Introduction To Inkscape And Its Future

WarriorC writes "Bryce Harrington, Inkscape's founder, wrote an article introducing his brainchild and where its development is heading (see: Illustrator-killer). Some screenshots of the latest CVS version are included." It's also a nice glimpse into an "unorganized" but nonetheless successful open source process.

Comments

Cool

[Mind Booster Noori]

This is really good... But wouldn't it be better if there was a Gimp plug-in to add vectorial drawing support?

Re:Cool

[BenjyD]

Better vector support in GIMP would be nice, but I think that the Vector vs Raster is too radical a difference to incorporate nicely in one package with a good UI. I think the workflow for most web artists is draw in vector (Illustrator etc) and then finish the image in raster (Photoshop etc).
A vector drawing package on a par with commercial offerings would be a huge addition to the free software world, and UI is very important in that area. Sodipodi is pretty good, IIRC.

Re:Cool

[Slack3r78]

Please god no. The thing about that article that got me interested in Inkscape is the fact that the developers, and more importantly, UI designers are artists themselves, so clearly they want to build a UI that's focused around getting work done, and it sounds like they're doing a good job of that.

While I keep reading that the Gimp's interface was greatly improved with 2.0, when I've tried it, it felt as kludgy as ever. The Gimp does a lot of cool things, but create a smooth workflow it does not. For that reason alone, I feel it's better that this be a stand alone project. It allows them to build a much lighter system aimed at doing one thing and one thing well.

In general, if you're working with vector graphics, you're not really going to care about immediately working with raster. That said, I do think it'd be cool if someone could take the Gimp and strip it down to a very focused UI like Inkscape seems to be doing, creating a set of interlocking common programs like Adobe currently does with their Creative Suite. However, for this type of work, the plug-in-replacing-an-app mentallity is exactly what needs to be avoided because while it may work, an artist will usually be much happier with a lighter program aimed at doing what they want it to do, not ten thousand features they'll never need creating a cluttered and confusing menu system and obscure keyboard shortcuts.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Vector is a higher level of abstraction than raster. It's a vector graphic tool that needs to incorporate more raster capabilities, not the other way round. And in fact, Inkscape plans to start adding various raster effects for the bitmap objects embedded into SVG. It's not going to replace Gimp, but if you really want both vector and raster combined, this combination can only work within a vector-based framework.

Re:Cool

[BiggyP]

The Gimp does a lot of cool things, but create a smooth workflow it does not.

that's a matter of opinion, i find that it provides me with an excellent workflow personally.

one important point to bear in mind is that Inkscape, while fairly usable, has a heck of a long way to go before it can compete with the commercial alternatives, the GIMP, on the other hand, is already at that stage.

from what i hear, Jimmac, head GNOME artist, has no need for Photo$hop, but can't replace Illu$strator with any of the free offerings.

What makes this a killer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or to state more appropriately, what is Inkscape going to do to get marketshare from Illustrator that the GIMP hasn't already tried and failed to do when attempting to grab Photoshop marketshare?

Re:What makes this a killer?

[Sweetshark]

what is Inkscape going to do to get marketshare from Illustrator that the GIMP hasn't already tried and failed to do when attempting to grab Photoshop marketshare?
1) There is no GIMP marketshare because GIMP is free. This might change with the buyable version at WinGimp.com.
2) This is one tool less missing on a linux desktop. The list of "missing apps" got rather short recently ....

Not that easy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that easy to kill off Adobe Illustrator. For example just take a look at Illustrator's type options - it has probably more of them than other good layouting programs!
Good luck and success nevertheless, Bryce!!

Re:Not that easy

[NamShubCMX]

Why should it *kill* Illustrator?

A usable alternative is okay. Both project can coexist you know...

Offtopic rant: Why is every software company deemed NOT successfull if it doesn't kill its competitor? You don't have to be Microsoft to be successful...

Re:This bothers me

[stratjakt]

I wasnt bashing these folks, I was bashing this cavalier attitude that 99% of the project maintainers on sourceforge have. If one subroutine is suspect, the whole project is suspect.

Ie; if the SAMBA team wasnt prepared to prove (and no doubt they are, this is for the sake of argument) that the code was indeed their own original work, and none of it was copy/pasted from the leaked Win2k source, then it's a timebomb ticking on all those servers.

The SCO fiasco crap could have easily ended if Linus could produce some sort of audit trail, send it to SCO, and say "here's who contributed what, go take it up with the author".

And, I mentioned that they checked the code was indeed PD. It was beside my point.

Did ya miss that on your way to bash me for karma?

Re:Why SVG?

[noewun]

It has, as far as I know, no inherent value as a file format.

Um, dude, it is the standard file format for vector graphics in the print publishing world. Saying it has no inherent value is like saying computers don't need solder.

Re:This bothers me

[flossie]

Following our policy to "Patch first, ask questions later", we integrated the new feature as soon as practical, without wasting time arguing about it on a mailing list

The patch in question, a boolean operations patch, is said to be PD in the article. But this attitude is a major landmine for GPL (or any other free license) projects.

You have completely misunderstood what the author of the article was saying. The questions he was referring to are the developer questions - "should we include this feature?", "is this the best way to implement this feature?", etc.

He explicitly emphasised that licence issues can be a problem and that was the first thing he checked when the patch was submitted.

Re:What about Sodipodi?

[darksmurf]

A good number of the developers on Inkscape used to work on Sodipodi but left for various reasons. Read the mail lists for the details.

The Inkscape project is (as I understand it) flying past Sodipodi in features partly because it has a more liberal feature inclusion process.

Bryce deserves a good bit of credit for that.

How bout we shut up about killing?

[Rhesus Piece]

Although the poster seemed to think so,
I really don't believe the Inkscape folks
are trying to make an Illustrator Killer anymore
than Linus is trying to make a Windows Killer.

Like most OSS developers, they are just trying
to make good software that is free and does what
they want it to do.
When people start calling them ___ Killers,
then we get all the crap about "But Gimp can't
compete with Photoshop!" and suddenly
they get compared and deemed poor because they are
not as good as the best product in the world
in that particular field. Of course not,
they're younger, less complete, impeded by
patents, and worked on for free.
Judge absolute worth, not relative worth,
and if a free product isn't good enough
for your purposes, buy the one that is.
Let's just avoid characterizing things as
Davids to the commercial Goliaths, k?

Re:Layers

[ishmalius]

Yes, layers are nice, and I like them myself. But how do you store that information in the SVG format?

Maybe storing each layer as an invisible node that the user can't alter, might do it.

There are a lot of features that the developers want to provide (multiple pages, scripting, whiteboard), but just haven't brought into fruition yet.

Be patient. Or better yet, contribute. There is room for all at the table.

Re:Inkscape doesn't need to kill, its an alternati

[Xabraxas]

OpenOffice is free, market share has nothing to do with price, only the size of the userbase

Actually market share has a lot to do with price and nothing to do with user base. User base and market share have little to do with each other. Debian has no market share in the OS market but they do have a user base. A market implies commerce and price, which is not necessary for a distro like Debian, in order to have a user base.