User:Teratornis/Inkscape

This user subpage contains notes about my experiences with Inkscape.

Welcome

I invite comments from other Wikipedians. Please comment on the talk page. I have it on my watchlist. If you find it easier to comment on this page, be my guest, but I will usually move such comments onto the talk page after I take them into account on this page.

Introduction

10:17, 3 March 2009 (UTC): Inkscape is an SVG editor. It is useful for creating diagrams and technical illustrations. Wikipedia does not have enough of these. Wikipedia has millions of users who can edit text, but only a few who can create diagrams. Thus it would be useful to learn how to create presentation-quality diagrams with Inkscape, and to document how I am learning. Not only so I can create some diagrams, but also so I can assess the state of the documentation that tells how to do this. If the documents are good, then anybody can learn how to use Inkscape with little difficulty.

Images to create

I would like to create some images similar to these (which probably require some skill to do in Inkscape):

Wind power

Relative sizes of NASA/DOE MOD-series experimental wind turbines:
- http://www.windsofchange.dk/WOC-usastat.php
  - http://www.windsofchange.dk/US-State/DOE-NASA-WT-Projects.png
- User:TastyCakes saw this page and made the file: commons:File:Wind generator comparison.svg.

Another diagram showing relative sizes of wind turbines:
- http://cleantechlawandbusiness.com/cleanbeta/wp-content/gallery/stuff/windturbineonscalesize.jpg
Here is a wiki with an article about wind power, which contains an image of uncertain copyright, possibly from NREL, that shows the evolution of wind turbine technology:
- http://www.wikinvest.com/industry/Wind_Energy
  - http://www.wikinvest.com/image/Evolution_of_Wind_Technology%2C_NREL.jpg

Wind turbine schematic:
- commons:File:EERE illust large turbine.gif

Peak oil

A graph showing annual petroleum extraction against annual petroleum discoveries appears at 1 minute 26 seconds into this video (see Fragment identifier for the trick to cue up the video to the relevant excerpt):
- Alan Kohler on Oil on YouTube
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kWMa1Qpusc#t=1m26s (the {{YouTube}} template is broken and won't work when I put in the fragment identifier)
- http://www.ibiblio.org/tcrp/doc/art/discgap.jpg shows another graph of the "discovery gap"

Instructive cartoons

SVG versions of these comic strips from commons:COM:LIC#Acceptable licenses and commons:COM:LIC#Multi-licensing:
- File:BD-propagande-2 (en).jpg - does not resize conveniently; a landscape layout of frames would fit better in a standard display's aspect ratio.
- File:BD-propagande colour en.jpg - this is easier to read than the above image, but an SVG image would be more readable still, at different zooms.

I might be able to draw crude instructive cartoons by using a set of cartoon character images from someone else, to which I could add captions. Cartoons might make abstract unfamiliar ideas easier to grasp. Cartoons might also seem less like "ranting" when one wants to make a point, for example by showing two characters having a Socratic dialogue. Then it might seem less like the cartoonist is lecturing directly to the reader. Of course this would not be necessary if everyone was a critical thinker.

External editor

Mediawiki#Rich content says: "MediaWiki also has a simple interface to allow the transparent use of external editors for uploaded files and wiki pages." I knew about using an external text editor for editing wikitext (see: WP:EIW#EditSoft), but I had not thought about trying to use an external editor for files. Perhaps Inkscape is usable as an external editor for uploaded SVG files. Presumably lots of users are already doing this if it is usable. See if I can find them:

Search Wikipedia:Village pump for: Inkscape external editor
- Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 43#External editors - "You can't edit images or other media files at Wikipedia; you need to download them to your computer, edit them there, and upload them. The "external editor" option is only for text. (...) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:51, 29 July 2008 (UTC)"

John's comments seem kind of fishy, in light of what I see on an image page such as Commons:File:Numerical aperture for a lens.svg, which has links near the bottom that say:

Edit this file using an external application (See the setup instructions for more information)

The setup instructions (mw:Manual:External editors) describe the process, and illustrate it with two screenshots, one for wikitext and one for SVG file editing:

The history of the first file starts with: "Image editing with the new external editor feature of MediaWiki 1.5." So this feature has been available for a long time. I will mention that to John Broughton.