Interview with Inkscape team, progress of the project

Libre Graphics World published an interview with Inkscape developers and contributors who worked on release of 0.48, Google Summer of Code 2010 projects and participated at Libre Graphics Meeting earlier this year.

In the mean time some new features have already found their way to development tree for the next version. Thanks to Roland Meuband exchanging position of objects is now possible in Inkscape (via "Align and Distribute" dialog). Johan Engelen also started work on PowerStroke live path effect that will beyond all doubt attract type designers.

The Inkscape Community Announces 0.48 Release

After 9 months of development, Inkscape 0.48 is out. This version of the SVG-based vector graphics editor brings a new Spray tool, multipath editing, superscripts and subscripts in text, as well as numeric control of text kerning, tracking, rotation and more, several new extensions for web developers and first take at adaptive user interface. Check out the full release notes for more information about new exciting features and improvements, enjoy the screenshots, or just jump right to downloading your package for Windows, Linux or Mac OS X.

First shot at Open Source Fashion extensions

During Libre Graphics Meeting 2010 Susan Spencer gave an interesting talk called "Open Source project to enable fashion design using open data formats". Having spoken to various community members during the conference, Susan then dived into Python programming and finally came up with proof-of-concept extensions for Inkscape that allow creating clothes pattern blocks.

If you are interested in this further development of this project or maybe wish to participate, keep an eye on the blog. The project now has a new name, TMTP (tau meta tau physica), and there is a dedicated website in works.

SVG Open 2010 in two weeks

While release preparations are full-steam (at packaging stage), we'd like to remind you that annual SVG Open conference is taking place in Paris (France) in just two weeks: August 30 to September 1.

The conference traditionally attracts software and web developers, graphic designers, GIS specialists and creators of visualization solutions. This year Inkscape project will be represented by Tavmjong Bah who will demonstrate both upcoming v0.48 and some of Google Summer of Code 2010 projects. For the full list of talks please have a look here.

GSoC2010 and release news

The midterm evaluation is long past. Unfortunately we lost two out of five students, and that leaves us two projects focusing on performance and one project focusing on rewriting internals. On the other hand the PowerStroke project was picked by Johan Engelen, mentor of the student we lost. Overall progress of projects is quite exciting, more on that soon.

In the mean time we are tracking down the very last crashers to release a new version that won't disappoint you. By the way, we are still missing a person who could take care of a native Mac build (that involves Quartz based port of GTK+). If you are willing to help, please join developers mailing list and tell us you are ready to work on this.