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Comment by Andrew_nenakhov | Hacker News Reader

I love inkskape, but I wish it took some interface tips from modern graphical software like Sketch. Inkscape's interface hasn't changed much in the last 15 years or more, and since then a LOT has changed in the UX world. Tools like Sketch and Figma introduced so many tiny interface and usability improvements, that when combined with each other they raise productivity be a factor of 10 or more for tasks like drawing a vector icon.

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As a counterpoint, I recently had to use Inkscape for a few non-trivial tasks after not having used it for years, and I was pleasantly surprised that all the tools and functionalities were still in the same place as they were all those years ago. I was extremely glad that I did not have to struggle with and decipher a newfangled UX but could instead just do what I wanted in a quick and easy fashion without having to relearn it.

If you know Inkscape, you'll feel right at home with Sketch. The extra functionality I'm talking is usually unlocked with additional hotkeys and visual helpers that appear by themselves when dragging things around. I'm not exaggerating about 10x productivity boost, it is really that big.

Looked it up, it seems more targeted to page layout applications. Is it really that much better for something like a drawing in a math textbook?

For that specific goal, maybe, no. Sketch really excels when doing vector designs that are going to be presented in a raster displays, so a lot of its features revolves around a pixel grid.

Inkscape does not care about pixel grid, being an SVG vector editor, but it still could use some modern interface tricks, like various stroke/outline options, nudge settings and rulers for measuring distances between objects.

Steam's UI hasn't changed a lot either really. A UI that works well doesn't have to change much and probably shouldn't. I personally greatly dislike the modern web UI look with text boxes the size of Mt. Rushmore.

The many random sidebars in Inkscape are a bit questionable, but I prefer its UI over many modern ones. The UI just works for me for the cases, where I use Inkscape.

What I'd like to see is a constraint solver, where e.g. you can fix distances, angles, projections, etc.

Also missing is Path->Calligraphic stroke conversion, arguably the most important tool for cartoon drawing.

Having experimented a bit in the space i think constraint solvers are actually a little overhyped for 2d drawing. I find just being able to do math and rendering the drawing from text to be enough.

Ok. How about a way to enter LaTeX expressions in-place?

TexText (Re-editable LaTeX graphics for Inkscape) is a neat plugin. https://textext.github.io/textext/index.html

I remember I tried to use Inkscape for a logo once and was so frustrated I ended up just writing the SVG in to jsfiddle because I couldn’t work out how in Inkscape.

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