Inkscape Wiki talk:Community Portal

SVG Polygon/Polyline

Greetings:

New to Inkscape.

How do you or will Inkscape support native SVG polygon/polyline elements?

Thanks.

Port 8080 parsed in URLs

I have been seeing a lot of places on the site where port 8080 is part of the URL.

I just joined and so got a confirmation mail which directed me to: http://www.inkscape.org:8080/wiki/index.php/Special:Confirmemail/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX which obviously didn't work till I removed the 8080

Feature request

Hi,

I am new to this forum, so don't shoot me if I sound stupid. I am also not sure if this message is going to be read by anyone... hell, I'll try anyway.

Firstly, I would like to congratulate you guys for this wonderful project. I am using inkscape for one year in my professional life (scientific research on semiconductor and bio-electronics). I use it mainly for schematics and technical drawings. I prefer inkscape above other applications because it's lightweight, it 's not packed with tons of useless features, but still you can do beautiful things.

So, I can give feedback on my personal experience in the usage of Inkscape.

(1) the first frustration I ofen have is the usage of grids. For technical drawings (like schematics), a grid is very, very, very important. Anything you do, should always stay perfectly aligned to the grid. I give you an example:

 1. make a grid, set switches: "enable snap" and "snap to nodes"
 2. draw a rectangle with a relatively thick border.  Observe that the rectangle is nicely aligned on the grid as it shoud.
 3. scale the rectangle.  Observe that the rectangle is NOT ALIGNED to the grid any more!  And then the trouble begins...

(2) perhaps related to (1). for technical drawings, I always turn off the switches "Scale stroke". However, if I scale a rectangle, while dragging with the mouse, it seems that the stroke is scaled anyway, until you release the mouse button, the stroke is normal again. This is unwanted.

(3) There should be a method to move objects with a reference point. This way, an object which is aligned to a grid will always stay aligned. Remind that alignment of objects to grids is often not required, ususally a reference point is enough. It could be done the same way as you do with rotation: the reference point is a little cross you can position, and the position of this cross is stored in memory. The "move by reference point" is especially useful for irregular items, like text or multiple selections. In the case of text, the default reference point could be e.g. the baseline.

(4) What I really, really miss is multiple pages :-) But, it seems to be on your todo list.

(5) What I also really miss is an easy way to create template objects, like symbols.

* Symbols should be easily selectable from a gallery
* The symbol gallery should be stored WITHIN the same file.  Perhaps SVG supports embedding other SVG?  Would be perfect.
* Instantiations of the symbols should (in XML terms) a simple line with some parameters.  This way, it can be easily parsed by scripts.
* It should be easy to create your own symbols, and import/export them from other SVG.  
* Logically, the symbols should be clones: if you change the original in the gallery, you change them all.  
* Also, it could be nice to have the objects have some custom text properties which a user can enter or alter when instantiating an object.  Example: an electronic schematic contains resistors, and a resistor has a value, which can be altered independently.   Of course, other items can be added, depending on the application.  Items don't always need to be visible, they can be used for some kind of database purposes.   I can write my own XML parser to extract the netlist!  Very nice!!  
* Suggestion: these symbols also allow us to make hierarchical drawings.  For example: you can open a drawing within a drawing.  
* I think this is not a very complicated feature to implement, but it would increase the power of the application!

(6) Another interesting feature would be a style gallery, like default fills, default arrows, default text styles, etc... which you can (of course) add, edit, etc... Today, I often have the feeling I have to do too much the same clicking all the time. Mind point (5). If an object is drawn with styles, you could change the styles, and change all symbols and related objects automatically. Very nice!

(7) The arrowheads could be improved.

  * The color of the arrows should be by default the same as the color of the line
  * Make a "SWAP ARROWS" button.  This simply swaps the END with START arrows.  I need it very often.
  * Sometimes, it's hard to find the right arrow, due to the linewidth.  Right now, we have to choose from a very long list of arrowheads, with different sizes.  Better would be to have a shorter list, but a scale factor.  This way, we always have the right arrow for the right line.

I think that's about it. If these features could be added, you would make me a very, very happy man!

Please send me an email so I know anybody received these questions.

Thanks in advance,

Roeland.

More Feature request

- A window of objects/group objects (like the layers's window), or inside the layers's window. The window should must be dockable in the 'right side' and allow the visible and blocked options per object
- A dockable object's properties window (now is a floating window)
- Autoclean empty 'text' elements and unused or empty 'flowRoot' elements in the document (is very usual have too much empty elements because you click here, and now there with text tool for write in the correctly position (really, it's an user mistake, but very common).
- Don't set font styles where are not needed (i see with a text editor the svg file and contains too much font-styles in path elements -after a text-to-path conversion-)
- To can remove the patterns created (that i decide remove, after changes in the document). This is a problem when the patterns are created from images, because this is automatically (and without ask me) inserted into the document, whose size increment too much, but if i decide don't use never more a pattern, this will exist forever (and the large image too) into the document.

Hi all. I have a suggestion. What is really needed for Inkscape - it is tabbed user interface, like in Firefox browser

bug?

Hi im using leopard. screen "inkscape freferences" will drop dead and make inkscape sleep when i click on rectangle> fill. Some error screen will show up but too short to read. Have to restart inkscape.

EPS files etc.

New to Inkscape - as of today really. I have been using Illustrator for quite awhile but I want to use as many open source programs as possible. I notice you can open ai files but what about eps files? I have a ton of eps files saved and I'd hate to have to go back and somehow resave them.

• no really simple answer other than inkscape relies on other programs to do the converting, and they may not be available. See here for details: [1]

Is Inkscape strictly RBG? I do digital printing in CMYK but I have been able to print RGB files.

• Yes, at the moment. Some work has been done on color management and spot color's but it's still quite basic. Have not used it myself, so can't really comment on if it will work for you.

Also, as part of the printer requirements, I need to assign a specific colour to indicate a cut line for the plotter. Does Inkscape have a "swatch" section where I can add/create this?

• There is the pallet bar at the bottom of the screen, however there is no in inkscape way of editing it yet, see [2] for current details. Has recently been changed (improved) in development builds, but work still ongoing.

As I come across aspects of Illustrator and digital printing, I'll post them. Hopefully that info will help. I checked a printing forum and Inkscape came up so I imagine if more of these specific items are addressed, you can get more printers using the software.

• yes, it's certainly something that is on the radar after talks with the Scribus (open source DTP program) team, but I can't really comment on when as I'm not an active developer. Tom 12:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

-mike-