Inkscape 1.4

[Jerry2]

I love Inkscape so much. I use it every other week to make presentations, slides or just simple graphics when I need it. I illustrated my thesis with it.

Another piece of 2D vector software that I use and recommend is Graphite [1]. It too is open source. Graphite has nodes and can be procedural in nature. Have them both in your graphics toolbox.

[1] https://github.com/GraphiteEditor/Graphite

[bubblesnort]

Thank you. This is the first time I've heard of the Graphite editor.

I think it could benefit from availability in package reposirories and looking at the license, it appears the program itself is free under the Apache license but the artwork is non-free. It cannot be modified and commercial use is prohibited.

When combined, Graphite as a whole is non-free so I won't be compiling this until the artwork is gone. I'll look into providing some dummy files and see where it goes.

The other packing problem is that there's already a server monitoring program also named Graphite. But given the above, a change of name and new icons would solve both problems.

[smartmic]

Another gem in my graphics toolbox is edraw [1], an embedded vector drawing tool for Emacs. I use it to make quick sketches in Orgmode files, and it is highly recommended for any Emacs enthusiast.

[1] https://github.com/misohena/el-easydraw

[weinzierl]

Inkscape has been a staple in my toolbox for decades. The only gripe I have is that it could have been a bit more stable at times.

[teleforce]

Is there any open source hybrid vector and bitmap drawing tool?

I used to use Xara Extreme and it's very fast, intuitive and handy mainly due its hybrid features. It's also used to be open source but not anymore:

http://www.xaraxtreme.org/

[erellsworth]

Graphite looks pretty cool. Thanks for sharing!

[sirsinsalot]

If you've not, please donate x

[tetris11]

The more I learn about the SVG spec, the more I understand the rationale of some of the UI decisions inkscape made, and the more impressed I am by how they implemented advanced techniques like shape union and intersection, clipping and masking.

[AlienRobot]

From the little I know about SVG, I wish there was an open source alternative to Inkscape that didn't support standard SVG but used a proprietary format instead.

Almost everything you need to create vector art, SVG doesn't support.

Multiple outlines in a single shape? No. Varying thickness in an outline? No. Rounded corners on arbitrary vertices? No. Non-destructive boolean operations? No. I'm not even sure SVG supports paragraphs.

Many of these Inkscape implements as live filters, which are saved as SVG extensions in the XML .svg file that nobody but Inkscape can properly load.

SVG is ridiculously bad as a creation format. It's a good format to export to, but as a backend and it's just insane. It's like using a single PNG file as a backend for your multi-layer 128bpp raster project.

I use Inkscape a lot but I can't help but notice that the best vector art illustration come from Affinity Designer, Corel Draw, and Adobe Illustrator. If you compare the quality of artwork made with proprietary tools to those made with Inkscape, it's very clear that Inkscape severely limits what artists can achieve. You can easily create complex illustrations in other tools that would be a nightmare to manage in Inkscape. Just compare how you clip something in Inkscape to how you do it in Affinity. It's ridiculous how different the two workflows are.

[prmoustache]

Speaking of SVG spec, is there a guide on how to create SVG files with Inkscape that will render well on most web browsers supporting SVG?

I have failed a number of times producing an SVG file that would render the same on browsers and in Inkscape editor window. This is frustrating.

[urban_alien]

Care to elaborate? I'm curious.

[melagonster]

Yes, it is very important for learning Inkscape to understand that Inkscape is a SVG editor, but not for common graph editor.

[bityard]

Inkscape has its UI quirks but is really quite a fantastic tool for people who make things. It's my go-to tool for anything that looks like a 2D vector image or plot. I even use it to design vinyl motorcycle emblems: https://blog.bityard.net/articles/2022/June/diy-vinyl-cut-mo...

[prmoustache]

I am always surprised to see people recreating the faded/worn out branding of stuff they own when restoring them.

I mean as a consumer I see it as a mark of disrespect from the manufacturer to plaster its logo everywhere. I am paying for the product, not to be an advertising billboard ffs! If you want me to advertise your product, let me negociate the terms and my retribution. This was particularly annoying on road bicycles in the early 2000's where most bike manufacturers would put as many are 7 or 8 logos on the frame and every single component maker would also do the same with loud bright on black logos for every single other part.

see this example of a cannodale supersix of that era: https://files.bikeindex.org/uploads/Pu/582923/large_BRD28952...

Bottom line: when I am restoring a bicycle, motorbike, whatever, the first thing to go are usually the branding and logos.

[omoikane]

The one new feature in 1.4 that I appreciated the most is the ability to disable anti-aliasing when exporting from the command line:

https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/5167

Before this option appeared in Inkscape nightly builds, I had no way of automating a pipeline to rasterize SVGs into black&white PNGs in a pixel perfect way.

[msarnoff]

I love Inkscape. I’ve been using it for 20 years. But it boggles my mind how it’s still so horribly laggy on macOS. At least they got rid of the Xquartz dependency though.

[smitelli]

They’ve historically been quite open about needing help on the macOS front. For example, https://inkscape.org/news/2021/06/22/seeking-macos-dev-contr...

[thot_experiment]

Is there an OS it's not horribly laggy on? Last time I used it you couldn't even get previews of things when you dragged them around, it would just degrade to a bounding box. Heaven forbid you have a scene with any complexity.

Every time I see an Inkscape update I skim it for "massive performance upgrades" and am invariably disappointed. Inkscape doesn't need features, it needs to not lag for 5 seconds when I open a menu, it needs to run at 100+fps when I'm editing paths.

EDIT: I installed the latest version (under W10) and while it doesn't degrade to bounding boxes it's still like 10fps and it leaves trailing copies of the item being dragged around the canvas while I'm dragging. Really disappointing.

[pilaf]

For me it's gotten a lot better since one or two versions ago. There's still some lagginess, but it's nowhere near the horror show that it used to be, and they fixed some excruciating screen resolution issues as well. I used to avoid Inkscape on macOS like the plague, now I can use it fairly comfortably.

[allenu]

I love Inkscape as well. It took some getting used to at first, but now I can sketch things rather quickly with it. The lag on macOS and non-standard UI behaviors are really frustrating though.

For example, for the longest time, if you put the cursor in a text field and then hit cmd-A to select all text, it would interpret that to mean select all objects in the canvas instead. Another thing is that sometimes when I click and drag the corner of the window to resize it, the thing just won't budge. It takes several attempts before it actually works. Very frustrating, but it's open source and gets the job done for the most part, so it's very hard for me to move away from it.

[gennarro]

Came here to say the same. The app is very useful for me (pen plotters etc) but it’s awful on my Mac. Barely useable despite being required for some of my workflows.

[rullopat]

Is it only me that, when I open Inkspace, I really cannot get anything done without watching a tutorial or reading docs / blog posts?

[Fluorescence]

Not too bad for me. You likely face the universal problem with more complex software when you don't use them regularly. It's a real skill that requires significant use over time to bed down some lasting neural paths. I have much more difficulty with e.g. Blender, Reaper etc. when every few years I use them. I too have start from tutorials again but I still think they are good tools despite not retaining anything between my rare uses. I bought Affinity, learned to use it but when I returned to it after some time, nothing remained in my head and I had to use inkscape instead.

For inkscape, some of the more sophisticated generative things were "use and forget" for me but they have actually improved to be much more intuitive. The main thing I lose is some of the natural touch that makes it so fast to use. I do love when I use it regularly because it's so quick to pump about svgs at the speed of thought.

Getting really good at a vector tool is such a valuable life skill for explaining all manner of tricky things whether it's for UI mockups, software architecture or graphic design stuff like logos/t-shirt/marketing designs. I live for the "how on earth have you done this?" reaction when I can create a quality diagram while on a call with people. It can really enrich the quality of interactions and reduce cycle time to create designs in real time.

I also use it for all sorts of personal stuff like interior design, DIY, scaffolding etc. I've even submitted official architectural plans I made with it. It's as valuable as a spreadsheet.

[ltlnx]

Do you have prior experience with other vector editors? For me it's pretty intuitive (save for some papercuts), but that may be due to my lack of experience with other editors.

[Kuinox]

Same for me, if I want to get something done, I need illustrator (which i don't know well too, but it's way more intuitive)

[bubblesnort]

There's an obscured close button in the top right corner. If you want to skip the welcome dialog just click that.

The second time it appears, you can uncheck "Show this every time" in the lower left corner and then click "New Document".

...or you could click Save on the first dialog and then click " Thanks!". You'll get the same dialog as above when you'd have closed it with the button in the corner.

[anthk]

Adobe might be more impressive wiht AI but wth that your data will be exploited by bigger players. And, in media, in a world of lawsuits, the big media corpos often have better lawyers.

If you want your media to be stolen to generate 'new' media, choose Adobe. If you want to own your produced media, choose free software, such as Inkscape, Krita, Gimp, Cinelerra-CV, KDEnlive, Blender, Ardour.

[p0w3n3d]

I did a lot of strange things in old Inkscape to achieve the same result as given by this new:

  Shape Builder

  You can now tackle quick edits on raster (pixel) images within Inkscape using the Shape Builder tool. Load an image and select sections that you want to isolate.

[sgdfhijfgsdfgds]

It can open Affinity Designer files!? That’s something of a buried lede.

That could make the path from Designer to FreeCAD a bit easier; FreeCAD still has something of a special relationship with Inkscape SVG files.

[o1o1o1]

Inkscape is one of the best and most important tools in my arsenal. From creating and editing vectors for use with a laser cutter to designing icons when tools like Illustrator are too expensive and alternatives like ChatGPT fall short, Inkscape never ceases to amaze me with its capabilities. It's remarkable how well this open-source, free application performs. Thank you, Inkscape, for being one of the most reliable and impressive apps I know!

[Dwedit]

We really need a vector editor that has some of the features of Flash's UI. I haven't seen them in other programs.

[wwweston]

They were called Fireworks and Freehand. Sadly, they didn't survive Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia.

[WillAdams]

Wick Editor implements some aspects of the vector drawing from Flash:

https://www.wickeditor.com/#/

[sprucevoid]

Unfortunately 1.4 does not fix command palette issues on Windows (5+ seconds to show, freezes, crashes, several commands accessible through UI buttons not available through palette with same name phrase). Finding the name of an action and how to trigger it (button somewhere or menu/submenu item) is a pain point in Inkscape and a good command palette can help a lot.

[jgalt212]

It would be nice if Inkscape supported SVG P/S. We need that for BIMI, and now have to pay someone who has access to Adobe.

[Cyphase]

For anyone in a similar boat, I just heard of someone using Adobe Illustrator's 7-day trial to generate their BIMI logo file.

https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-996-notes.pdf (page 18) https://twit.tv/shows/security-now/episodes/996

[fractallyte]

You could just hand-edit Inkscape's plain or optimized SVG file: https://bimigroup.org/creating-bimi-svg-logo-files/

(It's really not too difficult.)

[ho_schi]

Woo-ha!

    … bug fixes and setting the stage for the arrival of GTK 4.

Gtk4. Meanwhile at Gimp? Puh. Maybe they will manage to port to the 14 year old Gtk3 soon. I hope it at least. I’m sure the Gimp developers doing their best and will benefit soon from Wayland and HiDPI.

[fullstop]

The funny part is what the G in GTK initially represented.

[account42]

Good. I hope Gimp stays on GTK 3 for as long as possible so I don't have to use GTK 4.

[neves]

I've just bought a Surface Pro tablet. Does Inkscape interface work well in a tablet or with a pen?

[WillAdams]

It can be a bit fussy, but works well --- unfortunately, there hasn't really been a vector drawing program focused specifically on stylus use since Futurewave Smartsketch (which became Flash by way of Futuresplash Animator).

As noted elsethread:

Wick Editor implements some aspects of the vector drawing from Flash: https://www.wickeditor.com/#/

If you're willing to consider a commercial option, Serif's Affinity Designer may suit.

[janci]

Some operations are best with keyboard (i.e. moving, zooming, panning, duplicating, acessing panels) and you need modifier keys quite often. You can map one or two to the stylus buttons, but that may not be sufficient

[ltlnx]

I really hope it does, but for now it lacks in the basics such as panning (Krita can hold down a button + move pen to pan the canvas), button support (I don't think there's a way to map pen buttons to specific functions, let alone switch between them), and the drawing tools are still really basic. They are focusing on UX for the next release though, and UX issues can be discussed in the Inkscape UX Gitlab repo.

[WillAdams]

Also check out the HyVector app mentioned elsethread:

https://hyvector.com/

[pxoe]

Calligraphy pen is still unusable, laggy and jaggy. Too slow, not enough setting increments to fine tune it, awfully, almost absurdly angular on even slightly fast motions. 0.92 remains the most responsive version. Welp, i don't know what i expected, since every time i'd check latest version it'd still be like this. Celebrating 4 years of Inkscape breaking calligraphy tool and never fixing it since.

[billfruit]

Have they added any method of setting a tool style before drawing, rather than adjusting style after drawing?

[ants_everywhere]

It's always fun to set up your font, then write some text and realize it's in the wrong font and all your work was lost

[user3939382]

The prospect of discarding 25 years of muscle memory in Adobe Illustrator is unfathomable to me, as much as I loathe what Adobe has become.

[ltlnx]

It does have Ai shortcuts to choose from in the settings, if there's problems or inaccuracies with it you can also open an issue at https://inkscape.org/report/ .