Hi all. I've used Xara Xtreme for several years and have had Inkscape installed but never saw the need to use it because XX did everything I wanted to do. I recently started seriously looking at Inkscape and have repented of my opinions of it. I've found it to be in almost every way as good as or better than XX5. I say almost because there is one thing that keeps me from using it more. To define the problem in one word or less: customization. In XX everything can be customized and a default template can be made. I have not seen that in Inkscape and decided to post this to inquire if it can be customized. For example, I'd like to move buttons around but I can't seem to do that. Also every time I start Inkscape it opens an A4 paper size document, Portrait, border shadow turned on and the default palette loaded. In XX you can make a template and use it for the default so you don't have to change everything every time. That gets very old and is the ONLY reason I don't use Inkscape 95% of the time. So my question is can Inkscape be customized and if not does anybody know if future versions will allow it?

You can edit a file and save it as default.svg in the Inkscape templates directory. It's location depends on your OS.
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php ... nkscape.3F

Inkscape remembers which palette you used last, it doesn't revert to the default one each time.
The new 0.48 will have color swatches that will be document dependent.

You can't move buttons but you can detach or hide toolbars you don't need.

Yes, i had figured out that I can make an svg template but not how to make it open that one by default.

You have to save it as default.svg in the templates folder, with that name so it overrides the one that Inkscape comes with.

I use multiple “default templates” since I use Inkscape for many different projects. It’s simply a matter of setting up an instance of Inkscape for each purpose.

For instance, before I work on a wallpapers project, I set up the preferences and window size that I need and Save As... wallpaper.svg. When I do screencasts, I use a much smaller window size and save as screencast.svg. Now every time I do a project I choose the appropriate “template” with their corresponding preferences and window sizes.

These templates can be set as desktop icons or chosen through the file manager. This way you’re not restricted to one default template. But don’t forget to Save As... a different name as work progresses.

Hope this helps.