I'd love if Inkscape implemented Xfig technical drawing features.
Could you mention some CAD features that are available in Xfig but are missing in Inkscape?
Xfig
21–30 of 44 posts
Re: Xfig
#22So here is my figure drawing exercise: draw a ruler. This is easy to do with xfig. On many tools, it's hopeless, open office draw comes to mind.
It is much easier to draw in Inkscape. As an example, you can draw a curve and add the "Ruler" Live Path Effect.
Even without that effect it's easy with Inkscape. It has working grid, snap to grid and text alignments.
Re: Xfig
#23It looked vintage even in the nineties
Even in 1990. :) But, on Unix workstations in 1990, you'd still occasionally run an Xaw program, and Xfig was obviously a step or two above that. Xfig looked opinionated in a really advanced 1980s way.
I still occasionally used Xfig, over the years, when I needed to draw a diagram, and the other options readily available on whatever Unix/Linux box were garbage. Xfig somehow kept working.
Re: Xfig
#24Really awesome tool, especially "back in the days".
Another great tool that I used for similar tasks, with a similarly appealing user interface and also a website that most likely works best in Netscape Navigator, is tgif: http://bourbon.usc.edu/tgif/index.html
TIL: tgif files are Prolog
Re: Xfig
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is much easier to draw in Inkscape. As an example, you can draw a curve and add the "Ruler" Live Path Effect.
Even without that effect it's easy with Inkscape. It has working grid, snap to grid and text alignments.
That won't be useful for arbitrary curves (non straight lines)
Re: Xfig
#26With macOS making it harder and harder to run X11 programs—I don't even know how, these days—is there anything that allows you to run an Xfig-alike on macOS? (I've seen recommendations for Inkscape, and I'll give it a try, but I was really practiced with Xfig and would like to be able to draw on that muscle memory if possible.)
Re: Xfig
#27I'd love if Inkscape implemented Xfig technical drawing features.
So, I've had inkscape (1.0.2-4 on up to date debian testing) crash on me so many times in the last week, in ways that cost me several minutes of work each time. So I've stopped using it for anything.
I appreciate the exhausting amount of work that goes into something like Inkscape, but holy crap. Segfaulting on me. Or leaving a foregrounded window open with no content in it that I can't close and that blocks the rest of the program until I kill -9 it. Very frustrating when I was trying to get real work done.
Re: Xfig
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even without that effect it's easy with Inkscape. It has working grid, snap to grid and text alignments.
That won't be useful for arbitrary curves (non straight lines)
Agreed, but just try even a linear ruler in most drawing tools to see how hopeless they are.
Re: Xfig
#29I'd love if Inkscape implemented Xfig technical drawing features.
So, I've had inkscape (1.0.2-4 on up to date debian testing) crash on me so many times in the last week, in ways that cost me several minutes of work each time. So I've stopped using it for anything. I appreciate the exhausting amount of work that goes into something like Inkscape, but holy crap. Segfaulting on me. Or leaving a foregrounded window open with no content in it that I can't close and that blocks the rest…
You're using an old version. there were 3 release after that (1.1, 1.1.1, and 1.1.2).
The 1.2 release is expected in a few days (and it has many features with a ton of bug fixes).
Re: Xfig
#30I used to often reach for xfig for a quick tech diagram (boxes, circles, lines, etc). The "fig" file format, being text, is easy to drop into source control. It's fast and gets the job done. The feeling I get from peers, especially those who've never understood that unix/linux on desktop has long been a thing or really lived that far out of the Win32/MacOS ecosystem, look at you sideways when the file extension isn't…
I guess xfig could be considered modern when twm was young, and I was playing with IBM X Windows thin clients on our university lab.
Well, xfig does its job well without getting in the way (like for example the new MS Visio). And twm was looking old some 20 years ago. Now, compared with Windows 10, it looks modern.