Inkscape is currently at version 0.48.2, the next version will be 0.49 and the version after next will be the first “stable” 1.0 with full SVG 1.1 support. While 0.49 will be a longer cycle focused on refactoring and new features, GTK3 isn’t one of the new features will see on this versions.
Unfortunately GTK3 port isn’t a goal for either 0.49 or 1.0 versions but fortunately there is already a working GTK3 port for Inkscape that we can try.
Inkscape Roadmap
There aren’t any dates on roadmap, but this is how it goes:
0.49:
- (DONE)
Merge GSoC 2010 work - Evaluate changing the numbering scheme to a date-based one, or setting more realistic goals for major (1.0, 2.0) releases
- (DONE)
Port renderer to Cairo (Krzysztof – GSoC 2010) - (DONE)
Completely remove libnr - Introduce a backwards compatibility mechanism that will allow us to modify the XML representation of editing info. This is needed to bring the desktop coordinate system in line with SVG due to guideline and 3D box problems (they save desktop coordinates in the XML).
- Using the above mechanism, make flowed text SVG-compliant.
- Improve support for SVG switches: the first recognized element in a switch should appear directly in the SP tree, not as a child of the switch element.
- Improve support for changing the name of the XML element node in response to SP tree changes.
GSoC work
- 2010
- Cairo-based rendering
- C++ification of SP Layer
- 2011
- Rendering caching
- Javascript support improvements
- CSS support improvements
- 2012
- Usibility Improvements for Guides
- On-canvas support for Tessellations
- Creating python bindings for lib2geom
Learn more [at] Google Summer of Code
Long terms Goals
- Better modularization: separate the Inkscape codebase into several libraries that could be used by other programs.
- General refactoring: make Inkscape a joy to develop.
- SP tree refactoring: Port the object tree to C++ objects.
- XML refactoring: Remove direct manipulation of XML from as many places as possible and replace it with SP tree methods.
- Hardware acceleration: make use of modern GPUs to speed up rendering.
- Live path effects: investigate extending to cover generic vector transformations (vector effects). Provide live versions of several destructive operations: boolean ops, stroke to path, text to path, etc.
- CSS support?
- Animation support.
- GtkMMification
Inkscape 1.00 – Full SVG 1.1 support
Learn more [at] Inkscape Roadmap
Inkscape GTK3 port
This is mostly for fun reasons, and to show that developers are already working to a GTK3 port of Inkscape. So don’t suppose that Inkscape already run in GTK3. There are many bugs, and also I had the broken icons, which I didn’t know how to fix, but this isn’t really a bug!
GTK2 and GTK3, or before and after if you prefer
Of course GTK3 port is build against the latest upstream code, but with not all modules included as some of them were failing to build. By the way I have set the dark theme, which is not the default.
what’s up with memory?
There is a huge difference in memory consumption between Inkscape (0.48.3.1 r9886 (Sep 12 2012) and Inkscape (Inkscape 0.48+devel r11746 custom (Oct 7 2012)) that I cannot explain.
GTK3 Menus
Not all menus are working in GTK3 port.
download
Inkscape uses Bazaar Version Control and you can find more instructions on “Browse the Bazaar Tree” page while the actual repository lies in Launchpad. If you already have bazaar installed:
bzr branch lp:inkscape
build Inkscape
First of all you need to track the dependencies. Then if you want to try it with GTK3 support you will need to build it against an external GDL -which I didn’t as I saw this later :
“We currently use our own fork of the GDL library (based on GDL 2.30.0). Eventually, we need to get rid of our own fork, and build against the external library. Progress is being tracked at https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/792115“.
./configure –help
as always will give you all the options, including the GTK3 build which is
./configure –enable-gtk3-experimental
If you want to build it I reckon to use the -k and -j flags, to skip the broken modules and to make it some faster, as in my box (6cores AMD, 8GB RAM), it took like 30mins? This is my make export.