FeatureNotePadArchive

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(DONE) A "New"/"Change" label in all drawing tool toolbars changing depending on whether you have an object of the corresponding type selected

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Store/guess export filenames for objects; an attribute of spitem, inkscape:export-as=, settable when exports selection and selection contains only one item; fill it in in the dialog; when not set, guess it from prev/next siblings by in/decrementing their filenames' numeric parts (DONE except for guessing, which is likely to be confusing).

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(DONE) Implement "select under" by ctrl-alt-clicking in selector: Stay in one place and ctrl-alt-click repeatedly watching the statusbar that shows what is selected, it will cycle through the entire stack of objects _at this point_ (not all objects in the document).

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better gradient editor: ideally arbitrary stops, one color widget that switches to the selected stop (DONE)

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When opening a file from an empty unchanged document, replace it with the opened one instead of opening a new window (DONE)

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Write a function to compare two reprs' positions regardless of their parents, by scanning the entire tree (unless they have the same parent, in which case the sp_repr_compare_position() is used) and declaring the one that is run across first to be the lower in z-order. Use it whenever z-order matters (splivarot now has such a function in boolean_op, rather ugly but works).

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Then make a function next-overlapping and prev-overlapping which finds only overlapping objects; use them in raise/lower commands so that the selection cycles through only the objects that overlap it, not all the objects of the document as now (this presently makes lower/raise almost unusable in large documents). (DONE)

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Would it be feasible to have the # key toggle both the grid visibility and grid snapping at the same time? (DONE)

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Make 1) rubberband 2) eventually all drags scroll window when moved beyond edge. Common function to do that? (DONE)

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paste in cursor location instead of the original; a separate command for paste-where-it's-from (DONE)

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remove "clear all", provide "deselect" in edit menu instead (DONE)

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8. Besides the grouping, visibility, and sensitivity stuff I'd like to have a "path simplify" command. In Illustrator that takes a path and removes redundant nodes within certain curve and angle tolerance.

Done, although needs more work

10. Faster zoom features. I wish I could hit "zoom-out" 3 or 4 times and not have it redraw each time. Or maybe have a saved zoom factor or something that I can toggle. I like to zoom in and out a lot to look at things so I want it to be really fast.

Now zoom increment is settable in prefs, and there's a history of zooms; it does not redraw when zooms come in quick succession

12. The pencil tool (freehand draw) seems to create a lot more nodes than Illustrator does. Illustrator must use a curve fitting algorithm or something because it doesn't use as many nodes to create the path but it still fits what you draw. Maybe it just uses a difference tolerance, I don't know.

Now the fitting tolerance is settable in prefs, and is higher by default

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maybe_done must catch selection_change and zero its key, so that subsequent same-dir arrow-key movements of different objects are not lumped into one undo step

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display font name in the statusbar description of text object

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When more than one group (and possibly some non-groups) are selected, "ungroup" must ungroup all groups in the selection

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The below is in regards to Sodipodi 0.32:

1. Is there any way to select individual items from a group? I know you can open the XML viewer and select items but when you have 100's or 1000's of items in a group this is extremely annoying and time consuming compared to just clicking on the item in the artboard (otherwise I usually can't even find the item buried in the XML list).

ctrl-click

5. When selecting multiple items (holding down shift on the keyboard) sometimes it loses the whole selection. I have no idea what causes this, it may have to do with trying to click an item and "missing". Or it might have something to do with accidentally dragging a bit while selecting. Anyway, it is extremely annoying to carefully select 20 or 100 items and then it happens and boom, you've lost the entire selection and have to start over again.

drag tolerance took care of it --bb

6. The "dragging" effect on nodes makes it nearly impossible to use a tablet with Sodipodi and hard to use a mouse when working quickly. Usually when creating a path I will quickly rough out the shape and I just want normal straight, non-curved lines. So I want to click, click, click, click and make the path. The problem is that if you even drag 1 pixel it creates a curve or other strange things that I'll then have to go back and correct. Instead of moving quickly I have to stop at each new point,

click carefully, then move the mouse to the next point. When using a tablet it's pretty much impossible to click without moving the pointer at all so this causes all kinds of problems (and not when just creating new paths).

drag tolerance took care of it --bb

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I commend the inkscape team for picking the excelent language of C++ for development.

I sencerly hope that they use the language to its full potential by using the STL, inheritance and the other fine features that makes C++ a fine language to use. Otherwise it is a waste of time.

Remember, OOP is frustrating and takes a huge amount of time to do right, but when it is done the product is clean, extensible and almost devoid of bugs. Not that its impossible or even overy difficult to make an object oriented program in C, but using C++ with its built in support for virtual functions, protected functions and the like is a step in the right direction.

Well done! Make Bjarne proud!

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a knot must pass keyboard events it doesn't process to parent, so esc-deselecting works when mouse is over a resize handle

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This is in regards to Sodipodi 0.32:

How can one add nodes to a path? There's a button (the one with '+') but it adds a node in the middle of a segment. However, most of the time I want to add a new node AFTER the last node!

Current behaviour:   O - - - - - - - - - - - O  ===> O - - - - - O - - - - - O

What I want to have: O - - - - - - - - - - - O  ===> O - - - - - - - - - - - O - - - - - - O

While in pen or pencil tool, press CTRL+A to toggle append/add

modes.

In Append mode currently selected path has miniature 'anchors',

that turn red if mouse is over them. Starting new line, while

anchor is highlighted appends new line to the old (i.e. you can

add as many points as you like using pen tool).

In node edit you can press ctrl-d on a node to duplicate it.

Also, in the same spirit, how do you easily join two paths? I mean, say you have 2 separate segments, and you want to change them into one triangle. How do you do that? Currently, I have to "compound" them, select a end node of each path, and click the "-" button; but then, they merge into a middle point. This would'nt be so much of a problem if it was easier to add a point to a path!

I think latest CVS version has 'join with line' option in

node toolbox.

Also combining segments (combine tool), and using either pen or

pencil in 'append' mode allows you to connect existing

segments from anchors.

-- Nicolas MONNET

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First - good name. Does name matter? Yes, if it is to be widely accepted it must sound professional and Inkscape sounds professional.

Second - good move to clean up code and standardize and C++ is a good, widely accepted language (ie every programmer knows it)

Third - please clean up the menus - I tried to use Sodipodi and the menus were very hard to use.

Fourth - the export to rasters like png are a very needed item.

Thanks for your efforts.

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7. Sodipodi seems to crash a good bit. I get afraid to use certain operations. For most normal work (when just working with nodes and paths) it seems very stable but when I start combining paths, importing files, and dragging stuff around in the XML viewer it doesn't take long before the crash happens. It's usually not a crash that brings up the crash dialog. It's the kind where you blink and Sodipodi is just gone. I have also had it crash when I accidentally randomly and quickly click 3 or 4 times on the artboard while drawing. Actually, just doing anything randomly or quickly seems to make it crash (zooming in/out, clicking lots of buttons and hotheys). Sorry I can't be more specific, I'll try to follow more closely what's going on when it crashes.

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I also found the menus particularly hard to use.

I find the whole concept of a "dialogs" menu to be extremely abberent and a rather useless nonsense grouping about as much use as dumping them under "miscellanous". There is also a whole lot of functionality in the Toolbox and various dialogs that I expected to find as a menu item but did not which rather threw me for a curve ball.

I'd like the menus to be at least similar to Adobe Illustrator so that I any learning I do can be reapplied and put on my CV as a skill that managment types will recognise rather than give me funny looks for (the GIMP is still not a funny name, it is just embarassing).

I cant wait to see Sodipodi and Inkscape compete and improve each other.

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Sodipodi is very nice, although I have a huge dislike for the interface - while original, it feels very "cludgy" to use. I would love to see a gimp-1.3 inspired interface (1.2 wasn't very nice with it's window juggling but 1.3 has a much nicer drag and drop way of organising & grouping the windows you use more often). With a ui overhaul Sodipodi/Inkscape could be very, very nice.

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BTW, is there already some good user-documentation for Sodipodi/Inkscape? Because as a user, I don't mind how bad the code is and how much dead code there is, all I need is a manual to learn that other 90% of the app. With a manual I can really *use* the program, find bugs, and file bugreports....