[etoys-dev] Inkscape envy

[Karl Ramberg]

On 2009-08-28 08:23, K. K. Subramaniam wrote:
> On Friday 28 Aug 2009 3:47:47 am Jerome Peace wrote:
>    
>> The thing people who play with morphic will find interesting are the basic
>> objects that inkscape supports and the way they use handles to support the
>> various features. Compare our rectangles, ellipses and stars to theirs.
>> Notice that they also have ways to manipulate paths and add a special
>> object for spirals.
>>      
> Inkscape is essentially a shape algebra tool with art elements as basic units
> (point, line, color, space) and artistic principles built into tools (add,
> subtract, balance, value, proportion) etc. The part I like about it is that it
> blends both analytical (spin controls for x, y, width, height) and gestaltic
> (tools in the left panel) approaches very well.
>
> It is useful for higher age groups (i.e. those who are ready to learn of
> permutations and combinations, say 12+).
>
> What it lacks is support for constraints (e.g. line x should be perpendicular
> to y). Metapost (program) and MPLib (library) handle this very well. A MPLib
> plugin would be ideal to stretch Squeaks for higher age groups.
>    
That would be DrGeoII in Squeak.

Karl