Inkscape with OpenClipArt.org Integration. I love it!
November 12th, 2008 by rfquerinI was doing some of the usual noodling with Inkscape last night and spotted something I hadn’t seen before. A menu entry linking up to the Openclipart.org! So at work I tried it today and found no such entry in the XP version of Inkscape I was running here.
Alas, it was Virtualbox to the rescue and I ran my Vbox install of Hardy and confirmed that in fact yes, the Inkscape you get in the Ubuntu repos (0.46) indeed has this functionality. Of course I’m also running 0.46 at work on XP and it’s not there, so I’m not entirely sure what’s up. If anybody can clue me in on how to get this going in XP there would be a lot of happy Inkscapers. Of course alternatively we could just tell them they have to use Linux. 
Anyway, just to prove I’m not dreaming all of this, here are a few descriptive screenshots:
Here is the File menu entry for OCAL in Inkscape:
Here is the dialog that pops up giving a field to enter search terms to search for clip art from openclipart.org:
Here I’ve entered “usb” as a search term and I get a nice list of clip art images along with thumbnails and descriptions:
And finally, the graphic image I just chose is plunked right into Inkscape. Fantastic!:
Great job people!
November 12th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Wow, it turns out that this feature was introduced way back when 0.46 was launched. Is it possible I just never noticed it? Probably. I am getting old y’know.
On another somewhat sad note, it turns out that Windows users don’t have access to this feature but might in the next release… here’s the launchpad bug I found about it: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/174797
November 13th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Ah, you got it figured out. I was just going to add that the openclipart problem in Windows has been there ever since 0.46 was released. You might have noticed though that in Preferences you can plug in your openclipart account name but it’s worthless since there is no menu item for it.
This was one of the new features that was touted when 0.46 was released. Sadly it still isn’t in the devel releases for Windows either. From what I gathered it’s a Linux feature only. Seems like since most Inkscape users are on the Windows platform that someone would want to take care of this.
What’s handy about openclipart access from Inkscape is that one can import effect filters too. Do a search for “filters”.
Btw, since this feature exists in Linux and not in Windows…that’s a win for Linux, right?
November 16th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I wouldn\’t fix the bug. Read this article (it\’s a bit old, but the point still stands):
http://bryceharrington.org/drupal/foss-win-paradox
(If you have the same access problem as me, change bryceharrington.org to bryceharrington.org.nyud.net)
I have an idea: try and implement the Linux core with more features that can\’t be ported or are hard to port for technical reasons. That way you give Windows users a usable vector application and Linux users a better application.
November 17th, 2008 at 8:04 am
I understand the reasoning behind that argument. Though I’m not sure I’m 100% in favour of it. For instance, I have to use Windows at work (AutoCad sees to that), but I’m not sure if I would appreciate all the FOSS apps I use and promote here being slightly crippled compared to their Linux counterparts. But that’s just a personal thing I guess. The point about free software is that developers can do what they want. If someone wants or needs certain functionality on a certain platform, then ultimately it can be done whether or not developers want it done that way.
One other thing about this specific case is that limiting this useful integration with OpenClipArt.org to Linux users hurts OpenClipArt. I’m not sure how effective this feature is, but I would think it would attract more users and contributors to that project if it was available in Windows versions of Inkscape.