Comment 21 for bug 81567

I looked into the sk1project, but I am afraid that it will require a lot of work to make it run.

First of all, trying to install from their svn fails -- the mentioned "sk1_re" repository cannot be found on the sourceforge. I did manage to compile the sk1 and sk1_re packages provided as tar.gz, though. They seem to compile everything short of the linux kernel itself :-) (own python, own tcl/tk libs, ...). And yet they fail.

I got something which looked like a nice, spiced up skencil. After installing kdebase-bin I even got the open file dialog :-) (they are using kdialog heavily). Some simple operations that I tried seem to work as well, like creating a rectangle (duh). What did not work, however, was for example:

* adding any sort of text (no fonts available at all. A hilarious message: "font Slim not found. Using Slim instead")
* importing graphics (I tried EPS and jpeg; various error messages on the command line, some cryptic popup windows in the case of JPEG)

The good side is that they seem to be alive (as opposed to the sketch/skencil development team).

All in all, I don't like that route so much. I liked sketch because it was really lean and fast. If I wanted to go for a heavy graphics package (sK1 installs around 100MB in the "sk1_Apps" folder) that needs a huge GUI library (like Cairo), I'd choose inkscape. At least I have a popular, relatively stable program; where would be the advantage of sk1, I ask?

The only valuable bit for me is the uniconverter, which, if it fulfils its promises, will save my sk files from oblivion or re-drawing using inkscape.

j.