I use regularly Inkscape, and it has been a constant source of frustration. The UI is the exact opposite of how I expect things to work.
It's improving at breakneck speed though. 1.2 already solved some of my frustrations (the new interface for linecaps & line dots, amazing!)
Almost all the features in this release seem to solve a major frustration I had with Inkscape.
* The node deletion behavior, it was so annoying, how you delete a node on a straight line and suddenly you get some soup.
* The awful color palette. You had to manually edit text files to get your own palettes, couldn't edit them in Inkscape. I, in fact, never managed to create a custom palette. Pinned colors seem to solve this.
* Lasso selection. It was soo fiddly to select a group of nodes. One missclick and you had to start from scratch, clicking on the tinny controls.
* Multithreaded rendering. The single-threaded software renderer is a misery for complex projects, or just zooming in. Now Inkscape is going to be 12 times faster on my machine
* Font selection was utter garbage, the new UI seems promising
* Patterns was also a constant source of frustration, looks like this release improves it.
This is exciting. I'm looking forward to use this new release.
Now please give me a dialog for key rebinding, similar to Krita. And better key binding discoverability.
Inkscape also has an experimental OpenGL backend that seems fairly stable. When I tested it, it seemed pretty stable and glitchless. I hope it will replace the Cairo backend soon, since OpenGL will give Inkscape even MORE performance!
As for discoverability (of keyboard shortcuts as well as commands), few versions back Inkscape introduced `View > Command Palette`, by default bound to "`?`" key:
It allows you to search for command by name and "tooltip description" and displays their assigned shortcuts. This is IMO the one of the few recent features that should be implemented in all applications. In Inkscape it is not as smooth as in IDEs, has somewhat slow first run, but I'm super glad it is even there.
The command palette in the Windows version of Inkscape is inexplicably slow very often, not only on first run. 5 seconds to open slow. Is it spending time making fancy command predictions? Does it request and rebuild a list of existing commands each time? It is also missing some commands, like the Shape Builder tool. I'd rather have a stupid static list of all possible commands that opens instantly and filters super quickly as you type.
Yes, there is a huge space for improvements there, besides sup-par speed, strange filtering and ordering, unintuitive focus management … but at least it is there and has chance to evolve. I'm quite convinced, that even five seconds delay of (each) command palette invocation is most of the times better than mindlessly sifting through menus and keyboard settings. And as always, the "happy path" is to to use it just once and memorise the direct shortcut of desired command, so next time there will be not use for the palette.
The UI is garbage. It's like GIMP. I'm more than happy to pay for software especially when it has a well designed (user first) UI. It is not only the UI, it is the UX generally. It's weird and nerdy and thinks it must be "better" somehow.
I bit the bullet and put many hours into it and came away finding it fine. I almost entirely use key commands, just I like I did with Illustrator. Maybe that's why I find it acceptable. I no longer wish I was using Illustrator.
As a casual Inkscape user, I'm always infuriated by the outdated open/export file dialogs on Windows, that don't remember the last location and won't let me enter the file path.
I've resorted to copying files I want to edit to the Downloads folder for easier access.
Other than that, it's been really handy on many occasions.
Whats bothering you about it? I probably lack perspective because I haven't used other software, but I'm really happy using both for whenever I need to do something.
I very much prefer the export dialog for raster export where it is in the drawer because that is literally where i carry out a huge part of my workflow (fill/stroke, alignments, doc properties, it's all in one place.
Saving to various formats is still done through transient dialogs including format specific settings just like you are describing.
But letting me intetact with the document alongside the export settings (vs being in window behind popout dialogue) just seems so much more intuitive.
I've been using inkscape for years to generate vectors for plotting and laser cutting/engraving and while it has come a long way with quality of life features, it's always been able to get the job done for me.
translation: the UI is not exactly like im used to, and is not a duplicate of the product I wish to replace with another product for [reasons], therefore the world must know that it is garbage
I use regularly Inkscape, and it has been a constant source of frustration. The UI is the exact opposite of how I expect things to work.
It's improving at breakneck speed though. 1.2 already solved some of my frustrations (the new interface for linecaps & line dots, amazing!)
Almost all the features in this release seem to solve a major frustration I had with Inkscape.
* The node deletion behavior, it was so annoying, how you delete a node on a straight line and suddenly you get some soup.
* The awful color palette. You had to manually edit text files to get your own palettes, couldn't edit them in Inkscape. I, in fact, never managed to create a custom palette. Pinned colors seem to solve this.
* Lasso selection. It was soo fiddly to select a group of nodes. One missclick and you had to start from scratch, clicking on the tinny controls.
* Multithreaded rendering. The single-threaded software renderer is a misery for complex projects, or just zooming in. Now Inkscape is going to be 12 times faster on my machine
* Font selection was utter garbage, the new UI seems promising
* Patterns was also a constant source of frustration, looks like this release improves it.
This is exciting. I'm looking forward to use this new release.
Now please give me a dialog for key rebinding, similar to Krita. And better key binding discoverability.