7 ms·

I've always found Inkscape surprisingly easy to use in comparison to other open source tools (like for Gimp for example). I use it for almost all my diagrammin

by new299 10y ago

I've always found Inkscape surprisingly easy to use in comparison to other open source tools (like for Gimp for example). I use it for almost all my diagramming needs (scientific publications/documentation). Closed source tools are almost certainly better in one or more respects. But it's certainly good enough for me, and it makes me feel happy and secure to be using an open source tool.

Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
Same here. As a quite graphically-challenged person, Inkscape is the only tool I feel reasonably comfortable using, and can produce passable results with. Most of the other graphics tools I have tried confused me to no end. In Inkscape, maybe the UI isn't as beautiful and flashy as in other tools, but it's very understandable and the amount and arrangement of tools feels logical to me. I can't speak for people who don't suck at design, probably for them Inkscape falls quite short, but for me it was a godsend (despite the presence of some bugs, namely copying and pasting to/from different instances used to be a lottery, let's see if it's better in this version). Kudos to the team.
- TuringTest 10y ago
  My experience is with Inkscape is quite different; it certainly doesn't feel intuitive to me. I find myself unable to grasp the way all the avaialbe tools are expected to be used together, even after following the basic shapes tutorials; and I always seem to have the wrong thing selected, or the wrong tool active, or the wrong properties panel opened. And I still can't make sense of the differences between "object" and "path". Maybe you can help me. When I want to change the way the current selected tool works, how do I know whether I have to change the options in the above contextual menu bar, or those in one of those dozens of hidden panels (that I can't manage to open again when I dismiss them)? How does one change more than one color in a gradient? And how does one create a shape with radial symmetries? (I found about tiling and the symmetry tab, but I couldn't make sense of it) I've been unable to complete any of those tasks.
  - bostand 10y ago
    > My experience is with Inkscape is quite different; it certainly doesn't feel intuitive to me. You haven't even tried to learn the software and still open your post with a statement like that?? Maybe you should watch some tutorial series on YouTube first?
    - pdwetz 10y ago
      Having to watch tutorials seems the opposite of "intuitive"
    - TuringTest 10y ago
      I did. Still doesn't help with making sense with the problems of "what tool is selected?" and "what mode is the tool in?".
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    Are you using a new version of it? The tool configurations migrated all into the toolbar, and when they require some extra panel, there's a button for opening them there too. That's fixed. But last time I used it the gradient dialog was still bad (there's an "edit" button on that edit window that only changes one color, you must click on it) and I also could never make sense of symmetries.
  - davidgerard 10y ago
    It is impossible IME to use Inkscape unless you run through all the tutorials. The interface is not usefully discoverable. You have to understand the app's model of things, and that's opaque at best. I think it's worth learning though.
    - Sharlin 10y ago
      FWIW I learned to use Inkscape quite productively without any tutorials. That was five to ten years ago though.
      - RUG3Y 10y ago
donquichotte 10y ago
Agreed! I actually prefer it to Dia or commercial products for drawing diagrams. Sometimes, it's even useful for simple 2D CAD (for cutting shapes on a desktop CNC mill), editing PDFs or printing the output of KiCAD's PCB exports to check it for errors. Truly a secret weapon and certainly my favorite open source graphics program.
- ComodoHacker 10y ago
  >I actually prefer it to Dia or commercial products for drawing diagrams. Does Inkscape have good routing yet?
  - LyndsySimon 10y ago
    I don't think so... but it should be implementable as an extension, I would think.
smrtinsert 10y ago
Gimp prefers the absolute most surprising and unexpected behavior given all available options. Krita designers should be hired to redesign Gimp. If Krita support image editing slightly better, I'm pretty sure no one would use Gimp again. Inkscape is excellent at surfacing options. Even a novice can discover how to use it simply by reading options available at any time.
- lillesvin 10y ago
  I hear this complaint a lot and it always surprises me. I guess I'm just used to it after using it as my primary raster image editor for more than 15 years. What is it that's particularly unintuitive?
  - floopidydoopidy 10y ago
    It's not like the other unintuitive program he learned before and therefore it's bad.
  - frik 10y ago
    Last time I tried Gimp (1 year ago), I searched for an option to rotate an image a few degrees. All I found, was rotate by 90 degrees - like in pre-v5 Photoshop. I went back to Paint.net, which is good enough most the times (sadly it's closed source nowadays and gets little updates) - I open use Paint from Win7 too, for really simple things it's very fast.
    - cozzyd 10y ago
      That's because image formats are (usually?) constrained to be rectangular. You want to use layer->transform rather than image->transform for what you want (and then probably want to crop so you don't have nothing in the background on the edge).
    - mohaine 10y ago
      Not really sure what you are talking about. "rotate" is on the main tool box and exactly how to do it was first google result. https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-rotate.html https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-rotate.html https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-layer-rotate-arbitrary.html https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-layer-rotate-arbitrary.html Tools you know will always be faster then ones you don't know but that doesn't help people who don't yet know any of the tools.

by new299 10y ago

Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago

Same here. As a quite graphically-challenged person, Inkscape is the only tool I feel reasonably comfortable using, and can produce passable results with. Most of the other graphics tools I have tried confused me to no end. In Inkscape, maybe the UI isn't as beautiful and flashy as in other tools, but it's very understandable and the amount and arrangement of tools feels logical to me. I can't speak for people who don't suck at design, probably for them Inkscape falls quite short, but for me it was a godsend (despite the presence of some bugs, namely copying and pasting to/from different instances used to be a lottery, let's see if it's better in this version). Kudos to the team.

TuringTest 10y ago
My experience is with Inkscape is quite different; it certainly doesn't feel intuitive to me. I find myself unable to grasp the way all the avaialbe tools are expected to be used together, even after following the basic shapes tutorials; and I always seem to have the wrong thing selected, or the wrong tool active, or the wrong properties panel opened. And I still can't make sense of the differences between "object" and "path". Maybe you can help me. When I want to change the way the current selected tool works, how do I know whether I have to change the options in the above contextual menu bar, or those in one of those dozens of hidden panels (that I can't manage to open again when I dismiss them)? How does one change more than one color in a gradient? And how does one create a shape with radial symmetries? (I found about tiling and the symmetry tab, but I couldn't make sense of it) I've been unable to complete any of those tasks.
- bostand 10y ago
  > My experience is with Inkscape is quite different; it certainly doesn't feel intuitive to me. You haven't even tried to learn the software and still open your post with a statement like that?? Maybe you should watch some tutorial series on YouTube first?
  - pdwetz 10y ago
    Having to watch tutorials seems the opposite of "intuitive"
  - TuringTest 10y ago
    I did. Still doesn't help with making sense with the problems of "what tool is selected?" and "what mode is the tool in?".
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  Are you using a new version of it? The tool configurations migrated all into the toolbar, and when they require some extra panel, there's a button for opening them there too. That's fixed. But last time I used it the gradient dialog was still bad (there's an "edit" button on that edit window that only changes one color, you must click on it) and I also could never make sense of symmetries.
- davidgerard 10y ago
  It is impossible IME to use Inkscape unless you run through all the tutorials. The interface is not usefully discoverable. You have to understand the app's model of things, and that's opaque at best. I think it's worth learning though.
  - Sharlin 10y ago
    FWIW I learned to use Inkscape quite productively without any tutorials. That was five to ten years ago though.
    - RUG3Y 10y ago

donquichotte 10y ago

Agreed! I actually prefer it to Dia or commercial products for drawing diagrams. Sometimes, it's even useful for simple 2D CAD (for cutting shapes on a desktop CNC mill), editing PDFs or printing the output of KiCAD's PCB exports to check it for errors. Truly a secret weapon and certainly my favorite open source graphics program.

ComodoHacker 10y ago
>I actually prefer it to Dia or commercial products for drawing diagrams. Does Inkscape have good routing yet?
- LyndsySimon 10y ago
  I don't think so... but it should be implementable as an extension, I would think.

smrtinsert 10y ago

Gimp prefers the absolute most surprising and unexpected behavior given all available options. Krita designers should be hired to redesign Gimp. If Krita support image editing slightly better, I'm pretty sure no one would use Gimp again. Inkscape is excellent at surfacing options. Even a novice can discover how to use it simply by reading options available at any time.

lillesvin 10y ago
I hear this complaint a lot and it always surprises me. I guess I'm just used to it after using it as my primary raster image editor for more than 15 years. What is it that's particularly unintuitive?
- floopidydoopidy 10y ago
  It's not like the other unintuitive program he learned before and therefore it's bad.
- frik 10y ago
  Last time I tried Gimp (1 year ago), I searched for an option to rotate an image a few degrees. All I found, was rotate by 90 degrees - like in pre-v5 Photoshop. I went back to Paint.net, which is good enough most the times (sadly it's closed source nowadays and gets little updates) - I open use Paint from Win7 too, for really simple things it's very fast.
  - cozzyd 10y ago
    That's because image formats are (usually?) constrained to be rectangular. You want to use layer->transform rather than image->transform for what you want (and then probably want to crop so you don't have nothing in the background on the edge).
  - mohaine 10y ago
    Not really sure what you are talking about. "rotate" is on the main tool box and exactly how to do it was first google result. https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-rotate.html https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-rotate.html https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-layer-rotate-arbitrary.html https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-layer-rotate-arbitrary.html Tools you know will always be faster then ones you don't know but that doesn't help people who don't yet know any of the tools.