
Inkscape Version 0.92 is Released - p4bl0
https://inkscape.org/en/news/2017/01/04/inkscape-version-092-released/
======
new299
I've always found Inkscape surprisingly easy to use in comparison to other
open source tools (like for Gimp for example).

I use it for almost all my diagramming needs (scientific
publications/documentation). Closed source tools are almost certainly better
in one or more respects. But it's certainly good enough for me, and it makes
me feel happy and secure to be using an open source tool.

~~~
smrtinsert
Gimp prefers the absolute most surprising and unexpected behavior given all
available options. Krita designers should be hired to redesign Gimp. If Krita
support image editing slightly better, I'm pretty sure no one would use Gimp
again.

Inkscape is excellent at surfacing options. Even a novice can discover how to
use it simply by reading options available at any time.

~~~
lillesvin
I hear this complaint a lot and it always surprises me. I guess I'm just used
to it after using it as my primary raster image editor for more than 15 years.

What is it that's particularly unintuitive?

~~~
probably_wrong
As a user of Gimp of 10+ years and counting, here's some thing that have
bitten me several times:

* The multi-window interface. I know you can change this, but there's no good reason for not being the default since the beginning. God help you if you close the layers window and don't know how to bring it back.

* That you cannot _save_ to any format that it's not XCF, but that you have to _export_ to them.

* The sliders to select tool properties, such as brush width. I can slide them (but not all the way from 100 to 0, that requires 6 slides!), I can use the up-down arrows, and I can type a value. But if I want to slide and I click it wrong, I have to enter a number. So now I have to click somewhere else first, and try again. It's frustrating.

* Overlap in functions between different tools. For instance, the perspective tool and the cage tool.

* Fine-tuning a digital tablet. I doubt anyone knows the difference between "screen", "window", and "deactivated".

~~~
miffe
> The sliders to select tool properties, such as brush width. I can slide them
> (but not all the way from 100 to 0, that requires 6 slides!)

Sliders are split, so the top slides over the full range and the bottom is for
fine adjustments.

~~~
nine_k
This is totally not obvious. No visual clue hints at this, except maybe the
changing cursor shape, not very helpful.

------
Freak_NL
You can write your own plugins¹ for Inkscape as well. Last year I've had a lot
of fun writing a plugin that skews, scales, and rotates objects in Inkscape to
create (simple) drawings in the isometric perspective² — have a look at the
write-up if you want to find out about basic linear algebraic SVG
transformations in Inkscape. SVG is extremely well-suited for such tasks.

1:
[https://inkscape.org/en/gallery/%3Dextension/](https://inkscape.org/en/gallery/%3Dextension/)

2: [http://jeroenhoek.nl/articles/svg-and-isometric-
projection.h...](http://jeroenhoek.nl/articles/svg-and-isometric-
projection.html)

------
duiker101
Inkscape is amazing. So is Gimp, Blender and many other. All amazing software.
I have just one thing that I wonder, why do they all seem to be lacking in the
UI department? They all have UIs that look and feel way more clunky than even
the cheaper proprietary alternatives. Not complaining, I like them anyway but
maybe a more user friendly UI would open up this amazing tool to a broader
audience?

~~~
mschuetz
1\. It's very very hard to find out what's intuitive, yet powerful to use.
Unlike implementing some algorithms, creating a good UI requires feedback from
users.

2\. It takes a lot of time and you frequently have to start over once you find
out that what you thought works well, doesn't work well for others.

3\. From anecdotical experience, I'd say that user interface design isn't what
open source developers are interested in. It's a distraction from what they
actually want to work on.

Personally, I find Inkscapes UI okay to use. Blender and Gimp, on the other
hand, are a horrible, unintuitive mess. Whenever I need to do some image
manipulation, I try to get by with Irfan View and Inkscape (even for raster
graphics) as much as possible, just to avoid having to mess around with Gimp.

~~~
PolCPP
In the case of Blender once you get the hang of it, you'll feel more
confortable than with other similar tools that do the same. I would say its
kinda like vim.

Also why don't you use Krita?

~~~
buovjaga
> Also why don't you use Krita?

Because GIMP is for general image & photo manipulation and the product vision
for Krita is to be a painting application.

~~~
irfanka
I just fund out about Pinta yesterday - and it's a pretty nice alternative for
folks who don't like GIMP UI.

------
RUG3Y
As an impoverished freelancer I've used Inkscape to create lots of
illustration that helped put food on the table. I found it easy to use, only
occasionally did I need tutorials for a specific task.

I don't really understand the complaints about Inkscape being unintuitive -
tools that have lots of options and do complex things will by nature be less
intuitive than tools that do simple things. Sometimes you've just got to learn
the software to make use of it. I have lots of experience with both Inkscape
and Illustrator and I actually like Inkscape more. Illustrator was perfect to
me at one point, and it seems like Adobe just kept tweaking endlessly in ways
that were detrimental to the product, rather than enhancing it.

------
rhaps0dy
Inkscape is great! Its PDF+Latex exporting functionality makes it perfect for
diagrams in papers, exams, and whatnot. The editing tools are also very nice.

It also edits PDFs, which I found pretty cool! I use it to make airline
tickets not take up a full sheet of paper. To be honest, if you export the PDF
back out, it jumbles some of the fonts a little, but that's mostly OK.

~~~
probably_wrong
It's even better when you combine it with the command line tools. You can
design a template on the GUI, and then customize it and export it via a
script.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Which command-line tools?

~~~
rhaps0dy
type "inkscape --help"

on your command line. It exports things to formats, and you can query
information from files.

------
anilgulecha
Inkscape is amazing -- I've used it on and off for over 6 years, and it's
never let me down.

Protip: It's PDF import is amazing.. try it.

The only thing I miss is a workable layers functionality.

~~~
saycheese
PDF import is really useful if you want to avoid hand writing on forms and
save an editable copy of what you've typed.

------
ravenstine
Inkscape is a gem! I'm glad more people seem to know of it than did even 5
years ago. I haven't tried 0.92 yet, but the one problem I have had with it is
the macOS version, which requires X11 and has more problems with the window
manager than even GIMP. Realistically, it's better to run these programs in a
VM on macOS, sadly. On Linux & Windows, it is awesome and I have yet to
encounter a circumstance where I couldn't achieve something that could be done
in Illustrator.

I find it interesting how people still don't like GIMP. I always suspect
people want it to be like Photoshop, but now I don't know. With single window
mode, I have virtually no complaints. (beyond the continual lack of CMYK
support, which prevents wider adoption)

For those developing Inkscape, I hope you realize that your efforts have
helped me professionally, as I have regularly used it to design graphics and
icons for web development at my work. Thank you!

~~~
gcr
There is an unofficial build floating around somewhere of a native MacOS
Inkscape written against the Cocoa framework rather than X11. That's the one I
use. It's an old version though.

~~~
szhu
Here it is:

[https://inkscape.org/en/~su_v/%E2%98%85inkscape-
osxmenu-r129...](https://inkscape.org/en/~su_v/%E2%98%85inkscape-
osxmenu-r12922-gtk2)

[https://inkscape.org/en/~su_v/%E2%98%85inkscape-
osxmenu-r129...](https://inkscape.org/en/~su_v/%E2%98%85inkscape-
osxmenu-r12922-gtk3-demo)

The GTK2 and GTK3 versions work about the same for me. The main issue is that
double-clicking and/or select-all in certain text boxes will crash the app.
Fortunately, Inkscape saves a backup of your work before crashing.

------
buovjaga
Inkscape is used in every Finnish gymnasium (high school). This is due to the
new computerized matriculation exams:
[https://digabi.fi/tekniikka/ohjelmistot/inkscape/](https://digabi.fi/tekniikka/ohjelmistot/inkscape/)

~~~
Freak_NL
Always refreshing to see schools using free software to teach. Students can
keep using Inkscape legally for free after graduation.

~~~
Sylos
Similarly when they actually get interested in something and want to play
around with it at home. It's just kind of shit when students are pretty much
forced to piracy, if they want to learn more about something than is taught in
their classes.

~~~
Vinkekatten
I love what Autodesk have done with Fusion 360, they made it free for students
and tinkerers. It's a brilliant tool and I wish more software manufacturers
got on board with programs like this.

------
bbayer
Inkscape is amazing and I mostly used it for creating 2D graphics for game UI.
One of the downsides is X server dependency in MacOS. Look and feel don't
match the MacOS' standart look and feel. Keyboard handling and focus issues
can be annoying time to time. Also some long awaiting issues like disabling
antialiasing for exports are considered as low priority[1]. This prevents
designer to export crisp images for 8bit style games.

[1] :
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/947660](https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/947660)

~~~
tannhaeuser
There's inkscape-osxmenu for MacOS[1] (though it was not 100% stable back when
I used it a couple years ago).

[1]: [https://code.launchpad.net/~suv-
lp/inkscape/osxmenu](https://code.launchpad.net/~suv-lp/inkscape/osxmenu)

~~~
szhu
[https://inkscape.org/en/~su_v/%E2%98%85inkscape-
osxmenu-r129...](https://inkscape.org/en/~su_v/%E2%98%85inkscape-
osxmenu-r12922-gtk2)

[https://inkscape.org/en/~su_v/%E2%98%85inkscape-
osxmenu-r129...](https://inkscape.org/en/~su_v/%E2%98%85inkscape-
osxmenu-r12922-gtk3-demo)

The GTK2 and GTK3 versions work about the same for me. The main issue is that
double-clicking and/or select-all in certain text boxes will crash the app.
Fortunately, Inkscape saves a backup of your work before crashing.

------
smd686s
If you're looking fantastic Inkscape tutorials, check out Nick Saporito's
YouTube channel. Really great stuff for beginners and pros.
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEQXp_fcqwPcqrzNtWJ1w9w](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEQXp_fcqwPcqrzNtWJ1w9w)

------
struppi
Sorry to be that guy, but I always had the impression that Inkscape is way
more cumbersome and difficult than it should be. And it seems to me that there
is _very_ little progress.

I don't use/need vector graphics editors very much, but I now bought affinity
designer. It seems to be way more professional, and is quite affordable
(basically in the same price category as Inkscape, at least for me).

~~~
mojuba
I don't know why you are downvoted for your opinion, but totally agree that
Inkscape is pretty low quality and buggy as well. On the Mac specifically the
experience is so 1990s and un-macOS (yeah I know, it's an X app)

I used it for a while for generating SVG files, ended up writing a script that
would optimize the crappy files it generated and reduce them 10 to 20 times in
some cases. Oh and then there are these odd floating point drifts (coordinate
10 becomes 10.035 etc.). Seems like one of those pieces of software that would
be very difficult or impossible to fix.

~~~
struppi
Yes, I also had to create some SVG files during a project for a client and
used Inkscape on Windows for that. Then hand-edited all of them, because I
wanted to get rid of all the crap before importing them.

I basically just bought Affinity Designer as a knee-jerk reaction because I
disliked Inkscape so much.

~~~
tkp
Inkscape adds a bunch of metadata to it's svg's, but also has a "Simple SVG"
save-as option, did you try it ?

~~~
mojuba
I did try it. Apart from metadata there are two other major problems: it
generates a lot of unnecessary attributes with their default values, and also
the floating point errors I mentioned. The latter can affect the appearance of
your graphics on your screen unfortunately, i.e. a vertical line with X=10 is
one thing but X=10.035 is another.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Optimized SVG is the one you want.

------
tksh
[https://github.com/tksh/Pure-Stroke-SVG-
Portrait](https://github.com/tksh/Pure-Stroke-SVG-Portrait) I’m an analog
illustrator. This is my first digital artwork made with Inkscape 0.91. Drawing
with Inkscape is very interesting for me. If Michelangelo lives in our time,
his sketches are made with Inkscape I think.

------
mandioca
First of all I love this app <3

But it has a few problems in terms of usability the major one that would be
nice to get addressed at some point is GTK. Getting inkscape to run on macos
for instance, requires X11 which creates a really bad integration with MacOs
itself. The solution is Qt, probably this is one of those initial decisions
that Inkscape devs regret everyday.

Gradients is another example about bad usability, try by yourself to add a new
step to the gradient without smashing your keyboard/mouse. Turns out the
solution is googling it which gives a solution for that, however you will
eventually forget about that since it's non-sense (then repeating the same
cycle again).

~~~
marcoms
Gtk3 supports macOS natively

~~~
mc-
The next version (0.93) will use gtk3 and, hopefully, should feel more
"native" in mac os x.

------
greenspot
Anyone knows if v0.92 now supports hi-dpi screens? Last version didn't and I
couldn't find anything in the release notes.

Otherwise a superb product, in particular if you are on Windows or Linux and
you can't run Sketch.

~~~
bkor
That'll require GTK+3 at least. They're still using GTK+2. According to the
roadmap it's scheduled for Inkscape 1.4. At the current pace it'll take years
to reach 1.4 IMO.

See
[http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Roadmap](http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Roadmap)

~~~
mc-
Actually, we plan to release 0.93 with gtk3. The current devel version (trunk)
already dropped all gtk2 code.

------
saycheese
This graphic of the Inkscape keyboard layout is useful:
[https://openclipart.org/detail/188861/inkscape-keyboard-
layo...](https://openclipart.org/detail/188861/inkscape-keyboard-layout-v0484)

~~~
Freak_NL
It could use an update though. I like Ⓜ for the on-screen ruler. It's quite
useful if you are drawing plans using physical units of measurement
(millimetres etc.).

------
aargh_aargh
Inkscape 0.92 Release Notes:

[http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.92](http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.92)

------
Brakenshire
This seems like a good opportunity to ask, is there a clear way to export an
svg from inkscape for the web? In a lot of applications (for instance with
logos on the web) you want to be able to make a selection, reduce it down to a
single path represented by a single d attribute, and then be able to copy that
off, or save as a file. I did manage to do it by fiddling around by
combining/intersecting different shapes, until the output svg got into the
right form, then normalizing that with an online tool. But is there a way to
do this more easily in Inkscape?

Ideally you could make a selection, and then go to file > export for web, and
get a graphical dialogue to allow you to play around with viewBox and other
display attributes. Or is there another open-source program that handles this
well? Now that SVG seems to be becoming more and more a first class part of
the web, this kind of thing would be very useful.

~~~
aargh_aargh
It's even simpler than that. Ctrl-A (select all), Ctrl-K (Path->Combine).

The catch is that if you're using objects, they will be converted to paths
(curves) and you'll lose useful things like fill, rounded corners,
gradients... If you think about it, what you're asking only makes sense for
very simple drawings - only those can be represented by a single path.

~~~
Brakenshire
Ah, thanks for confirming, pretty certain that is what I ended up doing. If I
recall, this did still have other issues, for instance handling scaling and
origin was difficult, and also I think all the points had 10 decimal places
unnecessarily. I needed to use web tools to get it into the right shape,
although part of this may be that I was getting my head around the
difficulties of how SVG works on the web, using viewBox rather than
height/width attributes and so on.

------
themodelplumber
There's a handy YouTube video covering various improvements:

[https://youtu.be/EI1hxXt9U4c](https://youtu.be/EI1hxXt9U4c)

I had to pause it quite a bit, but the demonstrations are nice to skim.

------
taivare
While on the topic of Inkscape. I've been wanting to post this for the
programmer/gamer crowd. At one point I was able to do vector scans & then go
in an fill them. I had a lot of interest from German gamer crowd, whom liked
the backdrops. However, Inkscape no longer allowed this. Adobe followed with
something similar (plug-in)- D3.js(code).Do to heavy memory use this would
make a good isolated app. Here is an example . .
[http://i.imgur.com/20W2UBd.png?1](http://i.imgur.com/20W2UBd.png?1)

------
ziotom78
Inkscape is one of my favorite tools when I am creating slideshows. Sometimes
I rely on Jessyink, when I want to use some zooming slides (like Prezi does),
sometimes I use it to create visually complex slides that I include in
presentations created with other tools (e.g. title slides to include in
beamer, out diagrams in LibreOffice Impress - the later works, but it's so
ugly I prefer Inkscape).

What I like most is the abundance of alignment tools Inkscape provides: it is
really easy to produce slides that use the space in a well balanced way!

------
fulldecent
Here is discussion on the effort to move Inkscape to GitHub:
[https://github.com/inkscape/inkscape/wiki/Migrate-
Launchpad-...](https://github.com/inkscape/inkscape/wiki/Migrate-Launchpad-to-
GitHub-%5BDRAFT%5D)

------
1024core
Are there any open-source Inkscape "libraries" of, what can only be said to
be, clipart out there?

I'm looking for ways to diagram Neural Networks. It would be great if there
were some 'NN clipart' from which I could just drag-n-drop stuff.

~~~
themodelplumber
Search wikipedia.org and openclipart.org.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
There's an openclipart.org browser built in, File > Import Clip Art ..., but
I'd use your web browser, it's much better UX.

------
facepalm
I've given up on using Inkscape on my Mac, but I am stuck with OS X for a
while. Are there any other vector graphics programs that are cross platform
and not too expensive? I don't want to invest in learning an OS X only tool.

~~~
egypturnash
Affinity Designer. I've played with it some but I can't get past a few UI
choices that are Just Plain Wrong to someone like me who's spent about fifteen
years using Illustrator.

~~~
facepalm
Thanks, I will check that out.

------
saycheese
Any suggestions for finding free/non-pirated vector images online?

~~~
anilgulecha
I end up using images.google.com with the query:

<keyword> ext:svg

This usually finds me good options, many from wikimedia etc, which are under a
open license.

Many times, if you only can find free and open images, but in raster format,
use something like vector magic to convert them to SVG.. VM usually does an
excellent job with basic handholding.

~~~
saycheese
Here's an an example search:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=site:wikimedia.org+ext:svg+-...](https://www.google.com/search?q=site:wikimedia.org+ext:svg+-map+-graph&tbm=isch)

------
hrnnnnnn
I once used inkscape to draw collision geometry for a game! Versatile!

------
leojg
I recently began to use inkscape again. I am getting into 3d printing and
Inkscape is great for creating .stl/.svg files of text fonts or 2d images.

------
cutler
Looks great but not available for Mac users.

~~~
tempodox
Yes, it is:

[https://inkscape.org/en/download/mac-
os/](https://inkscape.org/en/download/mac-os/)

Uses XQuartz, the platform's X11 emulation.

~~~
ak1394
They didn't release new 0.92 packages for Mac and apparently don't plan to.

~~~
dr_hooo
Noooo! are you aware of any third party binaries?

~~~
2ion
There's an inkscape cask for homebrew. You should be able to compile it on
your own too.

~~~
LyndsySimon
The cask is 0.91, and uses the .dmg file.

I'll subscribe to their dev mailing list and see about volunteering to get the
macOS version out.

------
andrewclunn
Is it still only 32 bit? The 4 gig ram limitation made some complex processes
much slower than they needed to be.

------
hernandipietro
I will see if stability improved. At least in Win32, I got pissed off so many
times with crashes and hangs.

------
skynode
Having used Inkscape and Adobe Illustrator at different times, I'd stick with
illustrator any day.

------
megiddo
Sometime between 0.42 and 0.91 the PDF export for very narrow lines ceased to
function correctly.

I have to keep old versions around in order to produce cut lines for my laser.

Very disappoint. Perhaps 0.92 fixes.

------
comments_db
Love Inkscape

