7 ms·

Inkscape 1.4.4

355 points by s1291 5mo ago

tasuki 5mo ago
Ah, the tool I love and hate. Mostly love though. Let me tell you about the single thing I hate: I open a simple hand-crafted SVG and want to make a simple change. It messes up all my formatting and uses its own weird formatting, with line breaks between attributes. I'd rather it at least put newlines between elements rather than between attributes. Ideally there'd be a "save with minimal edits from the original" button. Literally everything else about Inkscape is amazing! Congrats to the team! ~~~ Maybe this is also the right time & place to plug my favourite SVG path editor? https://yqnn.github.io/svg-path-editor/ https://yqnn.github.io/svg-path-editor/ - free as in both beer and freedom, a tool to craft minimalistic well-behaved SVG paths.
- elaus 5mo ago
  I too love the SVG Path Editor, used it many times to create SVGs that had "nice code". Nobody really appreciates it, but it just felt good. Inkscape on the other hand almost inevitably creates really messy SVGs with a lot of transforms (why??) that make it almost impossible to see actual coordinates. But as I said, nobody cares about how clean and nice your SVG paths are and I don't either most of the time, so I'm still a regular user of Inkscape. Thanks to the team :)
  - phoronixrly 5mo ago
    There are options to simplify and optimize SVGs on 'Save as'. Apart from the Plain SVG, there is Optimised SVG that you might find useful since you're into editing manually.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- omoikane 5mo ago
  > a simple hand-crafted SVG I have also had trouble with some generated SVGs, for example: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/5317 https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/5317 Part of the problem is that Inkscape is too good, and the file format it uses mostly conforms to standards, so I have the expectation that opening arbitrary SVGs would just work. With other programs that use proprietary formats, I wouldn't have tried to generate drawings at all. It's a bummer when I run into what seem to be corner cases of Inkscape's SVG handling, but fortunately the set of corner cases seem to be shrinking.
  - cycomanic 5mo ago
    Have you tried saving in one of the different SVG formats. I forgot what inkscape calls them, but IMO there are 2 or 3 different SVG formats one can choose when saving. I know I needed that a long time ago, because chrome could not deal with the advanced features in regular inkscape SVG.
- driggs 5mo ago
  That's a pretty absurd complaint. Are you aware of any XML parser ever which preserves the plaintext formatting of the .xml file while magically inserting and modifying an arbitrary amount of XML data anywhere within the document? SVG is just XML. Save your file in Inkscape, and then run `tidy` on it, or whatever you like for format your XML with. (As a fellow hand-crafted XML fan, I feel your pain. But I also know when to choose my battles!)
  - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
    Well duh the inkscape team should write this feature just for them. For free of course lol. My god
  - tasuki 4mo ago
    You are of course correct. Running `tidy` is of not enough help. I handle the situation by saving into a new file, then copy-paste the changed bits into my hand-crafted SVG and clean them up. Ideally I try to avoid Inkscape altogether. Which is hard, as it's just too good.
- ctippett 5mo ago
  I have zero expectation that any design tool will export concise and optimal SVG markup. I highly recommend using SVGO (https://svgo.dev/ https://svgo.dev/).
- simonbw 5mo ago
  There is actually one tool I've dealt with that works nicely with hand-crafted SVG's: https://boxy-svg.com/ https://boxy-svg.com/
- nicbou 5mo ago
  I feed all my svgs to svgomg before out using them on the web. It works wonders.
stefantalpalaru 5mo ago
[dead]
thot_experiment 5mo ago
Wow, I think they finally fixed the awful lag just in time for me to have completely moved my practice to https://graphite.art/ https://graphite.art/
aborsy 5mo ago
Is there a reason to consider Inkscape instead of Tikz? It seems to me Tikz does the same but programmatically.
- oblio 5mo ago
  Is there a reason to consider a Toyota Corolla instead of a Caterpillar excavator? It seems to me the Caterpillar does the same but with better offroad capabilities.
- cptskippy 5mo ago
  Is there a reason to advertise Tikz like this?
- echoangle 5mo ago
  > but programmatically. That’s one reason to use Inkscape. If I want to draw a design, I have a shape in mind I then try to draw by editing the points as I see them, with instant visual feedback. I don’t want to code in points and have to modify coordinates. It’s like asking why people use a parametric CAD suite like NX if they could just use OpenSCAD. If you want to model something, seeing it and editing it in the 3D view can be much nicer than editing code.
0x69420 5mo ago
inkscape has had a long and quiet ascent from quintessentially janky foss creative software to genuinely pleasant to use. i still wish it were a little easier to edit the individual portions of deeply nested clip/mask operations, but if you need to crank out some icons, you can use inkscape and not hate your life, which is something i'd have called someone insane for telling me a decade ago.
- jszymborski 5mo ago
  Pre-1.0, I remember hating and wrestling with UI. It was so jank. 1.0 and after, and it's been truly a dream. I now use it to make all my figures for my research publications and presentations. Inkscape has gone from compromise I begrudge to my tool of choice in relatively little time. This is a good reminder that I should probably send them a donation.
refset 5mo ago
> Fixed a crash when starting Inkscape with a graphics tablet plugged in Great news! Having to reconnect the USB cable each time is no fun.
throwa356262 5mo ago
I love Inkscape. But their UX is getting worse with each release. I think they need another Blender-style overhaul
- WillAdams 5mo ago
  I wish they would consider Freehand/Virtuoso as an exemplar
  - ltlnx 5mo ago
    What features of Freehand or Virtuoso would you like to see in Inkscape?
    - WillAdams 5mo ago
      The pen tool is the big thing --- the ability to move a point when placing it using the control key while drawing w/ the pen tool is one thing I really miss, and in the context of the UI, the overall clean and straight-forward organization and layout, as well as supporting standard forms, so alt frees an off-curve node from association w/ the matching other, while shift constrains.
      - ltlnx 5mo ago
        I see, that is indeed a highly requested feature (along with a general overhaul of the Node tool to make alternative curve methods less janky). I'm been playing with Freehand, and the one thing that really stands out to me is the Object dialog. Current vector editors have similar designs, but none are as powerful and straightforward at the same time as Freehand's. The swatch workflow is also pretty rigid, and gives you a good imagination of what the color separations/result would look like.
        WillAdams 4mo ago
        The whole Inspector palette system is great. The ability to do PostScript fills and strokes (and have them live-preview via Display PostScript) in Altsys Virtuoso was flat out _amazing_. Ages ago, I once used the CMYK adjustment to get a rough preview of a multiple spot ink job à la Cerilica Truism (which you should have the person doing the CMYK stuff look into --- it allowed one to set paper stock colour options and then simulate multiple ink mixes, including spot colours --- also spot types, so there was only a single set of ink mixes, but if a spread had coated paper on one side and uncoated on the other, the appearance matched what one would have had to use two ink swatches for in other apps). Also, Graphics Find and Replace is invaluable for working on complex files w/ many objects.
uzidil 5mo ago
I love Inkscape! My game Enalim was made with Inkscape. (https://uzudil.itch.io/enalim https://uzudil.itch.io/enalim) I'm glad this project keeps going.
- idle_zealot 5mo ago
  You use Inkscape for pixel art? How does that workflow go?
  - omoikane 5mo ago
    I also use Inkscape for pixel art. There are two settings under document properties that make it easier to draw in screen pixel units: - Set display units to "px" - Set scale (px per user unit) to 1.0 I have a script that converts SVGs to PNGs as part of my build process: https://github.com/uguu-org/sor6/blob/master/data/svg_to_png.sh https://github.com/uguu-org/sor6/blob/master/data/svg_to_png...
- poulpy123 5mo ago
  the art style really made me think of Ultima VII
robinsonb5 5mo ago
Inkscape is awesome - I use it regularly for extracting design elements from PDFs and vectorising bitmaps. It works surprisingly well for simple CAD tasks, too - I've used it in combination with TinkerCAD to produce some 3D-printed parts. I just wish its CMYK handling was better. When I need CMYK or spot colour / overprint output I generally save as EPS, open in a text editor and adjust the source accordingly, but it would be nice if CMYK and Spot were first class citizens. (A friendlier workaround is to import the SVG into Scribus and modify the colours there.)
- s1291 5mo ago
  CMYK support is currently in active development. Martin has been working working on it for about two years, and he regularly posts update videos about inkscape [0]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiW1cCXOK3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiW1cCXOK3s
pugworthy 5mo ago
Some of the plugins for it are pretty interesting. We have a Brother embroidery machine in our work Makerspace, and it ends up there's an Inkscape plugin (called Inkstitch) to create command files for the machine. It's like working with a slicer for 3d printing, but more about changing thread than filament, plus how stitches should be oriented and such.
- bityard 5mo ago
  Yes! I use an Inkscape extension to send my own designs to a vinyl cutter that works perfectly well but has LONG since stopped being supported by its manufacturer or any other closed-source tools. The extension is inkscape-silhouette (https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette) and is apparently being maintained by a makerspace in Germany.
  - sen 5mo ago
    I'll have to see if I can get this working with our vevor vinyl plotter, as ink cut hasn't worked for a long time now and there doesn't seem to be any way to use the aliexpress/vevor vinyl plotters without paid proprietary software currently.
- foobiekr 5mo ago
  My wife makes extensive use of inkstitch and loves it.
Beijinger 5mo ago
Inkscape is great but I wish Xara Xtreme for Linux had not died.
brcmthrowaway 5mo ago
Where is the Inkscape MCP?
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
pxoe 5mo ago
Calligraphy pen/tool is still unusable, messy and less responsive (lower resolution, more angular, etc), much worse than in 0.92, and it's been this way ever since 1.0. It also now requires windows ink to be on, and they removed devices panel so you can't even tell if your device is recognized properly. It's bad with a tablet, but it's still just as bad and much worse in comparison even with the mouse. It's kinda disappointing to see this bad of a regression to just linger there for years. Here's the issue for this problem on their gitlab https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/work_items/1473#note_2185212918 https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/work_items/1473#note_...
- nathanmills 5mo ago
  Keep in mind that it's FREE and OPEN SOURCE software
  - nkrisc 5mo ago
    Potential users like honest reviews and criticisms of open source software. It helps us decide if it’s worth using or not.
  - simonh 5mo ago
    Firstly developers and designers of OSS need honest feedback from users as well, not just commercial developers. Secondly, how does being OSS justify significant regressions?
    - trwired 5mo ago
      There seems to be pervasive opinion among FOSS enthusiasts that the software being free and volunteer made is kind of get out of jail card for not only criticism, but often simply just feedback. I deeply appreciate that FOSS exists. But - subjective feeling - in general it always had certain reputation for jankiness and user unfriendliness. Sniping down feedback "because the software is free" certainly contributes to that perception. If I have a choice between free, volunteer made software that's unreliable or doesn't even work for some of my use cases, and a commercial, but non-free product, I will be pragmatic about it and choose the latter.
transitorykris 5mo ago
Love inkscape and wish it could get some engineering love around MacOS. For quick work I'll use it on MacOS, but anything deep I switch to Windows.
- sen 5mo ago
  What issues do you have? I use Inkscape on Mac almost every day and lately hit very few bugs. I think a lot of them have been fixed in the last year or so. It used to be almost unusable with all the UI bugs (can't close tabs when you open them, can't resize the window without panes bugging out or the app crashing, etc). I get the occasional crash where it just closes completely for no reason, but very rarely in the last year.
  - JayDustheadz 5mo ago
    My top 2 picks: 1) The fact that dialog windows almost always open on the wrong display if you have two displays and the external is the main one, 2) The fact that windows' positions/sizes are not remembered, There are a few other things (for example, occasional performance issues) but these two annoy me the most. Aside from that, I absolutely LOVE Inkscape - there are no better tools if you want to have granular control over the SVG. Edit: here's another one, not sure if macOS related tho - auto-selecting the parent when clicking the path underneath it. Because of that, I can't use a hotkey to switch the visibility of the selected path on/off (Inkscape switches the visibility of the parent layer instead, affecting everything that's inside).
    - sgt 5mo ago
      Yes those are my picks too! Aside from that, I totally agree, it works great on macOS.
amelius 5mo ago
I wish Inkscape would add constraints, as found in CAD tools.
- daniel_reetz 5mo ago
  This is what I'm looking for. This would replace Corel Draw for me. There is a plugin for blender that allows CAD style sketching. It may be a way forward.
darknavi 5mo ago
I have my first contribution to Inkscape in this release I think. It's quite a minor feature though, so I don't see it in the changelog. It allows the user to set their default saved file name. I was tired of drawing.svg :)
- bizzyskillet 5mo ago
  Nice! :)
- enneff 5mo ago
  Haha thank you! This had been mildly bothering me for a while actually.
- NewsaHackO 5mo ago
  Good job!
- throwaway85825 5mo ago
  That's how it starts.
- lagniappe 5mo ago
  Thank you :)
- JayDustheadz 5mo ago
  Nicely done, thank you! It's "small" features like this that make software really nice and pleasant to use. Don't stop there!
- therealdrag0 5mo ago
  What default would you change it to,
  - darknavi 5mo ago
    I normally change mine to `project.svg` but that's just my preference.
- 5mo ago
faangguyindia 5mo ago
Inkscape is really good for products with no budget for designers. Let me explain why. One of the apps I am working on hit 10,000+ active users (per Playstore dashboard), and Inkscape has a role to play in this. Since the app is free and doesn't even have a backend, there is no budget for the designer. I looked for a few tools online, but most of them failed to generate icons/logos. I ended up using Inkscape to make logos for my app. Without Inkscape, this workflow is difficult. Though I am not able to intuitively use it well from the GUI. The thing is, you don't even need the GUI anymore! But Claude or Codex is able to write SVG line by line (so you can make changes incrementally) and use Inkscape via CLI to generate icons, logos, and graphics for your app. Here's my app for those who are curious: https://macrocodex.app/ https://macrocodex.app/ I am pretty sure some designer will come and say "you did a bad job at this," which is fine. My experience is in writing backends, not mobile apps or design. Every app is saying they use "AI for smart recommendation,” while I went the opposite route, of “no, our product does not use AI for any suggestion.“ It’s entirely deterministic.
- Leftium 5mo ago
  Next time, perhaps my quick logo generator can help: https://logo.leftium.com/logo https://logo.leftium.com/logo The defaults are tuned to aesthetics of my personal logo, but it's quite configurable. (You can even copy your own SVG into the icon input) Example logos: - https://leftium.github.io/nimble.css https://leftium.github.io/nimble.css - https://github.com/Leftium/weather-sense https://github.com/Leftium/weather-sense - https://github.com/Leftium/multi-launch https://github.com/Leftium/multi-launch
  - faangguyindia 5mo ago
    That looks neat! Thanks for sharing, I’ll try to use it next time I need a logo. :D
- SOLAR_FIELDS 5mo ago
  I'm no Jony Ive, also a design stunted engineer but I'd say that looks decent given the constraints. My only obvious complaint is the kerning of the text "Get it on Google Play" and "Download on the App Store" (italics emphasis mine, what's in italics is what looks terrible on my laptop screen
timonoko 5mo ago
Inkscape = Press random buttons until something good happens. In this case the "Good" is that it makes Gcode for lasercutter. Everytime it takes atleast 30 minutes, even when I have recorded instructions. Always some weird thing happens, and I have to do it again, step-by-step. There is zero clue what paths, edges, layers, backgrounds, vectors etc might actually mean. But no more. Gemini AI made me a total solution. It takes a picture, checks it for "isolated islands" (which drop off and need bridges) and then generates perfect silhouette of Mannerheim or Mussolini.
nine_k 5mo ago
Inkscape is an indispensable tool for me. I use it for quick drawing and drafting, for presentation slides, illustrations, small-scale print works, and even just pictures for fun. It allows to combine freehand drawing and moving things around with very precise, CAD-like handling of shapes, sizes, coordinates, etc. There are few tools that are very ingrained in my daily operations, stay for years, and would be hard to replace, like Emacs or Firefox; Inkscape is among them.
Tommix11 5mo ago
I use 0.92 for extracting HPGL data from cutting machine software and converting it to better vector formats sometimes. I use that version because I think HPGL support was removed in newer versions. Inkscape is a great program, keep up the good work. Kind Regards A user
sprucevoid 5mo ago
Inkscape has many good features but also many rough edges. Fixing the command palette (shortcut key ?) would go a long way. On Windows it takes around 5 seconds for the palette search box to appear after a clean start of Inkscape 1.4.4. Typing is lagging and results are wildly irrelevant. That's a shame because Inkscape has so many powerful features tucked away in menus and side panes. A well working command palette makes it quick and easy for the user to use tools without exploring menu hierarchies or memorizing keyboard shortcuts. For example if I type "rectangle" in Inkscape command palette I would expect the draw rectangle tool as a top match. Instead the top matches are: Create a Slicer Rectangle Create a Slicer Rectangle (No preferences) Triangle (No preferences) Clone original path (LPE) Lightness-Contrast (No preferences) Refractive Glass (No preferences) Refractive Gel A (No preferences) There are dozens of more matches in the scrollable list but the draw rectangle tool does not appear to be one of them. There have been several issue tracker issues about the command palette. Here is one from 2022 and still ongoing about the slow start https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/work_items/3227 https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/work_items/3227
poulpy123 5mo ago
Inkscape is one one my favorite open source software. Myabe it is not as powerful than proprietary software but it does anything I need
sylware 5mo ago
I wish it was written in plain and simple C. Anything new from AI assisted port from c++ to plain and simple C?

355 points by s1291 5mo ago

Ah, the tool I love and hate. Mostly love though. Let me tell you about the single thing I hate: I open a simple hand-crafted SVG and want to make a simple change. It messes up all my formatting and uses its own weird formatting, with line breaks between attributes. I'd rather it at least put newlines between elements rather than between attributes. Ideally there'd be a "save with minimal edits from the original" button. Literally everything else about Inkscape is amazing! Congrats to the team! ~~~ Maybe this is also the right time & place to plug my favourite SVG path editor? https://yqnn.github.io/svg-path-editor/ https://yqnn.github.io/svg-path-editor/ - free as in both beer and freedom, a tool to craft minimalistic well-behaved SVG paths.

elaus 5mo ago
I too love the SVG Path Editor, used it many times to create SVGs that had "nice code". Nobody really appreciates it, but it just felt good. Inkscape on the other hand almost inevitably creates really messy SVGs with a lot of transforms (why??) that make it almost impossible to see actual coordinates. But as I said, nobody cares about how clean and nice your SVG paths are and I don't either most of the time, so I'm still a regular user of Inkscape. Thanks to the team :)
- phoronixrly 5mo ago
  There are options to simplify and optimize SVGs on 'Save as'. Apart from the Plain SVG, there is Optimised SVG that you might find useful since you're into editing manually.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
omoikane 5mo ago
> a simple hand-crafted SVG I have also had trouble with some generated SVGs, for example: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/5317 https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/5317 Part of the problem is that Inkscape is too good, and the file format it uses mostly conforms to standards, so I have the expectation that opening arbitrary SVGs would just work. With other programs that use proprietary formats, I wouldn't have tried to generate drawings at all. It's a bummer when I run into what seem to be corner cases of Inkscape's SVG handling, but fortunately the set of corner cases seem to be shrinking.
- cycomanic 5mo ago
  Have you tried saving in one of the different SVG formats. I forgot what inkscape calls them, but IMO there are 2 or 3 different SVG formats one can choose when saving. I know I needed that a long time ago, because chrome could not deal with the advanced features in regular inkscape SVG.
driggs 5mo ago
That's a pretty absurd complaint. Are you aware of any XML parser ever which preserves the plaintext formatting of the .xml file while magically inserting and modifying an arbitrary amount of XML data anywhere within the document? SVG is just XML. Save your file in Inkscape, and then run `tidy` on it, or whatever you like for format your XML with. (As a fellow hand-crafted XML fan, I feel your pain. But I also know when to choose my battles!)
- 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
  Well duh the inkscape team should write this feature just for them. For free of course lol. My god
- tasuki 4mo ago
  You are of course correct. Running `tidy` is of not enough help. I handle the situation by saving into a new file, then copy-paste the changed bits into my hand-crafted SVG and clean them up. Ideally I try to avoid Inkscape altogether. Which is hard, as it's just too good.
ctippett 5mo ago
I have zero expectation that any design tool will export concise and optimal SVG markup. I highly recommend using SVGO (https://svgo.dev/ https://svgo.dev/).
simonbw 5mo ago
There is actually one tool I've dealt with that works nicely with hand-crafted SVG's: https://boxy-svg.com/ https://boxy-svg.com/
nicbou 5mo ago
I feed all my svgs to svgomg before out using them on the web. It works wonders.

stefantalpalaru 5mo ago

[dead]

thot_experiment 5mo ago

Wow, I think they finally fixed the awful lag just in time for me to have completely moved my practice to https://graphite.art/ https://graphite.art/

aborsy 5mo ago

Is there a reason to consider Inkscape instead of Tikz? It seems to me Tikz does the same but programmatically.

oblio 5mo ago
Is there a reason to consider a Toyota Corolla instead of a Caterpillar excavator? It seems to me the Caterpillar does the same but with better offroad capabilities.
cptskippy 5mo ago
Is there a reason to advertise Tikz like this?
echoangle 5mo ago
> but programmatically. That’s one reason to use Inkscape. If I want to draw a design, I have a shape in mind I then try to draw by editing the points as I see them, with instant visual feedback. I don’t want to code in points and have to modify coordinates. It’s like asking why people use a parametric CAD suite like NX if they could just use OpenSCAD. If you want to model something, seeing it and editing it in the 3D view can be much nicer than editing code.

0x69420 5mo ago

inkscape has had a long and quiet ascent from quintessentially janky foss creative software to genuinely pleasant to use. i still wish it were a little easier to edit the individual portions of deeply nested clip/mask operations, but if you need to crank out some icons, you can use inkscape and not hate your life, which is something i'd have called someone insane for telling me a decade ago.

jszymborski 5mo ago
Pre-1.0, I remember hating and wrestling with UI. It was so jank. 1.0 and after, and it's been truly a dream. I now use it to make all my figures for my research publications and presentations. Inkscape has gone from compromise I begrudge to my tool of choice in relatively little time. This is a good reminder that I should probably send them a donation.

refset 5mo ago

> Fixed a crash when starting Inkscape with a graphics tablet plugged in Great news! Having to reconnect the USB cable each time is no fun.

throwa356262 5mo ago

I love Inkscape. But their UX is getting worse with each release. I think they need another Blender-style overhaul

WillAdams 5mo ago
I wish they would consider Freehand/Virtuoso as an exemplar
- ltlnx 5mo ago
  What features of Freehand or Virtuoso would you like to see in Inkscape?
  - WillAdams 5mo ago
    The pen tool is the big thing --- the ability to move a point when placing it using the control key while drawing w/ the pen tool is one thing I really miss, and in the context of the UI, the overall clean and straight-forward organization and layout, as well as supporting standard forms, so alt frees an off-curve node from association w/ the matching other, while shift constrains.
    - ltlnx 5mo ago
      I see, that is indeed a highly requested feature (along with a general overhaul of the Node tool to make alternative curve methods less janky). I'm been playing with Freehand, and the one thing that really stands out to me is the Object dialog. Current vector editors have similar designs, but none are as powerful and straightforward at the same time as Freehand's. The swatch workflow is also pretty rigid, and gives you a good imagination of what the color separations/result would look like.
      - WillAdams 4mo ago
        The whole Inspector palette system is great. The ability to do PostScript fills and strokes (and have them live-preview via Display PostScript) in Altsys Virtuoso was flat out _amazing_. Ages ago, I once used the CMYK adjustment to get a rough preview of a multiple spot ink job à la Cerilica Truism (which you should have the person doing the CMYK stuff look into --- it allowed one to set paper stock colour options and then simulate multiple ink mixes, including spot colours --- also spot types, so there was only a single set of ink mixes, but if a spread had coated paper on one side and uncoated on the other, the appearance matched what one would have had to use two ink swatches for in other apps). Also, Graphics Find and Replace is invaluable for working on complex files w/ many objects.

uzidil 5mo ago

I love Inkscape! My game Enalim was made with Inkscape. (https://uzudil.itch.io/enalim https://uzudil.itch.io/enalim) I'm glad this project keeps going.

idle_zealot 5mo ago
You use Inkscape for pixel art? How does that workflow go?
- omoikane 5mo ago
  I also use Inkscape for pixel art. There are two settings under document properties that make it easier to draw in screen pixel units: - Set display units to "px" - Set scale (px per user unit) to 1.0 I have a script that converts SVGs to PNGs as part of my build process: https://github.com/uguu-org/sor6/blob/master/data/svg_to_png.sh https://github.com/uguu-org/sor6/blob/master/data/svg_to_png...
poulpy123 5mo ago
the art style really made me think of Ultima VII

robinsonb5 5mo ago

Inkscape is awesome - I use it regularly for extracting design elements from PDFs and vectorising bitmaps. It works surprisingly well for simple CAD tasks, too - I've used it in combination with TinkerCAD to produce some 3D-printed parts. I just wish its CMYK handling was better. When I need CMYK or spot colour / overprint output I generally save as EPS, open in a text editor and adjust the source accordingly, but it would be nice if CMYK and Spot were first class citizens. (A friendlier workaround is to import the SVG into Scribus and modify the colours there.)

s1291 5mo ago
CMYK support is currently in active development. Martin has been working working on it for about two years, and he regularly posts update videos about inkscape [0]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiW1cCXOK3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiW1cCXOK3s

pugworthy 5mo ago

Some of the plugins for it are pretty interesting. We have a Brother embroidery machine in our work Makerspace, and it ends up there's an Inkscape plugin (called Inkstitch) to create command files for the machine. It's like working with a slicer for 3d printing, but more about changing thread than filament, plus how stitches should be oriented and such.

bityard 5mo ago
Yes! I use an Inkscape extension to send my own designs to a vinyl cutter that works perfectly well but has LONG since stopped being supported by its manufacturer or any other closed-source tools. The extension is inkscape-silhouette (https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette) and is apparently being maintained by a makerspace in Germany.
- sen 5mo ago
  I'll have to see if I can get this working with our vevor vinyl plotter, as ink cut hasn't worked for a long time now and there doesn't seem to be any way to use the aliexpress/vevor vinyl plotters without paid proprietary software currently.
foobiekr 5mo ago
My wife makes extensive use of inkstitch and loves it.

Beijinger 5mo ago

Inkscape is great but I wish Xara Xtreme for Linux had not died.

brcmthrowaway 5mo ago

Where is the Inkscape MCP?

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

pxoe 5mo ago

Calligraphy pen/tool is still unusable, messy and less responsive (lower resolution, more angular, etc), much worse than in 0.92, and it's been this way ever since 1.0. It also now requires windows ink to be on, and they removed devices panel so you can't even tell if your device is recognized properly. It's bad with a tablet, but it's still just as bad and much worse in comparison even with the mouse. It's kinda disappointing to see this bad of a regression to just linger there for years. Here's the issue for this problem on their gitlab https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/work_items/1473#note_2185212918 https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/work_items/1473#note_...

nathanmills 5mo ago
Keep in mind that it's FREE and OPEN SOURCE software
- nkrisc 5mo ago
  Potential users like honest reviews and criticisms of open source software. It helps us decide if it’s worth using or not.
- simonh 5mo ago
  Firstly developers and designers of OSS need honest feedback from users as well, not just commercial developers. Secondly, how does being OSS justify significant regressions?
  - trwired 5mo ago
    There seems to be pervasive opinion among FOSS enthusiasts that the software being free and volunteer made is kind of get out of jail card for not only criticism, but often simply just feedback. I deeply appreciate that FOSS exists. But - subjective feeling - in general it always had certain reputation for jankiness and user unfriendliness. Sniping down feedback "because the software is free" certainly contributes to that perception. If I have a choice between free, volunteer made software that's unreliable or doesn't even work for some of my use cases, and a commercial, but non-free product, I will be pragmatic about it and choose the latter.

transitorykris 5mo ago

Love inkscape and wish it could get some engineering love around MacOS. For quick work I'll use it on MacOS, but anything deep I switch to Windows.

sen 5mo ago
What issues do you have? I use Inkscape on Mac almost every day and lately hit very few bugs. I think a lot of them have been fixed in the last year or so. It used to be almost unusable with all the UI bugs (can't close tabs when you open them, can't resize the window without panes bugging out or the app crashing, etc). I get the occasional crash where it just closes completely for no reason, but very rarely in the last year.
- JayDustheadz 5mo ago
  My top 2 picks: 1) The fact that dialog windows almost always open on the wrong display if you have two displays and the external is the main one, 2) The fact that windows' positions/sizes are not remembered, There are a few other things (for example, occasional performance issues) but these two annoy me the most. Aside from that, I absolutely LOVE Inkscape - there are no better tools if you want to have granular control over the SVG. Edit: here's another one, not sure if macOS related tho - auto-selecting the parent when clicking the path underneath it. Because of that, I can't use a hotkey to switch the visibility of the selected path on/off (Inkscape switches the visibility of the parent layer instead, affecting everything that's inside).
  - sgt 5mo ago
    Yes those are my picks too! Aside from that, I totally agree, it works great on macOS.

amelius 5mo ago

I wish Inkscape would add constraints, as found in CAD tools.

daniel_reetz 5mo ago
This is what I'm looking for. This would replace Corel Draw for me. There is a plugin for blender that allows CAD style sketching. It may be a way forward.

darknavi 5mo ago

I have my first contribution to Inkscape in this release I think. It's quite a minor feature though, so I don't see it in the changelog. It allows the user to set their default saved file name. I was tired of drawing.svg :)

bizzyskillet 5mo ago
Nice! :)
enneff 5mo ago
Haha thank you! This had been mildly bothering me for a while actually.
NewsaHackO 5mo ago
Good job!
throwaway85825 5mo ago
That's how it starts.
lagniappe 5mo ago
Thank you :)
JayDustheadz 5mo ago
Nicely done, thank you! It's "small" features like this that make software really nice and pleasant to use. Don't stop there!
therealdrag0 5mo ago
What default would you change it to,
- darknavi 5mo ago
  I normally change mine to `project.svg` but that's just my preference.
5mo ago

faangguyindia 5mo ago

Inkscape is really good for products with no budget for designers. Let me explain why. One of the apps I am working on hit 10,000+ active users (per Playstore dashboard), and Inkscape has a role to play in this. Since the app is free and doesn't even have a backend, there is no budget for the designer. I looked for a few tools online, but most of them failed to generate icons/logos. I ended up using Inkscape to make logos for my app. Without Inkscape, this workflow is difficult. Though I am not able to intuitively use it well from the GUI. The thing is, you don't even need the GUI anymore! But Claude or Codex is able to write SVG line by line (so you can make changes incrementally) and use Inkscape via CLI to generate icons, logos, and graphics for your app. Here's my app for those who are curious: https://macrocodex.app/ https://macrocodex.app/ I am pretty sure some designer will come and say "you did a bad job at this," which is fine. My experience is in writing backends, not mobile apps or design. Every app is saying they use "AI for smart recommendation,” while I went the opposite route, of “no, our product does not use AI for any suggestion.“ It’s entirely deterministic.

Leftium 5mo ago
Next time, perhaps my quick logo generator can help: https://logo.leftium.com/logo https://logo.leftium.com/logo The defaults are tuned to aesthetics of my personal logo, but it's quite configurable. (You can even copy your own SVG into the icon input) Example logos: - https://leftium.github.io/nimble.css https://leftium.github.io/nimble.css - https://github.com/Leftium/weather-sense https://github.com/Leftium/weather-sense - https://github.com/Leftium/multi-launch https://github.com/Leftium/multi-launch
- faangguyindia 5mo ago
  That looks neat! Thanks for sharing, I’ll try to use it next time I need a logo. :D
SOLAR_FIELDS 5mo ago
I'm no Jony Ive, also a design stunted engineer but I'd say that looks decent given the constraints. My only obvious complaint is the kerning of the text "Get it on Google Play" and "Download on the App Store" (italics emphasis mine, what's in italics is what looks terrible on my laptop screen

timonoko 5mo ago

Inkscape = Press random buttons until something good happens. In this case the "Good" is that it makes Gcode for lasercutter. Everytime it takes atleast 30 minutes, even when I have recorded instructions. Always some weird thing happens, and I have to do it again, step-by-step. There is zero clue what paths, edges, layers, backgrounds, vectors etc might actually mean. But no more. Gemini AI made me a total solution. It takes a picture, checks it for "isolated islands" (which drop off and need bridges) and then generates perfect silhouette of Mannerheim or Mussolini.

nine_k 5mo ago

Inkscape is an indispensable tool for me. I use it for quick drawing and drafting, for presentation slides, illustrations, small-scale print works, and even just pictures for fun. It allows to combine freehand drawing and moving things around with very precise, CAD-like handling of shapes, sizes, coordinates, etc. There are few tools that are very ingrained in my daily operations, stay for years, and would be hard to replace, like Emacs or Firefox; Inkscape is among them.

Tommix11 5mo ago

I use 0.92 for extracting HPGL data from cutting machine software and converting it to better vector formats sometimes. I use that version because I think HPGL support was removed in newer versions. Inkscape is a great program, keep up the good work. Kind Regards A user

sprucevoid 5mo ago

Inkscape has many good features but also many rough edges. Fixing the command palette (shortcut key ?) would go a long way. On Windows it takes around 5 seconds for the palette search box to appear after a clean start of Inkscape 1.4.4. Typing is lagging and results are wildly irrelevant. That's a shame because Inkscape has so many powerful features tucked away in menus and side panes. A well working command palette makes it quick and easy for the user to use tools without exploring menu hierarchies or memorizing keyboard shortcuts. For example if I type "rectangle" in Inkscape command palette I would expect the draw rectangle tool as a top match. Instead the top matches are: Create a Slicer Rectangle Create a Slicer Rectangle (No preferences) Triangle (No preferences) Clone original path (LPE) Lightness-Contrast (No preferences) Refractive Glass (No preferences) Refractive Gel A (No preferences) There are dozens of more matches in the scrollable list but the draw rectangle tool does not appear to be one of them. There have been several issue tracker issues about the command palette. Here is one from 2022 and still ongoing about the slow start https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/work_items/3227 https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/work_items/3227

poulpy123 5mo ago

Inkscape is one one my favorite open source software. Myabe it is not as powerful than proprietary software but it does anything I need

sylware 5mo ago

I wish it was written in plain and simple C. Anything new from AI assisted port from c++ to plain and simple C?