Inkscape 0.44 - Faster, Bigger, Better

bbyakk writes "After 6 months of development, Inkscape 0.44 is out. This version of the SVG-based vector graphics editor brings improved performance and tons of new features: Layers dialog, docked color palette, clipping and masking, native PDF export with transparency, configurable keyboard (including Xara emulation), Outline mode for complex drawings, innovative 'node sculpting' and lots more. Check out the full release notes, enjoy the screenshots, or download your package for Windows, Linux or Mac OS X."

Comments

Excellent.

[hullabalucination]

I've really enjoyed watching the progress of this app, along with Scribus and the GIMP. Inkscape has become one of the tools I use day in and day out (especially in conjunction with Scribus) and even though I can run older versions of CorelDraw and Illustrator on my FC5 box, I've really come to value Inkscape even though it doesn't have the collection of power tools that the Windows vector apps have (in all honesty, some of the "power tools" in those other guys are just imagesetter-chokers and you're better off leaving them be).

Now that Krita supports CMYK tiff files (with color management) the day has pretty much dawned in which I no longer have to jump over to my lone remaining Windows box to do some sort of previously-necessary file format conversion.

Re:I like plants

[grammar fascist]

I love Inkscape. I do CS research, and I use it for illustrations in slides and papers. Gradients, highlights, anti-aliasing and such really make diagrams stand out. It's not any more difficult to work with than Word's or OpenOffice's vector drawing tools, either.

Re:Tried it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Having used Inkscape a little, it seems to introduce a lot of excess code into its files (although it may do it less now). Residue from deleted objects and stuff. It's also difficult to make sure your shapes have good names, although this is a problem with any GUI editor that auto-names objects. If I were producing SVG that I actually wanted to read, I'd hand code it, or at least give the generated code some frequent reviews to make sure it makes sense. Seeing box1, box2, box3, and group1 doesn't tell me much about what I'm looking at. My rule is: if you want readable code, then you have to write it.

Screenshot of .44 in action

[TheModelEskimo]

Been using it for the past few days for a hobby project so I thought I'd post this. It shows the new layers and color palettes.

http://www.friendlyskies.net.nyud.net:8080/inksc reen.png (Mind the space in the address)

Sorry it's in KDE, seeing how Inkscape is GTK...at the moment Skype isn't working in Gnome, so... :(

Re:Firefox Users

[Mekabyte]

Firefox 3 will have resampling since it uses Cairo for rendering. You can try out a nightly build to test that feature.

Did anyone see this?!?!

[RickBauls]

http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inksca pe-0.44-outlineview.png thats just purely... simply... insane! I wish I had enought time/patience to do something like that.

Re:Did anyone see this?!?!

[xerxesdaphat]

I'd say it was done with a graphics tablet, much like sketching with paper and pen, not placing each individual line with a mouse/keyboard. Still, seriously amazing... I've never been able to grasp drawing, not only can I not lay everything out in my head properly, but my hands shake and I can't draw lines with any consistency hahah. Perhaps why I never like to use the mouse if I can help it. Visual artists are sufficiently advanced that they're indistinguishable from magic to me ^_^.

Re:Did anyone see this?!?!

[Lehk228]

try moving your hand using your arms not your wrist, i'm not very good at drawing but every time i see someone who it, they keep their wrist stiff and move their arm for most stuff

Re:Did anyone see this?!?!

[MenTaLguY]

Yes, that's exactly right. A lot of beginners try to draw mostly with their wrist and fingers, which doesn't work well and tires you out fast. Most practiced artists do a lot of their drawing motion from their upper arm/shoulder. Of course, you also have to draw larger for this to work well; beginners also tend to draw too small.

Re:Did anyone see this?!?!

[kimvette]

That is great (as someone else mentioned obviously done with a graphics tablet) but it's an absolutely insane number of vector objects. Impressive that a free app can handle that complex of a document. :)

When they (Inkscape) implement proper PDF and eps support, Adobe should really start to either fear open source, or embrace open source operating systems and port their creative suite to Linux before people start retraining themselves in other applications. Heck, they're starting to lose their competitive edge on PDF composition as kword matures. Inkscape's GUI is quirky but easily learned, and is fantastic for creating illustrations, so the need for Illustrator on Linux (and Windows, etc.) is beginning to fade.

I really ought to start donating to open source products I use. As it is I buy distributions we use at my office, but the Inkscape/kword/gimp/etc. developers don't see a dime of what I pay Novell, Mandriva, etc. for the distributions.

Illustrator

[Compuser]

Can someone post a detailed comparison of features between Inkscape and Illustrator.
Which features are still missing (aside from PDF capabilities)?

Re:Illustrator

[Wylfing]

Can someone post a detailed comparison of features between Inkscape and Illustrator. Which features are still missing (aside from PDF capabilities)?

I am not exactly an art guru, but I do use both Inkscape and Illustrator all the time. The three things that have historically bugged me most about Inkscape have been the huge difficulty of locking/unlocking objects, the poor import/export of EPS and PDF, and the inability to add custom colors and gradients onto the swatch palette (I use that in Illustrator a lot to save and reuse colors and gradients). Actually, the editing of gradients is really clunky in Inkscape, so I guess that is another thing that bugs me.

I don't want to paint an overly grim picture of Inkscape, though. It's really quite good, and I am very eager to get my hands on this new version (but I'll wait for the debs).

Ink Question

[Monkelectric]

Could Inkscape be used to generate art for a videogame? Are there any libraries to render this stuff?

Re:Ink Question

[MenTaLguY]

Yes, and yes. It's been done, too -- just off the top of my head, there's Monsterz, but there are other games using SVG graphics as well. Since SVG supports scripting via Javascript (given appropriate browser support), some people have even written games for the web in SVG directly. Browser support isn't widespread enough to make a Flash-killer yet, but if you're just rendering graphics for your own traditional game engine SVG graphics are certainly an option today.

Re:Ink Question

[Lehk228]

if you process the vecor images into raster images during install, you can allow the game to be scaled up to indefinite high resolutions by the end user just by clicking a button

Re:Tried it.

[msloan]

Man, and I thought I was perfectionistic. You could have put all that effort into doing a little coding to make inkscape output what you'd like. It probably wouldn't be that bad. The optimizer someone was working on (to remove unused gradients etc) might have made it into .44, I'm not sure.

Inkscape versus Xara?

[Peturrr]

Since Xara has been opensourced and is freely available on Linux, the question arises: which is better? Is there really a big difference between them in terms of speed, features etc? Which one do you recommend?

GIMP

[metamatic]

I just wish the Inkscape developers could redesign the UI of GIMP...

Re:Red arrows?

[_xeno_]

Nope! The problem here is really the SVG spec, though, in that markers can't exactly inherit useful properties from the line they're being marked on.

My reading of the marker section in the SVG spec says that "fill: inherit" and "stroke: inherit" should be cause the colors to inherit off the parent element.

However: With arrow-heads, the arrow is being filled with a color, and the line is being stroked with a color. Even if Inkscape allowed markers to inherit stroke/fill properties from their parent, the best you could do is have a black arrow-head with a red line around it.

Even so, it's still possible to create red arrows with a red tip, just not easily. First create your normal arrow and set the tip onto it. Note the name of the arrow head you used. Next open up the XML editor. (Yeah - we're heading into tech-land here.) At the very top of the tree there should be a node marked "svg:defs". Open this up, and find the "svg:marker" element that has the same ID listed as the arrow head you used.

Click on it and then click the "duplicate node" button (it's the third from the left on the toolbar). You'll now have a new marker with a new, weird ID. You can edit the ID to be something like "red arrow head" or something useful.

Anyway, click on the "svg:path" element located within the "svg:marker" element. Click on the "style" attribute listed in the right pane. Edit the "fill" attribute listed below, changing it to match the color value of the line you want to use. Press Control-Enter to commit this change.

Then, finally, select your original arrow in the document. This will highlight the node for the path. Edit the style attribute here and change the appropriate "marker" element to point to the new ID of your new arrow head.

You may now optionally curse both Inkscape for making the process this boneheaded and the SVG spec for offering no way to suggest that maybe, just maybe, a marker might want to be filled with the same color the path it's being placed on was stroked with.