Inkscape’s involvement in Google’s Summer of Code (GSoC) program

is one of the ways the project helps to advance both learning

and new and improved features in the program.

We’re excited to be taking part in GSoC once more in 2024!

For more information on the timeline and details

for applying to collaborate with Inkscape this year,

head to our project page on Google's Summer of Code website.

If you’re curious to know more about what

some of Inkscape’s GSoC students accomplished in 2023, keep reading!

Customize the appearance of your Canvas Controls

GSoC 2023 Inkscape student Sanidhya Singh

was a sophomore undergraduate student in Computer Science and Engineering

at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee), India.

Sanidhya spent the summer working on developing

a customizable appearance for canvas controls under the mentorship

of Inkscape core developer Marc Jeanmougin.

What are these canvas controls, you ask?

If you’ve drawn a shape using the Pen tool and tried to later edit it using the Node Tool,

you might have noticed the circular (or square) handles Inkscape provides

to manipulate and transform the shape.

These are called "canvas controls" or more commonly "node handles".

The style of these controls has been the same since at least Inkscape 0.48,

and was in need of a refresh – one that would enable the user to have more flexibility

in changing the style.

Sanidhya stripped out the old handle styling part and replaced it

with an easily editable CSS file, so that users can now change styles

by just editing the file.

This also enabled better default colors for the controls which will hopefully land in Inkscape 1.4.

You can read more about Sanidhya's work.

Preparing behind the scenes for GTK4 Migration

GSoC 2023 student Vaibhav Malik is from New Delhi, India.

Once again, he joined Inkscape devs who have been putting a lot of work

into the GTK4 migration.

GTK is the user interface toolkit Inkscape uses to draw things like text boxes,

buttons, etc. on the screen.

Inkscape currently uses GTK3 which is version 3 of the toolkit.

The migration to the latest version of the toolkit - GTK4,

is what Vaibhav worked on under the mentorship

of Inkscape core developer Tavmjong Bah (Tav).

Vaibhav's changes are mostly under-the-hood changes

so that Inkscape works as expected with GTK4.

One noticeable user-facing change is the addition of popovers for smaller screens.

Below a particular window size, Inkscape will automatically adjust the items

in the toolbar so that they're still usable on a smaller screen!

You can read more about Vaibhav’s work.

Collaborating with Inkscape developers is a learning experience

and helps our free and open source program to advance for all Inkscape users.

Reach out, ask questions and

get involved with our global team of volunteer contributors!

Draw Freely.

(via: inkscape vectors)