Hey all,
It seems like a good time to discuss non-programming related items given the icon conversation. I figure we can get some thoughts out on the list and work from there. Basically, let's try and free the people who program from the tasks that the rest of us can do. ;) It's common for people to say "well if I could program I'd...", well, if you can't, but want more programming done on inkscape... here's your chance!
The website: Realistically, we should probably have 2 or 3 volunteers that will agree to submit at least 1 news item per month. Bryce shouldn't be the only one. ;) It seems like it should be a fairly minimal commitment.
I'm willing to fill one of those spots myself. I'll throw together something before the end of the week that talks about the persistent undo history that the MIT students are working on, and link to their page. Bryce, are you even still interested? On top of that, do you have the time? Either way, it is not difficult to find a couple news worthy items per month. Any other takers?
Tutorials: Ryan Lerch and myself started to do some tutorial work for this development cycle a while back. I haven't contributed to this for a couple months as it seemed like there were still a number of changes going on at that point (plus a very busy schedule on my end). Luckily, it appears things are slowing down now on both fronts, so it seems like an opportune time to pick this back up. It's good for us to have more tutorials that focus on using features of inkscape (such as the in-progress clipping/masking/patterns tutorial), rather than tutorials for doing a particular task (easter egg). Do we have any volunteers to help us with tutorial writing/updating?
Current discussion and drafts can be found at: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/TutorialUpdates-0.46
Also, as for tutorial localization and to attempt simplifying our files and the process for translators, I know there was discussion in the past about po2xml. Can anyone enlighten me on if this has change has been done? I've not updated my checkout of the tutorials in quite a while. If not, is this a huge task? Will there be any changes in formatting or the process for tutorial writers?
Screenshots: Okay, do we think that artsy screenshots are in order yet? I have one that utilizes a number of filters, but a key piece of filter rendering is not correct (it's using turbulence). I also have an in-progress one that I'm using some filters on, but more importantly going to town with live path effects. Curve stitching is turning out to be my favorite feature in this dev cycle. :)
The About screen: I just want to follow up on this. I know we're most likely not ready to go for it yet (as there are a number of filter bugs remaining). But I am just wondering if we think we're getting closer. Also, did Jon Phillips want to host this via ocal or create? Or are we going deviantART again? Just want to coordinate.
Bugs & Feature Requests: Another area that generally needs attention is our bug and rfe trackers. It is always a big help if people can go through bug reports & feature requests and try to close duplicates, reproduce bugs, ask for more information where necessary, etc. Unfortunately, people submit items without searching the trackers first, so duplicates are quite common. Also, it's common that people will file a report and the issue is resolved in a development cycle, but they never come back to say that the issue has been fixed for them. Another common issue is anonymous bug reports. These get reported and never followed up on by the original poster as there is no way for us to contact them (these are fairly common to get fixed, but we don't get confirmation from those people). Anyone interested in helping with these that doesn't have access, please let us know.
Thank you all for your time.
-Josh
P.S. Unrelated, is the 3d box tool not going to be activated for the next release?