33 ms·

Inkscape 1.2 released

505 points by jarek-foksa 4y ago

mattl 4y ago
Big, big fan of Inkscape. The latest release was horribly broken on my M1 Mac (every keyboard shortcut didn’t need the modifier so typing a Z was Undo, etc) I’ll download this and try it out.
- r2222 4y ago
  Tell how it goes please.
flobosg 4y ago
> Inkscape documents can now hold multiple pages, which are managed by the new Page tool Finally!
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  I never got the need for pages in a vector graphics tool. Why do vector images need a page? Do people print them? The whole point for me is that the vector image scales. Mostly there is no pre-defined size. So the page dimensions are meaningless. Why would you want multiple of those?
  - flobosg 4y ago
    > Why do vector images need a page? I make slides on Inkscape and until now had to resort to clunky solutions to generate multipage PDF files. > Do people print them? Yes. People print PDFs. > Mostly there is no pre-defined size. So the page dimensions are meaningless. That’s not true if, for example, you need to render vector graphics on a screen. Since it’s physically impossible to show the entire Cartesian plane, you need to constrain it somehow.
    - jillesvangurp 4y ago
      Interesting, that sounds more like what people used to use desktop publishing software for. Is Inkscape even the right tool for that job? Doesn't sound like it's the core use case for it at least. But cool that it can do it. I'm obviously not a designer or a hard core user of any vector graphics tools. Frankly, Inkscape is a bit intimidating to me. What I would expect is that you design maybe to have your graphics fit some area (box, circle, whatever), then you save, and then when you use the graphics (on a web page, in a presentation, etc.), you scale it to whatever desired dimensions. While you are editing, you zoom in and out as needed. Screens are a good example actually. They have different dimensions, pixel densities, aspect ratios, etc. So web design tends to use relative units (em, rem, px, etc.). Also, is a screen a page? Or just a rectangle with some aspect ratio. Take icons for example. Which is probably a core use case for Inkscape. You'd design some logo to fit square dimensions. And then you'd export bitmaps in various pixel sizes. Does that square have any meaningful dimensions? IMHO it doesn't. Certainly almost never actual paper sizes. What baffles me as a rather casual user is that when I need to do some vector work for an icon (typically) and the first thing I'm confronted with is paper dimensions.
ihappentobe 4y ago
Haven’t downloaded this release yet, but as a longtime user of Inkscape the ability to add and manage pages sounds like an amazing addition to the application. Previously, I would approximate managing multiple pages by hiding and showing layers, then exporting each page manually. Needless to say, I am excited to leave that workflow behind!
- mattl 4y ago
  Yeah hopefully a multi page Illustrator file opens as multiple pages now. That would be huge.
  - ihappentobe 4y ago
    Not sure about Illustrator files, but I just tested out opening a multi-page pdf, and I was given the option to import “All” the pages, which worked perfectly. Very exciting!
- Gualdrapo 4y ago
  Another cool thing that was on the betas is that the export dialog has a 'batch' tab, where you can export all or a selection of the pages or layers in your document.
- brudgers 4y ago
  Working with layers to simulate pages has been a huge pain in the ass. I make a zines and print them myself. Often a picture runs across the gutter. Hopefully this will address two page spreads automatically.
mastazi 4y ago
I was using Scribus for multi page documents but, as a fully fledged DTP solution, it is often overkill, I'm glad I can now use Inkscape for smaller jobs, thanks to the new Page tool. Inkscape is truly the Swiss Army knife of the open source graphics ecosystem, I use it more often than any other application.
- lf-non 4y ago
  Yes, totally agree. The somewhat dated Scribus UI can be quite non-intuitive unless one uses it regularly and takes the time to learn how to work around its quirks.
tarball 4y ago
I am a daily user of Inkscape and I love this software. Thank you for that version, snapping and multiple pages are incredibly helpful. Earlier in the day, I was about to download a suspicious add-on to batch export images, what a pleasure to find this option in this new version!
- paulolieuthier 4y ago
  Yeah, multiple pain points fixed.
musicale 4y ago
I want to like Inkscape, but the macOS version seems sluggish and buggy.
- sydthrowaway 4y ago
  Probably because it's single threaded going through multiple slow compatibility APIs.
  - audidude 4y ago
    Sort of, but it's not the whole story. They do use cairo for rendering to a CGContext via cairo_quartz_surface_t which has traditionally not been all that great on macOS. Additionally they're dealing with colorspace transforms on more recent macOS along with some bugs in macOS that were causing non-native applications to do considerable damage/redraws. If/when Inkscape moves to GTK 4, a lot of this will just go away. The new macOS backend (which I wrote) is considerably faster and defaults to using the OpenGL renderer (which I also write a large portion of) but is also considerably faster when using Cairo by removing Quartz/CGContext from the equation and using Pixman directly with IOSurface. When using OpenGL, however, we have to emulate something like eglSwapBuffersWithDamage() to keep the compositor from over-compositing, but that was done with tessellation just fine.
    - mappu 4y ago
      Thanks for your efforts, I'm really pleasantly surprised to hear there is work to improve the GTK 4 experience on non-Linux platforms. Does this port support the native macOS window decorations, or are they client-drawn?
      - audidude 4y ago
        Both, but it's up to the application to choose what they want on whichever particular platform they're targeting by using gtk_window_set_decorated(). I have some blog posts from the effort to write the new backends which gives some additional details. https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2022/02/14/modernizing-gtks-macos-backend-again/ https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2022/02/14/modernizing-gtks... https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2020/12/15/gtk-4-got-a-new-macos-backend-now-with-opengl/ https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2020/12/15/gtk-4-got-a-new-... https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2021/02/24/gtk-4-ngl-renderer/ https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2021/02/24/gtk-4-ngl-render...
Gigachad 4y ago
Great to see the project moving along, but it's been a persistent feeling of mine that FOSS is starting to get left behind in the dust. The design space has been very rapidly moving towards online, live collaboration tools like Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, etc and FOSS just has no answer for this market. Even a lot of the big name proprietary tools are finding themselves becoming rapidly obsolete in a world where people want to IM a link and just have it reflect the latest version rather than attaching files back and forth. It's not even clear how FOSS would even work in this market or how it would benefit the user when it would be hosted all on someone else's server with self hosting diminishing the ease of collaboration.
- ur-whale 4y ago
  > FOSS just has no answer for this market And thank god for that. Users literally hate the Adobe model, but aren't given a choice. Please remember what the 'F' in FOSS stands for. Hint: it's not about money.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Users are given a choice. There are mountains of alternatives to adobe products. But they keep paying for the adobe one because it’s the best. And it’s the best because people keep paying their monthly subscriptions to fund it. They might complain but at the end of the day they are very happy to pay adobe for the best in class tools.
    - WillAdams 4y ago
      The industry keeps paying because of the sunk costs of legacy files and content, and the fact that Adobe also makes RIPs for imagesetters so the expectation is that it will all be compatible and work together.
- jotm 4y ago
  That's not exactly a FOSS problem, though. Nothing stops an open source project from offering the same collaborative features as proprietary solutions. It just seems that people who work on FOSS value privacy, ownership and freedom more than braindead ease of use and monetization.
fabiensanglard 4y ago
I draw all of the illustrations for my side-projects and books with Inkscape. This is an amazing project. Using it on Windows or Linux is a pleasure.
transfire 4y ago
I so wish I could use Inkscape with my GCC Mercury III laser engraver/cutter. Right now it only works with Corel Draw (or AutoCAD).
- jawarner 4y ago
  That's fascinating; I'm not familiar with this use case. Is there anything stopping you from using the SVG output of Inkscape?
BMc2020 4y ago
I am not ashamed to say I found it too difficult to learn. Sometimes I do colored circles or something else easy at one of the free online sites but I just can't spare the time or mental energy. It's a shame too, I have a laser engraver, SVG is made for that.
- myself248 4y ago
  Ditto. Every time I try to prep a cut design with Inkscape, I get mired up the distinction (internally) or lack thereof (visually) between lines, paths, objects, strokes, and whatever other internal representations may exist. Some of these things render fine on the display, and cut just fine with the inkcut extension. Some render but do not cut. Some things get cut multiple times, which causes the knife to overpenetrate and destroy the backing. And for years of attempts, I can't seem to understand the distinction, or how to discern what my drawing actually consists of. Inkscape must be good for something; a lot of people seem to care about it. And it looks pretty neat. But either I'm missing a fundamental concept, or it's just not good for what I want to do with it.
  - dangrossman 4y ago
    > And for years of attempts, I can't seem to understand the distinction, or how to discern what my drawing actually consists of. If you look at the status bar at the bottom of the window, it always tells you the type(s) of the object(s) you have selected on your screen. So you can quickly tell whether something is a path, or an object, or a text, or whatever. There's also outline mode which hides your stroke and fill styles, so you only see the paths. Paths are what my laser cutter will follow, completely ignoring those stroke widths or fill colors or what have you, so outline view shows exactly what it will cut.
bavell 4y ago
I'm a dev and I'm pretty comfortable with gimp and raster editors but I haven't spent enough time with inkscape or other vector editors yet. Anyone have some inkscape-specific links or resources to share on best practices and workflows? E.g. using layers, creating custom shapes, mirroring curves, exact measurements, etc...
- brudgers 4y ago
  Logos by Nick on YouTube.
- Zecc 4y ago
  Inkscape itself comes with decent tutorials in its Help menu. They are themselves Inkscape documents, so you can try the tools they describe in place.
foxes 4y ago
Why does it see so hard for FOSS to design a good looking UI. I honestly struggle visually with distinguishing what all those symbols mean. I don't use inkscape enough to memorise keyboard shortcuts. I'm sure an experienced user will come along and proclaim it just works, but as someone who wants to use it intermittently, it needs some serious refinement.
- digisign 4y ago
  Darn tootin'! I'd ask for my money back.
  - foxes 4y ago
    You can be salty if you want but the majority of the word has moved on from archaic desktop apps.
    - dotnet00 4y ago
      Generally these 'archaic' desktop apps have much better UIs than all the flat mobile-focused UIs that are popular these days with their oodles of wasted screen space, messy menus and unnecessary extra clicks needed for basic operations.
      - foxes 4y ago
        You said it yourself, the web apps popular. Why do you think that is? What makes them popular? Figma, canva etc are all really popular. Google docs is popular. They are all easy to use. For basic tasks we really dont need a huge expanse of menus and options all laid out like an aircraft cockpit. I would argue for a normal person that is far worse than some empty screen, which maybe hides a bit, but puts the more common or important tools visually first. Maybe it could just be a toggle in a menu somewhere, "pro mode". These FOSS tools could learn what was good about modern design and try to iterate on the good take aways.
        digisign 4y ago
s1291 4y ago
Here is a link to the release video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U4hVbvRr_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U4hVbvRr_g
- skore 4y ago
  Would also highlight Martin Owens' Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMHnyL4cRYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMHnyL4cRYA He has been consistently putting out videos on his process and has been a (the?) main driving force behind the new pages addition. He's also on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/doctormo https://www.patreon.com/doctormo
rtpg 4y ago
Inkscape is sometimes my goto for this kind of work, but I've _always_ had really weird performance issues with it with even really basic stuff across many different machines/OSes over the years. Hopeful those performance improvements will affect whatever I've been doing.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
I have a lot of respect for Inkscape (the fact of its existence and ongoing development). I used it to make the main logo/home link on my personal site and for some freelance work, partly because I wanted to see how it had progressed, partly because I was between jobs and found it unreasonable to budget a commercial tool license. I’ll be … gentle in my criticism but, I found Inkscape hard to use. I eventually found my way to do what I needed to do. But it was like relearning Adobe tools with subtly different confusions almost every step of the way. If I recall, it’s structurally very close to 1:1 with the SVG output. Which might be what users want! It might even produce better SVGs. But I found myself thinking “can I bail out to the text editor like I’m using an HTML WYSIWYG?” fairly often. I’m sure if I used it more and got more familiar I’d know or develop instincts for where to look for … everything. But if Inkscape devs are here and want (I promise, this is intended as constructive) feedback, the learning curve was pretty steep for me.
hollasch 4y ago
I will be very happy if one day I open up Inkscape and I'm not presented with a virtual sheet of paper as my starting point. I find it extraordinarily off putting to have to pretend I'm going to print out the end result.
- Minor49er 4y ago
  When I open up Inkscape 1.1, it prompts me for what size of image I'm going to be starting with. This can easily be changed later as well
- zbrozek 4y ago
  What is your objection, specifically? Is it that canvases are finite? That the default finite size is a paper size? That the background is white? Something else? I have a lot of complaints about inkscape, but this wasn't one of them.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  I really like Affinity Designers art board feature for this
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  I know what you mean, but just think of the page as the screen. (Set it to horizontal layout, or increase the size a lot)
- franga2000 4y ago
  Is your objection just that the default canvas size is A4 paper instead of let's say 1080p? Or is it that the canvas is finite at all? Despite being "infinitely" scalable, SVGs still have a "native" scale and coordinste system, so it would be far more disorienting and error-prone to present the user with a blank infinite canvas instead. The default being paper size is a bit unusual since Inkscape isn't very suitable for print work (color spaces and all that), but these days you can pick a starting size in the launcher anyway, so most of the time when starting new projects you don't even see thr default.
Minor49er 4y ago
The batch export will be super useful. The tiling feature also looks like a lot of fun
meibo 4y ago
Inkscape definitely needs an UX refresh like Blender had one. It's very hard to pick up, lots of weird/arcane behavior that doesn't match other tools in the space. Happy to see that work is still being done.
- thepasswordis 4y ago
  Absolutely hard NO on that. I use inkscape almost every single day, and most of the buttons and tools are just pure muscle memory for me. I genuinely do not understand this idea of doing "UX[sic] refreshes" on productivity software. Do people do design refreshes on hammers and screwdrivers?
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  "I want all my software to work in the same way, even if there are problems with the way it all works. I don't want developers to think about things and come up with new and potentially better ways, because then I have to learn stuff. Just make everything work the same, and I'll be happy, fast and productive." So understandable. So depressing.
- jazzyjackson 4y ago
  It's only weird if you learn Illustrator first. For me it was extremely intuitive, and at this point the shortcuts are muscle memory. I taught it to 10 year olds for 3 years.
  - meibo 4y ago
    But... you want people to use the software you make as a developer, I assume? In the same way that Blender provides an input mode for Maya users, Inkscape could provide input modes for Illustrator users. FOSS is supposed to serve people, if your system can easily accommodate that, I see absolutely no reason not to other than some ideological desire to be different. If someone that has been using Illustrator for years tries Inkscape and goes "Why the hell would it work like that, that's insane", then gives up, that doesn't serve that user nor FOSS, and they go back to paying Adobe.
hayleox 4y ago
> Inkscape documents can now hold multiple pages , which are managed by the new Page tool > Layers and objects dialog merged > Redesigned Export dialog with preview and ability to select objects/layers/pages and even multiple file formats to export to Is it my birthday? Holy moly, those are like three of my biggest dream changes to Inkscape. I think I might need to start donating.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
thepasswordis 4y ago
Inkscape is an absolutely divine software. I use it almost every single day. I have a copy of illustrator as well (which I pay for), but it mostly serves to export things to something inkscape is happy with, or for helping me identify fonts. Inkscape blows it out of the water with its UI. Illustrator is confusing and it seems like everything useful is hidden behind a few layers of menus. I hate it.
progman32 4y ago
Amazing, just two days ago I was searching for a polar arrangement tool in Inkscape. FOSS tools are often worse from a UI/UX perspective, sure, but I contend that they usually provide something consumer commercial tools often don't: respect for users. I'm not necessarily talking about welcoming communities here - respect can take the form of, say, not engaging in hostilities like: - The sword of Damocles that is renting software. Can't pay? Can't access your data. Or worse, it's gone. - Developed-country-centric pricing models/heavy focus on newer hardware. - Locking you out of creative uses of the software - either our way or the highway - Effectively forced TOS or pricing changes - Unexplained bans/AI moderation/guilt by association/becoming subject to laws not relevant to your jurisdiction - Forced upgrades breaking workflows or removing features - Corporate bankruptcy/"amazing journey"/sales/pivots/mergers/etc ruining your investment - Misfeatures such as nag screens, dark patterns, engagement boosters (time wasters), unclear data collection... - Opaque bug submission channels, limited to no access to the engineers building the thing - Optimizing for revenue, not usefulness There is a feature count/learning curve price for this, I will readily admit. Sometimes, untenably so. My claim is simply that FOSS tools are important as a backstop/foundation. I feel that any problem solved exclusively by proprietary software is only solved temporarily and for a tiny percentage of the world population. If the company goes away or the IP otherwise becomes inactive, that's it. Especially with cloud software. With FOSS, the software never really goes away. The problem mostly stays solved, and anyone can resume the work if they are willing and able. I'd imagine a forked FOSS version of Win2k, VB6, or maybe the late-2000s Google indexer (bit of a stretch) would be quite successful today, for example. Guess I'll never be sure of that. Just musing after a beer and some Red Vines - I welcome any criticism or kindred spirits.
- simonh 4y ago
  All very good points and I don’t disagree with you. For me the issue is that FOSS is not a good model for generating the massive investment of resources needed to solve many problems. Inkscape is great and if your problem space happens to be adequately addressed by it then fine. It’s not anywhere close to addressing many of the use cases solved by proprietary DTP though and the pace of development is glacial. So I appreciate FOSS and use it, and I’m very grateful for it. I just don’t buy the moral arguments. If someone wants to charge money for their software, and I think it’s worth it, I’ll pay for it. I don’t see how that’s anyone else’s business.
jeppester 4y ago
As a mostly web/app programmer Inkscape is a great tool to do minor alterations to icons, logos etc. Change an icon to use fills instead of strokes? No problem. Change colours? No problem. Align the image in the middle of viewport? Remove excessive spacing? Make icons from different sources the same size? Grab a logo from a PDF? No problem. Though my days as an aspiring graphics designer are long past, I would think that Inkscape is also a good tool for creating logos and icons. The node editor really is quite good. For web/app design there are a lot of shortcomings though. There's no dynamic snapping, filters on groups (e.g. drop shadows), reusable components. The text editor is also very basic and counter-intuitive.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  > For web/app design there are a lot of shortcomings though. There's no dynamic snapping, what do you mean by dynamic snapping. Inkscape had snap to objects, corners, grids ... since forever. Is there anything else to dynamic snapping? > filters on groups (e.g. drop shadows), I think there were multiple extensions that could do e.g. drop shadows on groups when I looked at doing that several years ago. > The text editor is also very basic and counter-intuitive. I agree text handling isn't great, especially exported text paragraphs still sometimes cause issues (they essentially don't show up in exported PDFs). That said I'm not sure what you mean by the text editor is basic, sure it's not a word processor, but other programs in this space have very similar editors.
  - jeppester 4y ago
    > what do you mean by dynamic snapping. Inkscape had snap to objects, corners, grids ... since forever. Is there anything else to dynamic snapping? Luckily it appears that it has actually been implemented in this new version. It's the feature called "Alignment and Distribution snapping". > I think there were multiple extensions that could do e.g. drop shadows on groups when I looked at doing that several years ago. While that's nice and all, I think it should be built-in functionality, with the same level of stability and user friendliness as the rest of the application.
  - riidom 4y ago
shp0ngle 4y ago
To tell something positive too: When I researched it last time, Inkscape was the only reasonable way to do programmatically edit arbitrary SVGs. Other tools always had some troubles with some weird edge-cases, Inkscape knew how to edit everything I threw at it. Including really weird CSS inside SVG. It was pretty annoying that I needed to install all the graphical layers in Docker just to do that, but hey, it worked. It also doesn't look atrocious on Mac anymore, that's great. That being said, I am still not used to the "corel draw-like" UX, I prefer the "illustrator" UX. So with that said I prefer Affinity tools.
glennos 4y ago
If you’re reading this, thank you Inkscape team!
l8rlump 4y ago
This is the obligatory post suggesting Affinity Designer. It also appears they're running a 50% off sale: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/ https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/ (No affiliation. I just notice it comes up in a lot of conversations here about Inkscape)
- ant6n 4y ago
  Why should one use this over Inkscape?
  - r2222 4y ago
    Probably the biggest difference is that Designer is a combo of a raster and a vector editor, while Inkscape is a pure vector editor. Also Affinity suite supports more color spaces, like CMYK for print stuff. Affinity apps are also very well optimized for Mac and M1, while Inkscape I hear is not. But there’s probably many reasons against choosing Designer over Inkscape too.
  - s1291 4y ago
    Here is a decent video comparing both: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2XfFvW4yII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2XfFvW4yII
Ducking_Insane 4y ago
I really like Inkscape and have used it quite extensively. Nice to see it getting an update. I look forward to exploring the new version.
jamesfisher 4y ago
Really hoping they have fixed the performance issues. On both Windows and MacOS, Inkscape is really sluggish, even with small SVGs.
AtNightWeCode 4y ago
Looks great! Glad to see the gradients are more intuitive again. I think the UX can be a bit tighter since it still takes a lot of space on laptops. Less spacing perhaps. Anyway, I love Inkscape, and it is my go-to software for any vector graphic needs.

505 points by jarek-foksa 4y ago

Big, big fan of Inkscape. The latest release was horribly broken on my M1 Mac (every keyboard shortcut didn’t need the modifier so typing a Z was Undo, etc) I’ll download this and try it out.

r2222 4y ago
Tell how it goes please.

flobosg 4y ago

> Inkscape documents can now hold multiple pages, which are managed by the new Page tool Finally!

jillesvangurp 4y ago
I never got the need for pages in a vector graphics tool. Why do vector images need a page? Do people print them? The whole point for me is that the vector image scales. Mostly there is no pre-defined size. So the page dimensions are meaningless. Why would you want multiple of those?
- flobosg 4y ago
  > Why do vector images need a page? I make slides on Inkscape and until now had to resort to clunky solutions to generate multipage PDF files. > Do people print them? Yes. People print PDFs. > Mostly there is no pre-defined size. So the page dimensions are meaningless. That’s not true if, for example, you need to render vector graphics on a screen. Since it’s physically impossible to show the entire Cartesian plane, you need to constrain it somehow.
  - jillesvangurp 4y ago
    Interesting, that sounds more like what people used to use desktop publishing software for. Is Inkscape even the right tool for that job? Doesn't sound like it's the core use case for it at least. But cool that it can do it. I'm obviously not a designer or a hard core user of any vector graphics tools. Frankly, Inkscape is a bit intimidating to me. What I would expect is that you design maybe to have your graphics fit some area (box, circle, whatever), then you save, and then when you use the graphics (on a web page, in a presentation, etc.), you scale it to whatever desired dimensions. While you are editing, you zoom in and out as needed. Screens are a good example actually. They have different dimensions, pixel densities, aspect ratios, etc. So web design tends to use relative units (em, rem, px, etc.). Also, is a screen a page? Or just a rectangle with some aspect ratio. Take icons for example. Which is probably a core use case for Inkscape. You'd design some logo to fit square dimensions. And then you'd export bitmaps in various pixel sizes. Does that square have any meaningful dimensions? IMHO it doesn't. Certainly almost never actual paper sizes. What baffles me as a rather casual user is that when I need to do some vector work for an icon (typically) and the first thing I'm confronted with is paper dimensions.

ihappentobe 4y ago

Haven’t downloaded this release yet, but as a longtime user of Inkscape the ability to add and manage pages sounds like an amazing addition to the application. Previously, I would approximate managing multiple pages by hiding and showing layers, then exporting each page manually. Needless to say, I am excited to leave that workflow behind!

mattl 4y ago
Yeah hopefully a multi page Illustrator file opens as multiple pages now. That would be huge.
- ihappentobe 4y ago
  Not sure about Illustrator files, but I just tested out opening a multi-page pdf, and I was given the option to import “All” the pages, which worked perfectly. Very exciting!
Gualdrapo 4y ago
Another cool thing that was on the betas is that the export dialog has a 'batch' tab, where you can export all or a selection of the pages or layers in your document.
brudgers 4y ago
Working with layers to simulate pages has been a huge pain in the ass. I make a zines and print them myself. Often a picture runs across the gutter. Hopefully this will address two page spreads automatically.

mastazi 4y ago

I was using Scribus for multi page documents but, as a fully fledged DTP solution, it is often overkill, I'm glad I can now use Inkscape for smaller jobs, thanks to the new Page tool. Inkscape is truly the Swiss Army knife of the open source graphics ecosystem, I use it more often than any other application.

lf-non 4y ago
Yes, totally agree. The somewhat dated Scribus UI can be quite non-intuitive unless one uses it regularly and takes the time to learn how to work around its quirks.

tarball 4y ago

I am a daily user of Inkscape and I love this software. Thank you for that version, snapping and multiple pages are incredibly helpful. Earlier in the day, I was about to download a suspicious add-on to batch export images, what a pleasure to find this option in this new version!

paulolieuthier 4y ago
Yeah, multiple pain points fixed.

musicale 4y ago

I want to like Inkscape, but the macOS version seems sluggish and buggy.

sydthrowaway 4y ago
Probably because it's single threaded going through multiple slow compatibility APIs.
- audidude 4y ago
  Sort of, but it's not the whole story. They do use cairo for rendering to a CGContext via cairo_quartz_surface_t which has traditionally not been all that great on macOS. Additionally they're dealing with colorspace transforms on more recent macOS along with some bugs in macOS that were causing non-native applications to do considerable damage/redraws. If/when Inkscape moves to GTK 4, a lot of this will just go away. The new macOS backend (which I wrote) is considerably faster and defaults to using the OpenGL renderer (which I also write a large portion of) but is also considerably faster when using Cairo by removing Quartz/CGContext from the equation and using Pixman directly with IOSurface. When using OpenGL, however, we have to emulate something like eglSwapBuffersWithDamage() to keep the compositor from over-compositing, but that was done with tessellation just fine.
  - mappu 4y ago
    Thanks for your efforts, I'm really pleasantly surprised to hear there is work to improve the GTK 4 experience on non-Linux platforms. Does this port support the native macOS window decorations, or are they client-drawn?
    - audidude 4y ago
      Both, but it's up to the application to choose what they want on whichever particular platform they're targeting by using gtk_window_set_decorated(). I have some blog posts from the effort to write the new backends which gives some additional details. https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2022/02/14/modernizing-gtks-macos-backend-again/ https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2022/02/14/modernizing-gtks... https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2020/12/15/gtk-4-got-a-new-macos-backend-now-with-opengl/ https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2020/12/15/gtk-4-got-a-new-... https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2021/02/24/gtk-4-ngl-renderer/ https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2021/02/24/gtk-4-ngl-render...

Gigachad 4y ago

Great to see the project moving along, but it's been a persistent feeling of mine that FOSS is starting to get left behind in the dust. The design space has been very rapidly moving towards online, live collaboration tools like Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, etc and FOSS just has no answer for this market. Even a lot of the big name proprietary tools are finding themselves becoming rapidly obsolete in a world where people want to IM a link and just have it reflect the latest version rather than attaching files back and forth. It's not even clear how FOSS would even work in this market or how it would benefit the user when it would be hosted all on someone else's server with self hosting diminishing the ease of collaboration.

ur-whale 4y ago
> FOSS just has no answer for this market And thank god for that. Users literally hate the Adobe model, but aren't given a choice. Please remember what the 'F' in FOSS stands for. Hint: it's not about money.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Users are given a choice. There are mountains of alternatives to adobe products. But they keep paying for the adobe one because it’s the best. And it’s the best because people keep paying their monthly subscriptions to fund it. They might complain but at the end of the day they are very happy to pay adobe for the best in class tools.
  - WillAdams 4y ago
    The industry keeps paying because of the sunk costs of legacy files and content, and the fact that Adobe also makes RIPs for imagesetters so the expectation is that it will all be compatible and work together.
jotm 4y ago
That's not exactly a FOSS problem, though. Nothing stops an open source project from offering the same collaborative features as proprietary solutions. It just seems that people who work on FOSS value privacy, ownership and freedom more than braindead ease of use and monetization.

fabiensanglard 4y ago

I draw all of the illustrations for my side-projects and books with Inkscape. This is an amazing project. Using it on Windows or Linux is a pleasure.

transfire 4y ago

I so wish I could use Inkscape with my GCC Mercury III laser engraver/cutter. Right now it only works with Corel Draw (or AutoCAD).

jawarner 4y ago
That's fascinating; I'm not familiar with this use case. Is there anything stopping you from using the SVG output of Inkscape?

BMc2020 4y ago

I am not ashamed to say I found it too difficult to learn. Sometimes I do colored circles or something else easy at one of the free online sites but I just can't spare the time or mental energy. It's a shame too, I have a laser engraver, SVG is made for that.

myself248 4y ago
Ditto. Every time I try to prep a cut design with Inkscape, I get mired up the distinction (internally) or lack thereof (visually) between lines, paths, objects, strokes, and whatever other internal representations may exist. Some of these things render fine on the display, and cut just fine with the inkcut extension. Some render but do not cut. Some things get cut multiple times, which causes the knife to overpenetrate and destroy the backing. And for years of attempts, I can't seem to understand the distinction, or how to discern what my drawing actually consists of. Inkscape must be good for something; a lot of people seem to care about it. And it looks pretty neat. But either I'm missing a fundamental concept, or it's just not good for what I want to do with it.
- dangrossman 4y ago
  > And for years of attempts, I can't seem to understand the distinction, or how to discern what my drawing actually consists of. If you look at the status bar at the bottom of the window, it always tells you the type(s) of the object(s) you have selected on your screen. So you can quickly tell whether something is a path, or an object, or a text, or whatever. There's also outline mode which hides your stroke and fill styles, so you only see the paths. Paths are what my laser cutter will follow, completely ignoring those stroke widths or fill colors or what have you, so outline view shows exactly what it will cut.

bavell 4y ago

I'm a dev and I'm pretty comfortable with gimp and raster editors but I haven't spent enough time with inkscape or other vector editors yet. Anyone have some inkscape-specific links or resources to share on best practices and workflows? E.g. using layers, creating custom shapes, mirroring curves, exact measurements, etc...

brudgers 4y ago
Logos by Nick on YouTube.
Zecc 4y ago
Inkscape itself comes with decent tutorials in its Help menu. They are themselves Inkscape documents, so you can try the tools they describe in place.

foxes 4y ago

Why does it see so hard for FOSS to design a good looking UI. I honestly struggle visually with distinguishing what all those symbols mean. I don't use inkscape enough to memorise keyboard shortcuts. I'm sure an experienced user will come along and proclaim it just works, but as someone who wants to use it intermittently, it needs some serious refinement.

digisign 4y ago
Darn tootin'! I'd ask for my money back.
- foxes 4y ago
  You can be salty if you want but the majority of the word has moved on from archaic desktop apps.
  - dotnet00 4y ago
    Generally these 'archaic' desktop apps have much better UIs than all the flat mobile-focused UIs that are popular these days with their oodles of wasted screen space, messy menus and unnecessary extra clicks needed for basic operations.
    - foxes 4y ago
      You said it yourself, the web apps popular. Why do you think that is? What makes them popular? Figma, canva etc are all really popular. Google docs is popular. They are all easy to use. For basic tasks we really dont need a huge expanse of menus and options all laid out like an aircraft cockpit. I would argue for a normal person that is far worse than some empty screen, which maybe hides a bit, but puts the more common or important tools visually first. Maybe it could just be a toggle in a menu somewhere, "pro mode". These FOSS tools could learn what was good about modern design and try to iterate on the good take aways.
      - digisign 4y ago

s1291 4y ago

Here is a link to the release video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U4hVbvRr_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U4hVbvRr_g

skore 4y ago
Would also highlight Martin Owens' Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMHnyL4cRYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMHnyL4cRYA He has been consistently putting out videos on his process and has been a (the?) main driving force behind the new pages addition. He's also on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/doctormo https://www.patreon.com/doctormo

rtpg 4y ago

Inkscape is sometimes my goto for this kind of work, but I've _always_ had really weird performance issues with it with even really basic stuff across many different machines/OSes over the years. Hopeful those performance improvements will affect whatever I've been doing.

eyelidlessness 4y ago

I have a lot of respect for Inkscape (the fact of its existence and ongoing development). I used it to make the main logo/home link on my personal site and for some freelance work, partly because I wanted to see how it had progressed, partly because I was between jobs and found it unreasonable to budget a commercial tool license. I’ll be … gentle in my criticism but, I found Inkscape hard to use. I eventually found my way to do what I needed to do. But it was like relearning Adobe tools with subtly different confusions almost every step of the way. If I recall, it’s structurally very close to 1:1 with the SVG output. Which might be what users want! It might even produce better SVGs. But I found myself thinking “can I bail out to the text editor like I’m using an HTML WYSIWYG?” fairly often. I’m sure if I used it more and got more familiar I’d know or develop instincts for where to look for … everything. But if Inkscape devs are here and want (I promise, this is intended as constructive) feedback, the learning curve was pretty steep for me.

hollasch 4y ago

I will be very happy if one day I open up Inkscape and I'm not presented with a virtual sheet of paper as my starting point. I find it extraordinarily off putting to have to pretend I'm going to print out the end result.

Minor49er 4y ago
When I open up Inkscape 1.1, it prompts me for what size of image I'm going to be starting with. This can easily be changed later as well
zbrozek 4y ago
What is your objection, specifically? Is it that canvases are finite? That the default finite size is a paper size? That the background is white? Something else? I have a lot of complaints about inkscape, but this wasn't one of them.
bowsamic 4y ago
I really like Affinity Designers art board feature for this
hutzlibu 4y ago
I know what you mean, but just think of the page as the screen. (Set it to horizontal layout, or increase the size a lot)
franga2000 4y ago
Is your objection just that the default canvas size is A4 paper instead of let's say 1080p? Or is it that the canvas is finite at all? Despite being "infinitely" scalable, SVGs still have a "native" scale and coordinste system, so it would be far more disorienting and error-prone to present the user with a blank infinite canvas instead. The default being paper size is a bit unusual since Inkscape isn't very suitable for print work (color spaces and all that), but these days you can pick a starting size in the launcher anyway, so most of the time when starting new projects you don't even see thr default.

Minor49er 4y ago

The batch export will be super useful. The tiling feature also looks like a lot of fun

meibo 4y ago

Inkscape definitely needs an UX refresh like Blender had one. It's very hard to pick up, lots of weird/arcane behavior that doesn't match other tools in the space. Happy to see that work is still being done.

thepasswordis 4y ago
Absolutely hard NO on that. I use inkscape almost every single day, and most of the buttons and tools are just pure muscle memory for me. I genuinely do not understand this idea of doing "UX[sic] refreshes" on productivity software. Do people do design refreshes on hammers and screwdrivers?
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
"I want all my software to work in the same way, even if there are problems with the way it all works. I don't want developers to think about things and come up with new and potentially better ways, because then I have to learn stuff. Just make everything work the same, and I'll be happy, fast and productive." So understandable. So depressing.
jazzyjackson 4y ago
It's only weird if you learn Illustrator first. For me it was extremely intuitive, and at this point the shortcuts are muscle memory. I taught it to 10 year olds for 3 years.
- meibo 4y ago
  But... you want people to use the software you make as a developer, I assume? In the same way that Blender provides an input mode for Maya users, Inkscape could provide input modes for Illustrator users. FOSS is supposed to serve people, if your system can easily accommodate that, I see absolutely no reason not to other than some ideological desire to be different. If someone that has been using Illustrator for years tries Inkscape and goes "Why the hell would it work like that, that's insane", then gives up, that doesn't serve that user nor FOSS, and they go back to paying Adobe.

hayleox 4y ago

> Inkscape documents can now hold multiple pages , which are managed by the new Page tool > Layers and objects dialog merged > Redesigned Export dialog with preview and ability to select objects/layers/pages and even multiple file formats to export to Is it my birthday? Holy moly, those are like three of my biggest dream changes to Inkscape. I think I might need to start donating.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

thepasswordis 4y ago

Inkscape is an absolutely divine software. I use it almost every single day. I have a copy of illustrator as well (which I pay for), but it mostly serves to export things to something inkscape is happy with, or for helping me identify fonts. Inkscape blows it out of the water with its UI. Illustrator is confusing and it seems like everything useful is hidden behind a few layers of menus. I hate it.

progman32 4y ago

Amazing, just two days ago I was searching for a polar arrangement tool in Inkscape. FOSS tools are often worse from a UI/UX perspective, sure, but I contend that they usually provide something consumer commercial tools often don't: respect for users. I'm not necessarily talking about welcoming communities here - respect can take the form of, say, not engaging in hostilities like: - The sword of Damocles that is renting software. Can't pay? Can't access your data. Or worse, it's gone. - Developed-country-centric pricing models/heavy focus on newer hardware. - Locking you out of creative uses of the software - either our way or the highway - Effectively forced TOS or pricing changes - Unexplained bans/AI moderation/guilt by association/becoming subject to laws not relevant to your jurisdiction - Forced upgrades breaking workflows or removing features - Corporate bankruptcy/"amazing journey"/sales/pivots/mergers/etc ruining your investment - Misfeatures such as nag screens, dark patterns, engagement boosters (time wasters), unclear data collection... - Opaque bug submission channels, limited to no access to the engineers building the thing - Optimizing for revenue, not usefulness There is a feature count/learning curve price for this, I will readily admit. Sometimes, untenably so. My claim is simply that FOSS tools are important as a backstop/foundation. I feel that any problem solved exclusively by proprietary software is only solved temporarily and for a tiny percentage of the world population. If the company goes away or the IP otherwise becomes inactive, that's it. Especially with cloud software. With FOSS, the software never really goes away. The problem mostly stays solved, and anyone can resume the work if they are willing and able. I'd imagine a forked FOSS version of Win2k, VB6, or maybe the late-2000s Google indexer (bit of a stretch) would be quite successful today, for example. Guess I'll never be sure of that. Just musing after a beer and some Red Vines - I welcome any criticism or kindred spirits.

simonh 4y ago
All very good points and I don’t disagree with you. For me the issue is that FOSS is not a good model for generating the massive investment of resources needed to solve many problems. Inkscape is great and if your problem space happens to be adequately addressed by it then fine. It’s not anywhere close to addressing many of the use cases solved by proprietary DTP though and the pace of development is glacial. So I appreciate FOSS and use it, and I’m very grateful for it. I just don’t buy the moral arguments. If someone wants to charge money for their software, and I think it’s worth it, I’ll pay for it. I don’t see how that’s anyone else’s business.

jeppester 4y ago

As a mostly web/app programmer Inkscape is a great tool to do minor alterations to icons, logos etc. Change an icon to use fills instead of strokes? No problem. Change colours? No problem. Align the image in the middle of viewport? Remove excessive spacing? Make icons from different sources the same size? Grab a logo from a PDF? No problem. Though my days as an aspiring graphics designer are long past, I would think that Inkscape is also a good tool for creating logos and icons. The node editor really is quite good. For web/app design there are a lot of shortcomings though. There's no dynamic snapping, filters on groups (e.g. drop shadows), reusable components. The text editor is also very basic and counter-intuitive.

cycomanic 4y ago
> For web/app design there are a lot of shortcomings though. There's no dynamic snapping, what do you mean by dynamic snapping. Inkscape had snap to objects, corners, grids ... since forever. Is there anything else to dynamic snapping? > filters on groups (e.g. drop shadows), I think there were multiple extensions that could do e.g. drop shadows on groups when I looked at doing that several years ago. > The text editor is also very basic and counter-intuitive. I agree text handling isn't great, especially exported text paragraphs still sometimes cause issues (they essentially don't show up in exported PDFs). That said I'm not sure what you mean by the text editor is basic, sure it's not a word processor, but other programs in this space have very similar editors.
- jeppester 4y ago
  > what do you mean by dynamic snapping. Inkscape had snap to objects, corners, grids ... since forever. Is there anything else to dynamic snapping? Luckily it appears that it has actually been implemented in this new version. It's the feature called "Alignment and Distribution snapping". > I think there were multiple extensions that could do e.g. drop shadows on groups when I looked at doing that several years ago. While that's nice and all, I think it should be built-in functionality, with the same level of stability and user friendliness as the rest of the application.
- riidom 4y ago

shp0ngle 4y ago

To tell something positive too: When I researched it last time, Inkscape was the only reasonable way to do programmatically edit arbitrary SVGs. Other tools always had some troubles with some weird edge-cases, Inkscape knew how to edit everything I threw at it. Including really weird CSS inside SVG. It was pretty annoying that I needed to install all the graphical layers in Docker just to do that, but hey, it worked. It also doesn't look atrocious on Mac anymore, that's great. That being said, I am still not used to the "corel draw-like" UX, I prefer the "illustrator" UX. So with that said I prefer Affinity tools.

glennos 4y ago

If you’re reading this, thank you Inkscape team!

l8rlump 4y ago

This is the obligatory post suggesting Affinity Designer. It also appears they're running a 50% off sale: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/ https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/ (No affiliation. I just notice it comes up in a lot of conversations here about Inkscape)

ant6n 4y ago
Why should one use this over Inkscape?
- r2222 4y ago
  Probably the biggest difference is that Designer is a combo of a raster and a vector editor, while Inkscape is a pure vector editor. Also Affinity suite supports more color spaces, like CMYK for print stuff. Affinity apps are also very well optimized for Mac and M1, while Inkscape I hear is not. But there’s probably many reasons against choosing Designer over Inkscape too.
- s1291 4y ago
  Here is a decent video comparing both: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2XfFvW4yII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2XfFvW4yII

Ducking_Insane 4y ago

I really like Inkscape and have used it quite extensively. Nice to see it getting an update. I look forward to exploring the new version.

jamesfisher 4y ago

Really hoping they have fixed the performance issues. On both Windows and MacOS, Inkscape is really sluggish, even with small SVGs.

AtNightWeCode 4y ago

Looks great! Glad to see the gradients are more intuitive again. I think the UX can be a bit tighter since it still takes a lot of space on laptops. Less spacing perhaps. Anyway, I love Inkscape, and it is my go-to software for any vector graphic needs.