hi Inkscape people
(sorry if my english is bad, Its ok, i'm dutch)

I have been using inkscape for about 2 years now (www.jasonteunissen.nl)
and have made some cool stuff.

I love how you can make rounded edges in boxes and how the UI handles nodes.
I also love the axomatric gride.

There are some things that I would love too see in inkscape.
I'm not sure if this is the place to ask but i've been thinking about this for quite a long time.

The first suggestion is the outline tool
Somtimes I like to make a logo and give it a dubbel outline,
I can get around this by making the layer go down so that the top layer is always the same way i want it.

this is a pain when you have dubbel outlined images.
I'd love to see an option like: place line on the outside/middle/inside.


The next thing that i'd love to see is some kind of node colering system
If i want to make a circle button and have it go from one color to another color, that words fine

but if i want to do the same thing with a square i have to make 4 layers to get the same effect
And if i want to make a squigly line with some sort of fade in it, thats a real pain to do.
(not sure if its clear what i'm trying to say, but i hope you get the idea)

the third, isnt a real pain but its still there.
I think its wierd that inkscape has different button combinations then Adobe.
When ever i use PS/Illustrator or even word.
I try to pan with my middle mouse wheel, or duplicate stuff with ctrl D.
or after using some program, i try to alt copy stuff.
or trying to use shift to make stuff align

i'm not sure if there is some sort of file i can download
to make PS/IL the same as inkscape, or make inkscape the same as PS
but that would make things more automatic.

I hope you guys understand what i'm trying to say.
and i hope to hear some ideas about what you guys think about these implements.

Somtimes I like to make a logo and give it a dubbel outline

Try using the outset/dynamic offset/linked offset commands (path menu).
If you give the shapes created a stroke instead of a fill I don't see why they can't be left on top.
In any case you don't have to use layers; the raise/lower/raise to top/lower to bottom commands and their shortcuts (object menu) should be fine and not such a large amount of work.

The next thing that i'd love to see is some kind of node colering system

You are probably looking for gradient meshes*. Inkscape does not have this feature yet, but in many cases the interpolate extension can provide the same functionality.
*IMHO this feature, although frequently requested, can't help but have a very high performance overhead and is often overused to vague and unattractive ends. Just saying.

I think its wierd that inkscape has different button combinations then Adobe

There is no reason Inkscape should imitate when it can be better.
User-provided input have made the Inkscape combinations better than Adobe's, in the opinions of many (including myself).
However, Inkscape does offer you the ability to change every combination, either one by one, or, if you absolutely have to have Illustrator shortcuts you can copy the file adobe-illustrator-cs2.xml from your inkscape/share/keys folder to your user/Inkscape/keys folder and rename it to default.xml.

jasonteunissen wrote:I try to pan with my middle mouse wheel, (…)

The mouse wheel scrolls by default (how would you pan - as in 'grab the canvas and drag it' - with the mouse wheel?). You can change the default behavior of the scroll wheel (scroll vs zoom) in

• Inkscape Preferences > Scrolling: [x] Mouse wheel zooms by default

and how you pan the canvas with

• Inkscape Preferences > Scrolling: [x] Left mouse button pans when Space is pressed

(see the tooltips for a more verbose description).

druban wrote:(…), Inkscape does offer you the ability to change every combination, either one by one, (…)

Keep in mind though that some of the keyboard shortcuts are hardcoded (e.g. to rotate or scale an object, or some specific tool commands/options, e.g. when using the node tool, or usage of modifiers, e.g. for 'Select Under' (Alt+click)) and cannot be changed within 'keys/default.xml'.

that was very handy
I'll try some of these things out.
thx guys

jasonteunissen wrote:I'd love to see an option like: place line on the outside/middle/inside.

Since Inkscape is an SVG editing tool many of the limitations are tied to the SVG specification, which only defines a stroke centered on the path.

There are already a few requests in launchpad on this:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/170898

-Rob A>