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Introduction To Inkscape And Its Future

Posted by timothy on from the patches-from-the-blue dept.

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.

7 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Cool by Mind+Booster+Noori · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    --
    Mind Booster Noori
    1. Re:Cool by BenjyD · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Cool by Slack3r78 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

  2. Not that easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!!

    1. Re:Not that easy by NamShubCMX · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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...

      --
      We've always been at war with Eurasia.
  3. Re:What about Sodipodi? by darksmurf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  4. How bout we shut up about killing? by Rhesus+Piece · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?