vector graphics help

[worker201]

WTF is PS useful for anyhow?

1. PostScript and Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) images can be directly generated through a bash script if you want, since PostScript is a real interpreted programming language, like JavaScript and Perl.

2. PS and EPS images can be sent directly to a compatible printer without any intermediary program - a simple redirect on the command line is all you need.  The printer can do the rest.

Basically what you are doing is making a vector image using printer language.  It's an extremely efficient, if somewhat dated practice, designed for the days when most people barely had a shell prompt and a printer.  Adobe's adoption of PDF for modern page description reflects the more uptodate method of creating graphics with a visual editor and then using software to send them to the printer.

[worker201]

By the way, I did find out that Inkscape does plan to be AI, PS, EPS, and PDF compatible eventually.  But the project is moving really slowly.

[piratePenguin]

Scribus can import PS and EPS and can export PDF and EPS.

Firefox can print to PS, as can Konq (which can also print to PDF) and probably everything else in KDE..... GNOME can print to PDF and PS. The GIMP (which does not use GNOME's printing program, to my understanding. It uses gimp-print) can print to PS.  :o

[solemnwarning]

The reason X.org is used is because the XF86 core team went completely insane.  They pissed off all their developers, and stifled innovation, which lead to the fork in the first place.  

The final straw was when they decided to change the licencing to the old BSD licencing format with the advertising clause.  This licence is incompatible with the GPL.  

Thus, if anyone shipped binary versions of GPL programs or libraries (such as QT for KDE) linked against the new version of XFree86, they would violate the
GPL.  This pretty much leaves most distros (even BSD ones) DEAD in the water if they chose to use the latest version XFree86, although you could download and compile XFree86 yourself if you so desired.  

Like I said... insane.  

We had a big thread on this a couple years back.

I'm running XFree86

[piratePenguin]

I'm running XFree86

Don't tell me Debian still uses it!?

[Orethrius]

Don't tell me Debian still uses it!?

 Ya know, not saying that he did, but he could've forked a GPLed version for his own needs.  

[worker201]

Ya know, not saying that he did, but he could've forked a GPLed version for his own needs.  

:lmao:
Somehow, I doubt it.

[solemnwarning]

Don't tell me Debian still uses it!?

Yes, Debian still uses it!

Although its dropped in the current testing release thats running on my laptop so I had to hack the stable package to work with the packages under testing.

[piratePenguin]

However, my understanding is that the Linux community as a whole is against this kind of licensing, no matter how liberal it is.

PS is supported by ALOT of free software (I'd nearly say say that generally all applicable free software supports the format). There's the huge amount of software I've already mentioned, and I just noticed evince, GNOME's document viewer can read PS documents (as well as PDFs and DjVu documents).

KDE has kghostview to view PS documents.

So I dunno what makes you think "the Linux community as a whole is against this kind of licensing"...

There just seems to be inkscape that's missing. You could learn C++ and fix that..

edit: http://inkscape.org/doc/devdocs.php

[H_TeXMeX_H]

I know some C++ (about 3 credit hours worth ...), enough for making simple games, math programs, small utilities, but probably not enough for doing something like this .... and you need lots of time. I mean usually there is a development team ... not a one man team

[piratePenguin]

I know some C++ (about 3 credit hours worth ...), enough for making simple games, math programs, small utilities, but probably not enough for doing something like this .... and you need lots of time. I mean usually there is a development team ... not a one man team

There is often a single person working on a single function.

The rest of the Inkscape developers will be developing everything else, whatever interests them. Obviously PS support doesn't interest them.

Knowing C++ is the easy bit, understanding even just the relevant parts of the Inkscape codebase is the hard bit. But worker WAS talking about developing a brand-spanking-new editor, which would be MUCH more work.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Yeah, well maybe you could improve inkscape to do all those things you want ... or you might wanna ask the dev team if they have it planned, and if they don't then maybe they'll listen or maybe not. I don't recommend you start from scratch ... you're gonna end up quitting, it's too big a project to do on your own ... unless you have a lot of time and programming know-how.

P.S. Inkscape is really nice (I just tried it) ... it might be a good starting point

[piratePenguin]

http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Roadmap

see milestone 11, for inkscape 0.45.

[piratePenguin]

Hello.  I am sick and tired of Adobe's corner on the vector graphics market, and I need your help.  My goal is an open-source vector graphics program which is as good as or better than Adobe Illustrator.  It will use non-proprietary industry standards (like SVG) at its core, but it will be able to import and export PostScript and PDF.  It will be able to deal with Type1, Type2, Type3, OpenType, Freetype, and TrueType fonts interchangeably.  It will be able to view and vectorize raster images.  Additionally, it will be fully integrated with open source graphics/X, providing such things as thumbnails and other desktop interactivity.  Primary focus is on a professional desktop vector graphics system, and specific prepress functions or artistic enhancements will be secondary.  I suppose that one day it might be ported to Windows, but I want no part of such a project.  However, a .app, like the OSX version of the GIMP which works through Apple X11, will be produced at each development stage.

Unfortunately, the only language I know really well is HTML.  I know a decent bit of JavaScript and XML, and a tiny bit of C, C++, PostScript, and Perl.

So ... any ideas, suggestions, directions, volunteers?

Looking back at this.. Learn Qt! Then you've got a very nice, very cross-platform toolkit, and then you can basically make a start on your project.

I can get you a very nice book on development with Qt 4.1 and C++ (it has an appendix about basic C++ functionality that I found useful too, since I was never good with C++) on whatever platform you want (it has another appendix with instructions for installing Qt/Windows, Qt/Mac, and Qt/X11).

[piratePenguin]

Check out Xara Xtreme too btw.