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.

Comments

Hmm...

[Zzyzygy]

Is it just me, or did they morph a woman holding a ferret into a classic "wardrobe malfunction" by using some cool filters?

Geez, I need to get a life.

-Scott

Re:Hmm...

[bbyakk]

Please submit your crash report:

http://inkscape.org/report_bugs.php

with as much details as possible, ideally with a backtrace.

> keyset that Adobe and Macromedia apps use?

Because there are many other nice apps that we borrow from. One is Xara X. Another is (yeah) Gimp and other Gnome apps. We can't be a monkey of a single app, and sometimes we can't be a monkey of anyone because we do some original stuff too.

> holding space should enable the panning tool

We don't have a panning tool because we have lots of other ways to scroll. The best of them are middle-drag and ctrl+arrows. Try them, you may like them better when you get used to them.

> holding alt (not shift) should make the zoom tool zoom out rather than in.

That one makese sense - alt+click is currently unused in zoom tool, so i think I'll enable it to zoom out _in addition_ to shift+click.

> Also, double-clicking on the zoom tool should revert to "standard" zoom--not open the preferences panel.

Just press '1' to get 100% zoom. And it would be horribly inconsistent to make doubleclick work different on zoom tool than on other tools.

To summarize, we welcome any feedback, and very often we honor it, but also quite often people just want us to imitate exactly their favorite app without realizing that (1) there are other vector apps which are just as worthy of imitation, (2) Inkscape's way of doing it may be actually better, or (3) we can't do that because that would break consistency of Inkscape behavior in unpleasant ways.

Replacing?

[coop0030]

Obviously I didn't do too much research, but what does this program replace?

The Gimp?
Photoshop?
Fireworks?

Does anyone use this program? How does it perform compared to these other programs that do similar thiings? This is assuming that the programs listed are the ones being replaced.

Re:Replacing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Freehand/Illustrator. It is a vector based program.

Re:Replacing?

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the above. It's vector graphics - Illustrator, FreeHand. It's about as good for vector graphics as Gimpy is for raster, although I much prefer Inkscape's interface over The Gimp's.

Re:Replacing?

[SpikyTux]

"Inkscape is an open source drawing tool with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, and CorelDraw that uses the W3C standard scalable vector graphics format (SVG)."

Re:Replacing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bash has a better interface than The Gimp.

Re:Replacing?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article implies that the SVG can be edited (is it XML?) and so you've got your wish - you can make your documents in bash by editing the SVG files directly.

Re:Replacing?

[mrchaotica]

Does anyone use this program? How does it perform compared to these other programs that do similar thiings?

Well, I showed it to my girlfriend (who is an art student) and she likes it a lot. She certainly likes it much better than the Gimp, since the interface is so much better. I'm not sure if she thinks it's better than Illustrator, but it's probably at least close.

Re:Replacing?

[Raul654]

There are two kinds of graphics - raster and vector. Raster is what you see when you use photoshop/gimp/paint, where you see a 2-dimensional grid of pixels, and each pixel is shaded a certain color. In vector graphics, everything on the page is a shape with certain properties (size, rotation, transparenecy, 'etc), and those vectors are overlayed on top of each other. As someone who creates a lot of diagrams (I'm doing a PhD in engineering and I contribute to Wikipedia a lot), I can tell you that doing it is a lot quicker using vector graphics programs than raster graphics programs.

Re:Replacing?

[strider44]

If you're used to photoshop's interface then just look up GimpShop which is just a clone of photoshop's interface using Gimp. I happen to be used to Gimp's interface more now so I'll stick to how it is right now.

Re:Replacing?

[jonored]

Actually... yes. it's XML. Looks vaguely familiar if you've poked at postscript (which is also human-writeable - and a complete programming language for a printer-type device. Heard tale of a raytracer implemented in postscript... having poked at the language, I quite believe it, too.) - I think I might just use SVG now :) But much more convenient to run perl or vim than bash... bash is for calling other programs to do your work for you :)

Re:Replacing?

[aussersterne]

Call me a loser, but I love the interfaces of both bash and The GIMP.

I absolutely adore filename completion, arrow-navigatable history, the heavily customizable prompts, command-line editing, and other aspects of the bash interface.

I also absolutely adore the "per-image context menu" interface of The GIMP that makes it easy to have many image windows open and tiled at the same time in focus-follows-mouse mode without causing problems related to relating menus to images as would apply in the "one menu for the entire app, all images" interface in Photoshop.

Re:Replacing?

[techsoldaten]

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

Re:Replacing?

[visualight]

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.

Re:Replacing?

[Coryoth]

The thing that annoys me about both Inkscape and the Gimp is that there are no floating palettes.

Um, isn't the usual complaint about GIMP that it is nothing but floating palettes? I mean really, in GIMP just about everything can be spawned as a palette, and you can dock them or leave them as separate windows (hence floating) however you like. Brushes, colors/palettes, tools, tool options, layers, channels, history, patterns, gradients, paths, font selections, selection editors, image navigators, image lists, even the error console can be made into floating (or docked however you wish) palettes/windows in GIMP. What exactly did you want in the way of more floating palettes?

Jedidiah.

Re:Replacing?

[Coryoth]

Well, you see, Inkscape 0.42 is the ultimate answer, your problem is that you have not yet worked out what the question is. Once you know what the question is then I'm sure everythign will be apparent.

Hopefully the Inkscape team are working on finding the ultimate question as we speak.

Jedidiah.

Re:Replacing?

[Bastian]

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.)

Re:Replacing?

[Linus Torvaalds]

I showed it to my girlfriend (who is an art student) and she likes it a lot.

I hear the Easter Bunny and Father Christmas are fans too :)

Re:Replacing?

[gehel]

There is even a web server in postscript !

Re:Replacing?

[Mr. Jaggers]

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.

Yeah, that would be Blender...

Re:Replacing?

[koreth]

Most people have no reason to spend time learning about the available choices of vector-based illustration software. Slashdot's crowd is diverse enough that short of stuff like Firefox or Linux, it's not a good idea to assume that most people here have clue one about any particular piece of software.

BTW, I don't mean that in a condescending way; it's just a consequence of specialization and it's human nature to assume everyone has some passing interest in the stuff that fascinates or occupies us. I'm sure the proteomics folks here could rattle off half a dozen names of very cool molecular modeling apps, but as someone who spends his days writing Java web applications, not one of those names would ring any kind of bell for me. In return I expect most of the proteomics crowd has never heard of Tapestry or Wicket or the JSP Standard Template Library.

Now if only we could get the editors to realize they ought to include descriptions of the stuff they're posting about. It would not have been so much burden, I think, to add the words "vector illustration tool" right before the name of the program, especially since the editor edited the story anyway to add a comment to the end.

Re:Replacing?

[ZephyrXero]

I don't mind floating palettes as long as they stay on top of the damn picture I'm working on...THAT's the most annoying thing about them in the GIMP. Then again, I also wish they went with a more intuitive interface like Paint Shop Pro rather than the very overrated PhotoShop. :/

Re:Replacing?

[ZephyrXero]

Don't like Blender's interface? Try K-3D (GTK based, nothing to do with KDE). It's still kind of early along, but it's interface is alot more like Maya and Max's.

Re:Replacing?

[ZephyrXero]

What if you hate Photoshop's interface too? Anybody want to work on a GimpShopPro or something ;)

Re:Replacing?

[M1FCJ]

Any decent window manager supports "stay on top" functionality. Thanks to a nice tool called "nail", you can get the same thing on Windows as well.

Re:Replacing?

[typical]

Bash has a better interface than The Gimp.

Yes, but not for the reason that you're thinking. Bash is incredibly powerful. I wish that the Gimp would let me construct directed acyclic graphs of drawing operations, but it doesn't.

Re:Replacing?

[ZephyrXero]

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.

Re:Replacing?

[FooBarWidget]

File->Preferences->Window Management->Window type hint for the docks: Utility Window

Before you ask why this isn't the default: it's because they received tons and tons of bug reports from people with broken window managers that don't support utility windows.

Re:Replacing?

[Kombat]

Assembly language is fantastic for people who actually know their way around their CPU's instruction set.

It just gets a lot of flack from people from IDE-land who can't visualize an enterprise-scale application without their UML diagrams and runtime debugger.

It's not assembly language's fault you can't handle a few registers, folks. People who complain about assembly language's difficulty level are usually the sort of people who think automatic garbage collection is a good programming idea.

Yeah... automatic garbage collection. Duh.

Re:Replacing?

[quiddity]

> especially since the editor edited the story anyway to
> add a comment to the end.

yeah, but the editor is Timothy. he's responsible for most of the sensationalist/biased/irrelevant articles on /. nowadays.

Already using it

[Achromus]

By some weird coincidence, I downloaded this two hours ago. It hasn't crashed on my yet during this time, so I can say that it is sure seems more stable than the 0.41 release.

Re:Already using it

[bbyakk]

Yes this bug is fixed in 0.42. (Reportedly, as I don't have OSX myself.)

Re:Already using it

[JasonBee]

I've had this running all night now...perhaps 7 hours altogether and no crashes!

Mind you maybe I should move the mouse and do something.

I'll be back in 5!

Don't you hate it

[TCM]

Don't you hate it when some application gets into "news" and you are supposed to already know what it does?

Just including this blurb from the homepage would have been enough:

Inkscape is an open source drawing tool with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, and CorelDraw that uses the W3C standard scalable vector graphics format (SVG).

Re:Don't you hate it

[Michael Woodhams]

What I could figure out from the article:

"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 /. wasn't enough to figure that out anyhow)."

Fortunately we have editors to filter the submissions so we don't have to see incomprehensible ones.

Re:Don't you hate it

[Zobeid]

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.

Re:Don't you hate it

[ultranova]

Truthfully, not at all. First, because it is usually obvious from context -- or from the name of the application -- what that application does.

Yeah. Any fool can see that Inkscape is a program that automatically inks scanned comic book scetches. Just as obvious that Firefox is a firefighting program that calculates how the fire will spread and devises countermeasures with the cunning of the fox. Or Thunderbird, which is either a bird migration monitor, an emergency rescure crew communication tool or a weather prediction program.

But while this is painfully obvious to me, not all reading Slashdot are blessed with my intelligence, so it might still be a good idea to tell what the program does in the summary.

Re:Don't you hate it

[MenTaLguY]

Any fool can see that Inkscape is a program that automatically inks scanned comic book scetches.

You laugh, actually that is within the range of functionality we would ultimately like to have... comic work was the reason I got involved.

We already have bitmap tracing, but it's not refined enough for auto-inking yet. I do already use it for tracing scanned, hand-inked pages, at sufficiently high DPI.

Of course, yes, that's hardly the sole purpose of Inkscape.

Re:Grab your package....

[Coneasfast]

For Linux, Windows or OS X.

Uh.... I prefer Linux just like most of us, but I like my GF better.

With a witty sense of humour like that, i'm suprised you even have a GF ;)

Re:Why is the version number apt?

[Anakron]

Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. 42 is the 'answer to everything'.
You might want to disregard this comment. It only makes me want to wince. You were better off not knowing, probably.

Re:Why is the version number apt?

[ElectricBrain]

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=answe r+to+life+the+universe+and+everything&btnG=Search& meta=This explains all you need to know.

Developers. Did it all free too.

[zymano]

If anybody has hacked windows api then you know what these guys have done. Good stuff.

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, .deb etc) hjheins at users.sourceforge.net Private
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, .deb etc) jehojakim at users.sourceforge.net Private
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, .deb etc) mjwybrow at users.sourceforge.net Private
Daniel Díaz mrchapp Packager (.rpm, .deb etc) mrchapp at users.sourceforge.net Private
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

Keep in mind

[JonN]

That in the FAQ it says:

Q: Is Inkscape ready for regular users to use?

Yes, while it's far from being a replacement for commercialware, the codebase provides for a large portion of basic vector editing capabilities.

Re:Keep in mind

[ProfaneBaby]

The fact that it's really for SVG will hold you back, too - many commercial printers are tied to Illustrator versions (and those that aren't still prefer EPS to SVG), that this isn't going to find its way onto any professional graphic artists standard list of tools anytime soon.

Re:Keep in mind

[bbyakk]

This FAQ is somewhat obsolete. It's not a replacement for commercialware in ALL situations, that's true. But it's not as far from it as it used to be just a few releases back.

Re:Keep in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that it's really for SVG will hold you back, too - many commercial printers are tied to Illustrator versions

It certainly won't hold me back: Inkscape exports postscript & encapsulated postscript just like many other programs, and, more importantly, most people don't give a rat's ass about commercial print shops.

Re:Keep in mind

[Tet]

The fact that it's really for SVG will hold you back, too - many commercial printers are tied to Illustrator

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.

Re:Keep in mind

[morgan_greywolf]

Yes, while it's far from being a replacement for commercialware, the codebase provides for a large portion of basic vector editing capabilities.

Its much better than it was, definitely. It's much closer to the functionality of earlier versions of programs like CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator than any of the previous versions. With support for

• layers (very important!)
• manual text kerning
• Put text on path
• flow text into frame
• 'live' gradient editor
• bitmap tracing
• support for union/difference/etc. of objects (already in 0.3x, but added late)
• export support for .eps and .ps formats

Inkscape is on par with older versions of commercialware, with some support for newer-style features like the live gradient editor.

Some features that are still sorely missing (compared to commercialware) are:

• Object/text morphing via 'envelope' and 'perspective' type functions
• support for automatic drop shadowing
• more export filters that just .eps and .ps. Specifically, support for Windows Metafile (.wmf), Adobe Illustrator 88 (.ai), AutoCAD DXF (.dxf) (for 2D and 3D CAD conversion), HPGL and/or HPGL/2 (for output to plotters)
• ability to import at least .eps, .ps and .wmf. .dxf and .ai would be nice.
• better clipboard support ... ability to integrate with desktop environments so that SVG objects can be embedded in other applications

with those additions and a few more, Inkscape could be well on its way to being a complete replacement for Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW. Already as a graphic designer I could probably spend most of my time in Inkscape and only have to bring in commercialware for a few little features.

Whoa! Now wait a mo'

[whovian]

Check out the screenshots and grab your package for Linux, Windows, or OSX."

I just don't go around grabbing other guy's packages. Let us leave that to your *.so and S.O.

Re:Whoa! Now wait a mo'

[steelfood]

It says to grab your package, not somebody else's.

I would hazard a guess that it's some strange form of cheer equivalent to the more common form of clapping one's hand. Perhaps it's symbolic of male fertility.

What I don't understand is why we're cheering for Windows, unless it's actually an insult not unlike the middle finger, in which case I'd wonder if this was not written by a BSD fan.

Re:Whoa! Now wait a mo'

[moranar]

Well, here in Italy you grab your package to ward off bad luck and evil spirits. Dunno why, though.

Re:Whoa! Now wait a mo'

[Tim Browse]

It's just an excuse.

Re:Why is the version number apt?

[weighn]

Is there some unexplained significance to the number 0.42 in reference to this program?

I'm not sure, but this version must mean everything to the developers.

I was wondering what SVG was

[ReformedExCon]

Inkscape's FAQ describes the software package as a way to create SVGs. So I was curious as to what exactly "SVG" means. It turns out that it is a type of graphic that is Scalable because it is based on Vectors (Scalable Vector Graphics, heh). Like TrueType fonts, the graphics itself is described in a data file and the rasterization engine figures out how to plot each line and curve.

Another common type of graphic is the raster bitmap in which the data file describes the absolute positioning of pixels in the resulting picture. Scaling (changing size) of such a picture is troublesome because it requires some loss of data if the graphic is shrunk and some interpolation of data if the graphic is stretched.

Vector graphics do not have this problem as they do not exist as mere picture elements in a determined plot. Since they are described in terms of elements with properties, the plotter is able to render the resulting graphic as it sees fit, to any level of resolution it can handle. In some ways, it is very much like povray graphics which are as detailed as you want to make it, at any resolution.

Using this type of graphic is especially helpful in document layout design like brochures and pamphlets where you don't know exactly how big your eventual product will be. I've never used it personally, but this seems like a very cool alternative to more unwieldy software packages like PS and Gimp.

Re:I was wondering what SVG was

[steelfood]

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.

Re:I was wondering what SVG was

[modecx]

Gimp and Inkscape have *nothing* at all in common, in practical terms.

Inkscape is pretty much strictly for working on vector graphics (aside from vectorizing a bitmap and rendering an SVG to bitmap I doubt it has any operations on raster formats--it didn't last time I used it), like the grandparent said. The Gimp is for doing raster graphics, though it does have some basic vector operations (paths and fonts, etc.), but they don't compare in strength to Inkscape's functions.

These tools do not have the same function or scope, and (naively) saying so implies that a chisel might work as well when the job calls for a hammer. Of course, when you realize that you can use two tools together, (hammer and chisel, Photoshop and Illustrator, The GIMP and Inkscape), well, there's alot less that you can't do. I.E. You can be effective at chiseling wood with your hands and a sharp instrument, good luck with granite, though.

Re:I was wondering what SVG was

[cduffy]

If all the linux distros get rid of GIMP in the next release in favor of Inkscape, this thing is gonna be a hit

To give a more concrete example of what the other folks are saying:

If you're designing graphics for a print brocure or (as in my case recently) wedding invitation, and you're not trying to do photographs, a vector graphics program is just the thing: You can edit your work easily, and the final result can be rendered at whatever resolution it's going to be printed at. Many effects which are a PITA if possible at all via raster software (such as shaped text) are standard features in good vector editors.

If you're retouching a photo, you need a raster editor. Period. So really, you can't replace one with the other. They both have their place, and both are necessary.

Re:I was wondering what SVG was

[Metaphorically]

While you're totally right about the vector/raster distinction, SVG defines filters that do some of the things that are associated with retouching a photo. One example would be a colour transform, here's an example. SVG can also include a raster image with an image tag and crop it (another photo retouching function).

Not saying that Inkscape or SVG are great for photo editing, just wanted to point out that some of these things can be done.

Re:I was wondering what SVG was

[steelfood]

Don't feel too offended. Being the good hypocrite that I am, I must admit that my post was largely filled with superficial information too. BTW, wikipedia will definitely offer more specific information on vector and raster graphics, especially with regards to the different standards and types for both.

As I might have hinted, my interest in this area lies in why these two formats, being completely opposite in nature, would also end up complementing each other so perfectly, and of course, how to maximize the results of such a pairing--except, on a much more abstract level.

Well, no need to bore you with details, but to give a better example of how these two are completely opposing in nature, note that where one is discrete, the other is continuous, and vice versa. Vector graphics use curves defined by mathematical functions to generate an image (known as rendering). Yet, every element is discretely defined, as is the nature of curves from mathematical functions.

On the other hand, raster graphics are comprised of discrete pixels that, when put together, form a coherent image. Yet, the elements within the image are continuous--that is, there is no absolute position where one can assert that an element in the picture ends and another begins.

Yet only through combining the two forms in the manner I previous described can CG achieve an accurate visual representation of reality.

This kind of thinking, unfortunately, is at best ungeeky, and tends to bore or amuse more than interest.

Re:Why is the version number apt?

[Quarters]

Right, ok. I understand that reference. But 0.42 != 42. Either the developers are missing 41.58 of something or they're saying that the program is 1/100th of what it should be.

#1 thing Inkscake is missing

[Raul654]

Stability. Inkscape is good a good program, but it crashes all the time. In fact, someone noticed that when installing it on windows, the *very first* file it copied was gdb.exe.

Re:#1 thing Inkscake is missing

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Well, I've had it open and have been fucking around with it fro the last 2 hours, hasn't crashed yet. Very nice. Impressive. As an OSS project, much slicker than Gimp (yes I know, different thing, blaw, blaw, blaw).

Re:#1 thing Inkscake is missing

[bbyakk]

Come On. If you get a crash, REPORT IT! Right here: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=604306&group_ id=93438&func=browse And please note that we never have more than a few confirmed reproducible crash bugs in the tracker. (Currently just 2 I believe, and not fully reproducible at that.) We simply don't tolerate them. We, you know, fix them. Quickly and mercilessly. (Other types of bugs get fixed too, so don't worry).

Re:#1 thing Inkscake is missing

[bbyakk]

That's why we ship with gdb.exe! Why don't you just make a shortcut to always run it from GDB and send us the backtrace when it crashes.

Re:#1 thing Inkscake is missing

[bbyakk]

> 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.

I'm with you.

[shmlco]

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!!!

OS X version not Aquafied.

[Yaztromo]

For anyone who is thinking of grabbing the OS X version, please note that like OpenOffice, InkScape is using X11 to render its display.

I'm a bit disappointed, as this does make it somewhat less nice to use on OS X, however it isn't v1.0 yet, so I'll remain hopefully optimistic.

Yaz.

Re:OS X version not Aquafied.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not having a working system clipboard is a functionality problem.

Re:OS X version not Aquafied.

[michaeldot]

Well, if Apple didn't make it damn-near impossible for C and C++ apps to use Aqua, then maybe more cross-platform apps would use it.

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.

Re:OS X version not Aquafied.

[Rylz]

This brings up something I've been wondering. If GTK had an Aqua version, Inkscape as well as a LOT of useful programs could run natively in Aqua. Hey, it's been ported to Windows, porting to Aqua shouldn't be too much harder... But then again I have no experience with developing for Aqua so I guess I can't really talk.

Re:OS X version not Aquafied.

[J. Random Luser]

Never mind Aqua, X11's OK for starters, .... if it starts. I just d/l'ed, unpacked, pushed the go button, saw X11 start, thought "uhuh..." then nada, zilch, rien de tout. Que? An Inkscape menu that offered choice to Hide Inkscape, Hide Others, Quit. Preference files had installed in expected places. Went back to inkscape.org in case I'd missed something. Then twenty-whole-five-minutes of browsing later a new inkscape document window springs from heaven. There's more to this than meets the eye, Gunga Din...

Re:OS X version not Aquafied.

[merphant]

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.

Oh sweet mistress

[azdruid]

As an avid user of Inkscape, I have followed the Inkscape development process closely throughout all the betas released leading up to this version. This is probably the OSS application I use the most, aside from Linux and Firefox of course. Inkscape's original base code was from the Sodipodi vector editor, which had an interface resembling that of the GIMP. The primary goal of the Inkscape project was to take that codebase and write a GTK interface conforming to the GNOME standards, as well as adding many new features. Even though the early releases were notoriously unstable, the feel of 0.42 is significantly improved over past builds. Even if you are remotely interested in drawing or vector graphics, I recommend you take a look at Inkscape. It still doesn't have any of the fancy features in Fireworks, which I do hope will someday be added, but right now its probably the best FOSS vector editor. And it uses SVG too, a nice opensource XML standard. Downloads are available for Linux and Windows.

Re:Oh sweet mistress

[bbyakk]

> every time I select the Text tool and click on the page the application freezes

Known bug on Windows, we even have a patch for it but that patch must go into Freetype, so it's not there yet.

Re:Why not sodipodi

[Bitsy Boffin]

Guess I should have RTFWebsite...

Q: Why the split from Sodipodi?

Mainly just differences in objectives and in development approach. Inkscape's objective is to be a fully compliant SVG editor, whereas for Sodipodi SVG is more a means-to-an-end of being a powerful vector illustration tool. Inkscape's development approach emphasizes open developer access to the codebase, as well as to use and contribute back to 3rd party libraries and standards such as HIG, CSS, etc. in preference to custom solutions.

For background, it may also be worth reviewing Lauris' Sodipodi direction post from Oct 2003, and his thoughts on SVG, licensing, and the value of splitting the project into two independent branches.

Oops.

Re:Grab your package....

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh.... I prefer Linux just like most of us, but I like my GF better.

Yeah, i like your GF better, too.

Re:side-to-side scrolling

[VoidWraith]

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.)

Re:Did you say OS X?

[5plicer]

It runs under X11

What would be more revolutionary...

[kuzb]

...is the poster actually letting people know what inkscape is so we don't have to click on the link to figure that out.

Re: Scribus

[mpapet]

Scribus is the closest thing that really pursues the print market. Good enough color management and real effort in conquering cmyk. Ties in pretty well with Gimp too.

www.scribus.org.uk

Hmm...

[Tom7]

Exactly at the moment I thought, "hey, this is pretty slick," Inkscape (win32) crashed/exited on me without warning. That was only about ten seconds after launching it. After launching again, it froze on the "open" dialog. Still, I am looking forward to using this when it becomes more stable.

Also, what's wrong with using the standard keyset that Adobe and Macromedia apps use? For example, holding space should enable the panning tool, and holding alt (not shift) should make the zoom tool zoom out rather than in. Also, double-clicking on the zoom tool should revert to "standard" zoom--not open the preferences panel. (??) I realize that these are arbitrary choices, but there is substantial value in making the same arbitrary choices as everyone else, especially if this seeks to be a replacement for those applications.

Re:Pressure

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

If even I can use it effectively...

[HorsePunchKid]

It's sad to me that people do not seem to know what Inkscape is yet. It's a wonderful tool. Others have already made the Inkscape:Illustrator :: Gimp:Photoshop analogy. I would point out, though, that despite my preference of Photoshop over Gimp, Inkscape is far, far easier to use than Illustrator and yet still covers all of the basic vector graphics bases.

Even with my very minimal skill, I've managed to create some decent graphics. Here are a couple of traces, a decent Domo-kun, some calligraphy, and all of the non-photo graphics on this page (hypercube projections) I did in Inkscape. I love it, and it's only on version 0.42!

Re:If even I can use it effectively...

[HorsePunchKid]

It turns out slashdotting myself was not a good idea. Way to go, self.

If you're trying to load the images, just open a few of 'em in tabs in the background; you'll get through eventually. Sorry about that! :(

SVG rasterisation

[csirac]

Inkscape is utterly fantastic, so is SVG.

SVG is an XML format. You can describe arbitrary shapes using basic polylines, circles, squares, etc. and animate it too - all using XML. It's a W3C standard. You can even use CSS for your vector graphics!

I've been working on a very complex piece of software that does some work vectorising bitmaps. It has a non-standard (but basic) intermediate file format that I needed to visualise in a hurry.

By using Perl and installing the SVG lib from CPAN, I was able to write a program in just 3 hours that parsed this app's crazy intermediate line-vector files and turn it into industry standard SVG files that can be viewed with a web browser, or with Inkscape.

Because every element (every line, piece of text, circle, etc.) has an object ID, and being XML you can mash your own custom properties onto things, I found Inkscape very useful for not only visualising these files but exploring other non-visual things I was able to mangle into the line segments (open .svg file in Inkscape, right-click, go look at "object properties").

SVG and Inkscape have been invaluable for exploring how my refactoring of this application has affected the output...

There was just one problem: For a program that uses .svg natively, it sure as hell depended on bitmap formats for exporting to alternative formats properly... I see now that postscript and .eps support has been enhanced, hopefully the transparency/gradient stuff won't bork the output too much now.

Also, I still cannot find a way to export .SVG files to a rasterised image format such as .PNG without the lines being anti-aliased - I've even tried the "crisp lines" properties in the .xml file, and Imagemagick's "convert" program with the "-antialias" switch, but nothing seems to work... all the output is always antialiased... any ideas?

Re:SVG rasterisation

[bbyakk]

> I see now that postscript and .eps support has been enhanced, hopefully the transparency/gradient stuff won't bork the output too much now.

Gradients in PS/EPS export work now (with some limitations, see Release Notes). But transparency does not work simply because PS has no such thing, and "emulating" it is an enormous hassle.

> all the output is always antialiased... any ideas?

That's one of the problems with our renderer currently. It only has the AA mode. Hopefully this will be fixed when Inkscape is ported to use Cairo.

When I hear vector...

[hackwrench]

I think Corel Draw!

MOD PARENT INFORMATIVE!!!

[ryanov]

Until that post, I spent nearly all of my time reading Slashdot wondering "what the fuck is Firefox?!"

SVG (& hence Inkscape) excites me

[tyroney]

Especially with Firefox adding native SVG support (I hear it's in Deerpark, though I haven't wanted to mess with my current install to try it out) all this scalable vector action is really cool. Just visiting Adobe's SVG demos (which I assume are still up with the (now) old version of their SVG browser plugin) gives you a good idea of how incredibly cool web pages could become. Considering animation possibilities, I start to drool even more. Yeah, yeah, Macromedia Flash - blah blah blah...

Re:SVG (& hence Inkscape) excites me

[LnxAddct]

Its in deerpark and its really nice, I use it daily.
Regards,
Steve

Great work ... But still "too many" palettes?

[isolationism]

I still use Xara X2 for all of my drawing needs (I do web work, primarily, although it works excellent for making everything from roughs to faked screenshots) although I've been eyeing Inkscape with increasing interest as it improves. It has now far surpassed it's parent fork project, Sodipodi, in terms of capability and appearance.

One of the main reasons I found Inkscape in the first place was because it was a branch of Sodipodi for what I felt were "the right reasons" -- Frankly, Sodipodi's interface is dialog hell. However, I still feel that Inkscape has too many dialogs that "hang around" on the screen. Why have a big dialog that takes 1/7th of the screen to handle color selection when it could be done more effectively with a temporary window that is half the size?

I also couldn't stand the fact that Inkscape didn't have named colours (e.g. colours that you can define, use, then change later and affect the entire drawing) although maybe that's changed now. I also know all of the previous versions I have looked at in the past literally take 10-15 seconds to open a file dialog window (no hyperbole here. Seriously); while my interest in Inkscape has been primarily to get me using a package that looks and works the same on Linux (so I can finally make the switch on the desktop -- Neither Xara X / Xara X2 run on CrossOver Office, unfortunately) I can't help but notice it will save me money from upgrading Xara X every couple of years, too. As a little aside -- I even went so far as to contact Xara Corp. and ask if they had any plans to release a Linux version of their software or even contribute assistance to getting Xara X to run on Wine/CXO. Their response was "No, we're too busy, and anyway people who use Linux seem to expect everything to be free." Well, that put me in my place...

Anyway, thanks to the original poster for pointing this new release out; it's worth taking another look to see what these guys have been up to. The new features look great; I hope stability and improved GUI design are some of the "unsung heroes" of this and future releases.

Still funny?

[Pac]

Allright, I am no graphic artist, but I've been using Gimp 2.0.3 to draw icons, image buttons and work on images for many kinds of programs for a long time.

The interface may take a while to get used to, but once you get there it is very professional and very clear. I believe this kind of joke may be historically funny, but eventually everybody who one day worked with Gimp 0.8 will be retired or dead and no one will remember exactly why it is funny. As I said, even today, someone who never used another drawing program would not see anything wrong or strange in Gimp's interface (any large program has a complicated interface - Photoshop's interface isn't exactly easy to learn).

Nerd Erotica

[KrackHouse]

From the header:
"grab your package"
"fill long-standing functionality gaps"
"mind-blowing... 1.0 release"

Yeah, I peel the labels off my open source beer bottles.

much more detailed analysis

[mshurpik]

Apple was colossally dissapointed today to learn that Perl, 4th Ed. is a fun and informative way to introduce open source. A new IBook and Apple mini are expected to get a handle on Vista while also hitting the shuttle during launch. With the USA getting ready to pass its science crown to China, the Mandriva Linux 2006 Beta has gotten underway, leaving Microsoft and Google fighting for the skies. With the annual cost of the Microsoft monopoly predicted to top $10b this year, thousands and thousands of hours of PVR TV are being used to make new google homepage features the state of solid state storage. Where is the British EFF? Just around the corner, according to UEFI, formed to replace the BIOS after Microsoft began checking for piracy. With China releasing its 2nd generation MIPS chip just days after Sony agreed to stop payola, Voltron, Nerdcore, and the shuttle Discovery all will be coming to a theater near you.

Re:much more detailed analysis

[jacksonj04]

Can you do this daily?

Re:A mink, not a ferret

[obispo]

the animal is an ermine, the painting is the "ritratto di dama con ermellino" ("portrait of a lady with an ermine") by Leonardo da Vinci. it's part of the princess Czartoryska collection in Kraków.

Give Gimp a break

[symbolic]

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.

Re:CAD

[Vo0k]

People, keep engineering stuff away from Inkscape! We need a decent vector gfx ARTISTIC program! XFig is for tech vector drawings, add this kind of stuff there!

Re:Pressure

[temojen]

Why do you need pressure sensitivity for a vector graphics package?

Re:side-to-side scrolling

[Bryce]

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.

Re:OSS Threats

[Crayon Kid]

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.

Re:Pressure

[maxmg]

Easy - the "Calligraphy" tool. With pressure sensitivity (or some of the more advanced angle/tilt stuff found in high-end graphics tablets), this allows you to vary the width/angle of the stroke.

Look at any comic book - the ink lines (which are normally drawn with a brush) vary a lot in width to give the drawing a much more dynamic feel.

This is something that can be very useful for a vector-based drawing program.

That said, I have been using Inkscape for quite a while and am extremely happy with it. I wasn't even tempted to pirate illustrator or something similar. Big kudos to the Inkscape developers.

However, one very notable missing feature is the "Gradient Mesh" function found in illustator. After looking at the SVG standard, I understand why it is not there - the standard in its current form cannot support free-form gradients. I have been thinking of how to implement this, but I cannot think of a clean, non-hacky, non-workaround way of doing this...

This is very unfortunate, as this prevents you from drawing things with gradients that are not linear or circular (for example a shaded tube, where the shadow should follow the curve). I noticed in one of the screenshots (the chrome "pills") that the gradients on the pills seem to do just that - however, looking more closely (at the one pill in the bottom left corner), it appears that the caps on the pills are simply separate objects with a circular gradient applied.

Have you checked which site your reading?

[Pac]

Look at the white on green logo at the top of the page. Check the URL. Yes, this is Slashdot.

Fear the day they make a clear announcement about an application or gadget, one you don't actually have to click through the link to decide if you are interested. On this day Stallman will have sold FSF to Gates, Microsoft will have open-sourced all their code and a new company, Hell Inc., will have cornered the ice-cream market for good.

Re:CAD

[Bryce]

Something I have wondered about as well. Can Inkscape (maybe in the future) include support for say printed circuit board (PCB) design or more importantly, electronics schematics or digital logic diagrams (with the gates etc)

We do intend to improve some of the technical drawing capabilities, such as line auto-routing, over the next couple releases.

Beyond that, well... we're quite open to patches. (I personally would love to see more technical/engineering drawing enhancements added to Inkscape.)

Re:Looks cool, too bad it's completely useless to

[Bryce]

since it assumes I want the interface to be in incomplete/poorly translated Japanese language, and doesn't seem to give me any way to change it to English.

Sounds like you want this page. First scroll down to the bottom and read "Locale Testing" to see how to set the language. Then scroll up and learn the process of making improvements to an Open Source application's translations. Remember that translations only improve when someone (such as yourself) contributes a few hours to help improve them. ;-)

Note: OpenOffice vs. NeoOffice/J on the Mac

[Nice2Cats]

For anyone who is thinking of grabbing the OS X version, please note that like OpenOffice, InkScape is using X11 to render its display.

Just so there are no misunderstandings here: Though there is an OpenOffice version for the Mac that is in fact only accessable via X11, everybody uses NeoOffice/J instead because it is aquafied to the point where it runs normally. Oh, and it is GPL.

And now back to your scheduled program.

Re:Did you say OS X?

[ValiantSoul]

I'm running 10.4.2, downloaded this just now and ran it for about an hour without a single problem (other than the fact I have no artistic abilities)

Re:Not 1.0?

[NachoDaddy]

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'.

If this is the "The Ultimate Answer"

[1shooter]

What was the question?

Re:If this is the "The Ultimate Answer"

[arose]

"How do I draw a circle in the GIMP?"

Promissing App

[The MESMERIC]

Definitely one of the most impressive and promising Linux application out there.
Corel Draw beware.

Re:Kind of shortsighted on their part

[bbyakk]

> 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.

Re:Kind of shortsighted on their part

[nagora]

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.

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

Visio alternative?

[PastaAnta]

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.

Re:A mink, not a ferret

[aebrett]

All I can say for certain is that it isn't a weasel, because a weasel is weasely wecognised, whereas a stoat is stoatally different ;)

What is

[thallgren]

"What is Inkscape? Unfortunently, noone can be told what Inkscape is, you have to download and make install it yourself" :)

Inkscape rocks

[Ice Station Zebra]

I used it to de-uglify a bmp logo for a client. It looked like it had been run through Microsoft Paint with lots of jagged lines and such. Find a program called autotrace on sourceforge that converted the bitmap to svg. Edited the xml file to remove the objects that I didn't want (based on colour). Then loaded it into inkscape and cleaned it up and recolored it. Client was impressed. His graphics person had been unable to do it without recreating the whole thing. It only took me 1 hour.

Keybindings

[Daily]

I have used both Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator almost all day every day for roughly the last seven maybe eight years. (I work in various fields of design). I do however keep my eye on what is happening with the open-source equivalents. There are many reasons why I have not left PS and AI behind in favour of an OS solution, and I'm sure as the years pass by and the software matures many of these reasons will fade and disappear. MY (main) problem with both GIMP and Inkscape is that my productivity takes a significant dive when I try and get anything done in them.

Is this entirely the fault of the developers? Not exactly... .. . BUT, the decision to purposely use different key-bindings to those of PS and AI (because their way might just be better) is a real problem for me and anyone else who has become used to a certain way of working... old habits are hard to break and after the 10th time of reaching for the spacebar to pan around the screen (one example), and getting nothing, the programme gets dumped because although I am bright enough to learn to press a new button if I really need to, breaking a seven / eight year habit is a real pain (especially if I don't NEED to). There are people out there that are prepared to swap from PS and AI to an OS alternative, but if the price is too high for them, then it just won't happen.

Sometimes you have to acknowledge the short-comings of your potential user-base, and it is perfectly human to want certain aspects of familiarity in new and uncharted territory, especially if those familiarities have an impact on productivity. Many of us need to work with our hands ready at the shortcuts, our eyes on the screen, and our minds on the work at hand, instead of keep breaking concentration and remembering strange new key combinations. I do admit that this is a terribly negative and somewhat self-centered thing to say, and only really applies to those of us struggling to switch. It is however a both a real and valid point, depending of course who Inkscape / GIMP is actually aimed at.

I will keep returning to both GIMP and Inkscape, they are both great programmes and to those that are not already worked well into the groove of other applications these could one day be very serious PS an AI opponents.

Problem on Mac OS X

[DavidMatuszek]

Inkscape looks nice on my PC.

On my Mac, opening Inkscape.app starts X11 and starts Inkscape, but no window opens, and the Inkscape menu bar has only Services, Hide Inkscape, Hide Others, and Quit Inkscape. Is this a bug or is there a secret to getting a GUI?

Thanks,
    Dave

Re:Panning tool problem

[arose]

Middle-drag and ctrl+arrows may suit _you_, but try them while using a tablet.

I do all the time, the second button of my stylus acts as the equivalent of the middle mouse button.