Shared resources. Specification

Current version : 0.1. See Revisions History below for list of changes between versions.

You can find the most recent version of the spec in the wiki of CREATE Project.

Abstract

Today opensource graphics applications seem to like to work out uniform solutions. Krita uses GIMP's brushes, Inkscape uses GIMP's color swatches files. Still missing are ways to share resources like brushes, so that users wouldn't need to install all of these resources separately for each and every application that can read such data.

The intention of this specification is to work out uniform rules for storing possibly shared data, which would let

• developers benefit from no efforts duplication;
• packagers benefit from no efforts duplication;
• users benefit from using one root directory for all art supplies and one art supplies registry for all applications.

Applications

Following applications (in strict alphabetical order) are taken into consideration while writing this specification (as of current version):

• CinePaint (0.19)
• GNU Image Manipulation Program (2.3.3+CVS)
• Inkscape (0.42+CVS)
• Karbon14 (1.4.1+SVN)
• Krita (1.4.1)
• mtPaint (2.19.10)
• OpenOffice.org
• Scribus (1.3.0+CVS)
• sK1 (rc0)
• Skencil (0.6.17)

Types of resources and directories at present time

Brushes

Bitmap brushes

A brush file is usually a container format that can store different types of raster graphics (e.g. PNG).

Table 1. Bitmap brushes

Vector brushes

Vector brushes are different from bitmap/raster brushes being freely scalable up and down without losing much quality. So far they are not implemented in any of opensource software, but should be kept in mind in the long run.

XML brushes

XML brushes describe types of behaviour, like paint deposition, fringe spatter and so on.

Gradients

Gradient files store description of gradients

Table 2. Gradients

Color swatches

There is some confusion in terms. Color swatches are same as palettes and color sets: these are files that store a set of predefined colors. Currently all of opensource applications support RGB based color swatches files only.

Table 3. Color swatches

 rgbscribusgnome.txt  Gnome set
 rgbscribusgreys.txt  X11 greys only
 rgbscribusopenoffice.txt  OpenOffice.org set
 rgbscribus.txt X11 full set
 rgbsvg.txt SVG set

Patterns

Bitmap patterns

Bitmap patterns are same as textures — files with an image inside (a container format as well) to fill a selected area multiply times creating a pattern.

Table 4. Bitmap brushes

Vector patterns

Vector patterns are same as bitmap ones being just vector based and thus scalable up/down without losing much quality. So far they are not implemented in any of opensource software, but should be kept in mind in the long run.

Clipart

Table 5. Clipart

Proposed changes

Make all of the above applications use one root directory for all art supplies:

On UNIX (GNU/Linux, FreeBSD etc.) systems :

usr share/create/ and ~/.create/ (for local use)

Windows systems :

C:\%COMMONFILES%\create and C:\%APPDATA%\create (for local use)

On Mac OS X systems : suggestion: /Library/Application\ Support/create and ~/Library/Application\ Support/create (for local use)

The outline for subdirectories would look the following way then:

/usr/share/create/
		brushes
			gimp
			photoshop
			pipe
			vector
			xml 
		clipart
		gradients
			gimp
			karbon14
			svg
		patterns
			bitmap
			vector 
		swatches

Needs further investigation

• directories of all of the above and below mentioned applications in Mac OS X;
• more information about Karbon14;
• information about Abiword (clipart);
• possibility of application icons reuse.
• usage of the XDG Base Directory Specification at Freedesktop.org. On Unix that would mean storing local files in $XDG_DATA_HOME/create rather than $HOME/.create

References

1. A bug report covering paths to search for ICC by Scribus.
2. A letter from Alan Horkan to gimp-developer@ list, which initiated an offlist discussion among GIMP, Krita, Inkscape and Scribus developers.
3. An initial request by Alexandre Prokoudine for a new project covering shared graphics applications resources at Freedesktop.org.
4. A blog entry by Jon Philips', where in comments it was decided to merge efforts with CREATE project at Freedesktop.org
5. OpenIcc — a project with two main goals: 1) to work out a common set of settings for color savvy applications to share ICC/ICM profiles and settings; 2) to bring together those developers in areas like printing, display and desktop applications to work together to make color management end to end work for open source applications. OpenIcc and ICC in common aren't covered by 'Shared resources' spec beginning from v0.0.4.
6. OpenDocument specification

Contributors

Tim Beaulen

Craig Bradney

Alan Horkan

Sven Neumann

Igor Novikov

Alexandre Prokoudine

Boudewijn Rempt

Robin Rowe

Mark Tyler

License

Revisions History

• Revision 0.1 (5 December 2005). Added more infor about Karbon14, Krita. Added mtPaint and its author, Mark Tyler. Added Sven's elaboration on file formats supported by GIMP. Changed "Authors" to "Contributors". Integrated suggestion of anonymous user about locale sensitive path variable on Windows. Added suggestion for OS X folders. Added link to OpenDocument spec. Added XDG Base Directory Specification to the list "Needs further investigation".

• Revision 0.0.5 (9 September 2005). Added sK1 to the list of considered applications. Added information about Sketch and sK1. Cleaned up "Needs further investigation" section. Added Robin Rowe to the list of contributors and moved to alphabetical order instead of order of appearance.

• Revision 0.0.4 (4 September 2005). Switched to DocBook/XML. ICC is moved away from the spec, because OpenIcc spec should be informative enough. Lots of typos are fixed. Changed structure of the document and added section "XML brushes". Added mentioning openclipart gradients to Karbon14 (Section "Gradients"). Reorganised subdirectories definition and changed it to an outline. Added info about Cinepaint. Changed mentioned version of Clipart browser which was written for Google's Summer Of Code contest.

• Revision 0.0.3 (16 August 2005). Added a References section and several references.

• Revision 0.0.2 (16 August 2005). Fixed description for Scribus in color swatches and ICC aspect.

• Revision 0.0.1 (16 August 2005). Initial version