[CLUE-Tech] Linux for publishing and the masses

[Jed S. Baer]

On 12 Jun 2003 23:51:46 -0600
"Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier" <jzb at dissociatedpress.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 2003-06-10 at 15:02, Dale K. Hawkins wrote:
> > A friend sent me this.  I would be interested to hear people's
> > opinions.  Especially if anyone has any real publishing experience.
> > (I replied with what I know about Linux, but being a programmer, I
> > could not imagine using any other OS).
> 
> On this topic... I think someone has already mentioned the Gimp as a
> suitable Photoshop replacement, but has anyone tried Sodipodi? It seems
> to be an Illustrator-like application. It only saves in SVG and exports
> to PNG, but it can (apparently) produce some pretty sweet graphics:
> http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/
> 
> Since I'm pretty hopeless when it comes to computer graphics, someone
> else will have to evaluate Sodipodi in terms of its quality as a
> graphics app...but it looks pretty sweet.

I'm certainly no expert, and I haven't spent much time with it, but I've
tried Sodipodi, and found it wanting. As perhaps a commentary on the
general state of Linux SVG programs, note that files such as
/usr/share/gdm/themes/happygnome/background.svg were created in Adobe
Illustrator. Since SVG is an XML format, you can open these files in a
text editor, and note the MS-DOS line-end style as well. I attempted to
manipulate that file in Sodipodi. I was not successful. But will point out
that graphics programs generally have steeper learning curves, so my
experience is perhaps not informative. But I found Sodipodi frustrating.

jed
-- 
I wouldn't even think about bribing a rottweiler with a steak that
didn't weigh more than I do. -- Jason Earl