Hi all, I posted this comment on the gnomedesktop.org article about Inkscape and am reposting it here in case none of you read that article.
I've just started using Inkscape and am mighty impressed. The collection of tutorials that comes with the program is great and got me up to speed very quickly.
I have one major stumbling block to using this program in the way that I want to though:
I would like to create vector graphics with Inkscape, then save them to EPS and use those EPS figures in LyX (LaTeX) created documents. Currently (inkscape-0.41-1, lyx-1.3.5-3) I cannot do this with figures that have transparency or gradients. What happens is that EPS exported figures with more than a single layer are completely munged so that a single plane of color is produced. PNG exported are slightly better.
So here's a sort of work around if anyone has the same problem: use Scribus to take the SVG file and export it to PDF or PNG.
I should add to the above that when exporting a multi-layered SVG document to PDF using Inkscape the same problem occurs. However scribus-1.2.1-3 is able to get the layering and gradient fill correct with PNG exports and the layering correct with PDF exports (but not the gradient, even if I choose the Acrobat-5.0 compatibility)
Hope this helps someone out and is useful feedback to the developers whom I must thank again. Oisin Feeley