I first learned about Inkscape when i saw the very beautiful website design for Drupalcon Washington D.C. - I remember thinking 'an open source vector editing program, well that's a lovely idea.' I then spoke with some people in Learning Technologies at the Science Museum, and they were all into open source creative tools as well. I am pretty sure I downloaded the program, and then didn't do anything with it.

Then, perhaps a year later, I tried downloading it again for some reason, probably an argument where I wound up thinking (but not saying out loud) that these open source projects that copy features of professional software are years behind, even though I think it is inevitable and important that these tools be freely available. But at the same time, I also believe in the idea that if the source code for the tools are available and accessible to programmers, then new, unique, features can and will eventually be added to the project. These will trump the proprietary software.

But I love illustrator. I'm definitely an Illustrator girl. I never could deal with the layering system in photoshop. I like grouping all my website design parts, and then layering them. I also love drawing, and I was never very good at the shape fills in Photoshop. Also, typography in Photoshop was never very convincing. So for web designs, I liked Illustrator. Though the new layer snapshot features in photoshop are kind of helpful.

Anyways, I started using Adobe products in 1996. I am very used to the toolbars. The spacebar to get the handtool is ingrained. I have my own ways of working and getting stuff done. Illustrator was not an easy program to learn. Frankly, clicking and editing the bezier curves takes some precision. The curve line points are always small, even if you zoom in. I think you can align selected points now - but I'm not sure. I used Illustrator a lot, for work. I attempted to use illustrator for tracing art. I always use Illustrator for making wireframes. I definitely use Illustrator for my occasional print projects.

So last night, after hearing my friend make another claim that inkscape rocks because it is open source and apparently there are now 2 vector artists that use inkscape, I decided I would spend 15 more minutes *trying* to use Inkscape.

I learned that there is another release coming out in 2 weeks, and so I downloaded that version. I found out that if you go in the source code and change a key file from 'default.xml' to 'adobe-illustrator-2.xml' you can make the shortcut keys like illustrator.

I do like how Inkscape is packaged

But once again, I opened the program and literally feel my heart constricting. Being so comfortable with Illustrator, the following things about Inkspace I would immediately change:
1. the internal graphics of the program dreadfully need some attention. Artists do not deserve non-designed tools. The controls of a vector editing program should be made by someone with skill and artistic talent.
2. the color palette is ridiculous. It should start with some sort of rainbow, basically some sort of coloring set. The default palette is some weird swatch system, and treats colors as overly distinct. This sets a bad example for people who are learning to do art through computer software. Make a decent color palette available to the user. There is too much emphasis on web default color palettes. (Ok, I looked at this again, if you set the color palette to very tiny, you can see that there are many colors. However, they are organized from light to dark, which makes it very hard for me to see the hues. But, since this program is open source, this is what I would do: copy the color picker from Corel Painter X. That program has a color picker that lets you pick colors and then smudge them together, then eyedropper from your self-created palette. It is awesome. But I do see that designing the ideal palette is difficult. I just think that using a color palette from art instead of mathematical computer hex value settings will be more encouraging of better art. Too many people using computer tools do not tone down their palettes, so they wind up making stuff with crazy colors simply because they do not know that they should adjust their palette. Changing this would probably improve the overall quality of the user-contributed images in the gallery.)
3. this may not be controllable, but since inkscape is run through x11, I have to do control-z to undo, and that just doesn't work. also, even though i changed the key commands to illustrator, i would have to reset the spacebar to be the hand tool. Although I read that Inkscape will let you do anything with keystrokes, I use a wacom tablet. I want to do everything with the pen & combinations of mouseclicks -- with maybe occasionally hitting a key. so, out of the box, these are big problems i have to solve. I can't not undo, and relearning basic navigation might not be worth it if I have a bad experience with the rest of the program.
4. Where is the developer community? I think I'm spoiled by Drupal - I only saw a handful of plugins in development, and it seemed like most of them were not art-related, but about dealing with svgs. Maybe I'm missing something (probably.) Although I can program & am familiar with open source software development, I think that writing a review is the most I can offer at the moment. It would take a lot for me to learn the code enough to implement a new color picker or pallette. I will have to look a bit further to see where I can send this feedback.
5. I do not like that when I read online, that I found many discussions from people who have spent 15 minutes with illustrator and then saying 'what's the point.' Sure, inkspace is fun, could be innovative, and you can draw with it. Sure, this isn't the fault of people who do not know Illustrator. Many people don't know it - and it takes ages to learn. However, I feel that the creators of Illustrator have put a lot of work into the program over the many years it has been relied upon by the print world.

First of all, programs like photoshop & illustrator came out when computers were coming into the print industry. So the ways many tools were designed reflects on the craftsman process of the advertising shops of the late 70's and early 80's. Which means, that the tools were originally designed with workflow and special considerations for big printers and stuff like that. Kids didn't have home computers, so they couldn't be doing open source. And when I was little, I had really crappy drawing programs that I thought were AWESOME. If I was a kid and had inkscape, I would have gone bollistic. My family still doesn't have Adobe, they are all way into Corel. (Though I do think that Painter is kind of the funnest drawing program, though it isn't vector based.)

So yes, there are a ton of features in Illustrator that might bog down a kid who just wants to do vector art. But if, right now, you were to suggest Inkscape to a professional print designer, or any professional web designer, they might laugh at you. Sure, the smart ones would say, wow, open source vector editing tools, that sounds awesome. I could try it out and give some feedback about what I might possibly need in order to be able to use the program without having a coniption fit because I can't undo.

Also, I think that there is a big difference between having some art education and not. I speak as someone who only recently started taking art classes. Computer tools are awesome because they offer all the colors, no mess, and the tools can even guide you a little bit. However, if no one is giving you attention about your drawings, and you are just making it up on your own (without in-born ability) - no computer tool is going to help you. Also, with a lot of creativity, any computer tool could be used to make something awesome. But without some training or practice in the basics, the fanciest tool isn't going to make you much better.

I feel like there is an inbetween place, when the quality of tools does matter. When you are starting out, some determination will get you pretty far - no matter the quality of your tools. When you start learning traditional/professional techniques, in many cases you simply can't learn real skills on insufficient equipment. You can't learn to control a paintbrush if it can't make a point because it's a crappy synthetic brush. You can't learn piano scales on a toy with only a few octaves. (I have tried.) You get to a place where you have obviously committed to learning, and you are ready for the real tools. And then, one day when you've learned a lot, you can go back to the toys and bring everything you already know. The same is true for digital tools. Who would go back to notepad after using an awesome code editing program like Coda, Textmate or BBEdit?

On the other hand, in some ways this open source model of making computer art tools is actually better in some ways than proprietary software. When you do get really creative, you eventually realize that you need to make your own brushes, palettes and you have to make things that you can't buy at the store. In the same way, it is feasible that if you were a young vector artist wishing to own Illustrator, in the long run of your career, it might be worthwhile to work with open source tools - simply because you can customize the tools. There is a ton of math to learn, and you might realize that you need a new tool. You could, in theory, create that tool. At the moment, I don't even know what language Inkscape was written in. Hopefully python, since that is supposed to be learnable and powerful. Gaining the ability to reinvent your tools is probably a smart move.

Things that are good about Inkscape.

So I only spent about 30 minutes trying to draw something. Eventually I learned that I could click in the lower right hand corner to select a different palette. But I did not like any of them. I just wanted a normal color picker and couldn't find it.

I found that I *did* like the pen and the brush tool. I liked the adjustments on the brush tool, felt that in some ways they were more intuitive than illustrator ever was. But honestly, I was never a big 'brush' user in illustrator, though I kind of like it now. I like that you can change the mass of the brush. I'm not sure that the brush responded to the wacom pressure sensitivity. I learned that Illustrator CS4 just added the blob brush, which is similar to the brush in Flash. Inkscape has that too. I all around approve of that. Correspondingly, Inkscape has a path eraser, and a fill bucket (like Flash does) - but I can't find those features in Illustrator (though it's fine because I can still select & undo like normal, so I don't really notice it.)

The layers panel in Inkscape is fine. I would even say it is a tiny bit more intuitive for novice users than illustrator.

It took me until just this second to find the color picker (double click on a color) - I do like the blur, opacity controls set with the color picker.

I can tell that for drawing and tracing, Inkscape speed and response time is better than illustrator. I do hate the rerendering time for gaussian blurred objects in Illustrator, it drives me crazy. I read on the internet that the live trace in inkscape is way better than illustrator. I think that the way the smoothness of lines is set in inkscape also feels more sound. It took me ages to find the setting to control smoothness in illustrator. It's somewhere in the preferences for the pen tool. But I love that in Inkscape it is actually a draggable setting, available when you are using the tool.

Summary

So, in summary, while it is great that a few prominent designers might use Inkscape - there need to be some serious tutorials by *those* people about how they have set up the program to be able to use it for professional work. Or at least to give some idea about how to cross over from Illustrator to Inkscape. As an artist, I will not give up quality just because something is free. Instead, I will keep trying to use Inkscape on occasion. I will also try using Xara, which is supposed to be better. But I have stuff to do, and I do already have, own & know Illustrator. Although Adobe obviously makes some crazy money off this software, it is definitely a professional investment. It might not be time to give it up.

Update

To get Undo working again, I copied all the default key commands from the default into the beginning of the illustrator key command file. I think a new 'cs4' xml key sheet would be helpful. Hopefully I can solve the spacebar hand issue.