Provocative question: Better fork Inkscape than develop Scribus?

Previous topic - Next topic

lochi009

Hello,

I've a thougt, that may be understood here as a provocation.

I'm asking myself, if there is a realistic chance to extend Inkscape to a fully equiped TDP-Software,
since a substantial development of Scribus has seemingly stopped for quite a while.

It seems to me, that a lot of the needed functionalities are already implemented in Inkscape anyways.
So it may be easier to extent Inkscape than it is to get Scribus into a modern shape.

What do you think about it?

Kind regards
Lochi009

utnik

or: better fork the e-bike than develop the sailboat?
...depending on your needs one might look more advanced than the other...

i don't think it's best practice to target an all purpose program. but – yes, the vector drawing and editing interface of scribus is very limited in comparison to inkscape.

utnik

AdmFubar

Quote from: lochi009 on June 17, 2022, 05:44:46 PM
Hello,

I've a thougt, that may be understood here as a provocation.

I'm asking myself, if there is a realistic chance to extend Inkscape to a fully equiped TDP-Software,
since a substantial development of Scribus has seemingly stopped for quite a while.

It seems to me, that a lot of the needed functionalities are already implemented in Inkscape anyways.
So it may be easier to extent Inkscape than it is to get Scribus into a modern shape.

What do you think about it?

Kind regards
Lochi009
Sounds like a promising idea. When are you starting?       
Using Scribus 1.6.1, openSUSE 15.5
Advanced hobbyist

Nermander

Is this not the wrong place to ask? You should ask the Inkscape developers.

NathanUp

I'm not sure what you mean by "into modern shape." Scribus is light-years ahead in terms of professional features for desktop publishing / typesetting. Styles, text-flow UX, master pages, color management, press-ready PDF output, et cetera. Yes, the UX needs a little love, performance and vector support could be improved, but it is absolutely suitable for professional work at this very moment.

Inkscape is designed to be an SVG editor, implementing the SVG spec in its output, so if a certain feature isn't in that spec, it either can't be implemented in Inkscape, or it has to be somehow hacked into an SVG file in a way that both preserves editability in Inkscape, and renders correctly in any other application that displays SVGs. The SVG spec is not designed to be a document format; it's designed to be a vector graphics format for the web. Scribus, on the other hand, outputs XML for working files, allowing infinite flexibility for current and future features without being chained to any other specification, let alone one like SVG, which has such a narrow use case. Of course, I'm not saying it couldn't be done; I am saying that it would be difficult and would likely not be feature complete compared to Scribus unless / until the SVG spec adapted, or Inkscape abandoned the format, which seems unlikely.

Inkscape is a stunning vector editor, but it really isn't suited to do Scribus' job, nor is it likely to be in future. Also, it uses GTK - gross.
EndeavourOS | Down with Adobe!

NathanUp

QuoteIntegration between Inkscape and other TDP software (including Scribus) could be a useful approach.
[Moderation: The quote above is from a spam post that has been deleted]

What sort of integrations do you have in mind? I've often wished that something like Adobe CC's Libraries existed for FLOSS creative software; specifically, I would find syncing character, paragraph, and object styles, swatches, and vector and raster assets, between Scribus, Inkscape, Krita and Kdenlive incredibly useful. I have a feeling that even making synced assets interoperable would be tricky though, and then there's the matter of actually syncing (although maybe this could be left for the user to figure out using git, syncthing, nextcloud, or whatever).
EndeavourOS | Down with Adobe!