7 ms·

good to hear, will this fix the de-facto unusability on macOS? I've used Inkscape since around 2008 and absolutely love it, but had to switch to affinity desig

by ThouYS 3y ago

good to hear, will this fix the de-facto unusability on macOS? I've used Inkscape since around 2008 and absolutely love it, but had to switch to affinity designer, because the gui is too slow to work with :(

parasti 3y ago
Change the theme to massively improve Inkscape performance on macOS. A tip I learned from this video: https://youtu.be/I3fhnLDT0ZY https://youtu.be/I3fhnLDT0ZY
- inferiorhuman 3y ago
  Does that really need a whole video? The advice is a to use the Minwaita theme. FWIW the inverse high contrast theme is performant for me. YMMV.
rhizome31 3y ago
I gave it a try 2 days ago on Linux and it crashed after a couple of minutes doing basic manipulations. Have I just been unlucky or is it really unreliable?
- chronogram 3y ago
  I use the command-line version a few times per year on Windows and it's always worked fine. Never used the GUI but just starting it, it seems to be just fine and speedy on a passively cooled laptop while throwing a lot of shapes around.
- herbst 3y ago
  I won't say it never crashed on me, however I am surprised by the negative comments here as inkscape is super snappy, fast and reliable as long as I am occasionally using it which is 10+ years.
- piceas 3y ago
  Imho probably unlucky. At least on Windows it is way more stable than a few years ago. Then again it can be hard to tell. E.g. The converse is true for me for LibreOffice which used to be fine but crashes within a minute or two every time.
- davidgerard 3y ago
  sounds very weird, I've never had Inkscape crash
inferiorhuman 3y ago
For me, at least, v1.2 has been pretty solid and was a big step up from earlier versions. It's responsive (way better than e.g. GIMP 2.6 which is comically bad), and very stable (although it was never as bad as e.g. FreeCAD was for me). There are glitches (e.g. OpenType feature handling UI) but nothing that screams "this doesn't work because you're using a mac". It struggles a little with this but I don't deal with 3d plots in Inkscape all that much: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Saddle_point.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Saddle_p...
fredley 3y ago
Mad to me that this hasn't been resolved after _years_, despite it seeming (naïvely) to be quite a simple fix? I worked around it once—I can't remember how now—and got Inkscape running without lag on my Mac, but it introduced another bug where it would crash when resizing a window. I got done what I needed to do then abandoned it. I doubt chasing down the fixes would take that long for someone with actual experience.
ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
Same. I tried Inkscape because Illustrator is abandonware at this point (and of course now part of Adobe's software-rental scam) and mostly liked it. Way back I even liked the fact that it put the menu where it belongs (on the application's main frame) even on the Mac. But the UI performance is just too janky by modern standards, and I too bought Affinity Designer. But Affinity's UI suffers from some truly brain-dead design gaffes that they refuse to fix. I'd be psyched to see Inkscape become a real competitor. I note the reference to OpenGL, but that has been dropped in Mac OS. I wonder if the Inkscape peeps have plans to address that.
- jabl 3y ago
  > I note the reference to OpenGL, but that has been dropped in Mac OS. I wonder if the Inkscape peeps have plans to address that. I'm not familiar with Inkscape internals so I don't know how it renders the main window canvas, but Gtk nowadays IIRC uses OpenGL for rendering widgets. So the OpenGL comment may have been wrt that. And for rendering buttons and menus, the OpenGL-on-top-of-Metal, or however the macOS OpenGL implementation nowadays works under the hood, is probably good enough.
- mort96 3y ago
  OpenGL isn't "dropped", it still works. It's just marked as deprecated.
- jhasse 3y ago
  OpenGL (up to version 3.3) still works perfectly fine on macOS, even M2 macs.
RicoElectrico 3y ago
I bought Affinity Designer and Photo at -50% off _just a few months before they released 2.0_. I have to say, while it's performant and has professional features like CMYK and color management - there are many missing features like tiled clones or absence of any scripting whatsoever. With a plugin system, at least the community could fill the gaps.
- sprkwd 3y ago
  Line trace. If only it had line trace.
- justinclift 3y ago
  > absence of any scripting whatsoever. From one of the other comments here, apparently Affinity works with macOS Automator: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35651823 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35651823 Not sure if that'd do enough for what you want though.
fpgaminer 3y ago
GTK4 is broken on macOS and bug reports are not handled very well so ... RIP Inkscape.
- TingPing 3y ago
  GTK4 got a massive macOS rewrite and is in the best position it has ever been. It has no big users yet and could use some contributions though to quickly catch regressions.
  - fpgaminer 3y ago
    My last experience trying to contribute was terrible, so it is unlikely.

by ThouYS 3y ago

parasti 3y ago

Change the theme to massively improve Inkscape performance on macOS. A tip I learned from this video: https://youtu.be/I3fhnLDT0ZY https://youtu.be/I3fhnLDT0ZY

inferiorhuman 3y ago
Does that really need a whole video? The advice is a to use the Minwaita theme. FWIW the inverse high contrast theme is performant for me. YMMV.

rhizome31 3y ago

I gave it a try 2 days ago on Linux and it crashed after a couple of minutes doing basic manipulations. Have I just been unlucky or is it really unreliable?

chronogram 3y ago
I use the command-line version a few times per year on Windows and it's always worked fine. Never used the GUI but just starting it, it seems to be just fine and speedy on a passively cooled laptop while throwing a lot of shapes around.
herbst 3y ago
I won't say it never crashed on me, however I am surprised by the negative comments here as inkscape is super snappy, fast and reliable as long as I am occasionally using it which is 10+ years.
piceas 3y ago
Imho probably unlucky. At least on Windows it is way more stable than a few years ago. Then again it can be hard to tell. E.g. The converse is true for me for LibreOffice which used to be fine but crashes within a minute or two every time.
davidgerard 3y ago
sounds very weird, I've never had Inkscape crash

inferiorhuman 3y ago

For me, at least, v1.2 has been pretty solid and was a big step up from earlier versions. It's responsive (way better than e.g. GIMP 2.6 which is comically bad), and very stable (although it was never as bad as e.g. FreeCAD was for me). There are glitches (e.g. OpenType feature handling UI) but nothing that screams "this doesn't work because you're using a mac". It struggles a little with this but I don't deal with 3d plots in Inkscape all that much: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Saddle_point.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Saddle_p...

fredley 3y ago

Mad to me that this hasn't been resolved after _years_, despite it seeming (naïvely) to be quite a simple fix? I worked around it once—I can't remember how now—and got Inkscape running without lag on my Mac, but it introduced another bug where it would crash when resizing a window. I got done what I needed to do then abandoned it. I doubt chasing down the fixes would take that long for someone with actual experience.

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago

Same. I tried Inkscape because Illustrator is abandonware at this point (and of course now part of Adobe's software-rental scam) and mostly liked it. Way back I even liked the fact that it put the menu where it belongs (on the application's main frame) even on the Mac. But the UI performance is just too janky by modern standards, and I too bought Affinity Designer. But Affinity's UI suffers from some truly brain-dead design gaffes that they refuse to fix. I'd be psyched to see Inkscape become a real competitor. I note the reference to OpenGL, but that has been dropped in Mac OS. I wonder if the Inkscape peeps have plans to address that.

jabl 3y ago
> I note the reference to OpenGL, but that has been dropped in Mac OS. I wonder if the Inkscape peeps have plans to address that. I'm not familiar with Inkscape internals so I don't know how it renders the main window canvas, but Gtk nowadays IIRC uses OpenGL for rendering widgets. So the OpenGL comment may have been wrt that. And for rendering buttons and menus, the OpenGL-on-top-of-Metal, or however the macOS OpenGL implementation nowadays works under the hood, is probably good enough.
mort96 3y ago
OpenGL isn't "dropped", it still works. It's just marked as deprecated.
jhasse 3y ago
OpenGL (up to version 3.3) still works perfectly fine on macOS, even M2 macs.

RicoElectrico 3y ago

I bought Affinity Designer and Photo at -50% off _just a few months before they released 2.0_. I have to say, while it's performant and has professional features like CMYK and color management - there are many missing features like tiled clones or absence of any scripting whatsoever. With a plugin system, at least the community could fill the gaps.

sprkwd 3y ago
Line trace. If only it had line trace.
justinclift 3y ago
> absence of any scripting whatsoever. From one of the other comments here, apparently Affinity works with macOS Automator: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35651823 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35651823 Not sure if that'd do enough for what you want though.

fpgaminer 3y ago

GTK4 is broken on macOS and bug reports are not handled very well so ... RIP Inkscape.

TingPing 3y ago
GTK4 got a massive macOS rewrite and is in the best position it has ever been. It has no big users yet and could use some contributions though to quickly catch regressions.
- fpgaminer 3y ago
  My last experience trying to contribute was terrible, so it is unlikely.