Roadmap
Inkscape Development Roadmap
NOTE: This is a working document showing specific near-term tasks needed for achieving the numbered milestones.
Milestones 0-9 have been completed since the start of the Inkscape Project. See OldRoadmap
Milestone 12 - Inkscape 0.46
New/Changed Dependencies:
- Gtk 2.8 (required)
- 2geom (optional)
Architectural Refactoring Effort:
- Eliminate all use of sp_repr_new in favor of XML::Document::* classes (see [1]
- Migrate SPObject to native C++ classes
- Implement gradient UI "release" handler to deal with gradient garbage collection (see bug 984854)
- Create an SPObject API for tracking references and avoiding id clashes on import and interdocument copy/paste. What we need are a void SPDocument::importCopies([set of SPObjects]), and an [set of SPObjects] SPObject::dependencies() method.
- Prepatory work to integrate lib2geom next release
Codebase Cleanup Effort:
- Change to use of GQuarks instead of #defines where feasible
- Learn and use autoscan and autoreconf to find out which configure tests are still needed.
- Clean up configure.in
- (PARTIALLY DONE) DirectoryReorgProposal
- Convert all tabs into spaces (convert tabs to 4 spaces)
- Remove trailing whitespace
- Rename all 'SPFooBar' routines to 'FooBar' and put into namespaces
- (DONE) dialogs folder
- (DONE) Convert use of gboolean to bool where feasible
- (DONE) Switch from use of TRUE/FALSE to true/false
File Format Support Effort:
- PDF Import/Export
- Identify remaining problems with the cairo-based PDF tool
- Ensure clippaths, transparency, bitmaps, etc. all work
Inkboard Effort
- Stabilize the code by closing crash bugs in the bug tracker
SVG Feature Compliance Effort:
- Animation
- Sketch out UI mockup ideas for animation rendering/animation
- Make an ultra-preliminary proof of concept of at least one animation feature
User Documentation Effort:
- Re-arrange tutorial categories
- Switch to use of xml2po for tutorial files
- Document filters
Milestone 13 - Inkscape 0.47
New/Changed Dependencies:
- Gtk 2.10 (required)
- 2geom (required)
File Format Support Effort:
- PDF Import/Export
- Choice of PDF spec. (PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3)
- Add file info/comments
- Add color bars
- Visio support
- Add extension for use of VDX2SVG (http://vdxtosvg.sourceforge.net/)
- Add extension for use of PDF2SVG (http://www.solidcode.net/pdf2svg/ - this doesn't actually link to a useful page)
Architectural Refactoring Effort:
- Streamline style.*
- Eliminate use of the style.h types in as much of codebase as possible, particularly display/*.
- Externally, it should present a simple sset of accessor methods for getting/setting properties by name, and propagating to/from repr.
- Inside, it should have:
- a concise list of property names with the expected domain of values in CSS and the associated Inkscape data type
- a concise list of property aliases which represent one or more properties combined, each with the rule used to combine
- definitions of the aforementioned rules and value domains
- some generic code (not tied to any one property) implementing the needed behavior
- 2geom Integration
- Eliminate code in favor of 2geom where feasible
- Convert remaining GTK dialog code to Gtkmm
DOM Binding Effort:
- Evaluate Adobe Activescript to use instead of Spidermonkey for our JS engine
- Create sample prototype app to explore ActiveScript
- Decide whether to go with Spidermonkey or Adobe ActiveScript
- Create tool that reads the w3c idl files and generates binding code
- Bind xpath parsing/execution
- Finish the CSS-DOM classes
- Add a 'run' mode in a separate window that runs and displays the scripted SVG
Extensions Effort:
- Implement extension registry for users to upload/download extensions via Inkscape
- Dia-like smart shapes support
User Interface Effort:
- improvement of svg patterns UI - make it similar to gradient-drag, instead of piggybacking knotholder
- Palettes
- Custom palettes like from Gnome
- Ability to load 3rd-party palettes (e.g. Pantone, Trumatch, Focoltone, Toyo, etc.)
- Reenable fuzzy font matching [bb]
- Improve freehand curve smoothness [pjrm, paraprax]
Desktop Integration Effort:
- WebDAV/FTP support via GNOME-VFS, Neon, or the like
- Make printing work more efficiently and reliably
- Inter-application cut-and-paste
- Inter-application drag-and-drop
- Clipart manager GUI
Testing Effort:
- Include some rendering tests in `make check'.
- Get 'make check' to pass on Win32 and OSX
- Investigate performance measurement testing for Inkscape
Animation Effort
- Prereq: We need a conceptualization of how it should work
- Currently, part of the concept discussion is at here
Inkboard Effort
- Ensure multi-user conferences work across most JEP-compliant Jabber servers
- Conduct an informal security analysis of Inkboard for security flaws
User Documentation Effort:
- Solicit more tutorial contributions from userbase
- Node editing
- Advanced text effects
- Grid snapping
- Connectors
- Creating photo-realistic art
Milestone 14 - Inkscape 0.48 - Animation
- Get basic rendering and authoring of simple animations working adequately
Architectural Refactoring Effort:
- Complete lib2geom integration
File Format Support Effort:
- PDF Import/Export
- Generate multipage PDF documents
- Define bleed and slug areas for offset printing
- Add crop, bleed and registration marks
Milestone 15 - Inkscape 0.49 - Prototype all SVG Mobile features
SVG Feature Compliance Effort:
- Ability to select which SVG spec version to save as
- Multi-page
- Animation
- Implement perspective transformations via PerspectiveObject
- Path editing
- Shaped strokes
- Masking/clippaths
- on-canvas editing
- Should work like gradient tool to apply transparency
- hyperlinking
- Ensure Inkscape does not throw away the internal DTD subsets of documents it reads
Milestone 16 - Inkscape 0.50 - SVG Mobile Support
SVG Feature Compliance Effort:
- Multi-page
- Scripting
- Markers
- Inherit stroke properties like color
- On-canvas editing
- Fix snapping issue
- Real CMYK / LAB / HSB support
Milestone 17 - Inkscape 0.51
Architectural Refactoring Effort:
- cairo Adoption Effort:
- Prereq: Is renderer immune to the same kinds of numerical problems we see with our new renderer, libnr, or libart?
- Will the new renderer improve performance for most users?
- Integrate a cairo-based SVG Canvas library
File Format Support Effort:
- Native Adobe Illustrator file Import/Export
- Requires good PDF Import/Export
- Native CorelDraw file Import/Export
- DXF import/export
- gdkpixbuf(?) - would give JPEG support
Milestone 18 - Inkscape 0.52 - Tech drawing abilities
User Interface Effort:
- Object-to-object snapping
- Implement LittleCMS as color management system
- Implement iso & hex grid
- Editable toolbars (libegg)
- Geometrical constraints
- "Perpendicular-to", "Parallel-to", etc.
- Path trimming/extending/offset
- Filleting tool