Image links manager

Idea

As of Inkscape 0.47, the only way to manage images is to edit the XML of the document or to run not-so-user-friendly scripts.

The idea is to provide an easy management of these images. The user should be able to :

• replace an image with a new one
• embed an image
• decide to store externally an embedded image
• decide is an external image is stored with an absolute path or a relative path

• repair broken links

Images in inkscape

We can enumerate 3 types of images:

• External with Absolute path
  • The file is stored externally
  • Path is absolute (loading on another computer fails)
  • example:

   <image
      xlink:href="file:///home/steren/Bureau/imgs/absolute.png"
      width="80"
      height="80"
      id="image57"
      x="40"
      y="152" />

• External with Relative path
  • The file is stored externally
  • Path is relative (if well organized, loading on another computer is ok)
  • example:

   <image
      sodipodi:absref="/home/steren/Bureau/imgs/relative.png"
      xlink:href="imgs/relative.png"
      y="263.79077"
      x="40.000011"
      id="image71"
      height="80"
      width="80" />

• Embedded
  • The file is stored into the document
  • Ok but cannot use external software to edit it
  • example:

   <image
      xlink:href="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANS
  ...***IMAGE STORED HERE***
  "
      width="80"
      height="80"
      id="image43"
      x="40"
      y="40" />

UI Proposal

Manager

each line contain : a thumbnail of the image and its path.

(You can find the sources of this image here)

A test file can be found here, it contains a .svg with 3 images: relative, absolute and embedded.

• if current selection on the canvas contains images, they appear selected when the manager is opened.
• when images are selected in the manager, they appear selected on the canvas.

Discussion

Please, use the discussion page to discuss around thsi idea.