- Inkscape Users - Inkscape Mailman

Introduction - and help!
by Phil Hendry 15 Dec '06

15 Dec '06

Hello folks, My name's Phil. I'm a 'house-husband' these days, though until June I was a low-temperature physicist, working in the research labs at Lancaster University. My wife and I had this long-term agreement that when she got promoted to Professor, I would 'retire', run the household, look after the kids, etc. And lo and behold, she did, so I did! Best move I ever made! When I'm not cooking, cleaning, washing or acting as the kids' taxi service, I'm involved in a variety of projects for a variety of people requiring me to produce drawing and lay out pages. Page layout is almost all done in Indesign CS2, but, since switching from PC to Mac I've (thus far) dismally failed to find a drawing package that doesn't try to fight back. I'm a fairly recent (autumn 05) switcher from PC to Mac (dual 2GHz PowerMac). There's only one thing about my PC which I miss, and that's Xara (I used Xara right from it being called 'Xara Studio' up to the name change to 'Xara Xtreme'). Xara Ltd are (or were?) supposed to be sponsoring an open source version of Xtreme to run on the Mac, but there doesn't seem to be any progress - I suspect that the advent of Macs which can run Windows has removed some/most of the impetus behind this. The only thing I don't like about my Mac is the lack of a decent, usable, drawing package. I don't want to change to an Intel Mac (yet), and even if/when I do, I really don't want to run Windows on it - I started using a Mac to get away from Windows (sorry, to any/all the Windows fans here - I just got fed up with it!)! So I want a drawing package that runs under OS X. Illustrator is so clunky it's untrue - I *can* use it, but fighting it to get it to do what I want robs me of all my creativity; Canvas X is a bug-fest; Eazydraw doesn't have enough features and is too 'eazy'; etc; etc. I've just downloaded the X11 version of Inkscape. So far so good but... The text on things like rulers is so tiny that I can't read it. Is there any way to make it bigger? I've trawled through the document setup and preferences and can't find a way to do it. At the moment it makes using it *almost* impossible. My screen isn't exactly huge, but neither is it tiny - it's an Apple 20" Cinema Display. The 'tooltips' appear under the Dock (which I usually keep on the LHS of the screen), unless I undock the toolbar, in which case the tooltips appear *under* the toolbar: AARRGGHH!!! Either way, they're unreadable. Probably won't matter once I get the hang of the package, but for a newbie, it's a PITA! The size of objects seem to change as one changes the thickness of their outline - seems odd to me - it makes aligning things a bit 'hit and miss' if you then go back and edit them later. Admittedly, Xara had a similar (but not identical) issue - it's the one and only area where I think Illustrator is superior. Thanks, Phil I used to earn a living, now I have a life!

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Inkscape and GPU
by Karol Krenski 14 Dec '06

14 Dec '06

Hi list, Does inkscape depend of how fast my GPU is? From what I understand GPU allows for hardware matrix/vector calculations and vector graphics is all about those. But does inkscape use the GPU or does it use CPU rather? I heard Macromedia Flash depends on GPU. Karol

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Re: [Inkscape-user] Questionnaire on Inkscape and Gimp
by ilya y. rostovtsev 13 Dec '06

13 Dec '06

> Hmmm... if his perspective really is anti-oss, well it sucks for him > that I didn't read that paragraph. I could care less when it comes to > anonymous surveys and what they use them for... so I skipped all the > "wordy" junk at the beginning and just filled it out truthfully. > > Honestly, if he is anti-OSS, I find this to be a bizarre place to ask. > It's almost like going to a church and asking people if they believe in > God or not. They're probably there for a reason. :) > > -Josh It would be more accurate to say that he went into a church, and asked people to fill out a survey that hopes to prove that there is no God. The survey is terribly written: it doesn't account for individual graphic artist work against a set team of graphical developers. I do not know of an Open-Source equivalent to Adobe bridge (which I haven't used in a multi-user environment), so I suppose a point can be made against OSS provisions for large-scale work (e.g. vector design -> color/texture providers -> layout implementation -> content management of some sort) at present. However, for single-man jobs, it has been me experience with OSS user base that they are, quite simply, more aware of extended abilities of the software toolset in their disposal than most users of "well locked up" proprietary stuff. Naturally, the preceeding argument is made about college kids doing web-design. When it comes to digital artists of highest caliber, there is no question that their experitise would be honorable regardless of which package they choose for themselves. I'm definitely interested in seeing the results of the survey, mostly due to the fact that no single good conclusion can come out of it. The "practical exercise" section of the questionaire is a complete joke that ought to take less than 30 seconds to finish INCLUDING the loading times of GIMP splash screen and initial "deep thought" phase of Inkscape. Last question: am I the only one of the opinion that most if not all OSS, graphic or not, has better documentation given out for free than most of the fancy (read: expensive) packages provide for extra dough? -ilya.

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Re: [Inkscape-user] Questionnaire on Inkscape and Gimp
by Flachland Tapir 13 Dec '06

13 Dec '06

I am trying to answer some severe critics from bryce and mental on my questionnaire: 1. For getting a larger sample size, be sure that I am posting my questionnaire not only on an Inkscape mailing list but also eg in an Adobe forum. 2. I didn't take Scribus, because its targeting mostly people active in print 3. its "just" a survey for my master thesis and it would go beyond the scope to consider all proprietary and OS packages available. 4. science is always distorted and subjective! 5. the questionnaire is only a part for verifying my thesis, I will also use other research methods for getting answers. 6. I am further using ISO 9126, the standard for software testing 7. I am not changing my hypothesis, I am changing the text on the website to sound more neutral! fltp -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Questionnaire on Inkscape and Gimp
by Flachland Tapir 13 Dec '06

13 Dec '06

Hi volks, Where else should I go if not here? To find out about the professionalism of Inkscape and Gimp I have started a research project called "OpenSource graphics software in the creative media sector". It would make me happy if you spend a few moments to fill in the questionnaire. You find all you need to know at: members.kabsi.at/amiga tanks a lot fltp -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Inkscape-user] Questionnaire on Inkscape and Gimp
by Flachland Tapir 13 Dec '06

13 Dec '06

A research under a scientific aspect has to set up a hypothesis and verify it. I don't know if the answer to my hypothesis will be yes or no, so one shouldn't derive that I am for or against OS. To let you know, I am a great supporter of OS and so it came to my mind as a professional user of graphics software why programs like Inkscape and Gimp are not widely in use compared to e.g. Photoshop or Illustrator! So how would it sound to you if the hypothesis claims: "Inkscape is mature for a professional workflow, so it isn't widespread and this is because it's free"! Anyway, I am glad to get feedback!!! It is hard to stay neutral on that matter, and I'll try to rephrase my question in the survey. My opinion is that this is because the software isn't mature, what doesn't mean that I am against Open Source. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Gary <pajer@...1943...> > To: "Inkscape User Community" <inkscape-user(a)lists.sourceforge.net> > Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] Questionnaire on Inkscape and Gimp > Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:27:43 -0500 > > > Bryce Harrington wrote: > > On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 09:59:16PM +0100, Flachland Tapir wrote: > > > >> Hi volks, Where else should I go if not here? To find out about > >> the professionalism of Inkscape and Gimp I have started a > >> research project called "OpenSource graphics software in the > >> creative media sector". It would make me happy if you spend a > >> few moments to fill in the questionnaire. You find all you need > >> to know at: > > > > On your webpage you state the purpose of this survey is to prove: "I > > claim that the application in a professional workflow isn't mature > > compared to proprietary software used in the CMS. The effort for > > maintaining OSGS exceeds the costs & benefits you could save when using > > free software." > > > > Since your purpose is anti-Open Source, there seems little reason to > > help you. > > > That's not how I read it. He might be supportive of OS software, and is > trying to find out why its not more pervasive. In any event, wouldn't > you(we) want to know where and why our OS initiatives fall short? I > admit I'd feel more comfortable if I had some assurance that he's making > at least an attempt at being neutral. > > Bryce > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT > > Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your > > opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash > > http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV > > _______________________________________________ > > Inkscape-user mailing list > > Inkscape-user(a)lists.sourceforge.net > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-user > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT > Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your > opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash > http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV > _______________________________________________ > Inkscape-user mailing list > Inkscape-user(a)lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-user > -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Inkscape-user] [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape site slow?
by Bryce Harrington 12 Dec '06

12 Dec '06

On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 12:26:44PM -0800, John Bintz wrote: > Bryce Harrington said: > > Thanks. Next let's try upgrading apache. I notice some issues with > > non-exiting child processes, which seems weird and is probably what's > > resulting in the slowness. Should take a couple hours; I'll let you > > know when the upgrade is complete. > > I don't know much about the config for the Inkscape server, but are you > using Alternative PHP Cache along with PHP 5.1.4? I've managed to kill > APC on really busy servers in such a way that the child processes never > exit, eventually using up all of the MaxServers. I don't think we're using that cache (how would you tell?), but we do have php 5.1.4 installed. I'll try upgrading it to 5.1.8. Thanks, Bryce

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Inkscape web site still slow
by Lars Behrens 12 Dec '06

12 Dec '06

Hi Bryce, the Inkscape site is still or again slow/unreachable. Just wanted to let you know, as you requested. Cheerz Lars

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Inkscape site slow?
by Jasper van de Gronde 12 Dec '06

12 Dec '06

Is it just me or do other people also experience rediculous load times for the Inkscape site? (homepage and Wiki main page, I didn't dare go any further) With rediculous I mean something like a minute, or even several minutes.

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Boolean intersection of bitmap and vector shape?
by Richard Querin 12 Dec '06

12 Dec '06

Is there some way to import a bitmap into Inkscape and then trim the bitmap to match some arbitrarily drawn shape? I've tried doing a boolean 'intersection' between an imported bitmap and a closed curve object I've created to no avail. Do I have to trace the bitmap first? Any hints or tips how best to do it would be greatly appreciated. BTW, I'm experimenting with screencasting and have created a quick Inkscape screencast to try it out: ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfMDIK4uvV8)

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