Right when we were getting ready to finish release 0.48.1, SourceForge was kicked by an exploit, and that added to the delay a bit. We are now waiting for Mac OS X Tiger PPC release and updated release notes. Stay tuned.

Got 3 crashes already in Inkscape .48 this am. I don't like to complain about one of my favorite programs, but this tries my patience. I had two with the bucket tool, not filling gaps, Ok I can accept that and watch it closer. But when I'm using the program and out of the electrical blue yonder it crashes;then ouch. I expect problems and save as I go, so nothing vital gets lost. Sure hope .48.1 closes some of the crashes. For what it's worth still using Windows XP2.

Hi georgetroy,
I don't think operating system is as important to performance, as much as RAM and possibly processor. That said, I haven't been able to find system requirements for 0.48.1. Maybe someone else will know? But I would say 1 gig RAM would be pretty close to minimum. I do know that I had 3 or 4 times more crashes on my old XP machine with 1.24 gigs RAM, than I have on my new 4 gb laptop running Windows 7.

I'm not sure if you're aware, so just in case, I'll repeat what's been posted many times throughout these forums. Using a lot of filters (blurring is a filter too) seems to result in more crashes, as well as a lot of gradients. Also working for a long time at a high zoom can contribute. You can work in "no filters" mode, to help some with filter-related issues. Also, if you have a very large file size (and low RAM), you can use File menu > Vacuum Defs. This will get rid of unnecessary data in the file, and reduce the size of the file. And if you can use layers, then you can "turn off" parts of the image that you aren't currently using.

But I haven't heard of any situations where the bucket tool was related to a crash. Were you at a high zoom, perhaps in a large document?

It's sad to hear about the "exploit", by which I take it to mean, that the site was attacked ? - hacked ?

Whatever... Inkscape is definitely my most favorite and most used App. ever.
I spend many hours daily with it, mostly learning the intricacies of how it works.
I'm not terribly creative but like the the precision of vector graphics for my mechanical drawings.
I am fairly new to vector drawing and was never able to afford such things like Illustrator or almost anything Adobe except Adobe Elements but the Gimp is just as good for that, I have found.

Yeah, there's the annoying crashes here and there, but knowing what to be careful with and saving often, as well as having as few other processes running concurrently seems to help too.

I too, am awaiting the Tiger 0.48.1 PPC release as I am still stuck here in the technology of years past
and am so glad to know that there even will BE a PPC version.

YAY INKSCAPE !!!

Jan 5 on the web site -- 0.48.1 is done. There "were" problems, they're fixed and we're " back on track."

Feb 7 -- getting ready to finish release 0.48.1

Things happen. Release dates slip. The mythical man-month persists. A couple of months is nothing. But we are coming up on the March "everything is done ...really, really" announcement.

My suggestion would be not to repeat the last two news releases and release some news -- software or not. It is not the software release date I have a problem with, rather the news. It is rapidly gaining the status of noninformation.

@DC1

Sorry, but I fail to see your point. The job of a person who writes news (in this case, me) is to keep people informed of things happening. If we promised a new version, set a date and it slipped, an explanation is due. If it slipped again, another explanation is due. I do not repeat statements, every time I provide explanations why exactly these things happen. I can see how "sorry, not done yet" can give a bitter taste, but why do you have problems with honesty?

"adding manpower to a late software project makes it later". (The mythical man-month)

I don't think this is the case here. Please remember that Inkscape is developed in the Open Source tradition.

DC1, you could always monitor http://www.inkscape.org for release info, if you prefer not to read "news"

Curious about the "exploit"

All Sourceforge members were sent an email. It said something like -- several attempts were made to break into accounts, so as a security measure, they disabled everyones' password, so that we'll have to re-set passwords, new passwords not the old one. I don't think the exploit targetted any software, just the member accounts.

But I think if 0.48.1 had really been all ready to be released, it would have been by now. Because that mail was dated 1-29-11. I suspect it was just getting pretty close. Although that's purely my assessment. It may be that the email did not reveal all the issues, only the membership-related issues.

druban wrote:Curious about the "exploit"

Google has it all, but for the lazy ones, here's the link to the sourceforge.net blog entry and the site-status page (look for older entries at the end of January).

brynn wrote:But I think if 0.48.1 had really been all ready to be released, it would have been by now.

Really want to know some details [1] about what is holding up the official release announcement? Mostly due to bad luck and bad timing of events outside of Inkscape's influence… and none of the details really stuff for official news items on inkscape.org. IMHO.

[1] After the compromise of sf.net (which prevented packagers from downloading the source tarball of 0.48.1), an annoying bug in the - already done - Windows builds was discovered. Now a broken computer of the packager providing the Windows builds is delaying getting new packages done and uploaded (they will use older cairo libs in order not to ship Windows builds with a known regression in the GUI). And AFAIK there has been no feedback about getting contributed Tiger PPC builds again (for 0.48.1).

DC1, you could always monitor http://www.inkscape.org for release info, if you prefer not to read "news"

Why? Is it to see the "Duke Nukem Forever" style splash screen? It's coming out, really really, no foolin' this time, you know.

What's a "Head's up" -- usually used as a short alert to get an instant reaction when immediacy is needed -- good for as news. When it sends me to monitor a page that shows me nothing is pending. But hey, the release code is done! (It would be more amusing to do one of those "Go to the Inkscape Page" when there is an identical "Go to the Inkscape Forum" ping pong notice.)

Let's take this out of the realm of software to, maybe, get some points across. I have a fictional dog. My dog's name is Stay.

What completely predicitable problems can I feign surprise about when my fictional dog gets annoyed enough to bite me? "Come, Stay." ..."Fetch Stay." ..."Roll over Stay." Should I say I don't understand my dog's behavior, I don't come off too well.

When you say "Head's Up ....get out of the way of that glacier!" there is something of the same effect. Now the kind of mindset where you shoot out an alert box reading "The Print Job -- You Know The One You Just Filled Out a Half Dozen Settings and HIT THE PRINT BUTTON FOR -- Has Been Sent To The Printer" to a user makes this an inexplicable and befuddling notion. Yeah, that's not news either.

It's the same thing when you have a progress bar that, for instance, takes 90 seconds to move to move to 90%, and 300 seconds to move from 90 to 100. Not eleven seconds. Not twenty seconds -- three hundred. It's a useless progress bar. (And you really have to develop a completely new concept of what "use" in useless and the "Progress" in progress bar is there for to come to that conclusion.) That may not be comprehensible. That may not make any sense to you. You may already have ten excuses to explain it ready, right now. That may violate every principle of programming you may have ever read or heard of. It's still true.

What a wealth of marvelous, useful ideas are expressed in the previous post and in other posts from the same contributor!
I hope to make use of them soon! They deserve more attention than they are getting.
Thanks!

DC1 wrote:Why? Is it to see the "Duke Nukem Forever" style splash screen? It's coming out, really really, no foolin' this time, you know.

What's a "Head's up" -- usually used as a short alert to get an instant reaction when immediacy is needed -- good for as news. When it sends me to monitor a page that shows me nothing is pending. But hey, the release code is done! (It would be more amusing to do one of those "Go to the Inkscape Page" when there is an identical "Go to the Inkscape Forum" ping pong notice.)

I think I have a sensible solution. I've been writing news professionally for last 11 years, and I've been writing news for inkscape.org for past two or three years. Now that thanks to you I know I've been doing things wrong all this time and you know how to do it right, it is now your job to write news for inkscape.org. The news on 0.48.1 will be the last I write, and you take over that job. Let's have a real professional at the helm.

prokoudine wrote:The news on 0.48.1 will be the last I write

Don't like a program, or feature, go fork yourself. (not a mispelling). Interesting solution. The same solution suggested to UI designers.

As least that explains the engine driving Jon Stewart's ratings.

DC1 wrote:Don't like a program, or feature, go fork yourself. (not a mispelling). Interesting solution. The same solution suggested to UI designers.

If you intend to be understood by humans, please talk like humans do: on topic. I have no foggiest idea what you meant to say.

I would like to humbly and respectfully suggest that this topic be brought to a conclusion. I think DC1's issues cannont be solved in this arena, and that nothing more can be added to this discussion, that will cause the next version to be released any sooner.

And prokoudine, I certainly hope you were being sarcastic, and that you will continue reporting news to us about Inkscape