Graphite – open-source raster and vector 2D graphics editor written in Rust | Hacker News Reader

Graphite – open-source raster and vector 2D graphics editor written in Rust

graphite.rs

79 pointsushakov18 comments

Counterpoint to the whole "written in Rust is a distraction" rhetoric:

This is an open project, and Rust is shorthand for a lot of things that are desirable to developers. Consider the project's principle authors might feel like a project at this stage is not ready for users but having the right developer audience could be crucial.

How often did you take a second look at a project because they were finally bringing it to your favorite language?

This looks like an incredibly impressive project. Kudos to the authors!

Since it's such a huge undertaking, I think it's worth listing somewhere why we need a new editor instead of "just" improving GIMP and/or Inkscape. Is there an architectural change the authors wanted to make? Just to write it in Rust so maintenance is easier or more fun? (Which would be completely valid.)

As someone who worked in graphics professionally in my eyes Inkscape is clunky and other than with blender, this unwieldiness is not very systematic — that means I don't have the feeling I can learn a few principles and apply them in every corner of the software (e.g. modifier keys).

Some things that should be straightforward are not, other things that you never need are strangely easy. Granted as a professional you care mostly about getting things done and have a different (higher) standard about small papercuts and rough edges, because it is software you use daily. As a graphic professional I cannot use software that regularily crashes when I change fonts.

But I can understand the urge to make something new, clean, well thought out and open source in that space — because it doesn't exist. Illustrator is one of the things keeping me from going full Linux (although I use inkscape when I am on Linux).

This looks great. Love the docs, task board, community and philosophy (focus on good UI/UX, rust for speed). Congrats! Good luck in gaining traction for the project!

I suspect impending name change due to trademark conflict. Ashlar-Vellum has a product called Graphite that is 2d/3d CAD.

I don't like it when there are similarly named products in the same product category.

Can anyone tell how hard/easy the development experience with Rust is for projects like this and how comparable it is with other languages with well established UI frameworks?

I am pleased to see that it works in my browser (in a VM on Qubes) that has no access to WebGL or WebGPU.

But, "written in Rust" is a distraction anywhere except for a library meant to be called from Rust programs, or where you should be surprised it could be achieved at all in the language. We all know that Rust can work for this sort of thing.

The rust fetishism feels so off in this case. You don't see "built with qml" taking up 1/10th of the page on Krita's frontapge

I don't think it's that bad. It's so far down.

And it's fair to call it out. Rust is new & a sub community of software with a shared set of values & ideals.

I'd call out stuff built with Haskell for similar reasons. There is a community aspect to it that is undeniable.

In the article it is fine, but it is right there in the title, here.

I thought titles here were supposed to match actual titles, mostly.

They’re probably marketing to potential contributors as much as to users at this point.

This is the unfortunate reality of a lot of Rust projects. There are of course some who don't fetischise the language and there are of course community members on both sides but from the outside it makes Rust look so, so unappealing and almost like a cult.

And that's without the "rewrite it in Rust" spam.

Currently the worse cult part is the subculture to push unsafe code blocks beyond the purpose of memory corruption.

There is a Rust subculture that anything that might be unsafe from usage, regardless how, should be tagged as unsafe.

At least it's Graphite, written in Rust, and not RGraphite or GraphiteR. I feel like it hasn't been long enough since every Java app started (or ended, for libraries) with J.

Not a GNOME or KDE user?

I like that it's written in rust and that they advertise this. It's not "fetishism" as much as it is just interesting. It's also likely a big part of why they can have a "launch web editor button" that instantly works on my phone.

this looks like a great start! non-destructive node-based editing would be super-fun, especially if a node could be written in javascript! i'd love a 2d vector editor that works well for both generative art/design and fiddly manual design. good luck!

Would anyone care about this project without the suffix 'written in Rust'?

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