creative blog

Shout this to the world, developers of the GIMP image manipulation program released brand new version numbered as 2.4! Congratulations to all developers and contributors to this new and still shining version. Hooray!

p.s. I know, it has been silent here for a long time but it will change next month, I promise!

This article is written in czech because it is meant for czech visitors of gimp.cz website.

V posledních 14 dnech se gimp.cz potýká s jistými problémy s dostupností. V serverovně, kde je umístěn i server na kterém běží gimp.cz, došlo k změnám a v jejich důsledku jsou některé z webů na ovlivněných serverech nepřístupné. Včetně gimp.cz. Snažíme se tento problém řešit, ale prozatím se to nepodařilo ani přes opakování požadavku na odstranění problému. Doufáme, že se podaří problém odstranit co nejdříve a že nám naši pravidelní čtenáři zachovají přízeň.

Update 11.6.2007: Tak už zase fungujeme! Podle posledních zpráv to stěhování odnesl i mysql server což prodloužilo dobu kdy byl server offline. Happy GIMPing!

Update 26.6.2007: Někdo hacknul web, na opravách se pracuje, ještě nevíme o co všechno jsme přišli, ale snad to bude “jen” změněná databáze.

I used the same set of scripts to render a bunch of SVGs since I am in the icon bussiness…until now! Those original scripts were easily customisable but had to be copied to the active directory every time I wanted to render some icons. On Saturday, Ulisse introduced a really nice Nautilus action for rendering SVG files and now I have the rendering action right below my finger!

All you need is librsvg-binary and zenity. Then just select any SVG and choose “rsvg2png” (”Render SVG” in my case). I will still keep my scripts, they are handy if I want to render recursively everything in subdirectories, but this new action is really usefull. Go and check it out yourself!

A few days after official announcement but rather later than never! The new release of Inkscape with number 0.45 is out and it has really nice new features. There are already packages for all major systems created so grab yours and test it Good job is done by developers and packagers!

I would like to thank to all translators for their work on this release, you did a hell good job! (and I screwed only a few of translations you sent (my deepest apologies Alexandre) Keep up good work for the 0.45.1 and next releases too!

p.s. Yes, I am sick these days, high temperatures and back pain knocked me to the bed and I start to feel like an instantaneous tea cooler.

The third pre release of Inkscape is out and if everything goes well then it is the last one and the final version 0.45 will be out this weekend.

If there is anyone who has the translation left on his harddrive and had not committed it as a patch yet, please do so!

Anyway, as a co-coordinator of translations for this release, I would like to thank all translators for their work on this release and for making 27 significantly translated languages available.

The patch Jimmac linked after my announcement on #tango has been included in the current trunk of Inkscape and will be available in Inkscape 0.46! All hail Johan for his Gradient Goodness!

Update: a screenshot

As you probably noticed(if you have viewed some of my photos), I use jimmac’s O.R.I.G.I.N.A.L for my web gallery. The one big disadvantage of this gallery was that it did not have any utility for generation of directory and file structure for MS Windows operating system. Yeah, you can say that I use mainly GNU/Linux so I do not have to take this as such a big disadvantage, but sometimes I have to use MS Windows on my laptop, so that is why.

Well, after an hour and half of reading python manual, asking Geon and HanzZ about image library and one string conversion problem, here it is! A python script called ofr.py that converts images in its directory and creates directory and files’ structure for the webgallery.

Usage is simple, you need Python with PIL and a directory of images. After succesfull installation of both, python and PIL, copy the ofr.py to the directory with images and run it. It will create directory structure which you will then upload to the “galleries” directory of O.R.I.G.I.N.A.L on your server. Of course before upload you have to change /webgallery/info.txt file with description about photos and if you want, you can also edit description of single photos in /webgallery/comments/ directory.

So what to say at the end? I hope this script will help somebody and also that I will make it to be real GUI frontend for O.R.I.G.I.N.A.L gallery generation

For a last week or so, I had a chance to have some influence to development of YsInfinity launcher application deveolped by Arnaud Vallat. The application is still in early stage of development (the version number is 0.01) but this does not mean that it is highly unstable and unusable, the oposite is the truth.

What does it have that it differs from other applications’ launchers? Well, on the first sight it can look as any MacOS X like looking launchers/docks(this one is not a dock) but there are some differences. Main advantages/difference I see in

• grouping of similar applications into individual groups. You can have several groups around your screen and open only those you need = space saver.
• Another one is low resources’ use, it has even more quick responses than my favourite RK Launcher.
• The third advantage and difference is keyboard navigation. You can use your keyboard to navigate through group of items if you do not have a mouse with scroll wheel which is usually used to choose the launcher when you have mouse.
• And the last, it looks good You can watch some videos about special effects it has on its project page. How it can now look you can see on the screenshot below.

Of course this, let’s say, alpha version has some serious bugs/annoyances sometimes. Those the most important I see are:

• It does not run on Linux(yet )
• It does not even run on every Windows machine(the solution of this is yet unknown because the reason is also unknown.)
• An application is launched by clicking the group’s name or the red button. This is probably not a disadvantage in some cases but if you do not have YsInfinity allways on top and want to raise it above some windows by moving your mouse over it. But it sometimes does not raise and you click it(I’ve launched VideoLanClient 7times because of this )
• It lacks Drag’n'Drop support, for now, so you have to add launchers manually in the shortcuts editor. (It is planned for future versions)

On the other hand, after solving some serious problem and segfaults in even earlier stage, it did not segfault on me yet, probably I am lucky guy

Why did I wrote all this? I think that this piece of software will grow into a nice application, and to speed up this, all possible suggestions and bug reports are important for author of it. So the more users test it the more soon developer can focus on adding new features and solving really important bugs. And the second reason is that the icon of YsInfinity and the red button are my work

Pre-release no. 3 of Inkscape .44 is already out! Go grab sources/binary and check it And do not forget to report found bugs to developers to help improve the software.

Czech content now: Chyby v překladu do češtiny hlaste přímo mě sem do komentářů nebo mailem. Budou tak rychleji opraveny

Inkscape se pomalu, ale jistě, blíží dalšímu stabilnímu vydání - verzi 0.44. Jako vždy v době odchytávání bugů je čas na doladění překladu a tak jsem po sobě našel i pár perliček co se Vám můžou přihodit stejně jako mě když si nebudete dávat pozor na kontext toho co překládáte

Může se vám totiž stát, že přeložíte “scale length” jako “škálovat délku” a při tom to má být “délka stupnice” nebo třeba “Number of frets” místo “Počet pražců” jako “Počet podrážděných”; Nebo taky perličky jako “String length” což mělo být “Délka struny” a ne “Délka řetězce”. (kontext: Fretboard designer skript v Inkscape pro návrh a rozložení hmatníku kytary)

Takže pro příště, když něco překládám, čtu to po sobě v programu a ne jen v .po souboru

No a nakonec, jděte a stáhněte si pre1 verzi pro váš operační systém a pomozte najít co nejvíc chyb ať si češtinu v Inkscape vyšperkujeme.