owned this note
owned this note
Published
Linked with GitHub
# Questions & Feedback
The URL for this document is:
[https://scalar.vector.im/etherpad/p/!creativefreedomsummit_fedora.im
](https://scalar.vector.im/etherpad/p/!creativefreedomsummit_fedora.im)
Please leave your questions for the speakers in this document. The hosts for the sessions will moderate the questions and read them to the speakers to answer.
We welcome any general feedback about the event at the bottom of the etherpad under "General Feedback". Let us know what you enjoyed, what could be improved, or any other feedback you have about the event.
This is a public shared document. Please respect what others have written and if you see an issue, report it to an admin/mod.
Thanks!
## General Feedback
* I like that during talks there were notes taken by Máirín. was thinking that it would be nice to add some sort of captioning to the talks for accesibility as well.
- https://flathub.org/apps/details/net.sapples.LiveCaptions is a great open source auto-captioning tool. We could promote it as a solution for local captioning. (I've tested it with Jitsi, it does a really good job.) Linux-only, AFAIK.
* I went back and rewatched some earlier sessions I'd missed. I'm so glad Máirín recorded a primer on inkscape automation. When I was using it last year-ish to generate some designs and certificates the documentation was a bit confusing and the video will help a great deal!
* Matrix widgets were amazing. Really nice to be able to view the stream right from Element. Unfortunately, though, the "popout widget" button resulted in a "Missing access token" error in firefox, forcing me to not multi-task in Matrix the way I wanted to. (Maybe this is a good thing, though...)
* Related to the above, when I logged in from mobile through element it wasn't clear where the video content was. I never did get the integration on mobile and had to go directly to the peertube instance.
* I'd recomment to add the screenshot of the experience to the main site, so that people get the idea how the conference looks like from inside. And maybe highlight that only Matrix account is required and any Matrix account will do. It is described on the Join page, but it is a big selling point which may be worth highlighting additionally.
## Mockups and Motions: How Fedora Designers Create with Penpot with Emma Kidney &Ashlyn Knox
Questions:
* What features or feature improvements do you wish you had in Penpot?
- Emma: Download the libraries - i know you can download as a penpot file or svg component - instead of saving as different files, would be nice to get a big dump of the project file.
- Ashlyn: gradients - we had some issues with the gradient tool, and would keep grabbing hex codes to fix it.
* Do you have a template for the Meeting organization in penpot you described? Would you be up to share that?
- Yeah! We have a template and happy to share
* When/Where do you work on penpot with Fedora project? Would love to just see how you're using the tool in process!
- Giving a tour on video!
* When do you think the new websites for Fedora will be implemented? (I know this might be hard to predict, but I am super looking forward to seeing all this work in production!)
- F38
* Have you considered creating a fedora instance for penpot?
- Not yet, can you elaborate? Mo adds: probably means hosting our own. I'd like to see it working on podman
yeah, that answers my question
* Is a Fedora Badges website redo in the queue? :)
- yes! distant in the queue, but in the queue.
* If you could change how the Fedora Design Team uses penpot, what changes would you like to see?
- Ashlyn: It would be cool if we could use prototyping features more.. We need more practice using this feature.
- Emma: Things that would help with onboarding - getting the libraries in order
## Schedule for Thursday January 19th
8:30am EST
A quick painting demo using Krita
David Revoy
Questions:
* How long have you been using Krita? What are your favorite features? Is there some features you wish to have?
- There are plenty of features I'd like to have- and I communicate with Krita often. I would like is a way to transofrm a drawing, right click, and get a color directly, transforming the image. The process is kind of long to do now. Sometimes you want some non-destructive. \
- I have been using Krita about 14 years (2009).. I started at a early time and only on Linux, not a lot of users back then. A lot of motivated developers working on Krita, and I am proud of the work and dedication that went into Krita to what it is now.
- There are too many to choose a favorite- let me think about it! The clipping group is a good one (also demoed by Madeline). This helps with getting the strokes in the areas you want. I also the clone ability in the layer stack- kind of a dangerous feature- once you make a clone, it will mirror the paint on both copies.
* How do you respond to people who say “real industry artists need Adobe if they want to actually get a job and make things”?
- There is a sentence from Ryan, its a chicken an egg problem- yes school teaches Adobe, and so professionals use Adobe, and vice cersa. Its hard to break the loop. But for example, I made a course for a school in France with Krita. So there are schools that like using something else. Using Krita as a freelancer can be a huge advantage. You can share source with your clients. Some people might say Adobe is more professional, but its whats in your portfolio that matters. If you know how to deliver, thats what is important. Krita has great PSD support- and this helps with collaboration.
* I started using Krita this week. What are your suggestions for those just starting out?
- Did you also just start to draw? Because Krita is a tool, like others, for artists. Building skills takes a lifetime. Someone just starting Krita, trying to get masterpieces could take forever. But when you start to understand all the different features of the tool, it becomes quicker and easier. It will take time to learn, and absorb, even if you learn all the tools in one day. Someone who is versed in drawing will have an e
* What is your opinion on copyleft art licenses?
- My opinion is that they are great- not the majority of my artwork is copyleft. Most of mine is CC attribution. I like copyleft art licenses. Sometimes you have to work with markets pragmatically to publish works of art.
* Question about Pepper & Carrot: When will you move on from the current series (or add another) like the one you’re drawing right now more Zelda-like? I’d work for free on that!
- I know that once I move away from Pepper & Carrot (which you might have seen my recent experiments), I start to create another universe, and my focus/attention/affection moves away. I don't want to lose affection from Pepper & Carrot yet, and I want to get closure on the story. But I like to do other things to keep myself refreshed, and experiment, and take a breath. Next year will be 10 years of Pepper & Carrot- unbelievable! I thought it would only last for 5 years- so WOW. I want to make number 5 book for the series to help close things out.
* Any recommendations/tricks for using Krita to color Fairies? (My daughter is interested in coloring fairies and is newer to Krita) (Clarity: I think specifically making the drawing "magical")
- The first thing you want to do when creating magic, is play with blending modes- color dodge and luminosity shine tool. If you paint with luminosity brush, you will get a glow. It works well with a dark background. There is a smudge brush that is helpful to create that glow feel. There are some preset brushes- like little stars brush- that is great for creating a magical feel. Then draw your creature made of light on top. You can use smudge to create a motion blur to show movement.
9:30am EST
Creating Accessible and Privacy Centric Products
Saptak S.
Questions:
* How can open source communities work together to make their communities/tools/websites more accessibile? Are there groups/communities working on this now?
- Yeah so a lot of accessibility standards are mantained by w3c and are in the open. Standards are changed in the git repots. Standards are open source. A lot of the assistive technologies are open source, they might not have a huge community but there are many open source projects. Theres a project I work on, I will add some links to this question. But there are projects like that that target making it simpler for users to make products easier. Checklists are used for that. Most of the community is open source. The gap is open source projects is communication. Sometimes the people in charge are not an accessibility expert. Talking around in the community is helpful.
- From the chat: Giving a shout-out, related to this question to an organization called Virtual Ability that focuses on accessibility in virtual worlds: https://virtualability.org/
- From the chat: A great article that talks about how accessibility driven development helps everyone: https://chelseatroy.com/2021/07/30/the-oxymoron-of-data-driven-innovation/
- https://www.a11yproject.com/ It is an open source project and it has a list of other resources.
- https://github.com/w3c/wcag The standard that is followed for accessibility audits is also open source.
- https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core
* Where, if any, is the middle ground between having a website that is thinking about privacy while collecting enough data to have feedback on how it's working or for them to have metrics? Are there other options to explore that are not based on tracking?
- Progressive enhancement is giving options to the users. Firstly if you dont need to check something about users then dont. Do we really need that information from the user, and if not then it may not be worth it. But there are options. Lots of users are fine with ads. Ads are tracking my activity and some users like when the ads are personalized to them. Build it progressively enhanced though, because if someone does not provide a permission they should be able to still use the website for its original purpose.
* What are good accessibiliy projects that more people should be aware of?
- Usually w3c standards - they give examples of what they're trying to do and follow. Even if you're following accessibility laws they follow w3c rules. Be aware of those. Secondly, I'm going to plug in the a11y project (link here) we have a page with resources that has everything to conferences to books to people to follow who are in accessibility. There's also a checklist that explains what you need to have in your website. Third, go follow the people working in accessible. They write a lot of blogs and have a lot to learn from.
- https://www.a11yproject.com/
- https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2022/accessibility
- https://webaim.org/newsletter/
- https://a11yrules.com/
- https://assistivlabs.com/
* What accessibility blind spots do you see in the average Linux distro?
-One of the things that is not always a blindspot, but sometimes.. they might not have user tested it with... because. There are much more screen reader users in mac compared to Linux because its not as prevalent. Oftentimes there's not much user testing. It's important to find users with assistive technology for user testing. Assistive technology itself can be buggy. It's really important since building websites can have a hard time supporting both. Linux users are terminal users, and terminals are not always accessible. They're not really markups. Tool builders love to do asciart, and screenreader just wouldn't even get what they're sharing. In that case there would have to be an alternate. The command line interface accessibility is not great so I'm hoping that will get some more attention.
11:30am EST
Using Blender for any Design Process
Jason van Gumster
Questions:
* What 3D printer do you have? What do you like/not like about the model you own?
- I have a ender 3 pro. I like that its very tolerant, its good for newbies, its forgiving with mistakes. Its easy to assemble and feed. You can just pull things off the mat. Things I don't like: there are a lot of additions to add to it, but the build volume isn't very large. I should mention that I am doing all this from a motorhome. Not the fastest print speed or tightest tolerances. But its a good starter machine
* Jason, it looks you are streaming from your motorhome? I guess from the decor behind you, That's really cool!
- True! They call it a toy hauler, the back half is a garage, which we modified to be an office/bedroom. In the Florida Keys currently.
* What's the most ambitious thing you've 3D printed using a blender design? Did the print turn out well?
- The first print never turns out well lol at least for me. This ring tool is one of the most ambition things i;ve ever printed. It's tooling for tooling. Ive also printed 3d sculpts, but they are less complex to print.
* What's the process to 3D print from Blender? File > Print or is it more complex than that?
- It is slightly more complex than that. There might be a blender add on. Blender is meant to visualize things. But building that kind of add on is a tremendous task. You can do a pre check in Blender to see if its printable. I use Cura. I do a couple iterations between blender and printing. Water tight safe, export the stl, pull into application choice, print.
* Jason, you may want to break up your tough to print items and then use a PLA glue to put it back together. Then you could invert for printing and not need support structures.
- This is a great idea/recommendation! I am using a different type of glue. The question for me would be to figure out what parts would be gluable and still maintain structural integrity.
* Any advice for Blender newbies? Favorite channels or tutorials or websites?
- I am a little biased- but I like CG Cookie. There is a training subscription. Blender cloud run by Blender foundation. Donut tutorial by blender guru. Jason happened to write a book! It's a beginners reference- handy to understand why blender does what it does and what different buttons do in the application. The Blender artists forum is great, a huge community. Jason moderates there. Good for getting help, or show off your artwork. Real time, Blender hosts a rocket chat instance that has a user channel.
* My thinking process usually ends in a Mind Map, but I was looking for someting better looking than any mindmap tool that I know. Is possible to do kind of mind maps in Blender?
- I havent used blender for this use case. If your mind maps are.. Jason uses VYM (view your mind)... making that in blender, the challenge would be connecting threads. You could use geometry or bits of text, and parent it to the core of the idea. You could make a tree structure based on parental hierarchy. The issue might be that you wont have a lot of metadata for it- so you might want to build an add on to build an interface to add more information. The other way to do that is to build an add on for the node editor, this would work for storyboarding (like Twine) Long story short, you could use blender, but you'd need to develop your own tools to make it be what you really need.
- http://www.insilmaril.de/vym/
- https://twinery.org/
- Blender is working on making Blender even more compatible for making tools. I'm excited about this!
12:30pm EST
Brand & Badges: How Fedora Designers Create with Inkscape
Marie Nordin • Jess Chitas
Questions:
* Is the Fedora brand guidelines maybe public? It'd be nice to have a look on it
- Yes they are public, we have a gitlab. Jess will share after the presentation.
*Hi everyone! Great presentation! I wanted to ask what sources (videos, courses, online material) would you recommend for newcomers to learn more about Inkscape? Thank you!
- My learning experience I was all self taught and going back and forth with my mentor Mo. But I find, its really helpful with youtube.
* The old Screencasters videos from 2008-ish are really good. I've archived them all here http://slackermedia.info/inkscape/
They're dated but still have a lot of basic introduction stuff that still applies.
* I wonder if we can come up with a mnemonic device for remembering certain features in Inkscape, like the exclue, combine etc. ?
- I find it difficult to remember too. With the multi page feature it would be cool to export as 1 pdf. I love inkscape.
* In some cases choosing between Inkscape and Penpot for a certain graphics design project is difficult (as both may be suitable). How do you decide which one you work with per project – do you have any standard for this? I mean e.g. a presentation can be both designed with Inkscape (since it has multi-page support), but also Penpot... For example I'd say a digital brandbook might be a bit easier to design/maintain in Penpot than in Inkscape. Are there any decisive factors you follow when choosing either one or the other?
- Both are an option
*When is the next badge worksop!
- One potential time would be flock, nest, or fedora contributor conference in 2023. Wherever, whenever that is. But... life is life. If its in person idk if I could make it. I'd like to participate and be hands on with implementing that template. I'm also thinking about a virtual sprint of working on badge designs. I'm talking about mentoring a Badges intern, of moving the artwork from the old template to the new template. Maybe the intern could work on coordinating a sprint.
* I tried to do a badge like forever ago. What does happen on those cases? Do they get reassigned or just lost in time? I think aside the design part, that part of the flow could be improved too.
- Absolutely. I'm going to take partial blame for this. I think I mentioned it a couple times, covid made life pretty hard. I had a new job in community management as sh*t hit the fan and it required a lot of energy I didn't have. I think what needs to happen is a triage of that repo so people get responses. I'm involved in the overhaul with Emma and so the badge design stuff will get more attention as I have more space.
*Mora than a question, a comment: I'm very grateful with Marie on her badges workshop at flock, that makes me start using inkscape. I was always a bit-to-bit editor, and it works the best for some stuff when you have time and patience, but when you need fast stuff, Inkscape works better
2:00pm EST
Processing Photographs with GIMP
Pat David
- https://discuss.pixls.us/
Questions:
* Q: You mentioned the Libre Graphics Meeting- is that still going on? Where can we find info about that event?
- A: The last email I saw about LGM went unanswered- so this is still up in the air. There's still hope but I haven't heard anything lately.
* Q: What camera or cameras do you use? What model would you recommend for a photography newbie?
- A: My camera is an Olympus LMD. Cheap.small lightweight. I try to avoid gear acquisition syndrome. A lot of friends using Fuji.
The best camera is the one you have with you. :)
* Q: What photo management tool do you use? What features do you like/don't like about it?
- A: Digikam is fantastic for asset management. I organize chronologically. I use Dark Table. Raw Therapy
What is de-mosaicing and how it relates to raw photo editing?
- Easy answer: picture sensors pick up colors differently. (red/green/blue). The three values make up the color of one pixel. A way to recombine the R, G, B photosites into a single pixel: https://pixls.us/articles/rawtherapee-and-pentax-pixel-shift/#what-is-pixel-shift-
What was the technique used to key out the door frame in one of the last images with the girl w/ he long hair and beanie?
- It was a lot of patience. Go step by step, clone and color match over the door frame. Matting and masking.
- https://patdavid.net/2013/03/the-open-source-portrait-postprocessing/#removing-background-elements
2:30pm EST
Basics of Video & Audio Editing
Eduard Lucena
Questions:
Q: Openshot looks similar to Kdenlive. Are there recommendations you would give about when to use which program?
A: No you use the tool you used to. I use openshot because it was the first one that popped up in google of how to do video in linux. There is a specific track to audio and video in kdenlive, or at least I guess. I use kdenlive to do watermarks, because I had a computer in kde without openshot. the location is a little bit different with the setup but the flow is similar.
Q: You mentioned the Fedora Podcast- are there plans to create more seasons of the Podcast? Where can we listen to the published episodes?
A:Yes! There are plans. There are 20 episodes published. But we do have plans for another season.
- https://fedoraproject.fireside.fm/
Q: How long have you been working with this program?
A: With audacity for four years. But my first project was with zero experience and had a lot of research. And with the audio file was with Matthew Miller. With the video, the different tools- when you're interested in computers your family thinks you're able to fix everything.
3:00pm EST
Closing Session
Questions:
# January 18th Q&A
## Blender: Grease Pencil Speedpaint with Paul Caggegi
* What tablet recommendations do you have?
- Wacom intuous pro. Anything that allows pressure sensitivity
- From the chat, Jakub: if you intend to use the tablet under fedora, really recommend sticking with wacom despite that option being pricier.
* How does erasing half of a line works in Grease Pencil?
- Lasso select and erase points.
- Erase point tool/brush
* What's your favorite keyboard shortcut?
- Have to get back to this, not sure
- Paul shows off something called a "toolbox" that allows you to assign shortcuts to the hardware..
* Can you tell us a little more about the Tourbox hardware you just showed off?
- It fits in the palm of your hand, helpful to customize your digital drawing experience
- https://www.tourboxtech.com/en/product.html
- From the chat, Mo adds: I use the Xencelabs controller, they ship a linux driver / control UI and it is working well for me (in Fedora 37) https://www.xencelabs.com/us/store/accessories/xencelabs-quick-keys-remote
* Can you export those drawings to SVG?
- Yes you can!
- Your mileage may vary - try out the export in your favorite vector tool and see how well it works, there may be texture issues. But it's a feature that's come along.
- There is PDF export too but not great just yet.
* How has your approach changed over time as Blender's features have changed / improved? Can you think of any big changes we should be aware of?
- A lot of improvements are under the hood type of things. Joining strokes has become easier.
- The order of the back/front of a stroke, would affect how different strokes would join.
- Change from coloring system - you used to have to make custom materials to achieve a different color. Was then vertex color. Is now "color attribute" and much easier to use multiple color with the same materials
- can auto generate a palette from an image - very sophisticated
## Maker Processes Using Inkscape with Tuomas Kuosmanen
Questions:
* It the text also done in Inkscape, for the panels? How is it applied to the physical panel?
- The text is done in black on inkscape, which tells the engraving machine to make the engraving of the text. The engraving works like a matrix printer, line by line.
* Do you find it easy to collaborate with other makers? "open source" style?
- Helsinki hack space a great environment. ppl more open to open source now. mobiflight project also a great one to work with.
* Do the various pieces of software you use for the process have a lot of development going on? Or is it mostly stable/persistent?
- KiCad pretty actively developed, but also very stable. Not like version 0.1 version. It's at 6.0 now, there's a lot of established stuff going on. Digikey, the electronic company, spnsors the project so it seems to be doing well. Inkscape - I was using a 1.0ish version, and then started using the daily builds, the bleeding edge, but surprisingly nice, so I am very happy with the new layers dialog and other improvements. Smart guides - I love this, helps position things in intervals. FreeCAD - a lot of people are using the AutoDesk fusion proprietary thing - they have a free tier for makers but - there are features that are not available for makers, and you never know what they'll come up with next for what they'll remove from it. That's why I'm determined to use FreeCAD bc of this.
* Do you think technical schools are making good use of open source resources?
- A good question - I think not. This would be useful to get into. KiCad is probably used, but thinking academia has free licenses for the proprietary tools, etc. and it might be something that would make sense to have more free tools pushed to students. And it probably would result in good feedback.
## Free Soft Wear with Morgan Lemmer-Webber
* Is Git or {choose your preferred version control system} useful for Free Soft Wear patterns, or does iteration on sewing patterns not work that way?
- It definitely would be. the only git i have my patterns in is the git for my personal blog - would be way more useful if we had a git repo that could be added to by different people by their own individual blogs, to have more community interaction. have not had time to curate myself.
* How about fabric, fabric patterns? Are there open source sources of fabric?
- Morgan has her own loom - a big effort but can make her own fabric. Options are big box stores, also a textile thrift store where people resell old stashes of fabric. Textile waste industry in the US is terrible, the amount that ends up in landfills... but I can't think of any places that are available online that are open source - in that you can upload your own fabric patterns. Spoonflower lets you upload patterns and make you fabric, but you can't do that with open license or having to use prorietary software.
* In my view, the patterns in clothing are somewhat similar to graphic designs product. Someone may make a similar pattern to another one, either intentionally or unintentionally. Has this ever happened and how was this resolved? For example, when you make a pattern that turns out to be similar to a copyrighted pattern, while you have released your pattern in free license.
- I have not run into this issue, but the history of copyrighted patterns... there's been issues, we discussed a little in the hack & craft. For a lot of the ways you create textiles - there are only so many stitches you can do. So pretty easy to come up with your own pattern, even if it's something someone already copyrighted. So blog swill have a lot of content similar to how recipes are - a lot of content aroundt he actual recipe, and that's copyrighted, but you can't copyright the recipe itself. So for sewing patterns - can't copyright k2p3ssk - only so many combos of what you can do - but it can definitely switch into some scary copyright issues. We also talkd about the issue of say making a crochet pattern - baby yoda - then disney comes after you. You completed the pattern yourself, but basing off a copyrighted franchise.
* For newbies to sewing, what would you recommend as a starting place? (Tutorials, books, sewing machines, etc) Also what are some easy garments to start with?
- I suggest using mlemmer.org/blog/baskic_sewing_tutorial/ - start with simple fabrics (cotton, pretty sturdy cotton - then don't have to worry about tearing_ and start with a pattern with almost entirely straight lines, so you can focus on sewing techniques. I've used dice pattern for both hand sewing and machine sewing. I think starting with basics in hand sewing makes it a lot easier to sewing in a machine, even if you never handsew after that. As far as books - taught by my mother and grandmother. Best way is to learn in a social env if you can. if you can't, next best thing is videos... proprietary, but a lot of sewing tutorials on youtube that you can follow. since they are up on youtube, can access without an account. as far as machines - doesn'tmatter as long as it works. I learned on a machine 20 years older than me. when my mom got a new one, I got hers, took me till 2015 to get a new one. Tech doesn't matter as long as functional.
## Freelancing with Free Software with Ryan Gorley
* How do you deal with incompatible files from other designers?
- It comes up less often than you'd think. commonly in a print application. i usually export as pdf and they can open PDFs. it's a problem, which is why freelancing a better space for FLOSS in the short term.
* How do we convince schools to teach FLOSS?
- Schools geared to teach kids to get jobs... theres a thought that teaching the proprietary tools get jobs - maybe elementary schools a better place to start with floss. chicken and egg problem - schools teach it bc businesses use it - businesses use it because schools teach it. It's free - a lot of schools have funding issues.
* Shouldn't i use the tool to finish the job the fastest?
- Brings up a big misconception. i discovered over your career you will need to leran a lot of software. things will go away, things will change. you re faster at something youre used to. there's awkward transition between say illustrator to inkscape or photoshop to gimmp - you'll have a transition period, but i dont think im any slower in the floss tools.
* What about your favorite feature your open source tool lacks?
- Same vein as first question - i was using photoshop in the mid 1990s. I dont know why GIMP attracts so much negativity - it's like using photoshop from 10 years ago. there's nothing i cant do in it. maybe adjust my workflow a bit. funtionally it does what i need to do. give it a chance, be flexible in your workflow, try new ways of doing things.
* How do you source your music?
- I haven´t found a good repository for open music yet. i tend to license through the usual suspects. it is a downside to some of what im doing now. this video in particular - i couldn't do open license bc it has client copyright
* How do you collaborate?
- NextCloud - use instead of dropbox or google drive. free and open source. great for collab with multiple people.
- Cloudron - they were open source then t hey weren't. A good tool, reasonable price, built on open source tech. Lets you install docker containers on a stock ubuntu server - has one click install for nextcloud and a bunch of other tools.
- Syncthing - lets you allocate synchronized folders across machines. Good for collaboration if you're working with others - with nextcloud you move files to cloud storage. In syncthing you're syncing peer to peer so no server needed.
* Do you recommend any plug-ins? (like for GIMP or Inkscape)
- Not really - generally use the stock tools and maybe only 10-15% of the potential of the tools. wish i had recommends but don't.
- What should freelancers do to contribute to the developrement of their tools? Art? Bug reporting? etc?
* How to support your favorite open source software?
- Get involved... Ryan has been volunteering with inkscape for a while. you'd be surprised how few people contribute, and what a big difference it can make to get involved, put in a few hours to help promote the tool, provide feedback, etc. A lot of people engage for different reasons and with different talents. Sometimes developers are looking for a new user problem to solve, and you can help provide that perspective. Probably worth a presentation on its own, and results will vary by project. TTry to get involved in at least one of the tools you're involved with. For me, that's inkscape, you're always welcome to join, we have a team called Inkscape VEctors involved in promoting Inkscape. Some projects you can donate money to, that can help as well. And I'll say this - free software can go unmaintained, but unlike a commercial tool you invest time in - it's always there to be picked back up again. Natron has been picked uup again, for example. When a commercial tool dies - it's gone - no bringing it back, but floss apps can go through revivals. Some have already gone through multiple. Some sasurance there.
* How about the typography? Do you think it is worth licensing it for projects?
- I haven´t licensed typography in maybe 6 years. i tend to use google fonts - a great repo for a lot of openly licesned typography, there are other sources too. i came into design through architecture, so id ont know much about typography compared to folks from other backgrounds. I have licensed it, don't like dealing with it, where licensed, how many computers, etc too tricky
* Which do you think is the bigger hurdle to FOSS adoption: people not knowing that these tools and their benefits exist or people knowing about the tools but thinking they're not as good as the proprietary options?
- It is both. There is surprisingly a lack of understanding about what these tools are and that they exist. In our little world, we think a lot of people kn ow about them, but in the broader world they dont. There is also a negative perception about these tools. I dont do these presentations to promote freehive, it's because i want to prove to people that they're wrong - this isn't the best work in the world, but nobody would look at what im presenting and say "gee thats made with amateur software" - bc it doedn't matter. these tools can do it. if you use the tools, learn the skills, you can produce whatever you want. I'm trying to solve this from both angles. In inkscape, we're looking to see how we can get the word out to people. In freehive - hey look, this cool video was done with these tools you were trashing. Everyone likes to criticize gimp, but I have no problems - it works.
* Should I give my client source files?
- Using FLOSS makes that a more compelling selling point. I've not used it as a selling point before. I have certain clients who hire me to do the work, take the source files, then butcher my work! That kind of hurt my feelings so I started saying I wouldn't do it. The kind of client who wants to do that is probably not a good client anyway, but they're the kind of client who will want the most from you for the least amount of money. The second thing is - I don't have as much ego to protect - any one project I work on might not be the summation of all my grandeur as a designer - nothing ever turns out perfectly. You can always spend more time on any project. If theres a measure of my accomplishment, it will be the sum of everything i've done and not any one thing. So if someone wants the files, sure!
* Why not use free or non subscription software?
- Affinity so far isn't doing subscription. Davinci resolv, gravit... if you want to use, go ahead. My feeling with those is, most things that are free aren't free forever, if iḿ going to invest my time to learn something, overcome those productivity barriers - i would rather do that in a tool that i know will be around. Most of those tools are owned by comjpanies - eg da vinci resolve - black magic design produces that - black magic design is small fries to a company like autodesk, if autodesk decides they want to compete a little better in that space, they coulda acquire. You might like the people and values, but if it's not licensed freely, no real guarantee in the end.
* How can I convince more designers to use free and open source software?
- It is really hard! One of the reasons I"m doing what I'm doing. If you show people the results - it breaks down barriers, and helps with curiosity. Look at the people at this conference. Point to what they're doing - spewaks more to a designer than the moralistic arguments. Once they see they can achieve great things, then you can follow up hey you don't have to pay subscription fees.
* Do you use Blender for video editing? if so, how's the effect workflow compared to a traditional video editing or effects application? When I was using it (which was pre-3.0) I found that Blender's video editing was clearly intended as the last step in the pipeline, and that going "back" for colour correction or adding in effects was often difficult.
- I have done more vid editing in the past than I do now. Most of what I do now is like the stuff you saw - product animations, short clips. For that kind of work, blender is fine. It doesn't support luts - color profiles for your camera output to look better - that's the most painful partfor using blender for video editing. So color correction is challegning. My caveat - I'm not very good at these things. Maybe a fantastic way I dont know - but Blender's an ok video editor. kdenlive is a much better solution. There's others like openshot - but kdenlive is the most feature-rich tool. I go back to Blender - not a dig at kdenlive - I've had a hard time setting up a stable kdenlive env. When you're using an app for a large project, stability is a big deal. Don't want your files to end up corrupted after spending 5 horus putting raw video together, but a lot of people have great results. Pick the brains of people with great results, could be choice of video card, hardware, etc. find a stable working env. But Blender is OK but not great for stuff like that. Wish there was more focus but it works.
# January 17th Q&A
## Automation in Inkscape with Máirín Duffy
* You use spreadsheet as input for automation. Is it possible to use different formats, YAML, csv ?
- The spreadsheet is just the editing format for more editing comfort. The extension uses CSV. So yes, you can use your favorite text editor, it just depends on what is comfortable for you.
* Can you trigger the export from command line?
- Yes. (from the developer). Extensions can be called directly from the command line with parameters. I've never tested it for NextGenerator, but it should just work. Parameters for the Python script are listed in the .py file. Also printed with the --help command. ($ python nextgenerator.py --help)
* You show it generated png. But does it also produce SVG for every combination of inputs?
- Yes, if you choose the SVG export format from the extension dialog (also useful for fixing texts that have been misplaced (too long etc.), as an intermediate format).
* Will this always export the full page or is it configurable somehow?
- It always does the page (AFAIR... checking - confirmed, only 1st page, except maybe for PDF in the next Inkscape version)
* Thanks for join my world with yours. Generally I use a template for creating presentation cards, so this can be used to just change the job title, company logo and company?
- Yes, if the template is properly prepared and there's a csv file.
## Visual Programming with Geometry Nodes in Blender with Jakub Steiner
* The nodes available in geometry nodes seem to change between Blender versions (something I've noticed when trying out slightly older tutorials) any hints for how to keep up with the changes?
- This doesn't happen too often as far as stable releases. Though there are new variations of geometry nodes coming out fairly often.
## Inkscape's Multipage Feature with Martin Owens
* Are you seeing slides for presentation as a use case? Like the whole presentation in a single multipage document rather than a file for each slide/diagram separately? What are the presenting options?
- Martin recommends using it to generate a PDF file you present with. Nothing built natively into Inkscape.
* Will we ever see Pantone color support in Inkscape? (PMS colors) Or is this something that is out of scope for the software?
- Pantone is a heavily-protected color scheme that inkscape cannot use. Might be possible for an independent construction of the color palette with different names / similar mixes or buys a license from Pantone as an extension, but core inkscape couldnt ship with it. Color support is something we're working on getting into inkscape.
- http://adaptstudio.ca/ocs/
* A page can be inside a page? How does that work?
- Just based on coordinates.
* Is it possible to set up a fixed gap between pages so that content can be nicely aligned to a single grid? (rather than manually repositioning each page)
- Pages themselves can snapped using the main Inkscape snapping tool, then select page borders... it should be possible. So it will snap to a grid. There's no automatic way though. It has a fixed offset in the code. In the future, I hope to improve this.
* Are coordinates, say the x coordinate, per page or per the whole document? I think I noticed the other day (v 1.2) that I had to calculate the x coordinate on page 2 of a document instead of just entereing, say 15 mm like on page 1
- All the coords will be relative to the top left corner of the first page, in 1.3 there is a new option for per-page coordinate support.
* Is there a way to share templates?
- If you create an SVG file, save as a template, and give that SVG to somebody else, they can put in their inkscape templates folder. I would open the SVG file in inkscape, use file > save template... then it will save it to the correct folder for you.
* Is pages part of SVG specs or is it Inkscape's own feature?
- Yeh - at the beginning I tried to describe - Inkscape tried to get pages into the SVG spec. We sent a rep to the W3c working group on SVG spec. We weren't able to get much fo anything into the spec. Web browsers aren't interested in features outside of what web browsers need. So we developed pages as a function of Inkscape instead.
- Each page is a page note like this:
- <inkscape:page id="page1" inkscape:label="page label">
- Hopefully in the future it becomes such a useful feature that the W3c would reconsider.
* Time for a new "editable SVG" standard?
- Good idea, might be complicated.
* Have you talked to the Penpot devs on their SVG editing work in the browser re: W3C issues?
- Penpot is interesting bc it's in the browser itself, and they work around the SVG spec. They do text in an inkscape-incompat way, using foreign obj with html inside. So it's a blended approach of SVG and HTML. Not entirely sure what to do about that. Would like to support importing those files in inkscape without building a web browser into inkscape. Maybe some place we can get to, maybe svg 2.0 text support work well enough? svg 2 wasn't supported by browsers, even what they agreed to support, so SVG is sitting there with incomplete text support. Inkscape now has 3 separate text implementations, only one which is supported by browsers - browsers just have very different focuses.
* Will there be support for SXML?
- Not sure what SXML format is.
- XML without the <>
## Creating Fedora Wallpapers with Krita with Madeline Peck
* Are there intentions to make a "only one package" to install all wallpapers? It's a pain to add a new line to my ansible playbook to install all wallpapers.
- What are you adding to your ansible playbook right now? We probably cant get down to just one pkg due to OS image size contraints. I'm adding f(previous-release)-backgrounds - ah, what if we made them a package group? Well, that will work! Cool I'll look into if we can do that (this is Mo btw) I know I see the color legend (not sure if it's called like that in English tho)
* Any tips on improving your skills in Krita? Do you have a favorite channel or tutorials?
- There's quite a few great ones on YouTube, just deciding to draw something - we talk about this alot in our team - where you're passioante about something. I"m obsessed w Miffy, legend of the wild, zelda - they have beautiful renderings on the Krita website as examples as well. Find something you're passioante about and see what you can create. That forces you to experiment and play so you wont stop when it gets hard. Choose your passion and be curious
* Can you explain what a clipping group is?
- Look at the foreground clouds folder in the example - clipping group (use interchangeable with "mask layer") - you can only draw where the original layer is. The a checked symbolizes a mask layer. Can't draw off of that original layer.
* Hi Madeline! Great presentation! I wanted to ask which Fedora wallpaper was the hardest or most time-consuming to finish?
- As far as what I worked on - probably F37 - time-consuming because we changed directions, but ultimately for the better. A lot of iterations for F34 too.
* Since there are inspiration on each wallpaper, should the mktg team to market that in some way? Maybe by doing a guessing game with the community and users in social media?
- Yes- this is a great idea!
* Do you have recommendations for drawing tablets?
- Intuous pro medium, by Wacom - have had for 8 years. Also found a size small on line used for $30
## Edit Video with Kdenlive with Seth Kenlon
* What's the difference between the 2 preview panes?
- The center pane is for previewing clips (Seth calls it the "audition" area) where the far right one shows the project (what's actually on the timeline.)
* Is there a limit of resources (video, audio, images) you can add to a project?
- I haven't found a limit if there is one
* Can you copy and paste from audacity or other software or I need to export it first and add it as a resource?
- Export first and add it to a resource
* How does Kdenlive works out with multiple video files with diferent framerates (24, 25, 29,97, 30, 60...)?
- It works well. It transcode frame rates for you, instantly in the timeline. There are some formats from sources that will be compressed (eg cellphones), and once you bring it in to Kdenlive you will find its not enough.
* Can you use a second or third monitor for fullscreen playback/video monitoring?
- I think you can? You can grab a panel in kdenlive and put it onto a different screen. Piping it to a video monitor is possible but not sure exactly how to do it.
* How does kdenlive sync multi-camera clips?
- (ran out of time)
## Penpot, the Public Roadmap and Our Secret Agenda with Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz
* I remember there was some integration with Taiga and Penpot, how tight is that integration now?
- There is no current integration- but that is a plan for the future. We are redeveloping taiga so that we can get that in place.
* Is Penpot fully on browser regarding uploaded assets and works made with it?
- Yes- though you can self host.
* Is there some visualization of changes made to the draft over time in Penpot?
- We are working on this feature
* Is there a browser where penpot runs best?
- Works best on chromium/chrome. We are working on making it equally snappy on firefox