Inkscape

There has been a lot of attention paid to tablet issues in recent
weeks.  If you could, please download and try out a recent development
snapshot, and see if the developers have solved your issues.  If not,
please make sure the issues are recorded in the bug tracker.  We're
working heavily on the 0.44 release, so your feedback will be very
important to ensure this feature works correctly for everyone!

Thanks,
Bryce

On Tue, May 23, 2006 at 11:27:23PM -0500, Thetargos wrote:
> Ok, first of all, sorry if I flooded the list with my other "issue" about
> text-on-path (I'm still learning and since I'm not contaminated with any
> other drawing tool [CorelDraw or Illustrator] I'm quite new to vector
> graphics, but I'm loving it!). Anyway, I have noticed that Inkscape can take
> advantage of extended input devices such as tablets. I have a tablet (Wacom
> Graphire 4) which works just fine with The GIMP, but I have been having
> trouble working with it in Inkscape. Either I don't fully understand how it
> is supposed to work with Inkscape or it simply does not work correctly with
> Inkscape.
> 
> When I enable the stylus device in the extended input device configuration
> window in Inkscape, everything seems to work just fine, however there are
> some quirks:
> 
> Using the tools feels odd, as it would seem as if the tools won't be
> reacting to the usual commands, for instance, when drawing a shape, by
> taping on the tablet with the stylus and trying to drag that shape, won't
> have any effect, but doing so with the eraser (not configured in Inkscape)
> does, as Inkscape would register the tap as a left-mouse-click event.
> Another example of this is node editing: when pressing F2 to edit the nodes
> a drawn line, I don't seem able to move the nodes with the stiletto-like
> pointer, however taping anywhere on the stroke I can move that section of
> the stroke, and the nodes become anchors. Again by tap-dragging with the
> eraser, which is not configured, I can drag the nodes just as if I were
> using the mouse.
> 
> I noticed a keys section with 32 total keys which can be configured... How
> exactly do they work? What are they useful for?
> 
> I'm sorry if my questions seem rather n00b'ish, but I'm still learning
> trying my best to master this wonderful program Inkscape is!

On 5/24/06, Thetargos <thetargos@...> wrote:
> Using the tools feels odd, as it would seem as if the tools won't be
> reacting to the usual commands, for instance, when drawing a shape, by
> taping on the tablet with the stylus and trying to drag that shape, won't
> have any effect, but doing so with the eraser (not configured in Inkscape=
)
> does, as Inkscape would register the tap as a left-mouse-click event.

This sounds like the bug which was fixed a couple days ago. Please
test a recent build.

--=20
bulia byak
Inkscape. Draw Freely.
http://www.inkscape.org

On May 23, 2006, at 9:27 PM, Thetargos wrote:

> Using the tools feels odd, as it would seem as if the tools won't  
> be reacting to the usual commands, for instance, when drawing a  
> shape, by taping on the tablet with the stylus and trying to drag  
> that shape, won't have any effect, but doing so with the eraser  
> (not configured in Inkscape) does, as Inkscape would register the  
> tap as a left-mouse-click event. Another example of this is node  
> editing: when pressing F2 to edit the nodes a drawn line, I don't  
> seem able to move the nodes with the stiletto-like pointer, however  
> taping anywhere on the stroke I can move that section of the  
> stroke, and the nodes become anchors. Again by tap-dragging with  
> the eraser, which is not configured, I can drag the nodes just as  
> if I were using the mouse.
>
> I noticed a keys section with 32 total keys which can be  
> configured... How exactly do they work? What are they useful for?


Good question.

:-)

I think I've seen that first question brought up before. Of course,  
the best way to get it resolved would be to buy one of the developers  
the same tablet.  ;-)

Lacking that... first try checking about existing bugs
http://www.inkscape.org/report_bugs.php

(sometimes things are also in the RFE "feature request" area, what  
you're discussing does sound more like bugs).


Drat. No bugs like that I can find.

There are some interesting Google results on this... though it looks  
like getting some more detail as to OS and such might help.

On May 23, 2006, at 10:01 PM, bulia byak wrote:

>
> This sounds like the bug which was fixed a couple days ago. Please
> test a recent build.

Aha!!! I *knew* it sounded familiar.

:-)

On 5/24/06, Jon A. Cruz <jon@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> There are some interesting Google results on this... though it looks
> like getting some more detail as to OS and such might help.


Ok, here you go (sorry to bug you [no pun intended!] now with this issue):

Fedora Core 5 x86_64, with a custom low-latency kernel (with a bunch of
patches!). Using the bundled Wacom drivers (as they are pretty much the same
as the ones in the Linux Wacom [linuxwacom.sf.net]), I only lack the tools
for "manipulating" the device (namely a TCL/Tk front end). The tablet works
as expected in The GIMP (pretty much Inkscape and The GIMP are the only apps
tablet-aware I have).

On 5/24/06, bulia byak <buliabyak@...> wrote:
>
> This sounds like the bug which was fixed a couple days ago. Please
> test a recent build.
>

I'll try getting one of those... Are there binary "nightlies" for Linux? I
had lots of trouble the last time I tried building a development snapshot of
0.43, so I stick to the Fedora Extras RPM.

On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 01:26:18AM -0500, Thetargos wrote:
> On 5/24/06, bulia byak <buliabyak@...> wrote:
> >
> >This sounds like the bug which was fixed a couple days ago. Please
> >test a recent build.
> >
> 
> I'll try getting one of those... Are there binary "nightlies" for Linux? I
> had lots of trouble the last time I tried building a development snapshot of
> 0.43, so I stick to the Fedora Extras RPM.

Yes, you may wish to try the autopackage nightlies.
Let us know if you have any problems installing them.

Bryce

> Fedora Core 5 x86_64, with a custom low-latency kernel (with a bunch
> of patches!). Using the bundled Wacom drivers (as they are pretty much
> the same as the ones in the Linux Wacom [linuxwacom.sf.net]), I only
> lack the tools for "manipulating" the device (namely a TCL/Tk front
> end). The tablet works as expected in The GIMP (pretty much Inkscape
> and The GIMP are the only apps tablet-aware I have).

I get the same thing wrt only being able to drag things around with the
'eraser'. I've never complained before because I thought it was supposed
to be a feature. I run Debian unstable on an AMD64 with Linux 2.6.14
(though it's done the same with several kernels), with a Wacom Intuos 3
tablet. I'm only using the version of Inkscape in unstable, though:
z1@...:~$ inkscape --version
Inkscape 0.43 (Jan 14 2006)

I'd like it if the tool selection worked like in the GIMP, where each
stylus remembers its own 'last used tool', so you can change tool just
by switching from tip to eraser, or to your normal mouse.

--=20
Humpty  Dumpty  sat on  the  wall,  Humpty  Dumpty  had  a  great  fall,
All the King's horses and all the King's men | http://surreal.istic.org/
Couldn't put Humpty together again.          |   powered by cat and ^d =20
Perhaps they shouldn't have given the horses the first go.

Bryce Harrington wrote:
> On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 01:26:18AM -0500, Thetargos wrote:
>> On 5/24/06, bulia byak <buliabyak@...> wrote:
>>> This sounds like the bug which was fixed a couple days ago. Please
>>> test a recent build.
>>>
>> I'll try getting one of those... Are there binary "nightlies" for Linux? I
>> had lots of trouble the last time I tried building a development snapshot of
>> 0.43, so I stick to the Fedora Extras RPM.
> 
> Yes, you may wish to try the autopackage nightlies.
> Let us know if you have any problems installing them.

Sorry. My Autopackages (and maybe all Autopackages) don't work on 64bit 
distros. Does fedora have something like "apt-get build-deps"? That 
command realy makes things easy.

Aaron Spike

Well, Fedora has yum, which automagically handles dependencies. I thought
the most prominent deps for Inkscape were the GTK-mm libraries... for build,
as it is "statically linked" to them, last I knew it included the subset of
gtk-mm it used, being "self contained", so it would not need gtk-mm as such
to use the program, though it would be necessary for building the program
from source (like if building from CVS)

Thetargos wrote:
> Well, Fedora has yum, which automagically handles dependencies. I 
> thought the most prominent deps for Inkscape were the GTK-mm 
> libraries... for build, as it is "statically linked" to them, last I 
> knew it included the subset of gtk-mm it used, being "self contained", 
> so it would not need gtk-mm as such to use the program, though it would 
> be necessary for building the program from source (like if building from 
> CVS)

Does yum automatically handle build dependencies as well as runtime 
dependencies? That is a very handy functionality. Otherwise you will 
need to install all the *-devel packages. If you are building for your 
own use you shouldn't need to worry about statically linking. We do this 
for distributed packages to increase the coverage that we can get out of 
just a few packages and reduce the problems users have.

In a quick search this morning, I saw some indications that maybe 
creating an autopackage for 64bit distros would be possible. Would you 
be interested in learning how to create these packages? 64bit distros 
are becoming more and more useable. It would be nice to cater to those 
users too.

Aaron Spike

On 5/24/06, Aaron Spike <aaron@...> wrote:

> Does yum automatically handle build dependencies as well as runtime
> dependencies? That is a very handy functionality. Otherwise you will
> need to install all the *-devel packages. If you are building for your
> own use you shouldn't need to worry about statically linking. We do this
> for distributed packages to increase the coverage that we can get out of
> just a few packages and reduce the problems users have.
>
> In a quick search this morning, I saw some indications that maybe
> creating an autopackage for 64bit distros would be possible. Would you
> be interested in learning how to create these packages? 64bit distros
> are becoming more and more useable. It would be nice to cater to those
> users too.
>
> Aaron Spike


Well as of recently Yum can be used for building packages too and it does
handle the deps (though as far as I know it will install the needed deps
[*devel packages] and then will continue to build the package). I'll ask to
the Fedora Extras, maybe they even got a testing 0.44 package already.

From what I've read about autopackage, it looks really good. I'm not a
seasoned package builder, but am willing to learn how to create them, and if
with that I can help fellow 64-bit users, then I will.