Inkscape 0.92.1 released.

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21

I wasn’t even thinking of Blender and Blenderartists when I wrote my previous post. I was thinking of 2d open source apps. (You’re probably wrong it you think this site relies on donations. They don’t. How many members here send regular donations to Blenderartists? You probably can count them with your fingers.)

I bought a publishing app, a vector app and a photo-editing app for less than $50 each years ago from Serif. I can upgrade them with the same amount of money or less if I want to. I can tell from their site that significant changes have been made with these apps. They’re on par with more expensive ones like Coreldraw and AI, which cost $500-$800. Too expensive to drive away users.

22

I didn’t even suggest that.

And that’s all right. But free software isn’t there to undermine proprietary software or do any such thing. We have quite different goals.

After 11 years of being on this forum surely you understand that?

23

Why does it all have to be done by that one person, would you not accept a new developer on the GEGL port if he made a decent effort to learn what was going on (so you have work on it being done when the usual guy doesn’t have time)? I don’t see why it should be different for GIMP as the other big FOSS development scenes have no problem with that.

Also, the article doesn’t really help the case much as to why the rewrite is taking so long and why there’s no estimate as to when it’s completed, because it specifically said over a year ago that the porting work is almost done. I don’t really see an indefinite period of years after that statement as ‘almost done’, as otherwise it would be done now and the GIMP developers would be busy adding powerful new painting and editing features (I honestly don’t know what your definition of the word is, but the article suggests it is not at all like we usually hear).

24

Wait, I think we’ve hit a language barrier or something here. Are you actually suggesting that new developers are not welcome to work on GEGL? Like, for real? Is that what you are really suggesting? I’m sorry, but I just can’t wrap my head around this notion. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. How did you even arrive at this question?

LIke Scribus? :slight_smile:

Well, let me repeat this yet another time:

  1. GIMP is huge.
  2. Every week more stuff needs refactoring as the work progresses.
  3. There are few people working on it.
  4. All these people are volunteers with day jobs and families.

What kind of estimate can you realistically expect given all that?

I’m sure that you don’t really need explaining that after “done porting” comes polishing and testing. But since you wonder what the team have been doing, here is the project report:

25

David Revoy isn’t happy with the latest Inkscape release.

This type of development decision, relying on ‘userland must fix it themselves’ must stop.

I definitely agree with that. Hope an amicable solution can be found.

26

From the linked bug report, apparently they may have a fix for that in future 0.92.2, but not in the apparently coming 0.92.1 as fix may require more testings

27

Just download Inkscape and down load Affinity Designer and compare. There is so much Inkscape does not have from Text styles to art boards to fast screen refresh rate to live booleans.

Even Gravit Designer 2 " https://app-trunk.designer.io/ " online beats Inkscape now. Where I is still better are some few pen tools but that it. Otherwise Gravit already defeated Inkspace.

I find also those “look at the work this person does with software X” the weakest way to make an argument.

You cherry pick - I see a product more as a whole.

“Therahedwig”
I suspect cekuhnen’s problem is that he has a set of workflows which use vector and he hasn’t been able to fully go through them in inkscape without coming across a definite missing functionality.

Thing is what I need Inkscape simply does not have. It is still an SVG based vector editor - I need more than that hence why people use freehand illustrator and such.

SterlingRoth
Shoot Adobe - their software is terribke and since the late 90th did not evolve. Man Photoshop still has the same silly pen tools. Please! Also AI got somewhat better after they bought Macromedia and implemented functions from Freehand.

But the thing is Inkscape is not new it is pretty old. And over those 10 years I hardly see any thing that makes me wow. Affinity is pretty new. 4 years of rework and bang - now even Adobe feels the pinch!

I mean dont get me wrong of Inkscape or Gimp is it for you(users) perfect.
I just think that today for less money there are dramatically better tools now.

There is also Photoline!

28

Aye, I saw that. Still a bummer that it happened, but it’s good they figured out a potential solution so quickly.

29

Thats the point. I too have been an avid supporter of inkscape in the past. But it just does not handle modern demands today. And its a pity. I like the program.

Even though I have bought both affinity programs and they are good quality for reasonable prices, I also support the development of krita every way I can. I hope their new focus on vector tools will pack a punch!

Why PS and AI or indeed the affinity products split their tool into Vector or Pixels is beyond me.
So many of the tools are exactly the same and one program handling both would be a very powerful combination!

30

Affinity Designer is written for Windows and Macs with NO plans to develop anything for Linux.

Gravit has a linux download, more than could be said for Affinity Designer.

Simple test - Fail.

I’ve got a LOT of fonts installed for a project I’m working on. I just wanted to change the font
for starters.

Gravit_Test_Linux_PNG.png849×191 11.4 KB

It’s in beta. So, no harm, no foul. It’s a work in progress. But, based on that simple task out of
the box - not sold on it.

I don’t have Windows on my systems. Don’t have Mac.

Linux is my OS of choice.

Inkscape and Gimp may not be perfect, but, they run.

I’m open to possibilities because, yes, I’m sometimes frustrated with the performance, the glitches, the learning curves and liabilities of FOSS. But, I’m not running Windows or Mac. I’ve got the $ 50. But, what’s it worth for software I can’t use? What’s Online or Linux supported if I can’t even do a simple thing like change the font? And, online’s kind of limited by, having an Internet connection. Doesn’t exactly impress me as the method one might use for large, complex, time consuming projects. Or, without a robust connection - more money. Not to mention all the right pieces in place for it to work, the right browser, the right OS, the right setup - drivers, extensions, etc. And online’s not nearly as customizable as local. Not sure Starbucks wireless would be up to the task.

There will likely be a LOT of back and forth over what’s good, what’s better. Same reason I use Blender. It’s FREE. And for that price, it does a LOT. I’m not thrilled with Blender either.

But, it’s FREE. And it does a LOT.

Not really in a position to be overly picky as I don’t have a lot of money. If it takes 20 years to get truly proficient, I don’t have that either - I’m 61.

So, for my money, my time, it’s Inkscape, Gimp, and Blender.

31

Which is a not entirely honest way of saying “I don’t care that other people are efficient with that software, I just don’t like it.”

32

The text engine is currently being rewritten to use local fonts. Previously it only used Google fonts. And this text engine will also have text styles (which again Inkscape does not). In around 1 to 3 weeks that should be implemented.

Snapping in Gravit is also currently limited. You can snap to points or object borders but not onto a path.
This is an HTML engine so they need to figure out a way to do this without impacting the speed because the more vectors you have the more snapping targets the app has to calculate on the fly.

Affinity for example allows you to snap only to objects on the current layer or such.

Also align nodes right now is not well working.

And no deformation or envelope.

Inkscape has more effects and what I love is the B-Spline (NURBS curves).

So overall I would say Gravit is closing the gab and when text tools are in it surpassed Inkscape.

Dont get me wrong I have nothing against Inkscape - we just today have equally to better options
for not much more money.

33

I didn’t even know Affinity Designer is a Serif product. (Correct me if I’m wrong with this.) I figured it’s the same Serif DrawPlus 4 I bought years ago when I was designing a product label for a relative. And it was on its version 7 or 8 when I last checked months ago. So Affinity Designer must be DrawPlus 10 or something. (Just shows how swift the development is compared to Inkscape.)

I could have used Inkscape for the same label, but DrawPlus 4 had more advanced features.

I’ve been following Krita, but I feel their focus on animation is dividing their attention, instead of focusing on more mainstream application. Many people use Gimp as an alternative to Photoshop, which not only covers photo editing, but painting. But then Gimp have very basic painting functionalities. Krita would attract more users if they focus more on making an app closer to Photoshop or Gimp, than Toon Boom or Anime Studio, which are niche apps.

34

That is true Affinity is Serif. They restarted the product line from scratch which is why with the new code base it is so fast and well working.

I see your point of Krita and GIMP - but there are just photo manipulation and painting apps.

Would be nice to have both in one app equally.

Kirta morphs into a real killer. The layer system abilities is amazing!

35

Hmm… failed at what exactly ?

I’m using Gimp regularly, and there seem to be a lot of other people doing the same. Now if I was doing photo editing professionally and there were features I sorely needed which was only available from a commercial package, then I would certainly pony up, but that doesn’t make Gimp a ‘failure’.

For a piece of software developed by some 2-3 people regularly donating their spare time, I’d say it’s a fantastic achievement.

Some people seem to expect it to rival commercial packages with several (in Photoshop’s case, about 20 or so) fulltime developers.

That there are $50 apps which does a better job, I would very much expect so since they charge each user for the program and can employ full time developers as a result.

Meanwhile Blender and Krita are two open source examples which are well funded (by FOSS standards) and that shows, if Gimp, Inkscape etc would be able to mimic that to some extent then those projects would most likely enjoy accelerated development (assuming there are developers available to accept the job).

I see where you are coming from, but I think you are being unfair, neither GIMP nor Inkscape has ever claimed that they would be actual competitors of commercial software in terms of features and polish, if they fit your needs (and for a lot of needs they do) then they are freely available for you to use.

36

@cekuhnen
You mention Gravit, which has an interesting background story to it. I believe it exists today because Freehand users rallied against Adobe when Adobe discontinued Freehand?

Freehand would have been a true Illustrator alternative, had it not been killed off by Adobe. Same for Creature House Expression - I absolutely love what creative tools and options Expression offered. Microsoft acquired it, re-developed it (but I still preferred the original), and then killed it off again. Expression still to this day pulls off things that would be hard to achieve in the current crop of vector applications.

If you look around on the web, you should still be able to find Expression 3.3 for both Windows and Mac. I believe it also runs in WINE.

As for Gravit: after all those years of development it is still way too basic in regards to features - compared, PhotoLine offers more vector illustration options, and PhotoLine’s primary focus is on bitmap editing.

Affinity Designer is coming along nicely. Good feature set. I still have not added Designer to my toolset, because for some reason the developers at Serif have not implemented a number of fundamental tools that other vector applications offer: vector patterns, symmetric node handles, arrow heads, an adjustable ruler origin, and other missing workflow enhancements that are missing for me. And some basic tools are extremely clunky to work with - for example gradients and patterns. Finally, the lack of vector warp/distortion in Designer is aggravating.

I mentioned some of these things to them, as well as the terrible custom bevel layer effect quality. Unfortunately, I got booted off the Affinity forum for comparing Affinity with PhotoLine too much. :frowning: (Which I understand, but I did have good intentions - but the forum moderators felt differently.)

Until that time when Affinity Designer is improved I am using a combination of PhotoLine and Inkscape for vector editing (and sometimes I still run Expression 3.3 for artistic brushes). What is pretty cool is that PhotoLine’s developers allow Inkscape to be used as an external vector editor with live round-trip editing: once Inkscape is set up as an external application link and the exchange format is set to SVG, vector layers and groups of vector objects can be sent to Inkscape, edited, and saving the file will update the vector layer or group in PhotoLine. And the link remains live: keep changing stuff, and after each save PhotoLine updates the layers again.

I prefer this workflow now for various reasons:

  • Inkscape offers pretty good vector editing tools. Transforming a group of selected nodes is for example supported.
  • Inkscape offers many vector effects, and tools such as a good bitmap–>vector converter.
  • Inkscape (as you mentioned) misses pre-press options and the lack of CMYK is problematic. But PhotoLine supports all that, and combining both applications gives the best of both worlds.
  • PhotoLine’s new vector patterns and on-screen fill controls are excellent. Gradient and pattern editing is, in my opinion, superior to Affinity Designer at this point. There is no comparison.
  • and PhotoLine’s vector toolset is actually not bad at all (does more than Gravit ;-).

I found that PhotoLine and Inkscape balance out their relative shortcomings in vector editing quite nicely.

Having said this, I am keeping an eye out on Affinity Designer, and I am planning on getting a license soon.

By the way, Blender has a number of tricks up its sleeve in regards to bezier editing as well. The dev teams working on the various vector apps could do worse than taking their cue from those.

As for Affinity Photo I can be quick: I prefer PhotoLine. There is just too much missing in Affinity Photo for the work that I do - I rely a lot on non-destructive editing, and PhotoLine blows Affinity Photo out of the water at this time (smart objects, instanced layers and masks, externally linked layers, smart live filter support, and more). Although I am jealous of Photo’s web/app export options, which are missing in PhotoLine, and the painting tools are somewhat better in Photo (but why Affinity’s devs refuse to add a stroke smoothing option eludes me).

But you are right: Krita is brilliant, and I combine Krita with ClipStudio for digital paint jobs anyway. Krita and PhotoLine work well together again with the app link, and both applications share similar philosophies regarding the layer stack, which is nice.

Aargh! If only we would have one app that would have it ‘all’. :wink:

1 Like
37

Affinity apps are not having everything - yet. But they are catching up a lot. Photoline is a pretty amazing app. Sadly it does not get enough exposure. What is quite nice about Affinity apps tho is how they save in the same file.

If Inkscape would have:

Live booleans, a cleaner UI, for macOS be native (Not X system), for win10 have serious icons for the surface devices I think it would help it already a lot.

But those short comings makes it always look like a self made toy by others who are more Adobe users.

On the surface I have besides Blender all open-source apps have no ability to scale the icons (or I did not find it).

Stroke smoothing in Affinity will just come with the next update.

I found in forums the tone one asks for features and such is also important. If you also flood the forum with competition app threads it might look negative to new users.

In Autodesk we created a new locked thread where only few selected pro users can discuss needs and such.
That is a much better format in my opinion because both users and devs can be pretty direct without caring about how this might
look to new or less advanced users.

38

To give you perspective on those points…

Live Booleans. They have been around for a very long time, but the code used to be quite unstable, so it’s been disabled. Apparently a contributor was hacking on them end of last year. I haven’t tested that branch, so I can’t testify if it’s usable now.

Cleaner UI. As far as I can tell, there’s at least one developer interested in that, and there have been some interesting mockups around. It’s in the roadmap: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Roadmap. But as you can see they appear to want to eliminate technical issues and release v1.0 first.

macOS be native. Again, that’s a question of having dedicated contributor with a Mac. I vaguely recall someone interested in that recently, but I would probably do a disservice to the project, if I tried to go into specifics.

Serious icons for the surface devices. I’m guessing you mean Hi-DPI ready icons?

39

True, that is why I am keeping an eye out - Affinity’s speed of development is quite impressive. The one thing Serif got dead right: the marketing. Many designers are now aware of Affinity, while PhotoLine, even though it is almost as ‘old’ as Photoshop, hardly is known at all to exist in user circles. The lack of tutorials is a large contributing factor in this as well.

Indeed: I found that the look of the GUI alone (no matter how functional and usable it may be!!!) can and will lead to snide and deriding comments from many designers, and those designer will refuse to even try the software. It does not matter whether the application in question is top-of-the-line, and offers a better workflow than the industry standards: the mere look of icons might deter them.

Design over function? Superficial thinking? Who knows - the fact is that such user behaviour exists, and application developers ignore this at their peril.

True. I used PhotoLine screenshots only at some point and tried not to mention PhotoLine (only when responding to others mentioning PL), but at some point I was labelled a PL zealot/evangelist. And they are actually not far off that mark: I suppose I am (up to a point). Then again, so many users directly comparing Affinity’s two apps to Illustrator and Photoshop - can’t be barring all those users, obviously. I just stood out as a single PhotoLine user comparing Affinity’s products. And of course PL is a direct competitor to Affinity Photo - so I do understand why I was banned.

After getting that license I will open a new forum account, and keep to your advice: just feature requests/constructive criticism without mentioning the competition.

40

The fact that GIMP is often only developed by 2 or 3 people (even though it is Open Source) is part of the problem.

Everything I’ve read about their development situation in the past is that the GIMP team has major trouble trying to get more people on board (and there’s been some rather negative reports from people who tried to help with development). Without finding a way to get more people contributing on a regular basis, the GIMP will continue to struggle to give people a reason to use it outside of ideology (even after the GEGL work is complete).

Now Prokoudine might have a different opinion as to why the developer numbers are so few, but rarely is a FOSS project successful without a good and growing team of volunteers (especially if there’s not enough money to pay someone).