The incoming version of Inkscape is a brilliantly engineered masterpiece designed to punch Adobe Illustrator in the face.

The scale of Inkscape 1.5 is hard to put into words.

  • A full port from GTK 3 to GTK 4
  • A new rendering engine
  • The Unified Font Browser becoming default,
  • Document Tabs being introduced,
  • Many long-standing issues finally being addressed,
  • New and changed dependencies across multiple target platforms.
  • UI/UX improvements

GTK 4 unlocks several possibilities, but it also exacts its own costs. This transition is definitely being felt in the amount and complexity of the work the developers have had to undertake.

Inkscape developers have been pouring their nights and weekends into 1.5 but they are currently feeling overwhelmed.

If you’re a C++ developer, particularly with graphics experience, Inkscape could use your help in pushing 1.5 forward.

https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/work_items

Adobe has unlimited ressources. Inkscape relies on us

🙏🙏🙏

  • Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org
    4·
    1 hour ago

    I’m not programmer but I’m music producer. I could create one song for them so they can make a video looking to reach more people. Also I can create some SFX for them, like for the UI, the splash screen, etc.

    But I also feel insecure whether they’ll welcome this or if I’ll only add burden to them.

    Any advice? I really want to start contributing to FOSS projects but at the same time I don’t really feel prepared.

  • antianarchist@sopuli.xyz
    2·
    1 hour ago

    Thanks for the info! Unfortunately I cannot help with the C++ part, but maybe I can improve something with the ci/cd/cs pipeline. Also I hope 1.5 is going to run smooth on linux with GTK4

  • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
    10·
    3 hours ago

    If you’re a C++ developer, particularly with graphics experience, Inkscape could use your help in pushing 1.5 forward. https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/work_items Adobe has unlimited resources. Inkscape relies on us

    I definitely don’t fit that criteria, but, we could always stand to pitch a few bucks towards our favorite open source projects to help them thrive! Even in these trying times, we could all skip 1 or takeout coffees for this! :)

    Edit: This header picture tho… adventurer has like 6 swords sticking up through him? This isn’t slop, right? :( I’m looking really closely but I can’t tell anymore.

  • Hanrahan@slrpnk.netEnglish
    2·
    2 hours ago

    im no developer but am a casual Inkscape user, love it. What’s the best way to chip in a few $ to help?

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
    5·
    3 hours ago
    • A full port from GTK 3 to GTK 4

    Uh oh. Will it work outside of Gnome? Menubar toggle-able?

    Then again, the software itself isn’t made by Gnome (unlike Gtk, and SimpleScan, Pavucontrol), so that’s likely the case.

  • sxwpb@lemmy.world
    6·
    4 hours ago

    I think Inkscape’s UI could def also gain some good improvements even just with little technical know-how! I’ve been trying to make a UI style for it from scratch purely through GTK’s CSS layer (no touching internal code or recompiling at all) and I’m pretty impressed of what’s possible. (see here)

    If anyone is even just familiar with CSS, you could certainly make good contributions to the UI layer. Or help out in my repo i posted above, I need to port the style to Inkscape 1.5 / GTK4 (aswell as cover some missing stuff e.g. right-to-left) but I don’t find a lot of time to do it.

  • neversaydie@programming.dev
    74·
    14 hours ago

    Unfortunately I’m neither good with C++ nor with graphics, but Inkscape is a great piece of software, all the best to them