Hello folks,
My name's Phil. I'm a 'house-husband' these days, though until June I was a low-temperature physicist, working in the research labs at Lancaster University. My wife and I had this long-term agreement that when she got promoted to Professor, I would 'retire', run the household, look after the kids, etc. And lo and behold, she did, so I did! Best move I ever made!
When I'm not cooking, cleaning, washing or acting as the kids' taxi service, I'm involved in a variety of projects for a variety of people requiring me to produce drawing and lay out pages. Page layout is almost all done in Indesign CS2, but, since switching from PC to Mac I've (thus far) dismally failed to find a drawing package that doesn't try to fight back.
I'm a fairly recent (autumn 05) switcher from PC to Mac (dual 2GHz PowerMac). There's only one thing about my PC which I miss, and that's Xara (I used Xara right from it being called 'Xara Studio' up to the name change to 'Xara Xtreme'). Xara Ltd are (or were?) supposed to be sponsoring an open source version of Xtreme to run on the Mac, but there doesn't seem to be any progress - I suspect that the advent of Macs which can run Windows has removed some/most of the impetus behind this. The only thing I don't like about my Mac is the lack of a decent, usable, drawing package. I don't want to change to an Intel Mac (yet), and even if/when I do, I really don't want to run Windows on it - I started using a Mac to get away from Windows (sorry, to any/all the Windows fans here - I just got fed up with it!)! So I want a drawing package that runs under OS X.
Illustrator is so clunky it's untrue - I *can* use it, but fighting it to get it to do what I want robs me of all my creativity; Canvas X is a bug-fest; Eazydraw doesn't have enough features and is too 'eazy'; etc; etc.
I've just downloaded the X11 version of Inkscape. So far so good but...
The text on things like rulers is so tiny that I can't read it. Is there any way to make it bigger? I've trawled through the document setup and preferences and can't find a way to do it. At the moment it makes using it *almost* impossible. My screen isn't exactly huge, but neither is it tiny - it's an Apple 20" Cinema Display.
The 'tooltips' appear under the Dock (which I usually keep on the LHS of the screen), unless I undock the toolbar, in which case the tooltips appear *under* the toolbar: AARRGGHH!!! Either way, they're unreadable. Probably won't matter once I get the hang of the package, but for a newbie, it's a PITA!
The size of objects seem to change as one changes the thickness of their outline - seems odd to me - it makes aligning things a bit 'hit and miss' if you then go back and edit them later. Admittedly, Xara had a similar (but not identical) issue - it's the one and only area where I think Illustrator is superior.
Thanks, Phil
I used to earn a living, now I have a life!
Phil Hendry wrote:
The text on things like rulers is so tiny that I can't read it. Is there any way to make it bigger? I've trawled through the document setup and preferences and can't find a way to do it. At the moment it makes using it *almost* impossible. My screen isn't exactly huge, but neither is it tiny - it's an Apple 20" Cinema Display.
This is a difficult one. I think the solution lies not with Inkscape but with your GTK theme. The best lead I can give is to point you to the gtkrc files which may be found somewhere on your system. (I'd give more specifics but I am not a Mac user.)
The 'tooltips' appear under the Dock (which I usually keep on the LHS of the screen), unless I undock the toolbar, in which case the tooltips appear *under* the toolbar: AARRGGHH!!! Either way, they're unreadable. Probably won't matter once I get the hang of the package, but for a newbie, it's a PITA!
Sorry, no clue on this one.
The size of objects seem to change as one changes the thickness of their outline - seems odd to me - it makes aligning things a bit 'hit and miss' if you then go back and edit them later. Admittedly, Xara had a similar (but not identical) issue - it's the one and only area where I think Illustrator is superior.
That is a configurable behavior. There's a button for it on the toolbar when the Selection tool is being used. This might help:
http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Transforms.html
Aaron Spike
On 12/11/06, Aaron Spike <aaron@...476...> wrote:
The size of objects seem to change as one changes the thickness of their outline - seems odd to me - it makes aligning things a bit 'hit and miss' if you then go back and edit them later. Admittedly, Xara had a similar (but not identical) issue - it's the one and only area where I think Illustrator is superior.
That is a configurable behavior. There's a button for it on the toolbar when the Selection tool is being used.
I think the original poster was referring to a different thing - including of stroke into bbox, which we incidentally are discussing right now. It looks more and more evident to me that something needs to be done about that (although I personally have no problem with the current behavior, and curiously I don't remember any complaints on this matter until very recently).
On 11 Dec 2006, at 21:45, bulia byak wrote:
On 12/11/06, Aaron Spike <aaron@...476...> wrote:
The size of objects seem to change as one changes the thickness of their outline - seems odd to me - it makes aligning things a bit 'hit and miss' if you then go back and edit them later. Admittedly, Xara had a similar (but not identical) issue - it's the one and only area where I think Illustrator is superior.
That is a configurable behavior. There's a button for it on the toolbar when the Selection tool is being used.
I think the original poster was referring to a different thing - including of stroke into bbox, which we incidentally are discussing right now. It looks more and more evident to me that something needs to be done about that (although I personally have no problem with the current behavior, and curiously I don't remember any complaints on this matter until very recently).
I don't have a problem with the current behaviour either - now that I know a way around it anyway - though it did seem a bit of a problem until I'd figured out the solution.
Incidentally, is there a way to change the defaults on things like that - Document Properties for instance? I suppose the clunky way to do it is to create a new document, save it under a name like 'default.svg', edit its properties and use that as a 'template' each time one wants to start a new picture. Be nice to be able to change the defaults 'globally' though (or maybe I just haven't found how to do it yet...).
Cheers, Phil
--- Phil Hendry <philip.hendry@...2055...> wrote:
On 11 Dec 2006, at 21:45, bulia byak wrote:
On 12/11/06, Aaron Spike <aaron@...476...> wrote:
The size of objects seem to change as one changes the thickness
of
their outline - seems odd to me - it makes aligning things a bit
'hit and miss' if you then go back and edit them later. Admittedly,
Xara
had a similar (but not identical) issue - it's the one and only
area
where I think Illustrator is superior.
That is a configurable behavior. There's a button for it on the toolbar when the Selection tool is being used.
I think the original poster was referring to a different thing - including of stroke into bbox, which we incidentally are discussing right now. It looks more and more evident to me that something
needs
to be done about that (although I personally have no problem with
the
current behavior, and curiously I don't remember any complaints on this matter until very recently).
I don't have a problem with the current behaviour either - now that I
know a way around it anyway - though it did seem a bit of a problem until I'd figured out the solution.
Incidentally, is there a way to change the defaults on things like that - Document Properties for instance? I suppose the clunky way to
do it is to create a new document, save it under a name like 'default.svg', edit its properties and use that as a 'template' each
time one wants to start a new picture. Be nice to be able to change
the defaults 'globally' though (or maybe I just haven't found how to
do it yet...).
if you look in your home directory for the inkscape install theres a file called default.svg thats what inkscape uses as a template when you hit the new doc button. Load it, change any settings you want to keep, save it. should now apply them to all new docs. Your right tho, a save prefs as defaults button might not be a bad idea.
Cheers
Sim
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if you look in your home directory for the inkscape install theres a file called default.svg thats what inkscape uses as a template when you hit the new doc button. Load it, change any settings you want to keep, save it. should now apply them to all new docs.
Okay, thanks!
Your right tho, a save prefs as defaults button might not be a bad idea.
Or maybe just a menu item under the 'File' menu - it's not something you're likely to use often enough to need a button.
Phil
if you look in your home directory for the inkscape install theres a file called default.svg thats what inkscape uses as a template when you hit the new doc button. Load it, change any settings you want to keep, save it. should now apply them to all new docs.
Okay, managed that. Seems to behave as expected too!
Thanks, Phil
On 12 Dec 2006, at 13:36, Phil Hendry wrote:
if you look in your home directory for the inkscape install theres a file called default.svg thats what inkscape uses as a template when you hit the new doc button. Load it, change any settings you want to keep, save it. should now apply them to all new docs.
Okay, managed that. Seems to behave as expected too!
Oh yes, in case any other 'idiots' (like me!) decide they want to do this...
And assuming use of an Apple single button mouse...
Hold down CTRL and click on the Inkscape icon in the Applications folder to bring up a contextual menu and select 'Show Package Contents'.
This opens up a fresh Finder window in which is a folder called 'Contents'. Double click and then keep double-clicking to follow the path:
Contents>Resources>Templates.
Then you can open any of the templates (most of the names are self- explanatory) to edit them as you see fit.
This is also the route to getting at the clip-art and other stuff which is bundled with Inkscape but is normally invisible inside the app package.
I hope this is of use to someone, somewhere, sometime, browsing the archives!
Phil
This is a difficult one. I think the solution lies not with Inkscape but with your GTK theme. The best lead I can give is to point you to the gtkrc files which may be found somewhere on your system. (I'd give more specifics but I am not a Mac user.)
GTK? Sorry, you've lost me there.
The size of objects seem to change as one changes the thickness of their outline - seems odd to me - it makes aligning things a bit 'hit and miss' if you then go back and edit them later. Admittedly, Xara had a similar (but not identical) issue - it's the one and only area where I think Illustrator is superior.
That is a configurable behavior. There's a button for it on the toolbar when the Selection tool is being used. This might help:
http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Transforms.html
That's not actually what I was asking - but thanks to the clues therein, I think I am now on the way to the answer...
The W and H boxes show the size of the bounding box and not necessarily the size of the actual object (if you know what I mean) and when you snap an object to another, you always snap bounding boxes, rather than the objects themselves - so if you start with a 250px square, add a 5px outline, you get a 255px bounding box. Bit of a pain if you're doing precise technical illustrations, because things don't tile properly and you end up with outlines alongside each other, rather than overlaying.
But...
After some more fiddling...
It all depends on how you set things up in the Document Setup dialog - setting the options to 'Snap nodes to objects' rather than 'Snap bounding boxes to objects' (the default?) it works as I want it to - i.e. that outlines don't affect the way things snap. COOL! I like it. That is *better* than Xara - you can't do that in Xara - snapping is always governed by the bounding box (i.e. object + its outline).
Thanks, Phil
This is a difficult one. I think the solution lies not with Inkscape but with your GTK theme. The best lead I can give is to point you to the gtkrc files which may be found somewhere on your system. (I'd give more specifics but I am not a Mac user.)
GTK? Sorry, you've lost me there.
Notice how Inkscape is kind of Grey and funny looking (not like a normal Mac app)? That's GTK. ;-) GTK looks great on Linux, not as great on Mac. GTK determines the font size, among other things, but no one so far has known which files to edit to change the GTK settings.
I think GTK is roughtly the same things as "Aqua".
Essentially, it's not exactly an Inkscape issue, it's a GTK issue. Inkscape *does* use GTK, but so do thousands of other programs. -- Michael Moore ------------------------- Creative photography for any occasion http://elementsbycaroline.com Full quality proofs Online album
Notice how Inkscape is kind of Grey and funny looking (not like a normal Mac app)? That's GTK. ;-) GTK looks great on Linux, not as great on Mac. GTK determines the font size, among other things, but no one so far has known which files to edit to change the GTK settings.
I think GTK is roughtly the same things as "Aqua".
Essentially, it's not exactly an Inkscape issue, it's a GTK issue. Inkscape *does* use GTK, but so do thousands of other programs.
Hmm - just done a Spotlight search for GTK, graphics toolkit and anything else like that that I can think of. The only results that come up are these mail messages...
I wonder what else it might be called on a Mac? I'll ask the on-line MUG I belong to.
Thanks, Phil
On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 08:23:15AM +0000, Phil Hendry wrote:
Hmm - just done a Spotlight search for GTK, graphics toolkit and anything else like that that I can think of. The only results that come up are these mail messages...
There are tons of links on the internet about GTK on the Mac. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the .app packaging of Inkscape is looking for a gtkrc (placed one in all the default places GTK+ should look, including inside the .app, and also ran a trace to see if it tries to open a gtkrc file, and it didn't).
I'll keep messing around with it, but I haven't found a solution yet. I guess the next thing to try is to see what the source does. I know GIMP.app correctly reads gtkrc, so I can't imagine why Inkscape wouldn't.
Jeff
On Dec 12, 2006, at 12:23 AM, Phil Hendry wrote:
Hmm - just done a Spotlight search for GTK, graphics toolkit and anything else like that that I can think of. The only results that come up are these mail messages...
I wonder what else it might be called on a Mac? I'll ask the on-line MUG I belong to.
Hi Phil,
Aside from being a developer on a dual G5 Mac, I also happen to have been involved in trying to get Inkscape to respect the GTK sizes more.
GTK is the widget toolkit we use for the UI. Among other things, GTK is themeable. You can drop in new themes and have it change the look and feel of the programs using it, usually on the fly.
Anyway, one spot my builds of Inkscape looks (I've been running my own builds not the packaged one) is the file named ".gtkrc-2.0" in my home directory. Notice that it starts with a dot, as on most Unix systems that causes the file to be hidden.
Within that I have a few settings for playing with icon sizes, but other settings are configurable. Just relaunch Inkscape after you edit something in there.
Oh, and there is a simple way to do a quick test to see if Inkscape's GTK is picking up your .gtkrc-2.0 changes. Just add this as the only thing in that file to see if some icons get bigger:
gtk-icon-sizes = "gtk-small-toolbar=48,48"
or this would give you some more extreme changes:
gtk-icon-sizes = "inkscape-decoration=80,80"
On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:51:32 -0700 "Michael Moore" <stuporglue@...155...> wrote:
Notice how Inkscape is kind of Grey and funny looking (not like a normal Mac app)? That's GTK. ;-) GTK looks great on Linux, not as great on Mac. GTK determines the font size, among other things, but no one so far has known which files to edit to change the GTK settings.
On my Linux (Mandriva) system it's $HOME/.gtkrc-2.0 and contains just one setting for user_font: style "user-font" { font_name = "Bitstream Vera Sans 12" } widget_class "*" style "user-font"
Changing this font definition alters the font used for menus, tips and displays in subsidiary tool windows. However the rulers obdurately stay at 5-point (unreadable for me), and co-ordinate displays (eg X, Y, H, W) are probably 9-point (just readable). It's not a theme thing, all the themes use my default font sizes, which are 12-point or larger.
Essentially, it's not exactly an Inkscape issue, it's a GTK issue. Inkscape *does* use GTK, but so do thousands of other programs.
Yup, other programs (eg Sylpheed) pick up that "user-font" setting too, but Inkscape may be looking for other definitions for the smaller fonts. I rather suspect that src/widgets/widget-sizes.h plays a part in this, but random poking at it is much less efficient than getting someone who understands the code to comment....
Mike
participants (8)
-
Aaron Spike -
bulia byak -
Jeffrey Brent McBeth -
John Cliff -
Jon A. Cruz -
Michael Moore -
Mike Causer -
Phil Hendry