19th September, 2010
Smoothing paths in Inkscape
Inkscape is an extremely powerful tool. I’ve played with the lib2geom code which is the underlying representation of paths and shapes used in Inkscape. I think a small fraction of the power of this API is exposed through the graphical interface. The following is a quick guide to smoothing a freehand path in Inkscape. The correct term for this in the tool is “simplification”. This is inherited from the lib2geom API.
First, choose the draw freehand tool.
Then, secondly draw some kind of path.
Finally, with the contour highlighted press “Ctrl+L” i.e. hold down the Ctrl key and the L key. Alternatively, choose “Path” from the menus and “Simplify”. You may need to simplify the path a lot to see a visual difference. Here’s the above path after I hit “Ctrl+L” about ten times
And we’re done 
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Posted at 4:22 pm | Comments Off
2nd September, 2010
Packt launches fifth annual Open Source Awards
Packt launches fifth annual Open Source Awards
The 2010 Open Source Awards was launched last month by Packt, inviting people to visit www.PacktPub.com and submit nominations for their favorite Open Source project. Now in its fifth year, the Award has been adapted from the established Open Source CMS Award with the wider aim of encouraging, supporting, recognizing and rewarding all Open Source projects.
WordPress won the 2009 Open Source Content Management System (CMS) Award in what was a very close contest with MODx and SilverStripe. While MODx was the first runner up, SilverStripe, a Most Promising CMS Award winner in 2008, made its way to the second runner up position in its first year in the Open Source CMS Award final.
The 2010 Award will feature a prize fund of $24,000 with several new categories introduced. While the Open Source CMS Award category will continue to recognize the best content management system, Packt is introducing categories for the Most Promising Open Source Project, Open Source E-Commerce Applications, Open Source JavaScript Libraries and Open Source Graphics Software. CMSes that won the Overall CMS Award in previous years will continue to compete against one another in the Hall of Fame CMS category.
These new categories will ensure that the Open Source Awards is the ultimate platform to recognise excellence within the community while supporting projects both new and old. “We believe that the adaption of the Award and the new categories will provide a new level of accessibility, with the Award recognizing a wider range of Open Source projects; both previous winners while at the same time, encouraging new projects” said Julian Copes, organizer of this year’s Awards.
Packt has opened up nominations for people to submit their favorite Open Source projects for each category at http://www.PacktPub.com/open-source-awards-home . The top five in each category will go through to the final, which begins in the last week of September. For more information on the categories, please visit Packt’s website http://www.PacktPub.com/blog/packt’s-2010-open-source-awards-announcement
Posted at 10:21 am | Comments Off