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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

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)
    - jorvi 7y ago
      Much more importantly, Blender doesn't shy away from getting inspired by their proprietary counterparts. AFAIK they're even working on a 'industry keybinds' setting which makes changing over from Maya a breeze. Programs like GIMP (or even entire OS UIs like Gnome and KDE) often shy away from 'aping' respectively Photoshop or Apple. But those proprietary vendors have spent millions of dollars on focus groups and man hours to optimize their UI and UX. Benefiting from that seems like a no-brainer, but alas.. NIH and proprietary hate reigns supreme.
      - Crinus 7y ago
        Eh, Photoshop hasn't really optimized their UI/UX, their UI goes back to the original MacPaint by Bill Atkinson (Photoshop started as a more powerful MacPaint) and has evolved over the years starting from that. It is just that it became a very common UI for similar applications and the reason to make something similar isn't because Adobe has spent millions optimizing it, but because a lot of people are already familiar with it. However the same can be said for GIMP's UI nowadays. And really personally i find Photoshop UI atrocious and if i had to chose between that and GIMP's i'd pick GIMP any time (though overall i actually prefer PSP7's UI which IMO is the best of any of those).
        o-__-o 7y ago
        Gimp is garbage bro. A window for each tool? That your WM manages? Okay where is that tools window or layers window or what if I’m editing 20 icons and one of my icons was covered by a browser window. At least old photoshop would remember z order and bring them to the surface and keep tools on top. Gimp May have fixed this one issue but it’s an example of why paid UX design wins 99 times out of 10
        axelf4 7y ago
        Gimp has had a single-window layout for a long time now.
aagd 7y ago
Inkscape vector tools are way more sophisticated than Sketch’s. For simple vector editing tasks Sketch might be ok, and for creating whole responsive screen designs Sketch is awesome. But vector editing is really one of Sketch’s weakest points (eg. creation of combined paths). The look of the UI is of course not comparable, but i’d prefer functionality over looks.
rubidium 7y ago
It doesn’t need to be any better to satisfy this user. I also pull it out 2-4 times a year and am happy that everything has more or less stayed the same for 8+ years.
- cies 7y ago
  That was my point. Sure it could be better, but at a cost (design+dev'p, and alienation of users). It seems big/commercial softwares love to take that cost.
  - eXpl0it3r 7y ago
    Because they have paying and active customers who want improvements even if it means that one has to relearn some things here and there. Not enhancing UX because some users might have already gotten used to the current setup is rather shortsighted (relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/ ). What about all the people you don't get on board because the UX is terrible compared to all the other tools?
    - tempguy9999 7y ago
      > they have paying and active customers who want improvements My experience is that when software reaches a certain level of maturity, major 'improvements' to the UI are driven very much not by the users. > Not enhancing UX because some users might have already gotten used to the current setup is rather shortsighted Perhaps. It depends proportion of 'some'. 1%..99%, it depends doesn't it. You're pushing for change with no quantification of the value of it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, so first find out if it's broke.
- ken 7y ago
  This is the message I hear very consistently about Inkscape. The people who love it most are the occasional users. It's good enough for small, infrequent work. They seem to keep pushing it as a professional alternative to Adobe Illustrator, but no matter how many individual features they add, it just doesn't seem designed for that kind of user.
blitmap 7y ago
I do agree with you. There's an advantage to having an interface remain predictable. At the same time I wish you had the ability to dynamically re-arrange the UI with plugins. It'd be very cool to have a Sketch-emulating layout for Inkscape, as a plugin.

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)
  - jorvi 7y ago
    Much more importantly, Blender doesn't shy away from getting inspired by their proprietary counterparts. AFAIK they're even working on a 'industry keybinds' setting which makes changing over from Maya a breeze. Programs like GIMP (or even entire OS UIs like Gnome and KDE) often shy away from 'aping' respectively Photoshop or Apple. But those proprietary vendors have spent millions of dollars on focus groups and man hours to optimize their UI and UX. Benefiting from that seems like a no-brainer, but alas.. NIH and proprietary hate reigns supreme.
    - Crinus 7y ago
      Eh, Photoshop hasn't really optimized their UI/UX, their UI goes back to the original MacPaint by Bill Atkinson (Photoshop started as a more powerful MacPaint) and has evolved over the years starting from that. It is just that it became a very common UI for similar applications and the reason to make something similar isn't because Adobe has spent millions optimizing it, but because a lot of people are already familiar with it. However the same can be said for GIMP's UI nowadays. And really personally i find Photoshop UI atrocious and if i had to chose between that and GIMP's i'd pick GIMP any time (though overall i actually prefer PSP7's UI which IMO is the best of any of those).
      - o-__-o 7y ago
        Gimp is garbage bro. A window for each tool? That your WM manages? Okay where is that tools window or layers window or what if I’m editing 20 icons and one of my icons was covered by a browser window. At least old photoshop would remember z order and bring them to the surface and keep tools on top. Gimp May have fixed this one issue but it’s an example of why paid UX design wins 99 times out of 10
        axelf4 7y ago
        Gimp has had a single-window layout for a long time now.

aagd 7y ago

Inkscape vector tools are way more sophisticated than Sketch’s. For simple vector editing tasks Sketch might be ok, and for creating whole responsive screen designs Sketch is awesome. But vector editing is really one of Sketch’s weakest points (eg. creation of combined paths). The look of the UI is of course not comparable, but i’d prefer functionality over looks.

rubidium 7y ago

It doesn’t need to be any better to satisfy this user. I also pull it out 2-4 times a year and am happy that everything has more or less stayed the same for 8+ years.

cies 7y ago
That was my point. Sure it could be better, but at a cost (design+dev'p, and alienation of users). It seems big/commercial softwares love to take that cost.
- eXpl0it3r 7y ago
  Because they have paying and active customers who want improvements even if it means that one has to relearn some things here and there. Not enhancing UX because some users might have already gotten used to the current setup is rather shortsighted (relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/ ). What about all the people you don't get on board because the UX is terrible compared to all the other tools?
  - tempguy9999 7y ago
    > they have paying and active customers who want improvements My experience is that when software reaches a certain level of maturity, major 'improvements' to the UI are driven very much not by the users. > Not enhancing UX because some users might have already gotten used to the current setup is rather shortsighted Perhaps. It depends proportion of 'some'. 1%..99%, it depends doesn't it. You're pushing for change with no quantification of the value of it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, so first find out if it's broke.
ken 7y ago
This is the message I hear very consistently about Inkscape. The people who love it most are the occasional users. It's good enough for small, infrequent work. They seem to keep pushing it as a professional alternative to Adobe Illustrator, but no matter how many individual features they add, it just doesn't seem designed for that kind of user.

blitmap 7y ago

I do agree with you. There's an advantage to having an interface remain predictable. At the same time I wish you had the ability to dynamically re-arrange the UI with plugins. It'd be very cool to have a Sketch-emulating layout for Inkscape, as a plugin.