On Thu, Jun 02, 2005 at 05:39:48AM -0500, Justace Clutter wrote:

So...

I did some searching to see if there have been other users out there who have done some flowcharting in Inkscape. I have seen a few pages that mention the openclipart project has clipart symbols, but none that talk about inkscape doing this. I know that this is not the premise of inkscape but I thought that I would see if there is anybody who have had experiance in trying to do this. Is there anybody who has and if so can you give me any pointers as to how you accomplished this in a timely fashion. Notably I would like to know how to get that text in the symbols done correctly. I tried all sorts of stuff. I did do the text flow and used the XML to edit it and the <CNTL>-<SHIFT>-V trick to past text style. Anyway, any comments would be cool. Thanks in advance.

Justace

P.S. Wouldn't you agree that a flow chart from Inkscape would just look so super cool...

Hi Justace,

Yeah, in fact flowcharting and diagramming is probably my #1 use for Inkscape (I'm a horrible artist!)

As a general rule, Inkscape isn't very powerful for doing flow charting or diagramming. Proprietary technical drawing tools like Visio kick its ass pretty handily.

However, if you've foresworn all things Microsoftian, that puts you at a bit of an impass, because while there are Open Source technical drawing tools (dia, OO Draw, xfig), they leave much to be desired. For example, dia is quite convenient to use, but it's a bit of a challenge to get diagrams to "look perfect". I've found that dia is fine for doing flow charts for internal use if you're just trying to document some software design for your team, but if it's something you want to publish, it's hard to get it to look "just right".

Inkscape is sort of at the opposite point. You have all the freedom in the world to get the diagram to look just right, but creating diagrams in it requires much more manual effort than you're used to. E.g., lines don't link to objects, text flow in objects isn't quite right, arrowheads are hard to size and color correctly, snapping takes some skill to set up right, etc. Once you get really comfortable with using Inkscape's drawing features, you learn tricks and techniques that allow you to do all this faster, but it still leaves much to be desired...

In an ideal world, all graphics tools would support perfect SVG input and output, so I could do my diagramming in dia, then when it looks right, bring it over to Inkscape to clean it up more, going back and forth between dia and Inkscape as much as needed, without any loss. In the real world, you're in for some hurt if you try this. ;-)

I tend to always use Inkscape for my drawings. Yes, I'm extremely biased. :-) But, I figure that at least this way it's going to be in good SVG, so my drawings will work in more alternate programs than if I was using the Dia or OO Draw formats (which are unique to those programs afaik). As well, it ensures that if I do need to put the diagram onto a web page or into a paper, I'm going to have a good chance of making it look good.

Anyway, I have faith that if those of us with interest in Inkscape as a technical drawing tool combine forces, the effort of bringing it up to snuff should be quite achievable. A large portion of the work involves coding, however for those who don't code there's some things that can be done to help move the ball forward:

a) Create a richer collection of technical drawing symbols in the Open Clip Art Library b) Lobby for better SVG input/export in other FOSS graphics tools c) Suggest ways to tweak and improve workflow of existing Inkscape features when doing technical drawing d) Do feature comparisons of Inkscape (and other FOSS gfx tools) with proprietary gfx tools, and make sure those features are listed in the feature requests. e) Create scripts/extensions for Inkscape to implement minor tech drawing features f) Learn C++, roll up your sleeves, and help us add features :-)

Bryce