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Inkscape 0.42: The Ultimate Answer
bulia byak writes "After several months of frantic work by the evergrowing developer community, the aptly numbered Inkscape 0.42 is out. The amount of new features in this version is astounding. Quoting from the (gigantic!) Release Notes, "while some of the new features simply fill long-standing functionality gaps, others are truly revolutionary". Check out the screenshots and grab your package for Linux, Windows, or OSX." The screenshots are pretty mind-blowing; this isn't a 1.0 release, but I think you'll agree it's worth checking out.
Is there some unexplained significance to the number 0.42 in reference to this program?
If anybody has hacked windows api then you know what these guys have done. Good stuff.
.deb etc) hjheins at users.sourceforge.net Private .deb etc) jehojakim at users.sourceforge.net Private .deb etc) mjwybrow at users.sourceforge.net Private .deb etc) mrchapp at users.sourceforge.net Private
Developer Username Role/Position Email Skills
Arpad Biro a_b Translator (I18N/L10N) a_b at users.sourceforge.net Private
Aaron C. Spike acspike Developer acspike at users.sourceforge.net Private
Andrew Fitzsimon andyfitz Graphic/Other Designer andyfitz at users.sourceforge.net Private
Artemiy Pavlov artemiopabla Web Designer artemiopabla at users.sourceforge.net Private
Arturo Espinosa arturoea arturoea at users.sourceforge.net Private
Ben Crowell bcrowell Developer bcrowell at users.sourceforge.net Private
Ben Fowler bpfowler Developer bpfowler at users.sourceforge.net Private
Bryce Harrington bryceSourceForge.net Subscriber and DonorProject AdminAccepting Donations All-Hands Person bryce at users.sourceforge.net Private
bulia byak buliabyakProject Admin Developer buliabyak at users.sourceforge.net Private
Carl Hetherington cth103 Developer cth103 at users.sourceforge.net Private
Richard Hughes cyreve Developer cyreve at users.sourceforge.net Private
David Yip dwyip Developer dwyip at users.sourceforge.net Private
GEMY Cedric gemy_cAccepting Donations Doc Writer gemy_c at users.sourceforge.net Private
Ted Gould gouldtj Developer gouldtj at users.sourceforge.net Private
hjheins hjheins Packager (.rpm,
Alan Horkan horkana Support Technician horkana at users.sourceforge.net Private
Bob Jamison ishmal Developer ishmal at users.sourceforge.net Private
Johan Ceuppens jceuppen Developer jceuppen at users.sourceforge.net Private
Jogchum Reitsma jehojakim Packager (.rpm,
Jean-François Lemaire jflemaire jflemaire at users.sourceforge.net Private
Derek P. Moore jizzbug Developer jizzbug at users.sourceforge.net Private
John Cliff johncliff Developer johncliff at users.sourceforge.net Private
Jon A. Cruz joncruzProject Admin Project Manager joncruz at users.sourceforge.net View
Jonathan Leighton (Turnip) jonleighton Web Designer jonleighton at users.sourceforge.net Private
Kees Cook keescookAccepting Donations Developer keescook at users.sourceforge.net Private
Jonathan Phillips kidprotoAccepting Donations Developer kidproto at users.sourceforge.net Private
MenTaLguY mentalProject Admin All-Hands Person mental at users.sourceforge.net View
Michael Wybrow mjwybrow Packager (.rpm,
Daniel Díaz mrchapp Packager (.rpm,
mrdocs mrdocs Developer mrdocs at users.sourceforge.net Private
Nicu Buculei nicubunu Developer nicubunu at users.sourceforge.net Private
Nathan Hurst njh Developer njh at users.sourceforge.net Private
David Turner novalis_dt Developer novalis_dt at users.sourceforge.net Private
Aubanel MONNIER o__b Developer o__b at users.sourceforge.net Private
PTT piersvdt Developer piersvdt at users.sourceforge.net Private
Peter J. R. Moulder pjrm Developer pjrm at users.sourceforge.net Private
Poeir poeir Developer poeir at users.sourceforge.net Private
Ralf Stephan rwst Developer rwst at users.sourceforge.net Private
Josh Andler scislac Web Designer scislac at users.sourceforge.net Private
Alexander Clausen
I'm with you. The /. introduction seems to have been written by an ex-politician's speachwriter. It used lots of colorful words but, in the end, I still had no clue what the program did or who it was for. Sounds exciting though. Heck, I'll vote for 'em!!!
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I can't help but note a strange karma whoring smell. I don't mean to encourage these types of posts (which, while related, only provide superficial information an a subject that almost everyone knows about), I do wish to point out one thing with which I cannot come to terms.
Vector graphics is not an alternative to raster graphics. Raster graphics and vector graphics have two mutually exclusive applications, even though both offer visual sensory input as an end result.
Using only the Adobe product names for the two different digital graphic forms, it is not difficult to recognize this. Photoshop's specialty is manipulating raster images, and the main application would be photos. For example, PS is great for doing things like white balancing and color filtering, i.e. post processing of captured images. Illustrator, on the other hand, is great for creating scaleable and animated visual medium (cartoon-like illustrations like clipart, or flash movies).
The tradeoff is realism. BTW, one subset of vector graphics is in fact 3D modeling, and this relation becomes especially apparent with NURBS. 3D models aren't very realistic plainly rendered, even with simple materials. They require textures, which are bitmaps (rasters), to create the illusion of continuity.
Finally, on a tangent, it should be noted that vector graphics are mathematically intensive to render, whereas raster graphics tend to be memory intensive to render.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
An IE user? Well, the reason it doesn't work is because IE doesn't feel like complying with standardized web design. So go get yourself a browser that does, like Firefox (unless you want to pay for Opera, or tolerate ads, in which case, go for it.)
...is the poster actually letting people know what inkscape is so we don't have to click on the link to figure that out.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
What I could figure out from the article:
/. wasn't enough to figure that out anyhow)."
"There is a new version of something, and it is really cool. Something is probably software or just possibly hardware (as if it being reported on
Fortunately we have editors to filter the submissions so we don't have to see incomprehensible ones.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Good for you. I agree with you. How dare these people donate all this time and effort into producing an open-source vector drawing application and have the audacity to not include pressure sensitivity for your tablet.
I'm not using it either until Solder Fumes demands are met.
All it would have taken was three more words.
"vector drawing program"
If the poster could have fit those three words into the article, it would have saved me a fair bit of bother. And yes, this sort of thing does happen all the time on Slashdot.
Yes, if you combined the interfaces of Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Fireworks and Painter, the Gimp's interface would be superior. The sheer number of windows, palettes, toolboxes, sliders and strange controls would be overwhelming.
Apart from that, each one of these programs has an interesting interface that is worth learning how to use.
The thing that annoys me about both Inkscape and the Gimp is that there are no floating palettes. This is irritating because each program is essentially a creative tool moreso than an office application. In the midst of a stream of thought, it is annoying to have to go up to a menu and have a properties dialog box pop up to do your work in. With Photoshop in particular, you can organize the interface in ways that work best for you. There are still some options (like the transform menu) that make you go through some motions, but this is still a small price to pay for the ability to work with tools at your own pace.
M
I just realized that there are lot of people who had never heard of inkscape before today. I'm surprised at that and I'm sure the submitter assumed (as I would have) that most people (at least on /.) have some knowledge of this app.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
This is a nonsensical statement. Photoshop, and most other cross-platform apps are written in C/C++, use Aqua (of course), and have no code at all in Objective-C.
Mac OS X has two main APIs: Carbon (C/C++) and Cocoa (Objective-C). Both have full access to the GUI.
Personally, I think Illustrator's interface is better.
But it's not nearly $500 worth of better to my amateur senses.
(As for the GIMP, well, it's not hard to be better than the GIMP. VI is a more intuitive photo editor than the GIMP.)
Inkscape and Gimp are designed to meet two different needs, although there may be a small amount of crossover. Gimp isn't quite Photoshop, but I've used it for quite a while now. It's not perfect, but it's very capable, and I'm encouraged by its ongoing development.
But seriously, when 85%+ of your audience uses a particular browser, doesn't it make sense to design pages with it in mind?
Not really. First off, I think people are going to judge Inkscape's value not by its website but by how good the application itself is.
Second, our "audience" is not just any random user, but rather those good users that are likely to also contribute to Inkscape in some way - testing, bug reports, PR, patches -- or even just helping us improve the website. People who are unable or unwilling to install a proper Open Source web browser are probably also not the type of good people that would be contributing Inkscape. Thus, IE users are probably not our target audience anyway.
Third, building a huge userbase is not really among Inkscape's principle goals. We want to be a great application that helps make Open Source successful, and we want to promote Open Standards and do what we can to help other Open Source projects. Thus, while we'd like to look good in all browsers, it's most important that we look good in the Open Source browsers, even if (especially if!) they represent only 15% of the marketshare.
Good thing Bill Gates doesn't run Adobe... Otherwise he'd be releasing a press statement proclaiming how dangerous open software is.
Actually, I was just thinking of Adobe and Corel when I saw this piece of news. It's become obvious, to me at least, that eventually the open source model will produce worthy competition even in those fields that had always been lacking. You know, games, graphics editing, video editing and so on.
Given that most people aren't professionals, they can probably move from their [coughpiratedcough] copy of Illustrator to Inkscape and not miss much.
Of course, professionals will still keep buying the big thing, at least for another while. So you can say that the likes of Adobe and Corel won't miss much. But I have to wonder anyway if they'll take this lying down.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
I have been using Inkscape on OS X a lot lately, and it works pretty well; there is an Inkscape.app so when you open an SVG file in the Finder, it will open X11 and then open the file with Inkscape.
The unix binary is somewhere inside the .app (which is really just a special type of directory) so you can call it from the command line. This is useful because you can convert SVG files to PNG or PS via the command line with Inkscape. This is really nice for me since I have been making a lot of technical illustrations lately; I do them all in Inkscape's GUI and then I run a Makefile to batch convert them into PNGs or PS files for inclusion into documentation, web pages, etc. Someone also got sponsorship from Google's Summer of Code to work on auto line routing, e.g. for connecting pieces of a schematic; I am really looking forward to this.
There are a few minor glitches; the most noticeable to me is that Inkscape.app won't open a file from the Finder if Inkscape is already running.
Also, Hubert Figuiere, one of AbiWord's developers, has been working on a GTK port to OS X, although it's not in usable shape yet, from what I understand.What window manager doesn't support "stay on top" hinting? Even Windows does, though you may have to get an extension to do it - I recall being able to do it a long time ago with Win2k, but I haven't used Windows in years so I can't recall what extra software I needed. Windowblinds maybe.
Anyway, the end result is that "stay on top" should not be a problem with GIMP. Complain about the "intuitiveness" of the interface all you like, but palettes is not one of GIMP's problems.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
> Hmm the text tool is less than intuitive and hangs the screen for a little while (application not responding) the first time it initializes.
Known bug on Windows, we even have a patch for it but that patch must go into Freetype, so it's not there yet.
> But illusive and hard to reproduce bugs are not something to brush off. They drive the users insane just as much as they annoy developers.
Sure. But many bugs only _seem_ elusive at first sight. For 100 users that will uninstall the program after getting an "elusive" crash, there will be 1 who will be motivated enough to help us debug it.
> if you brush it off and say it works on your machine
If I do that, and if the crash is real, I'll keep getting more and more reports on it from different people. So eventually it WILL get fixed. But in any case, we never "brush off" bugs without trying to get at least some useful info from the user.
If you release a version to the public, you need to call it 1.0. I'm not suggesting going crazy with versions like closed source software driven by marketing, I'm just saying you have a version out there in the wild, call it #1. Add a few minor features, call it 1.1. Fix a bug, call it 1.01, same as everyone else, just start at 1.0. Numbers are free, and I'm pretty sure what my calculus teacher was saying is that you'll never run out of them.
I can understand you have put some artificial goal on yourselves to be 100% SVG compliant before it's done, but there is no software god that will strike you down for being 50% SVG compliant, and still calling it 1.0. You even call them 'releases', and have testing that goes on before a 'release'.
Only reason I bring it up, and I'm not saying you guys do this, but I have seen FOSS developers hide behind 1.0 for several years, and every bug, crappy UI, or anything wrong, the excuse is, 'Well it's beta software, if you don't like it you can wait for 1.0'.
Well, I've had this problem under both Gnome and WinXP. This shouldn't be a plugin situation, it should be built in, having to go down to the taskbar to switch tools is a pain.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
> In any case, that's really Bad News for the future of the app.
I've seen this very attitude ever since the start of Inkscape. It's not too frequent, but it does happen with surprising regularity. "You dare to ignore my beloved Illustrator/Freehand/whatever, you're DOOMED." I try to give them our reasons and show them _our_ way of doing it, but they just won't listen.
I think by now, Inkscape's explosive growth and the tons of comments from people who LOVE its interface are the best response to such doomsayers.
You simply _don't get it_. (Luckily you are in a minority, but the fact that you don't get it still saddens me.) We're not in the business of creating an Illustrator clone. We started this project because we want to make the best vector editor in the world. If you want to help us, you're welcome. If you just want to rant or whine without (I'm sure) reading our keyboard chart even once - then I'm simply not interested, sorry.
Well said. The keyboard on Inkscape is good; I couldn't care less how Illustrator works. It's not like Illustrator cares how I work, is it? I mean, where's the Linux version?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Inkscape already seems to be an impressive application for artistic drawing, but personally I mostly do technical drawing for which Visio is my currently preferred application.
However if only a few functionalities were added, Inkscape could be used for 95% of generic technical/business drawings as well:
- Global Grid / grid snap
- Object connection / snap points
- Auto routing connector lines
- Configurable line ends (arrow heads)
I believe some of these are addressed in the roadmap though.
Not a problem. I've been doing all of my vector work in Inkscape for a while now. I export it to EPSF, which I hand to my printer, who opens it in Illustrator and takes it from there.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown