkscape logo here: http://www.opendesignstudio.org/inkscape/samples/draw_freely_font_list.html Use keyboard arrow-keys (left and right) to scroll through the fonts, and (up and down) keys to enlarge or decrease the font size to your liking (you can also click a link out of the list on the left to jump to your at-a-glance favs). To vote on your favourites, just reply to this email with the font name(s), number(s), and/or a copy of the share link at the bottom of the page. If you've already voted, you don't need to again. :) Cheers! -C

10 16

the space for form/text/align/document windows on the right side is too large and cannot be decreased
by Bernhard Kleine 23 Sep '15

23 Sep '15

Hi, I have Inkscape 0.91 and find the following very irritating: when I open Strg-Shift-D (document) or similar than the opening part of the screen is about one fourth of the screen. Trying to decrease the space by working with the mouse on the separation line changes the mouse cursor but the line stays immovable. When one is in Fullscreen mode it can be tolerated but when using only part of screen it should decrease accordingly. It stays with the orignimal width. That is most irritating. Has anybody else found this same behaviour? Regards Bernhard

2 1

white tooltip text is hard to read
by Carl Symons 22 Sep '15

22 Sep '15

Is there a way to change the color of the tooltip text? Now it's white on gray and hard to see. I don't see anything in ~/.config/inkscape/preferences.xml that allows this to be changed. Black on gray would be nice. Specifically where this came up is in the magnify context. Fit selection, drawing and page icons are the same. Tooltips are needed to distinguish the action associated with each icon. Thank you Carl

2 2

Inkscape Filter Tutorial
by Tavmjong Bah 19 Sep '15

19 Sep '15

Hi, I've finished both parts of my Inkcape filter tutorial. The parts can be found at: http://tavmjong.free.fr/blog/?p=1451 http://tavmjong.free.fr/blog/?p=1516 Tav

4 7

add 5 px to stroke width context in style indicator
by Brynn 19 Sep '15

19 Sep '15

Hi Friends, I use a 5 px stroke width often, and I also use the context menu for the stroke width in the Style Indicator area. That menu offers widths: 0.1 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 1.5 2 3 4 6 7 8 10 ...... I understand leaving out 9, but I don't understand leaving in 7. But what I don't understand the most, is that 5 is left out. Is there any relatively easy way I can add "5" into my own menu? Thank you very much :-) brynn

2 2

Ctrl + Delete issue for deleting nodes
by Brynn 19 Sep '15

19 Sep '15

Hi Friends, Was there supposed to be a change for Ctrl + Delete in 0.91? I used to use Ctrl + Delete (pre 0.91) to delete a single node, when I did not want to preserve the shape. It essentially would leave a straight segment. Delete alone would try to preserve the shape. Now it seems that Ctrl + Delete does preserve the shape, while just Delete does something in between preserving the original shape and not preserving it. (And it really is not very close to preserving the shape at all. Actually Ctrl + Delete preserves the shape better than just Delete.) Here's the relevant section of the K/M Ref page: https://inkscape.org/en/doc/keys091.html#d0e4087 Attached is a convenient file for testing. The middle smooth node it the one I'm testing on. This is using 0.91, 32-bit (exe installer) on Windows 7, 64-bit. Technically, the following is entirely a separate issue, but somewhat related. In the K/M Ref page, it shows "click + click" to add a new node. However, I think it should technically be "double-click". Click + click with the Node tool simply selects the 2 nodes on either side of the mouse. It takes a real double-click to add a node. (This has to do with the speed of clicking.) It does say "double-click" in the fine print, but I think the bold print should say "double-click". I'll be glad to write up bug reports for either or both of these, if they are indeed bugs. Thank you very much :-) brynn

3 7

Re: [Inkscape-user] Choosing an Open Font for Inkscape "Draw Freely".
by Susan Spencer 18 Sep '15

18 Sep '15

My vote is #54 Mrs Shephards, because it looks great with the Inkscape icon. http://www.opendesignstudio.org/inkscape/samples/draw_freely_font_list.html… - Susan

2 1

The Story of Tommy Trimble - animated Inkscape SVG's
by Phil Shapiro 17 Sep '15

17 Sep '15

For those who might be interested, I've uploaded to YouTube a narrated and animated children's story I wrote -- The Story of Tommy Trimble. I hired an illustrator and animator to draw the graphics using Inkscape and animate the SVG's using the Animatron.com web site -- which is in some ways a "primitive Adobe After Effects/Adobe Flash." Here is the video. https://youtu.be/JdYINJp64XA I'm delighted with how this turned out. And here is a short screencast from the animator, Taylor Jansen, explaining some of the process she used to bring the SVG's to life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQCAMtcQXew Thanks for sharing these links with any youth or adults you know who are interested in using Inkscape for drawing animated stories. In some ways, the animations from Animatron.com look like Jib Jab animations -- at least to my eye. I don't know the folks who created Animatron.com, but I'm very grateful they created this neat web creative tool. You can follow them on Twitter, too, at https://twitter.com/animatron Phil Shapiro Washington DC For some of my other animated children's stories, see -- The Great Ping Pong Ball Experiment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCFMM95XJMg (created using Adobe Flash) An Ordinary Mother https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4reitjBTlI (created using Adobe Flash) -- Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@...2324... http://www.his.com/pshapiro/briefbio.html http://www.twitter.com/philshapiro http://www.his.com/pshapiro/stories.menu.html "Wisdom begins with wonder." - Socrates "Learning happens thru gentleness."

1 0

Reminder about writing a tutorial for Inkscape filters
by Shlomi Fish 12 Sep '15

12 Sep '15

Hi Tavmjong, you wrote on inkscape-user: > On Mon, 2015-08-03 at 17:11 -0600, Brynn wrote: > > Hi Friends, > > For a long time I've been trying to learn how to create new > > Inkscape filters. I mean starting from scratch, not just building on > > existing filters. I've been able to do some very simple things, but my > > efforts usually devolve into one at a time, trying every option available. > > By sheer chance, I sometimes end up with something that might be useful. > > It would be so very helpful if someone could write a guide, which > > explains the basic concepts. I think I've finally managed to work out how > > the Filters Editor works. But I'm missing the basic concepts which would > > help me make decisions about 'what to do next'. > > I have contacted people who I know have created filters, who know > > how to do it, but without success in finding the info needed. And I > > thought about adding this to the Community To-Do List page. It's a lot > > like the need for a guide to writing extensions, I guess. But for some > > reason, it seems to me like more of a request for a tutorial, and that's > > not exactly what that page is for (I don't think). Although if it seems to > > the website team like it's appropriate, I can see to adding it there. > > But otherwise, I thought I'd just make a request to the user > > community. Can anyone either volunteer to write such a tutorial? Or > > otherwise point me (and everyone) to some resources for learning how? > > > > Thank you very much :-) > > Some time ago I started a blog post on how designing a "fabric" filter > effect but never finished it. If you can remind me in a couple of weeks > I can try to get it finished (I'm on vacation at the moment). > > Tav > So this is a reminder for you to do it, per your request. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ Interview with Ben Collins-Sussman - http://shlom.in/sussman Larry Wall can understand the Perl code he wrote last year. Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .

3 7

Creating a book cover.
by John Culleton 04 Sep '15

04 Sep '15

There are lots of topics I need education on in this task but let me start at the end and work backward. I will import a file into Scribus and produce a file in pdf x/1a:2001 format using a particular icc profile that limits ink coverage particularly in rich black situations. Now considering all the objectives, cmyk presentation of colors being paramount, what file format is optimal being saved from Inkscape 0.91 and imported into Scribus 1.5.0. I see three candidates: svg, pdf, and tiff. I'll be asking a similar question on the Scribus list. Many of the gurus on the lists are fluent in both programs. -- John Culleton Wexford Press Book layout, typesetting and Indexing Free list of books for self-publishers: http://wexfordpress.net/shortlist.html

3 3