On 8/28/14 6:22 PM, Chris Tooley wrote:

Hi! I don't want this to seem combative - I'm genuinely curious and mean all this in the most friendly of ways possible :)

I'm not taking it in that way at all! LOL And I'm sitting here shaking my head and saying to myself "What is it about these guys/gals that don't understand that time and hard drive space is important to some people?" LMAO

Besides, with luck, conversations like these actually can turn into learning experiences, where we discover new perspectives, information, etc. And I like them, to be honest. :-)

You want JPEG export. I know others that would like Photoshop PSD files. Yet others will want TIFF, or BMP or other esoteric formats. Should Inkscape support them all, or would it be better to export one or two formats and allow the user to use another application to convert to whatever they want?

You missed my point, Mark. Moving to another application to do the conversion takes time. I want to minimize the time I spend, not spend the extra time.

Why do you think JPG is superior to PNG for export?

It's not a question of which one is superior. That will get you into an endless argument. LOL

... heheh

It's a question of which format, of any kind, best suits the needs of the project. Nothing more, nothing less. For the project at hand, we don't need transparency, and we don't need a file as large as PNG files can be.

Wait, "as large as PNG"? How large is the file you are exporting? I've had banner sized images (about 4m) and it ended up only being ~10MB with PNG..? (Granted it was kind of simple but still)

Back up a bit, it's not my file! LOL It's my friend that's doing all this. She's not into newsgroups and mailing lists. :-) Note I said as "large as PNG files can be". Initially this all came about because she couldn't make PNG work, but it appears she was doing something wrong somewhere, and PNG will work for her.

I honestly don't know the file size difference at the moment. It is a banner type graphic, but used for various purposes, possibly banners and window displays. But, she used some special effect/filter to some letters which has to increase the size of the resulting file when rasterized. I can't remember which one, but it's so cool. She works for a gold mine (for real!) and she made the letters in the company logo look somewhat 3D in gold. There's a fade type effect from white to the gold look in the fill of the letters. And now she's experimenting with applying the same effect to other letters, so the resulting file will be even larger.

At least since OS X 10.5 Leopard the default screenshot format has been PNG. Now... If all I do with screenshots is stick them in emails, maybe a document, or send to someone via Skype, why in H*** do I want to waste time and bandwidth sending something with extra features not needed? And what about people with slow internet connections? Do you really think they appreciate sitting on their thumbs waiting for the web page to load PNGs when it would render in their browser as JPGs much faster? And if the viewer wants to download the picture, link it to the PNG file.

H***, one of my neighbors just upgraded from dial up a few months ago.

So I went online and found out how to change the default screenshot file from PNG to JPG. Now my screenshots will be half to 2/3 rds the size of the PNG equivalent.

Plus, others involved in the company, may or may not be able to handle the resulting image if it's a PNG. Not to mention others may never have heard of PNG. :-)

Windows has been able to view PNG images since XP...?

I honestly don't know, but it's not so much the OS as the software the user is using you should consider.

My friend's supervisor does everything in MS Publisher. Get the picture? LOL

What version of publisher is it? Publisher >= version 2000 can import PNG graphics: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/198264 (Publisher 2000 was released in 1999)

It's 2010, I think I mentioned that in another message. As I said, the problem is apparently OE... Operator Error. My Publisher comment was snide, I know there's one bug in the 2007 version that's in the version produced for Windows for Workgroups. when MS sold it as a standalone program. Plus, according to my friend, it's a POS for ease of use compared to Serif's PagePlus X6. FYI, current version is X8.

Actually, what software are you using to import the image? I am very surprised that JPG is the only format it can import.

In the end, we'll have no idea what software will be used by others in her company to view the finished items. And the logo will likely end up on the company servers for anyone to use. I wouldn't be surprised if it was used, with permission, by people outside the company. Ya gotta plan for the lowest common denominator if you don't want to pi$$ people off. <G>

In any case, I think it comes down to this: Inkscape exports to PNG because something like 98% of all graphics software since 2000 can use PNG and import/export to PNG easily.

Secondly, I think implementing JPG export is unnecessary because it adds complexity to the export functionality of Inkscape - there are other tools out there that can already do a fantastic job of compressing JPG images - why does Inkscape need to duplicate functionality? :)

I'd be willing to bet you and most reading this thread have hefty systems when it comes to power, and fast internet connections. So size of the file and time to upload/download probably doesn't affect you that much. But being a user who does not have those things, it is important to me. Both the size of the file, and the time involved in all the steps.

If it's size that matters - then JPG compression has a lot of parameters you can tweak to get a better compression ratio - I would rather do that in GIMP or some other software that has proven it can do it very well than do it in Inkscape.

Lots of options for JPG. And the article my friend found said that with the right source material, a JPG could produce a superior product to PNG. Now, that doesn't make sense to me, it was just stated in the article.

:)

On a side note, it looks like EPS has been supported by publisher since Publisher version 1: (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/76385) unfortunately that link says nothing of PNG :(

EPS has been around for a long time. Even some software on my 16/32 bit Atari computers would support EPS. I think I even have a CD of EPS clipart around here someplace.

Been Skyping with my friend, the effect she used on the letters was glowing metal.