The SVG2 standard, into whose creation Inkscape invested a significant amount of work, time, donations and effort, and whose new functionality is already part of Inkscape (partially not (yet) accessible via user interface, e.g. gradient mesh, hatch fills, flowed text!!!) will possibly be dropped, or rather, only be done as a minimal update which corrects errors in the SVG 1.1 standard.

More Info Here:
http://tavmjong.free.fr/svg2_status.html

To all web designers:
If you would like to see that functionality that we so long dreamt of, and invested so much work into, come to life - use it!
If possible, use it on web sites that are regularly scanned by search machines and web browser manufacturers. Tav has already started writing a javascript polyfill, which helps make it work, even when browsers do not yet support it.

Can't wait to test the new juicy tools

IIUC the new features (meshes in particular) aren't enabled in 0.92pre version, but you have to compile from the latest code to have them enabled and tested.

Are there any instructions on how to compile a new Inkscape version locally into a separate folder, to keep the existing 0.92pre intact at the same time?

As far as I understood the discussion in board meeting, there is a way to enable it in 0.92pre2. Unless I misunderstood. I'll look up the comments shortly - I'm not sure if the transcript is posted yet.

The developers are trying to come up with a way to release gradient mesh early, maybe even with 0.92!! That way people can use them and get images out so that the SVG2 folks can understand how useful they are. It would be my guess that we could expect it to be somewhat buggy (users definition (my definition) of buggy is not always the same as developers definition).

As far as I understood the gradient mesh is available just as before, where you had to change the key bindings -Ragnar mentioned the process somewhere in the forum-.
The problem is, the specs have changed and on the current pre release the rendering of gradient meshes created with 0.91 are failing.
Tav told it can be fixed in a text editor on an svg, and it is already added to the branch. Probably it will be "compatible" soon.

Nov 04 12:38:01 <su_v> bryce: it can be tested with 0.92pre2 already - users simply have to define a custom shortcut for the tool in the preferences

Nov 04 12:38:09 <su_v> and use the shortcut to activate the mesh tool.

I'm pretty sure that means manually editing preferences.xml rather than ticking an option in Inkscape Preferences. At least I haven't see any option for gradient mesh in InksPrefs....unless I misunderstood something or overlooked it (wouldn't be a big surprise).

Anyway, if anyone could decipher that, and write specific steps, I'm sure lots of us would love to try it out.

Actually I have tried it out before, now that I think of it. I got a dev version of PonyScape which has a dev version of gradient mesh. I'm not sure if an image made with PonyScape's gradient mesh would "count" for the kind of evidence we need, technically, officially. But the PonyScape version came directly from Inkscape. Although I guess the PS devs might have altered it. But if you still want to (unofficially) preview gradient mesh, let's see if I can find the link.

Mmm, bad news re PS. Seems the dev has moved on to another vector project. The downloads don't seem to be available any more either Info: http://ponyscape-vectors.deviantart.com/ If someone wants it bad enough, I could send you my copy. I'm pretty sure it was a zip file.

Key binding?

One can also just go to Edit > Preferences > User Interface > Keyboard shortcuts: enter 'mesh' into the search field, click on 'Context', then set a new shortcut (click on the field for shortcut, then when it says to enter shortcut, press the keys you want to use). I set Ctrl+Y, because that's still free.

This works in 0.91 and 0.92pre versions (unless you compiled yourself and it is already active, of course ;-P)

> Are there any instructions on how to compile a new Inkscape version locally into a separate folder, to keep the existing 0.92pre intact at the same time?

@prkos: so it didn't work? (referring to updated getting started page on the website)

We have the updated instructions on compiling a separate installation
https://inkscape.org/en/develop/getting ... 92-onwards

I'll report how it went for me. And then I'll play with the meshes

Here's Tav's update on the meshes in trunk (that is after the 0.92pre):

https://inkscape.org/en/gallery/item/10241/

Nov 04 12:26:18 <Tavmjong> One thing we can do is to ship 0.92 with mesh gradients enabled. I've spent a bit of time in the last couple of weeks improving the GUI. I've fixed the undo bugs which was the most serious problem.

Nov 04 12:36:45 <Tavmjong> Can people give the mesh gradient tool a workout in trunk this week? (Some things have not yet been backported to 0.92 yet as it would break string freeze.)

Is there a contest or something similar we can throw to get people to play with meshes this week?

Not yet. Do you think doing this in parallel with about screen contest is good or bad? I'm not sure

We'll also need those sponsorship pictures... Some day, less urgent.

Oohh, a key shortcut? So that means use Inkscape Preferences and create a key shortcut for it?

Oh, I found it! But I don't immediately see how to use it. I found Inkscape Preferences > Interface > Keyboard Shortcuts > Context > Mesh. But what's next? Checking manual.... Oh right, it's not updated to 0.91 yet, and keyboard shortcuts was only added to InksPrefs in 0.91.

If I double-click in the Shorcut column to the right of "Mesh" some text shows up "New accelerator....". No idea what that means. Well, I tried typing a key, I tried g, and "New accelerator...." went away, and now there's a blue G there! Let's see if that calls up the gradient mesh tool....

Whoa! I wouldn't say it's very intuitive, but I do seem to have the Gradient Mesh!

Edit
quick play

http://inkscapecommunity.com/jd/ss/meshtest.png

The Wiki page for Mesh Gradients encourages to use Alt + M as the shortcut.

A lot of keyboard shortcut apps work like that, you select/activate the action/command/app you want to change a shortcut for, and then simply type the shortcut out on the keyboard. It will be recognized and saved as the new shortcut.

Some more useful links, some with examples, for trying out Gradient Meshes:

http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Mesh_Gradients
(flag to compile no longer needed, meshes are active in latest trunk)

Coons Patch Mesh Gradients in SVG

Tav's paper: Advanced Gradients for SVG

Here's where you can download 0.92pre3, which has the gradiend mesh tool enabled and ready for use. I think it may still be considered experimental. But I've been able to stumble my way through to cause things to happen (lol!). But there's a wiki page for it....let's see....I think this is it:

http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Mesh_Gradients

https://inkscape.org/en/download/development-versions/

I am just wondering if there is any possibility of creating svg 1.1 gradient output that mimics the mesh functionality, perhaps by overlaying multiple shapes with different "linear" gradients and opacity. This would actually allow meshes to display in a browser. Output to pdf is a nice step, but doesn't work so well for embedded web images. This is really a math question. The number of overlaying shapes is unbounded and would be generated by the conversion routine.

It is unclear how long it will be before svg 2 is actually widely deployed, and there are many inkscape functions that could desperately use a better color model.

If you'd like to discuss mesh fallback options with the developers, I think the best place is on IRC or on the developers' mailing list. Note that Tavmjong Bah has also started to work on a javascript polyfill, which could do what you describe (there haven't been any updates on that js library's status). He has mainly been working on fixing bugs in the mesh code, I think.

The problem I see with the fallback approach you suggest is that we would like the mesh to be part of SVG2, and if we provide a fallback, then browser vendors and other parties involved won't see that a mesh is used in the image at all... But maybe that's a wrong assumption, don't know

Update: Polyfill is available: http://tavmjong.free.fr/SVG/POLYFILL/MESH/mesh.html

Good job Tavmjong Bah. Thank you