June 2017 - Inkscape Users - Inkscape Mailman

[Manual] Update
by Maren Hachmann 19 Jun '17

19 Jun '17

Hi Manual folks (and those who want to join us), we have reached a major milestone today: TRANSLATIONS ARE DONE :D 59 of 59 chapters translated! :) The only thing that is left to do for this step is to remove that task from the Community ToDo list on the Inkscape website ;-) (this one: https://inkscape.org/contribute/to-do-list/). I'm going to do that tomorrow. I'm so happy that we're now through with this, and now have a preliminary version available for people to look at. I also would like to thank Sylvain Chiron and Hinerangi Courtenay, who worked on the translations of the first section, for their help with this huge task. What else happened this week? ============================= - brynn's news item about the manual effort has been polished a bit further, reviewed by its author, and was published. You can read it all here now: https://inkscape.org/en/news/2017/06/06/new-inkscape-beginners-manual/ (it has also been translated to four other languages by our website translators' team). - JP, a new team member joined us as a test user on gitlab. JP wants to help by giving us feedback on how the book chapters work for new Inkscape users. - Jabier played a bit with setting up cover images on flossmanuals. - Brynn started proofreading, and has looked over the first three chapters in the second section already :) What's next? ============ The next tasks concern images and proofreading, and can be done in parallel. Images: ------- - pictures that we will keep will need English file names. These are (currently) all pictures that do not contain any (French) text. - pictures that need to be replaced or edited need to be re-made. This concerns all pictures with French text in them. For some, we may get away with just cutting off the French text, and putting its translation next to the image in the book. Others need to be shot again. If you can help with any of the image related tasks, please find more info at https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape-docs/manuals/issues/16 and comment there, so we can organize who does what. Proofreading: ------------- - as you all know, the translator of most of the chapters (me) is not a native English speaker. Also, while I have fixed and updated a lot while translating already, there remain parts in the text that could be rephrased and polished a bit. We need your help with proofreading now. If you are a native English speaker, please comment at one of the section-related issues at gitlab: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape-docs/manuals/issues Current status for taking a peek ================================ The latest alpha version of our work is available for reading at http://write.flossmanuals.net/start-with-inkscape/_draft/_v/2.6/introductio… If you want to join the team, it's not too late - just send a message to the list here, or comment at gitlab, and we can get you set up. Due to the nature of the book, all chapters are very short, so work can be shared easily. Kind Regards, Maren

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Join Us to Discuss Marketing Inkscape
by Ryan Gorley 18 Jun '17

18 Jun '17

If you're interested in volunteering your time and talent to help promote Inkscape, join us on the Freenode #inkscape-devel IRC channel ( https://inkscape.org/en/*developer/chat/), next *Tuesday 20 June @ 20:00 GMT*. This will be an informal meet-and-greet and a chance to take an inventory of who is interested and what experience we can bring together to spread the word about this amazing project. If you can't make it but wish to be involved, don't worry, we'll also organize a follow-up meeting in July. I look forward to meeting you all there! Ryan Gorley @ Dijt <https://dijt.co/>

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Sourceforge confirmation email
by Maren Hachmann 10 Jun '17

10 Jun '17

Hi everyone, please actively look for an email from sourceforge that asks you to confirm your sourceforge mailing list membership(s). They have changed their mailing list policies to make indicating the country of residence of a subscriber mandatory. More info can be found at: https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-project-e-mail-policy-update/ (@doctormo: if you want to extract the things mentioned at https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-project-e-mail-policy-update/ , do it before June 29th - old, inactive mailing lists will be deleted, for example.) Kind Regards, Maren

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background on png
by ToddAndMargo 09 Jun '17

09 Jun '17

Hi All, How do I change the background. I went into properties and changed it to light blue, but when I exported as png, I got a checker board background. What did I do wrong? Many thanks, -T -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Computers are like air conditioners. They malfunction when you open windows ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Inkscape Use Case (Possibly atypical - print & digital for a martial arts association)
by Chris Tooley 08 Jun '17

08 Jun '17

Hello all, I just wanted to chime in to let people know of my use case that might be atypical. I have been volunteering for a non-profit martial arts organisation, the Canadian Iaido Association, for the past 18 years and I use and have used inkscape for a large variety of print & digital graphics for the association. I think I started using Inkscape around 2005 or so - mostly for my own personal pet project images and graphics, but around 2010 or so I started to use Inkscape heavily for the Canadian Iaido Association. Here is a small list of what I've made with Inkscape: 1) Certificates (something to give to students who pass grading as a memento for yearly seminars). This involves Japanese kanji, hiragana, and katakana - along with some raster graphics which were unavoidable. I have used a plugin to add print marks which I then send off to a printer to print - my workflow for this has been working flawlessly for about 3-4 years. I export to PDF with some set values and I get really high quality printed certificates from a local print-shop. I use a unicode Japanese hiragana font I found online and vertical text. I have gotten many comments on how nice the certificates are. 2) Banners: one of which is ~15 feet long with Japanese text, English text, and our Canadian Iaido Association Mon (crest). Each of these was sent to another local printer who printed the graphics directly onto vinyl. We installed some grommets in the banner and we hang it and use it year after year for the seminar. 3) Graphics for our website: http://www.iaido.ca. All graphics on there beyond photos are created with inkscape - please don't judge the website! It was made in 2002! (It should be getting a new redesign in the near-ish future) 4) Tracing and converting an old raster image of the Canadian Iaido Association mon into a vector graphic (Worked great, converted the text to the proper fonts and was able to modify some Japanese kanji when our status in Japan changed) Overall, I highly recommend Inkscape for vector graphics - it has been an utter lifesaver that has allowed us to have professional quality results with zero cost beyond my volunteer time. I want to sincerely thank everyone who is involved in this project. In my opinion it's clearly a shining example of what the open source community can accomplish. Sincerely, Chris Tooley, 6Dan ZNIR (全日本居合道連盟) Secretary Treasurer, Canadian Iaido Association

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An Inkscape Marketing Survey - Please Complete
by Ryan Gorley 07 Jun '17

07 Jun '17

Hello all, We all love Inkscape, and we all would love to see it used by more people. Please help those of us focusing on its marketing do that by identifying *who* you think those people should be and *why*. This survey is short and simple, but please explain your response as thoroughly as you have time. The survey can be found here: https://goo.gl/forms/ReZkSjOMokkaoSln2 Thanks a lot for your involvement! Ryan Gorley @ Dijt <https://dijt.co/>

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how do I draw a donut?
by ToddAndMargo 06 Jun '17

06 Jun '17

Hi All, I am trying to draw a no parking sign. A red circle with width (donut) with a red slash through it. The I will add text of choice ("No Crabby Bosses", etc.). I guess w So far I can draw a solid circle, but I only want the circle to have width. How do I do this? Many thanks, -T -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice. -- Charles Varlet de La Grange ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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gcode tools support lacking
by brynn 06 Jun '17

06 Jun '17

Hi Friends, It's been well over a year since the team who created Inkscape's gcode tools, have answered requests for support in their forum, cnc-club (see link in Extensions menu > Gcodetools > About). There currently are not any users who participate in forums, who understand these tools who are apparently interested in helping. Is there anyone in the community who would be willing to be contacted (in lieu of regularly visiting forums) with questions about the gcode tools, when they come up (which is more and more lately)? Or does anyone know of any resources, such as tutorials? I only know of one...oh great, and I guess I've misplaced the link. But it's fairly limited. (I've even offered to write tutorials for the gcode tools, if the cnc-club forum would collaborate - no answer.) Personally, if the community can't provide support for our own tools, well.... I guess I'd have to start refering users elsewhere, for producing the gcode. Some have already started referring elsewhere (http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=32491) Of course I don't want to do that. But this is a frustrating. Can the development community provide any guidance? Thank you very much, brynn

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last used style
by brynn 01 Jun '17

01 Jun '17

Hi Friends, I've been trying to get my nerve up to ask about this, since I first used Inkscape, 10 years ago. So here goes. Can anyone give me a good reason for having all the tools styles set, by default, to last used style? In 10 years, I have never met, seen, or heard of anyone who needs this feature; while we have to answer this same general problem for newbies over and over and over again. Countless times I've answered these messages. I'll bet I don't even need to give examples, do I? I would guess it's the single biggest stumbling block for newbies. It certainly must be the single most asked question by newbies. At least in forums, and probably LP Answers. I can imagine rare scenarios, where someone might actually use this feature. But if I want an object the exact same style as the one before, I simply duplicate (or copy/paste, or paste style). So it's a mystery to me why last used style should be the default behavior, when we have all these other perfectly suitable features, which don't cause newbies (and those who help them) so many headaches. I understand if we might not want to throw it out the window ((although that's what I would do with it, haha)). But is there any chance we could at least not have it to be the default behavior? When we first download and open Inkscape for the first time, all the tools have a characteristic style. If I recall, it's a pink rectangle, light blue circle, yellow star, and green spiral, with darker tones for the strokes, and all partially transparent. And for Pencil and Pen, I guess it's the black stroke. Could we just keep those styles, but set all the tools for "This tool's own style" instead of "Last used style"? And could we have this the default behavior for when newbies first install Inkscape? Oh, it would save us SO, so much time, those of us who answer newbie questions, day in and day out. I'd be so happy to write up a bug/feature request report for this, if there isn't some serious objection. Thanks for listening, brynn

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