SVG, like any protocol, has constraints particularly for people that view Inkscape as more than just an SVG editor, the limitations felt unnecessarily arbitrary to abide by. Many people (including many Wikipedia contributors) rely on Inkscape to create standard files that would look good on Wikipedia, and it would be detrimental to the SVG format and to Inkscape to add features that get in the way of this use.īryce Harrington: Your question has been top of mind in the project’s strategy since before it even existed. Of recent additions, only meshes are not doable in other ways, and not supported in other viewers. There is a lot that can be done with SVG, and ideally we would only implement things that should be in the specifications. Marc Jeanmougin: Not more than strictly needed. In fact, how much are you willing to modify the spec by introducing a further superset of SVG features to add features missing in the original spec? Do you have any kind of policy or informal agreement on that? Ultimately we will go where our users help us go by getting involved. We have been somewhat constrained by what is possible within the scope of the SVG spec, but that may not always be the case, and there is still a lot we can do within the scope of SVG. In this way we’re not like a software enterprise that is looking for growth markets and planning features that way. Ryan Gorley: Inkscape will ultimately end up at the intersection of well-documented, regularly requested features and what our developers are capable and interested in building. For me, the use of SVG is the only obvious choice of an open, hand-editable, web-friendly file format, and we want to insist more on being a vector tool than on technical discussion." It’s not (yet) THE tool for some precise vector goal, but it’s a good tool to get into vector graphics, and a good tool to achieve almost anything in this area (and the improvements we try to make into customizations possibilities will make it easier to have Inkscape be THE tool for specific goals). Marc Jeanmougin: I tend to think of Inkscape as a multi-purpose vector graphics tool. But at the same time there has grown a whole ecosystem of other SVG editing and viewing tools for various use cases. Even today, from laser engravers to game developers you see Inkscape referenced as an important tool. There really weren’t many options for GUI SVG editing back then, so as Inkscape developed it became the go-to for SVG file authoring. In hindsight, there was a point in time where Inkscape did in fact fulfil that mission to become the de facto standard SVG editor. These users viewed Inkscape not as an “SVG editor” but something that solved even more general drawing needs. SVG was just a file format, one of several possible ones they cared about. Seeing how our users were employing Inkscape made many of us realize the scope for Inkscape was incredibly broad.Īlong with that, users appeared who hadn’t heard of SVG prior to Inkscape. So how do you actually market Inkscape these days?īryce Harrington: After we’d released a few versions of Inkscape, one of our users posted a drawing of a glowingly photorealistic car - it’s the one you’ve probably seen on the Wikipedia page for Inkscape. Now, the homepage doesn’t even mention the word “SVG”. I mean, even the version numbering scheme used to reflect the coverage of the W3C specification, like v0.50 for 50% coverage etc. But Inkscape started out with a mission to become THE editor of SVG files. Some want Inkscape to become an animation tool, others want more CAD features (with constraints, no less), and the list goes on. As a large project with a massive user base, I bet that you often feel overwhelmed because people expect so much of you. Oh, and all the illustrations below are close-up parts of the about screen for Inkscape 1.0, made by Bayu Rizaldhan Rayes.įirst of all, congratulations! This is a huge milestone. Answers to my questions arrived after final GSoC slots had been announced, so at least one of the questions might not make as much sense to you as you’d probably expect to. I guess there’s just one disclaimer left to tell. But user impressions are one thing and what developers actually do think is often a whole different thing. My personal impression, if you are interested, is that the current team is highly motivated to push this project in the direction of making it a better tool for illustrators.
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