Inkscape 0.42
When I was writing the review of OpenOffice.org's presentation program the other day, a thought struck me "I've never seen a fully featured (i.e. Adobe Illustrator standard) open-source vector graphics program" (or a good open-source DTP program either - but I'm on the lookout for one of those). For bitmap/raster graphics, there's the open source the gimp - which I'll review at some point (but it won't be good because I really don't like it) - but for vector graphics there isn't really anything.
Well, fast-forward to today and this post shows up on slashdot linking to Inkscape - an open-source vector graphics program. It's still a very, very early, pre-1.0 release so I'm expecting it to be flaky and incomplete. My first action after starting it was to go to "help -> about", after about 45 seconds to a minute of it sitting there doing nothing you finally get the about screen. Not a good start.
The interface is dated and cheap looking. It doesn't inspire confidence. It needs a lot of work. To change the colour of a created object, you have to delve into a dialogue box - there's no colour picker in the interface by default. You can turn one on from the object menu - but for some rather annoying reason it doesn't stay floating on screen. Sometimes you can click on an object in the main window and the colour picker disappears again behind the main window. Sometimes it stays, sometimes it goes.
While the interface is horrifically slow at times, actually manipulating objects is quite fast...much quicker than most vector programs I've used. I don't know whether they've hit on some more efficient way of doing things, or (much more likely IMO) they're not doing some form of advanced anti-aliasing or something similar that's done in other vector programs. Image quality doesn't seem to noticeable suffer too much though.
All of the standard vector tools you'd expect are there: simple predefined shapes, a freehand pen tool, a bezier curve tool, gradient fills, transparency, shape intersection type tools, various options for aligning text to paths. Some of the more advanced features are quite nicely implemented and the grid arrange tool is a nice addition.
One thing I was quite impressed with are the tutorials. Rather than being text based or rolling animations, they're in the form of vector files that open inside the program itself and encourage you to interact with the objects in them...for example - "Select the object below, switch to the node tool, and drag its handle to get an idea", underneath which is an object ready for you to experiment on with the tool being described. It's a simple idea, but something that's not often seen...even in high-end programs.
Overall I think there's plenty of potential there. This is still a very early version after all. Not sure I'd recommend it as it stands right now - but there aren't really many free or open-source alternatives. Adobe Illustrator is what it needs to stand up against, but there's just no comparison. If you can afford to, stick with Illustrator at the minute.
Inkscape Homepage
Well, fast-forward to today and this post shows up on slashdot linking to Inkscape - an open-source vector graphics program. It's still a very, very early, pre-1.0 release so I'm expecting it to be flaky and incomplete. My first action after starting it was to go to "help -> about", after about 45 seconds to a minute of it sitting there doing nothing you finally get the about screen. Not a good start.
The interface is dated and cheap looking. It doesn't inspire confidence. It needs a lot of work. To change the colour of a created object, you have to delve into a dialogue box - there's no colour picker in the interface by default. You can turn one on from the object menu - but for some rather annoying reason it doesn't stay floating on screen. Sometimes you can click on an object in the main window and the colour picker disappears again behind the main window. Sometimes it stays, sometimes it goes.
While the interface is horrifically slow at times, actually manipulating objects is quite fast...much quicker than most vector programs I've used. I don't know whether they've hit on some more efficient way of doing things, or (much more likely IMO) they're not doing some form of advanced anti-aliasing or something similar that's done in other vector programs. Image quality doesn't seem to noticeable suffer too much though.
All of the standard vector tools you'd expect are there: simple predefined shapes, a freehand pen tool, a bezier curve tool, gradient fills, transparency, shape intersection type tools, various options for aligning text to paths. Some of the more advanced features are quite nicely implemented and the grid arrange tool is a nice addition.
One thing I was quite impressed with are the tutorials. Rather than being text based or rolling animations, they're in the form of vector files that open inside the program itself and encourage you to interact with the objects in them...for example - "Select the object below, switch to the node tool, and drag its handle to get an idea", underneath which is an object ready for you to experiment on with the tool being described. It's a simple idea, but something that's not often seen...even in high-end programs.
Overall I think there's plenty of potential there. This is still a very early version after all. Not sure I'd recommend it as it stands right now - but there aren't really many free or open-source alternatives. Adobe Illustrator is what it needs to stand up against, but there's just no comparison. If you can afford to, stick with Illustrator at the minute.
Inkscape Homepage
posted by Michael at
7:39 AM
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