Sketch, a vector drawing program for Unix

News

05-May-2000	New stable version, 0.6.7.
	The only difference between 0.6.6 and 0.6.7 is the bugfix for the file loading bug. If you've already downloaded version 0.6.6 and applied the patch or the workaround there's no need to upgrade. See the release notes for more details. The source and rpms are available from the download page.
02-May-2000	Showstopper bug in Sketch 0.6.6.
	Sketch 0.6.6 has a pretty severe bug that makes loading of all vector file formats impossible, even Sketch's own format. Sketch 0.6.7 will probably be out soon to fix it. In the meantime, you can either use the patch or the workaround on the bugs page or use an older version.
30-Apr-2000	New stable version, 0.6.6.
	French translations A simple slideshow tool, skshow.py A new crosshairs style cursor. If snapping is active, this cursor is warped to a snap point if the mouse pointer is near one. An updated AI import filter to deal with Illustrator 8 files Several bug fixes See the release notes for more details. The source and rpms are available from the download page.
23-Apr-2000	Three new drawings added to the Gallery.
20-Apr-2000	JapaneseText 1.0
	Tamito KAJIYAMA writes: I'd like to announce the release of JapaneseText, a Sketch script for drawing Japanese characters. The script reads outline data directly from Japanese TrueType fonts using the FreeType library, and generates Bezier curve objects that represent Japanese characters. JapaneseText version 1.0 is available at: http://pseudo.grad.sccs.chukyo-u.ac.jp/~kajiyama/sketch/
16-Apr-2000	E-mail Problems
	There were some problems with my email from April 7th to 14th. It's working again now, so if you've tried to send me mail and it bounced, please send it again. Thanks.
3-Apr-2000	New Page: Frequently Asked Questions
26-Mar-2000	New development version, 0.7.6.
	See the development page for details.

older news...

What is Sketch?

Sketch is an interactive vector drawing program for Linux and other UNIX compatible systems. It is intended to be a flexible and powerful tool for illustrations, diagrams and other purposes.

A somewhat unique (for a drawing program) feature of Sketch is that it is implemented almost completely in a very high-level, interpreted language, Python. Python is powerful, object-oriented and yet easy to use.

Status

The current stable release is 0.6.7. Sketch is quite usable already, even for production use, in my opinion. The low version number is mainly due to lack of some important features such as good text support.

The 0.6.x series will likely see minor improvements over time, but no major changes to the core. There may be more improvements in the import and export filters, though.

Real development takes place in the instable 0.7.x developer series. Among the major goals of this series is a port to GTK, better text support and a multi document interface.

Features

Just a few highlights:

• Bézier Curves
• Transformed text and images
• Bézier curves, rectangles and ellipses can be used as guides
• Gradient fills
• Blend groups
• Writes EPS files
• Text along a path
• many more...

Requirements

Apart from the sources of Sketch, you need some additional software. See the download page for details on what software and where you can get it.

For Sketch to work properly with transformed text, you also need an X-server capable of scaling and transforming fonts. (XFree86 does support this. Otherwise, you need X11R6 as far as I know).

Sketch currently supports only TrueColor visuals with depths of 15, 16, 24 or 32 bits and 8-bit PseudoColor visuals.

Contact & Mailing list

Feel free to contact me, if you have questions, suggestions or bug reports (please have a look at the bug-list before you report a bug).

I'd also like to hear from you if you want to contribute to Sketch. Help is always welcome.

Furthermore, there's a mailing list for all Sketch-related topics. You can subscribe to it via the web-interface at http://www.frozenriver.nu/mailman/listinfo/sketch-list or by sending a mail with the word subscribe in the subject to sketch-list-request@frozenriver.com.

New versions are announced on the mailing list, on the SourceForge Sketch page and on freshmeat.

License

Sketch is published under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License (LGPL).

I've put it under the LGPL, because many parts of Sketch can be used as a library (and are used by Sketch that way), and the LGPL is less restrictive than the normal GNU General Public License when it comes to distributing an LGPL'ed library with software covered by a different license.