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Inkscape is my go-to example of why FLOSS is great: * Learn how to use it once * Keep using it for a life time * Not completely changing interface every

by cies 7y ago

Inkscape is my go-to example of why FLOSS is great: * Learn how to use it once * Keep using it for a life time * Not completely changing interface every major release * Keeps getting better (some commercial software seems to bloat beyond repair) * Available on many platforms * All of the above for FREE Now I dont need to do vector graphics every week, not even every month. But for those couple of times a year it's good to have a tool in your box. Inkscape is there for me, no need to buy a (subscription) license. No need to boot into another OS. No need to relearn it. More than complete feature set for my needs. Congrats to the team!

twelvechairs 7y ago
Big ones for me are Firefox, Inkscape, QGIS, Blender
- new2628 7y ago
  Firefox does tend to reshuffle the interface occasionally though.
  - mkl 7y ago
    Not nearly as significantly as Blender though!
TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
And built in opening and save as DXF! Being able rapidly and precisely build an item in 2D CAD, then do the graphic design component on Inkscape is amazing. More recently I’m moving to do the graphic design part in Affinity Designer due to a couple of irritating bugs in Inkscape... but it doesn’t have export to DXF... But Inkscape is what taught me vector graphics, and I’m still using it as my default vector graphics app in my day job as a laser cutter operator-extraordinaire.
Freak_NL 7y ago
IInkscape is just there for us when we need it; it's one of those staple FOSS applications that just is. I've been using it since the Sodipodi days; that's more than fifteen years ago! Inkscape is pretty extensible as well. It's not too hard to write plugins for it (in Python). I've did it myself, and love how a handful of people seem to find it of use¹. 1: https://inkscape.org/~jdhoek/%E2%98%85isometric-projection-converter https://inkscape.org/~jdhoek/%E2%98%85isometric-projection-c...
Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
> * Keeps getting better (some commercial software seems to bloat beyond repair) Adobe's video editing suite of latest versions is actually well known to be buggy in terms of regular crashes and hangings. It took me many months to realize that the problem was not inferior CPU or drivers or other software or virtual machines or little memory, but that their software is straight up buggy. That's a company that charges hundreds of dollars for their suite and also a company that had a perfectly good software before and have also basically owned the market before. Now it is buggy and crashes. What other software even crashes these days? I have to think back several years when I remember office suites crashing or other complicated software. It is really a disgrace on Adobe's part. This is not a single user experience either, there is a general consensus now among video editors that this is the case with Premiere and After Effects.
- atoav 7y ago
  I am an extensive user of Premiere and After Effects and didn’t experience a single crash that was to blame on Adobe within the last 12 months. The crashes I had were due to 3rd party plugins. I am slowly replacing AE with Blender now, but for certain stuff I still like it.
  - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
    My crashes were definitely due to Adobe. It was latest updated Windows, Nvidia card with latest drivers, latest adobe, plenty of free space and RAM, etc. It crashed even without any plugins. Also as an additional thought, is it really that good that they make such a big software that can be crashed because of a plugin? They know there will be a plugin Zoo out there, they know the plugins sometimes have to use GPU on their own, which brings many troubles with drivers etc, - they still can't manage to just isolate in in their own processes? Plugins are used all the time, it's an industry of itself. Company of the size of Adobe can't foresee that some plugins will be unstable and they need to take care of it? The dreaded chrome can isolate websites in their own processes, Adobe can't do the same with a mere plugin??
    - 7y ago
Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
Unfortunately, this 'not completely changing interface' has a side effect: it fails to evolve and become better. I am a long-time user of Inkscape (since 2007 at least), and it is sad how poor it looks now next to Sketch/Figma. Their vector tools are better, their layer tools are better. It's a million little things that make drawing a similar shape in Sketch 50x faster than in Inkscape.
- atoav 7y ago
  This is what stops me of using it as a professional user: you can get things done, but the processes are more convoluted and less intuitive. The way Blender does it is near optimum in my eyes: not shying away from a major overhaul once in 5 years and aleays making sure it is really making things better.
  - robert_foss 7y ago
    I would think Blender does a good job too, but inkscape has no paid contributors. If it had people employed to work on it, I think you would see more attention being paid to UI. Blender is one of the most successful projects out there, and assuming other projects could just 'do what Blender does' is ignoring some of the fundamental differences between Blender and smaller projects.
    - Crinus 7y ago
      It isn't so much the paid contributors (though they help) as it is that Blender Foundation was making commercial quality projects for years using Blender with artists and programmers at the same place so they were able to provide immediate feedback to each other. The closest other projects have to this are vague forum/bugtracker posts that more often than not give little (or misleading) idea to the programmers what is needed. Having an artist sit next to you and giving them the mouse and keyboard to show you directly in the software what they are doing, how they are doing it and what they want to do is much faster and gives you way more information and you can bounce forth and back alternative ideas, perhaps make minor quick modifications on the spot as a prototype or lead to an idea, etc. (the next best thing is you being both the artist and the programmer - which is how many of FLOSS art oriented programs are made really - but there is a great danger of you getting used to your software's drawbacks and being unwilling to address them)
SquishyPanda23 7y ago
Xfig is open source and has barely changed since 1991, but I don't think that's a feature. Learning to use updates to a UI is relatively cheap. Having a bunch of tools that are outdated is expensive. Inkscape is great for what it is, but it could definitely use a well thought out interface refresh.
misterdoubt 7y ago
I want to mess with vector graphics about twice a year, and I do essentially zero visual work beyond that. Every time I'm pleased at how easy Inkscape makes it. And it's completely smooth on both Linux and Windows.
jayalpha 7y ago
"* Learn how to use it once * Keep using it for a life time" Yeah, right. Like Xara XL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xara_Xtreme_LX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xara_Xtreme_LX

by cies 7y ago

twelvechairs 7y ago

Big ones for me are Firefox, Inkscape, QGIS, Blender

new2628 7y ago
Firefox does tend to reshuffle the interface occasionally though.
- mkl 7y ago
  Not nearly as significantly as Blender though!

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago

And built in opening and save as DXF! Being able rapidly and precisely build an item in 2D CAD, then do the graphic design component on Inkscape is amazing. More recently I’m moving to do the graphic design part in Affinity Designer due to a couple of irritating bugs in Inkscape... but it doesn’t have export to DXF... But Inkscape is what taught me vector graphics, and I’m still using it as my default vector graphics app in my day job as a laser cutter operator-extraordinaire.

Freak_NL 7y ago

IInkscape is just there for us when we need it; it's one of those staple FOSS applications that just is. I've been using it since the Sodipodi days; that's more than fifteen years ago! Inkscape is pretty extensible as well. It's not too hard to write plugins for it (in Python). I've did it myself, and love how a handful of people seem to find it of use¹. 1: https://inkscape.org/~jdhoek/%E2%98%85isometric-projection-converter https://inkscape.org/~jdhoek/%E2%98%85isometric-projection-c...

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago

> * Keeps getting better (some commercial software seems to bloat beyond repair) Adobe's video editing suite of latest versions is actually well known to be buggy in terms of regular crashes and hangings. It took me many months to realize that the problem was not inferior CPU or drivers or other software or virtual machines or little memory, but that their software is straight up buggy. That's a company that charges hundreds of dollars for their suite and also a company that had a perfectly good software before and have also basically owned the market before. Now it is buggy and crashes. What other software even crashes these days? I have to think back several years when I remember office suites crashing or other complicated software. It is really a disgrace on Adobe's part. This is not a single user experience either, there is a general consensus now among video editors that this is the case with Premiere and After Effects.

atoav 7y ago
I am an extensive user of Premiere and After Effects and didn’t experience a single crash that was to blame on Adobe within the last 12 months. The crashes I had were due to 3rd party plugins. I am slowly replacing AE with Blender now, but for certain stuff I still like it.
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  My crashes were definitely due to Adobe. It was latest updated Windows, Nvidia card with latest drivers, latest adobe, plenty of free space and RAM, etc. It crashed even without any plugins. Also as an additional thought, is it really that good that they make such a big software that can be crashed because of a plugin? They know there will be a plugin Zoo out there, they know the plugins sometimes have to use GPU on their own, which brings many troubles with drivers etc, - they still can't manage to just isolate in in their own processes? Plugins are used all the time, it's an industry of itself. Company of the size of Adobe can't foresee that some plugins will be unstable and they need to take care of it? The dreaded chrome can isolate websites in their own processes, Adobe can't do the same with a mere plugin??
  - 7y ago

Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago

Unfortunately, this 'not completely changing interface' has a side effect: it fails to evolve and become better. I am a long-time user of Inkscape (since 2007 at least), and it is sad how poor it looks now next to Sketch/Figma. Their vector tools are better, their layer tools are better. It's a million little things that make drawing a similar shape in Sketch 50x faster than in Inkscape.

atoav 7y ago
This is what stops me of using it as a professional user: you can get things done, but the processes are more convoluted and less intuitive. The way Blender does it is near optimum in my eyes: not shying away from a major overhaul once in 5 years and aleays making sure it is really making things better.
- robert_foss 7y ago
  I would think Blender does a good job too, but inkscape has no paid contributors. If it had people employed to work on it, I think you would see more attention being paid to UI. Blender is one of the most successful projects out there, and assuming other projects could just 'do what Blender does' is ignoring some of the fundamental differences between Blender and smaller projects.
  - Crinus 7y ago
    It isn't so much the paid contributors (though they help) as it is that Blender Foundation was making commercial quality projects for years using Blender with artists and programmers at the same place so they were able to provide immediate feedback to each other. The closest other projects have to this are vague forum/bugtracker posts that more often than not give little (or misleading) idea to the programmers what is needed. Having an artist sit next to you and giving them the mouse and keyboard to show you directly in the software what they are doing, how they are doing it and what they want to do is much faster and gives you way more information and you can bounce forth and back alternative ideas, perhaps make minor quick modifications on the spot as a prototype or lead to an idea, etc. (the next best thing is you being both the artist and the programmer - which is how many of FLOSS art oriented programs are made really - but there is a great danger of you getting used to your software's drawbacks and being unwilling to address them)

SquishyPanda23 7y ago

Xfig is open source and has barely changed since 1991, but I don't think that's a feature. Learning to use updates to a UI is relatively cheap. Having a bunch of tools that are outdated is expensive. Inkscape is great for what it is, but it could definitely use a well thought out interface refresh.

misterdoubt 7y ago

I want to mess with vector graphics about twice a year, and I do essentially zero visual work beyond that. Every time I'm pleased at how easy Inkscape makes it. And it's completely smooth on both Linux and Windows.

jayalpha 7y ago

"* Learn how to use it once * Keep using it for a life time" Yeah, right. Like Xara XL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xara_Xtreme_LX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xara_Xtreme_LX