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ANNOUNCE Scribus 1.2 Released
by Atlantic Tech Solutions 29 Aug '04

29 Aug '04

The Scribus Team is pleased to announce the release of Scribus 1.2 - Open Source Desktop Publishing. The 1.2 release is the culmination of over 1 year of hard work since last year's 1.0 release. The Scribus team urges all users and distros to use this latest release. The Scribus Team is also proud to announce the first commercial implementation of Scribus for commercial newspaper production. Last month, the premier issue of Twin Tier Times, a US weekly newspaper was launched using a production workflow centered on Scribus and other Open Source applications including GIMP 2.0, Inkscape and others. Among the major changes and features in 1.2 since the release of Version 1.0: * A new EPS/PS importer, which can import EPS and PS files as vector or postscript outlines, which can then be edited as native Scribus objects. * A dedicated documentation site, http://docs.scribus.net has been implemented. There are French and German translations in progress. * Over 800 bug reports and user feature requests have been squashed. * Scribus now features a New from/ Save as Template plug-in, which enables end users to quickly generate preformatted documents. This is useful for both first time users, as well as experts. * The Scribus GUI is now translated into 27 languages. * Scribus 1.2 features new print previewer which has the ability to render CMYK separations on screen, transparency, UCR (Under Color Removal) to give users a true postscript generated preview of the page. * A new table feature to create basic tables within Scribus. * Many enhancements to text frames including multi-columned text, baseline grids, new contour options, tabs and drop caps. * Several new plug-ins for exporting documents as images, as well as special typography plug-ins for Czech, French and other languages. Scribus was chosen by Trolltech as one of their "Cool Applications". We on the Scribus Team are honored to be recognized as such and appreciate the recognition. The Scribus Team will present the first public demo at KDE Community World Summit 2004 "aKademy" 21-29 August, 2004 Ludwigsburg (Stuttgart Region), Germany. Enjoy!

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Producing SVG input for Inkscape
by Bill Peel 28 Aug '04

28 Aug '04

Perhaps everyone knows about this already but I have found the free potrace program very useful for tracing bitmap line-art into svg format. The resulting svg file can then be imported into Inkscape for further manipulation. I have also produced diagrams using various LaTeX drawing macro packages in eps format, converted them to pbm format using Ghostscript and then to svg using potrace. This could be a way of converting suitable public domain clipart from bitmap format into svg format for use with Inkscape. Thanks Bill Peel

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wireframe view
by Aewyn 26 Aug '04

26 Aug '04

Hello, Working with lot's of semi transparent objects I ran a serious problem. I can't select an object underlaying objects, bacause at this moment the object upper is selected. I can use tab to switch objects, but working with 100 object, it is impossible. So it would be nice a view "wireframe", with possibility border selecting. It is useful anyhow, because finding a trasparent object can be a challenge sometimes. --- Draft view would be nice too, because the work very-very slow with lots of semi-transparent / gradient objects. --- And layers. It is absolut necessary. I know U are working on it, so it is just a sign on it. Thanks, Aewyn

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Linux Format UK Article
by Plinnell 18 Aug '04

18 Aug '04

Hi all, I wanted to let you know the Sept issue Linux Format UK has published a very nice review of Linux drawing applications, as well as a short tutorial for both Inkscape and Scribus. Inkscape 0.38 got 8/10 overall and tied with OO draw to top honors. Overall a very positive review. Ease of use got 9/10. Many of the comments on missing features are already in 0.39 or are on the 0.40 roadmap. Summing up, they said: "The future of Inkscape looks bright, especially if planned cooperation with Scribus and the GIMP comes to fruition, which would finally realise the concept of a full-spec graphics suite to Linux....The crucial omissions are support for PDF and EPS formats, though getting around this is not too onerous with a little help from Scribus." If it is available locally it might be worth getting. Enjoy, Peter

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No fonts
by John Mellor 16 Aug '04

16 Aug '04

After much struggle with freetype problems I have inkscape appearing to work apart from nothing in the font dialog and nothing when I type text. Here is the error: mellor@...189...:~$ inkscape ** (inkscape:10799): CRITICAL **: file pango-fontmap.c: line 102 (pango_font_map_list_families): assertion `fontmap != NULL' failed ** (inkscape:10799): CRITICAL **: file pango-fontmap.c: line 83 (pango_font_map_load_font): assertion `fontmap != NULL' failed ** (inkscape:10799): CRITICAL **: file pango-fontmap.c: line 83 (pango_font_map_load_font): assertion `fontmap != NULL' failed I cannot find the file pango-fontmap.c. Sodipodi appears to use gnome-fontface.c for the fonts. I have pango installed, but I have a vague feeling this might be a gtk2 problem. I am using gtk+2-2.2.4 in Slackware 9.1. Can anyone help please?

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Preserving transparency
by Adam Pearson 15 Aug '04

15 Aug '04

Hi all Showing my ignorance here, but what is the best way of obtaining a .jpg file from a .svg file done in Inkcape, while preserving transparencies and true colours? I am having a bit of a bother doing this - saving as .svg or .png then opening in Illustrator, Photoshop, Fireworks ... doesn't preserve the integrity of the original. I want a .jpg for web use - not everyone can read .svg, can they? And .png files are rather large? Any comments will be very welcome ... Regards from Adam in Oz

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textFlow Example
by Jon Phillips 13 Aug '04

13 Aug '04

I made a full page letter overview of inkscape using the new textFlow features. I wrote it in a text editor. Once a UI is done for this feature, the usefulness of inkscape is going to scale incredibly!!! http://www.inkscape.org/doc/index.php I also split the documentation into user and developer on the website and updated the news. Jon -- Jon Phillips USA.PH.858.361.2811 jon@...87... http://www.rejon.org Inkscape (http://inkscape.org) Open Clip Art Library (www.openclipart.org) CVS Book (http://cvsbook.ucsd.edu/) Scale Journal (http://scale.ucsd.edu/)

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Linux Format Article (fwd)
by Bryce Harrington 07 Aug '04

07 Aug '04

FYI - there's an article in 'Linux Format' magazine comparing different vector graphics apps, and Inkscape got a good review. Bryce ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 10:50:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...69...> To: Alan Horkan <horkana@...3...> Cc: Ted Gould <ted@...10...>, Inkscape Devel List <inkscape-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net> Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Linux Format Article On Sat, 7 Aug 2004, Alan Horkan wrote: > You might not like me much for telling you this right after you bought > issue 56 but issue 57 has a comparison of various Vector Graphics software > incuding Inkscape and another Inkscape tutorial. At ~12 Euro I am again > Inkscape got 8/10, as did OpenOffice.org Draw. > > It annoys me no end that these reviewers do not contact the development > team and provide direct feedback, but I guess if you want to cater to the > market you have to hunt down the reviews and address their complaints to > get better reviews in future. I'm going to write to the editors and ask > them to provide direct feedback. I got a chance to see the article too, and was quite pleased with what it said. Some quotes: "Last month we took our first look at Inkscape, the latest open source graphics tool to sweep the Linux desktop marketplace. IS fills a long-standing void in this area: vector illustration." "Inkscape gains prominence over its progenitor by dint of its superior interface and the pace of development that the coding team has established. This is especially remarkable when you consider the group has only been active on the project for seven months." "It installed without issue on everything we tried." "Crucially, Inkscape has the most comprehensive set of 'path' tools for cutting, combining and generally mangling shapes, and this does lift it above the rest of these apps quite significantly." Verdict: "A young, but very promising application that has the potential to outclass the other apps reviewed here. Definitely one to watch for future improvements." "This is really a two-horse race." [While OODraw has numerically more features...] "For more design-intensive tasks, Inkscape is the surprising winner... They have a lot to do, and they need the support (both moral and financial) to keep on keeping on." They really liked the usability, node editing, interactive editing of primitive shapes, toolbar layout "in the traditional fashion", boolean operations, and the calligraphic pen. There were several things they suggested needed work: EPS/PDF support, text-on-path, a better way for naming and managing gradients, expanded functionality with the calligraphic tool (i.e., more nibs). The scorechart showed: Features: 7/10 Ease of Use: 9/10 Documentation: 6/10 Performance: 8/10 -------------------- Rating 8/10 The review had been on 0.38, so I think they're going to be pleased to see 0.39, and it looks like 0.40 is going to satisfy at least half the things on their wishlist. I think we can do better on performance, and it looks like there's a lot of gain to be had from better docs (Sodipodi rated a 0/10 in documentation in the article, so we've already come a _long_ way.) I think this was an extremely good article for Inkscape. I was surprised to see us rank so high compared with OODraw; OODraw has a lot more features than Inkscape, so since Inkscape and OODraw were tied score-wise, that means we're winning because of better intrinsics and usability, rather than simply on feature lists, and that's a very good sign. Bryce

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Re: [Inkscape-devel] Blogs and RSS feeds
by unknown＠example.com 06 Aug '04

06 Aug '04

When reading the wiki page about synchronization between inkscape and scribus, the idea that I find the most interesting is the opportunity of providing a creation/edition set of software providing different capabilities but sharing interoperability standards (file format/vocabulary/look'n'feel...) some ideas : creation.freedesktop.org editors.freedesktop.org -> you get the idea. Sorry but I can't find THE appropriate word in English Regards, Matiphas

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Blogs and RSS feeds
by Jon Phillips 06 Aug '04

06 Aug '04

Ted had a great idea to create the equivalent site for graphics development in Open Source like Planet Gnome is for the Gnome community. Thus, I'm running with this idea to see whom would be interested in such a community. I have asked freedesktop.org if they would support this blog, and they said yes. Ted, Bryce and I discussed names for the project and subdomains and like lab.freedesktop.org (linux art blog). The site basically would be a basic RSS Aggregrator and thus, we need your RSS feeds for your blogs and project news. Before I set anything up, I wanted to see if the interest is out there and if people already have RSS feeds. The general idea of this site would be to start communication between graphics development communites. This would include basically Inkscape, GIMP, Scribus, Cairo, etc. project blogs, but most importantly the individual developers blogs. The first step to sharing standards and ideas is to start this informal overlap and see what happens. This will also serve as a nice introduction for new developers and some users about to jump into the role of developer. Thoughts and suggestions would be wise. If anyone is interested, lets discuss this on the inkscape mailing list and once enough responses are collected, then I will setup necessary infrastructure (mailing list and site) to facilitate this news site. Thoughts? Thx Jon -- Jon Phillips USA.PH.858.361.2811 jon@...87... http://www.rejon.org Inkscape (http://inkscape.org) Open Clip Art Library (www.openclipart.org) CVS Book (http://cvsbook.ucsd.edu/) Scale Journal (http://scale.ucsd.edu/)

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