Inkscape for Android?

One area where I do struggle to find apps on F-Droid is for image editing, both raster and vector.

Inkscape is brilliant. What are some of the difficulties that you invisage in bringing, Inkscape to Android/F-Droid?

I would expect that one would need to connect a keyboard and use a stylus for the most efficient use of the software. Image editing with fat fingers is not fun, even my little pinky finger
: p

I read in the changlog, the latest release of Inkscape already has added support for two finger-zooming on touch screens, and now supports HiDPI screens. So that’s two positive steps!

Right-clicking might be possible with an extra button. Mouse scrolling might be achievable with two-finger scrolling.

The UI/side menus may benefit from some pairing back, depending on screen size. The top menu would likely become a menu that fills the screen, so the image that the person is working on might become darker and blurred while the menu is up on screen?

Their may need to be an intuitive way to switch from one file to another, there may be a max number of files openable at one time.

These are simple observations without looking at the build tools used, nor the build tools compatible with Android and vetted by F-Droid team, so perhaps Inkscape is completely incompatible.

I realise it would not be a simple task and that probably every single line of code would need to be examined in some way, and code that relates to the OS would need complete reworking.

I’m interested to hear thoughts from not just people in tune with app development, but also from users of Inkscape and designers.

Would anyone like to use Inkscape on a smart device? If so, do the above ideas sound like a realistic approach? I personally think that it would be great, and a stellar addition to the F-Droid.

I found this ancient post, http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=11232, but its from so long ago, maybe the situation has changed

What are some of the difficulties that you invisage in bringing, Inkscape to Android/F-Droid?

afaik Inkscape is written in C++. I think to make a native (Java) Android app would amount to a rewrite. You might use the NDK to port the core parts, and write an app around that, but it wouldn’t be trivial, and F-Droid would probably have some difficulty building it.

It runs on Linux, and I think the solutions out there for running it on Android amount to running a Linux sandbox on your phone (and running inkscape from within that).

Neat find… i only tried searchingthe F-Droid forums and the Inkscape issues space on Gitlab. I didn’t realise that all programs on F-Droid are Java. It’s nice in a way, a little bit reassuring. I suppose I expected someone to have built a tool that checks C++ for heinous crimes against computany, haha. But I suppose the way pointers can played with is so dangerous that maybe it’s not possible to account for all the possible situations and corruptions.

I wonder if, in today’s age, Inkscape might be able to perform equally well or maybe better as a Java app? In 2011 PCs and laptops were good but not devices so much. Now small devices are doing amazing things. It would be an interesting experiment to try Inkscape as a Java app, alas an experiment that no one will ever do, haha.

Cheers Forrest,
D

So far, the best raster image editor on Fdroid seems to be Markers (org.dsandler.apps.markers, https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Markers). You have to enable the archived repository to install it. There is also a paint-like app with a very similar feature set in the simple mobile tools series, but Markers beats its UI hands down.

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