Hi,

I just downloaded inkscape for snow leopard, which I have (I think the inkscape web page said there were no issues WRT Quartz etc. when loading
the snow leopard version to snow leopard.

When I run the app I get a menu that has nothing but one item: Inkscape, and it has no useful options. No screen opens up, no other menu items pertaining
to drawing or ANYTHING appear. If I click the app where it sits on the app bar (sic) running along the bottom of my screen, everything on the bar (I have maybe
20 apps down there) kind of shifts uneasily, but nothing happens.

Any thoughts? Inkscape looks like the best drawing pgm I've seen so far (at least that doesn't cost > $300) and I would REALLY LIKE to get it work for me.

Regards,

Ken Quirici

kquirici wrote:(I think the inkscape web page said there were no issues WRT Quartz etc. when loading
the snow leopard version to snow leopard.

Quartz? The official Inkscape package for Mac OS X version still depends on X11/Xquartz (there are no native builds available with the Quartz backend of the GTK+ toolkit which would no longer require X11).

kquirici wrote:When I run the app I get a menu that has nothing but one item: Inkscape, and it has no useful options. No screen opens up, no other menu items pertaining to drawing or ANYTHING appear.

Do you have many fonts installed? There is a known delay on the first run for the current user account (Inkscape displays a notification dialog about it): the font caches need to be built first, which might take a minute (or a few).

kquirici wrote:If I click the app where it sits on the app bar (sic) running along the bottom of my screen, everything on the bar (I have maybe 20 apps down there) kind of shifts uneasily, but nothing happens.

• Does X11/Xquartz launch by itself? (Quit any running/hanging instances of Inkscape and X11, then double-click the X11 icon in 'Applications > Utilities')
• Which version of X11/Xquartz do you have installed and use as default? The one provided (and updated) by Apple, or a recent Xquartz development version from xquartz.macosforge.org? (You can find out once X11/Xquartz has launched properly by opening 'X11 > About X11' in the menubar)
• In case you just recently had installed Xquartz from xquartz.macosforge.org - did you log out and log in again (or reboot) since? This is required for the first installation of Xquartz (it installs parallel to X11 provided by Apple, and to properly update the auto-launch feature, one needs to at least log out and back in once).
• Do you have other X11-based applications installed? Do they launch and work as expected?

Hi,

Thanks for your reply!

I found X11.app in Utilities as you said and double-clicked it. Nothing happened.

If I reboot that will kill hanging/running instances of X11 and inkscape.

How when I come back will I know if X11 is running?

I'm going to reboot and check back in here.

Thanks again!

Regards,

Ken Quirici

Thanks again for your reply! I replied already but it hasn't been approved yet.

Meanwhile I rebooted and double-clicked X11 and nothing happened.

How can I tell if it's running? On a PC (like at work) you can check all running applications and processes.
Is there something similar on the Mac?

It looks like I have several hundred fonts, but there's nothing there that I manually
installed - it's just what came with the OS. (I don't know where the fonts are located,
so I did I rough estimate by going into a text-editor, the Format menu option, and
basically counted all fonts for 'all languages'.

My apologies. I'm obviously very unsophisticated about these internal matters,
and am grateful for your patience. I'm trying not to abuse it!

Regards,

Ken Quirici

kquirici wrote:Meanwhile I rebooted and double-clicked X11 and nothing happened.

This doesn't look like an Inkscape problem then - rather that your X11 installation seems broken… You also didn't mention (or I missed it ) whether at some point you had tried to install Xquartz from xquartz.macosforge.org (it is not required for Inkscape - the default X11 version which is installed by Apple with the system is just fine - but there are so many "recommendations" out on the web…)

kquirici wrote:How can I tell if it's running?

If X11/Xquartz is running, its icon will appear in the dock (app bar), and usually, a small 'xterm' window (terminal) is opened as well (though I'm not sure if that's still the case on Mac OS X 10.6.8).

kquirici wrote:On a PC (like at work) you can check all running applications and processes.
Is there something similar on the Mac?

'Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor' does show a list of current processes, 'Applications > Utilities > Console' does allow to view current console and system messages (e.g. when errors occur).

kquirici wrote:It looks like I have several hundred fonts, but there's nothing there that I manually
installed - it's just what came with the OS.

If you only have those which are installed with the system, then it should be ok (i.e. the number of fonts cannot be the reason why Inkscape doesn't launch).

Have you tried to create a new user account (or use the Guest account) and launch X11 or Inkscape there?

Hi,

I followed your advice(s):

I downloaded the latest xquartz from macosforge.org (I believe it was 2.70, for snow leopard)

I logged into a different MAC user

I started xquartz - to my amazement it did what you said it would - it appeared on the dock (yeah
that's the name) and opened a little terminal window.

Then I started inkscape.app. THis time it showed the message to wait a few minutes while it did
whatever with the fonts. THEN THE EDIT WINDOW APPEARED to my amazement.

So thanks for your help.

My previous reply, in which I went to a terminal window on my old user (where nothing works) and
did ps -xa while stopping and starting X11 and inkscape in various sequences, which produced some
possibly interesting (to the right person) lists of running processes, altho possibly not really helpful.

Anyway I got it to work SOMEWHERE (altho I tried to have a grid with major lines and grid lines of different
colors, but I never got but the one color (which was neither); and I couldn't seem to synchronize the rulers
with my grid spacing).

But those are other issues.

Inkscape is very powerful and can do some amazing things, but it seems too techie oriented, or advertising
oriented, or whatever. It's got too many features in some ways for my needs, and is missing some I need.

I should probably learn cocoa programming and write my own. When I had an Amiga I wrote my own text editor
in C that was EXACTLY what I wanted, so I used it exclusively.

Anyway thanks much for your help, whenever and assuming this gets approved for posting.

Regards,

Ken

kquirici wrote:I followed your advice(s):

I downloaded the latest xquartz from macosforge.org (I believe it was 2.70, for snow leopard)

Sigh - I explicitly said that installing Xquartz from macosforge is not needed (at least I tried to … ): the version of X11 that is installed by default on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is sufficient for using Inkscape. (In my comment I was trying to express that there are some odd recommendations to be found on the web when googling).

Xquartz is a development version of the X11 server used on Mac OS X - you should only decide to install it if you feel comfortable with that and know how to deal with any resulting issues.

kquirici wrote:I logged into a different MAC user

That's what I would have tried in the first place (before installing additional software).

kquirici wrote:My previous reply, in which I went to a terminal window on my old user (where nothing works) and did ps -xa while stopping and starting X11 and inkscape in various sequences, which produced some possibly interesting (to the right person) lists of running processes, altho possibly not really helpful.

If it still doesn't work in your usual account, you possibly at some point installed a software that decided to change some user configuration settings (in hidden dot files) which now prevent X11 from properly launching - apparently it doesn't matter which version of X11/Xquartz (e.g. manually setting $DISPLAY, which prevents auto-launch mechanism and that other apps connect to such a running X server). For figuring out what is going on, the error messages in the 'Console' utility ('All messages' from 'LOG DATABASE QUERIES') after starting X11 would be more relevant than monitoring running processes.

Anyway - it seems you got it working now, that's good to hear
(even though you decided that Inkscape is not suited for your needs)

Well, it would be nice to try inkscape on the same user where all my other stuff is - I may have dismissed
it too quickly.

So I tried running XQuartz in my original user, not the other one where everything works, and in the Console App window saw this immediately afterwards:

11/7/11 9:55:23 PM [0x0-0x1ef1ef].org.macosforge.xquartz.X11[54658] stty: stdin isn't a terminal

and of course no XQuartz/X11 appeared on the dock, and no terminal window opened up.

kquirici wrote:(…) and of course no XQuartz/X11 appeared on the dock, and no terminal window opened up.

That's an issue unrelated to Inkscape itself about a broken X11/Xquartz installation in your regular user account. I would recommend to subscribe to Apple's X11-users mailing list and ask for advice there (the mailing list archives unfortunately are currently disabled - no idea why, and whether they'll be back any time soon).