[Clipart] parameterized clipart

[Nathan Eady]

>   What I would like to see eventually is a way to contribute parameterized
>   clipart to OCAL.  So, for example, the user could be given the
>   chance to choose a new time for the clock image, and the server would
>   generate the image with the chosen time for the user to download.

This, to be frank, doesn't interest me.  It sounds suspiciously
like adding a lot of complexity for no tangible benefit.

> Clipart like that would be difficult to package.  

s/difficult/impossible/ if we want ordinary end-users to be able to
just drop pictures into their word processing documents and whatnot
without installing special software or otherwise jumping through hoops.

> If we can make it easier to install new Inkscape extensions, that
> seems like a better place to address this.

Sure, and then we can also do an OpenOffice extension for it, and
a Scribus extension, and a KOffice extension, and a Gimp extension,
and extensions for popular HTML editors, for webmasters who want to
put said images on their websites, and ...

Or, we could just provide a useful array of clipart, which includes
a reasonable number of variants, e.g., clock faces for every hour
of the day at least.

People who use Inkscape can already make their own variations,
e.g. just grab the clock hands and rotate them, no big deal.
I mean, if *I* wanted a clock-face image showing 2:55 (e.g.
to illustrate the time of day school gets out), I'd grab the
first or nicest clock face I saw and move the hands to 2:55.
Isn't that what most of us who use Inkscape would do?

The reason for including different times (just for instance) is
because a lot of users don't have or want a drawing app, and they
don't want to learn how to use one; they can't draw anyhow, beyond
the stick-figure level, and that's why they want pre-drawn clip art
to put in their documents.  This is why there are prize ribbons in
three colors, including both red and blue, in the collection, even
though it's a trivial change.  It's a *useful* trivial change.

(The usefulness of the star constructions is a separate question.
I'd say let the users sort that out with the voting, but we don't
have a feedback mechanism in place yet.)