Quoth Alan Horkan on or about 2004-06-08:
On Sat, 5 Jun 2004, Trent Buck wrote:
FWIW, I think inkscape's UI is already better than AI's.
You said Inkscape is better so I make it a challenge to you to list more ways, and maybe we can start a comparision chart in the Wiki which would be useful for promoting Inkscape.
OK, I'll confess, I haven't used AI for than about half-an-hour, because I couldn't get the hang of the interface. Let me itemize my reasons for using Inkscape.
Bear in mind that these are my *opinions*, not necessarily *right* in a technical sense. I'll put a '+' in front of things that are actually UI.
Inkscape beats AI
+ As a newbie, I found the Inkscape (well, sodipodi) interface to be pretty self-explanatory. Using AI I get the feeling I should take a 3-day course just to learn how to use it. (Maybe this is just because of all the extra features, I don't know.)
It's free. When something happens I can check the source. It is also far easier to add or request features.
It works on linux. Enough said.
The GTK toolkit is relatively clean, customizable and robust.
Inkscape beats Sodipodi
The larger community results in faster growth in all areas.
Boolean operations. Miscellaneous tweaks make Inkscape more comfortable.
Inkscape beats both of them
+ Buttons are around the edge. It has been shown by HCI folks that this is a far better design than the toolkit approach. I forget the name of the rule, but it states that you can click screen corners and edges far faster than, say, 10px in from the edge.
+ Likewise, this means everthing is in one window, which works much better with my windowmanager (http://ratpoison.sf.net).
+ Keybindings for everything. I don't normally even have a rodent plugged into my system, so being able to stay keyboard-centered is a major advantage.
I should also point out that I'm not really an artistic person, my strengths are more oriented in mathematics, english and science. I am a CS student by profession. I mostly use Inkscape when I need an image and there isn't a specialized tool to draw it.
It could well be that I don't see Inkscape's deficiencies because my drawings aren't complicated enough to need them.
-trent