Former AI Users - How do you save for the web?
I have a question for Inkscape users coming from Adobe Illustrator. How have you rebuilt your "Save For Web" workflow in Inkscape? Reading through the mailing lists I've come up with my own (incomplete) solution, and I'd like to see how I can improve it.
I've only recently - since the 0.44 release - started using Inkscape (I was waiting for the layers pallet.) Once I got the hang of the export bitmap dialog box, I was pretty happy. Currently I have a layer on top of my full page mockup called "export" (which could just as easily be called "slices"). On that layer I have a set of unfilled, unstroked rectangles. Each rectangle has the id set to a unique name (header_bg, button_bg, etc.) and when I need to export a .png to be referenced by my .css file, I select the rectangle choose File->Export Bitmap, click the Selection tab, and export the selection out at 90 dpi. All is well.
But sometimes - typically after I've had sign-off on a full page illustration, but before I've started my HTML mockup - I need to export all the selection rectangles at once, and I haven't really found a way in Inkscape to do this. From the mailing lists I know that there was an extension (SVGslice) that exported slices and html, but I'm having trouble running it on XP, and don't really need the .html anyway.
In the future, as browser support improves, I'd also like to be able to export individual .svg objects that would be referenced by the .css or .html files. Again, the mailing lists have been helpful with suggestions on how to keep libraries of individual .svg resources and import them into one file (e.g. import character illustrations into a comic strip), but our workflow goes the other way.
In our department we use AI, and now Inkscape, to design web application UI/UE. First we create a series of sketches, developing the UI elements in the context of the full page to the point where we have a tight, accurate illustration that gets final approval. Then we create a mockup with .html, .css and .png files that is developed into a series of prototypes until the final template files are delivered to the software engineers.
Our sketches-illustrations-mockups-prototypes-templates thing works pretty well, but I feel like I'm pushing it when I try bring Inkscape into the workflow. Inkscape is great with a create-one-from-one workflow, but mine is really a create-many-from-one workflow. So I'm not sure if I'm asking the tool to do something (save multiple selections as bitmaps to a directory of my choosing, and warn me if I'm overwriting an existing file) that it was never intended to do.
Just to cover my bases, I know that I could export out a bitmap of the full page illustration and then cut it up in The Gimp, or use ImageMagik, but that's one of the (many, many) reasons why I've soured on Adobe's tools in the first place. Having to launch big apps to do simple (To me, anyway. I'll understand if what I've described above is actually complicated to code.) tasks.
So, thanks for reading this far. I'm just one data point, but I'll bet there are other disgruntled AI users who are looking at Inkscape that realizing, "Hey, I *can* use this in production!" Especially those of us who are really focused on eventually delivering .svg assets.
So to those AI users: How have you rebuilt your "Save For Web" workflow in Inkscape?
On 8/26/06, A. B. Schmidt <abschmidt@...155...> wrote:
I've only recently - since the 0.44 release - started using Inkscape (I was waiting for the layers pallet.) Once I got the hang of the export bitmap dialog box, I was pretty happy. Currently I have a layer on top of my full page mockup called "export" (which could just as easily be called "slices"). On that layer I have a set of unfilled, unstroked rectangles. Each rectangle has the id set to a unique name (header_bg, button_bg, etc.) and when I need to export a .png to be referenced by my .css file, I select the rectangle choose File->Export Bitmap, click the Selection tab, and export the selection out at 90 dpi. All is well.
That's exactly what I use, too.
But sometimes - typically after I've had sign-off on a full page illustration, but before I've started my HTML mockup - I need to export all the selection rectangles at once, and I haven't really found a way in Inkscape to do this. From the mailing lists I know that there was an extension (SVGslice) that exported slices and html, but I'm having trouble running it on XP, and don't really need the .html anyway.
Well, in my case there's rarely more than a couple dozen export areas, and it's easy to switch to "Export" layer and repeat "press Tab, click Export" sequence that many times. You don't really need to think or watch anything when you're doing this: Tab is guaranteed to traverse all objects in the current layer ("Export"), and the Export dialog fills in the export filename for each rectangle automatically. So it's done very quickly, and I don't see the need to automate it further if I have to do it a couple times maximum.
However, if my file has many dozens of export areas (e.g. a large icon collection), or if I need to export them all often, then I would write a script or batch file for automated export. All that is needed for this is the list of all IDs in the Export layer. Then for each ID I add a command:
inkscape --export-id=ID -t document.svg
Then I just run this batch file to export everything at once.
See http://www.inkscape.org/doc/inkscape-man.html for details on command line parameters.
In the future, as browser support improves, I'd also like to be able to export individual .svg objects that would be referenced by the .css or .html files.
And we will need to add another export hint stored for each exported object: not only filename and resolution but also export format.
not sure if I'm asking the tool to do something (save multiple selections as bitmaps to a directory of my choosing, and warn me if I'm overwriting an existing file) that it was never intended to do.
Certainly this is something Inkscape should be able to do. The batch file solution works for me, but if someone can do a more GUI-based and user-friendly solution for this, it would be nice. This has already been proposed, we just need a volunteer to take this on.
On Aug 26, 2006, at 3:31 PM, bulia byak wrote:
Well, in my case there's rarely more than a couple dozen export areas, and it's easy to switch to "Export" layer and repeat "press Tab, click Export" sequence that many times.
Tabbing through the export layer is the tip I was looking for. And then I found it yesterday in the Tutorials too. So thanks twice for the help.
See http://www.inkscape.org/doc/inkscape-man.html for details on command line parameters.
And for the man page link. We do a lot of more-of-same image processing when we're in maintenance, so command line automation will really help.
but if someone can do a more GUI-based and user-friendly solution for this, it would be nice. This has already been proposed, we just need a volunteer to take this on.
As a non-programmer, I'd be happy to describe/mockup a proposal - if that's what you mean by volunteer - but I don't think working on the command line is such a big deal, so I'm not sure what the real priority of this is.
And as far as volunteering goes, I'm trying to figure out where the useful housekeeping is. There must be some near term cleanup tasks that aren't coding. Then I'd get to feature requests.
participants (2)
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A. B. Schmidt -
bulia byak