The charting software is getting fairly capable. The patterns can now be rendered in HTML format, which means that the software can take advantage of some of the more popular free symbol fonts available.
Take a look at Nutkin2 rendered in four different styles. The KSW and Aire River versions require download and installation of the Knitter's Symbols Font and Knitting Font 2.00, respectively.
Admittedly I haven't tried out the no-stitch elements yet, and I'm pretty certain that something will render strangely if there are rows with unevenly-balanced increases and decreases.
By the way, if you are getting excited by all of this and want to lend a hand, just let me know. I would like to expand on the user's guide and design guidelines document on the wiki.
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Probably the most exciting feature of the 0.5 release is the ability to produce charts from KnitML patterns. Here is a picture of the Nutkin2 pattern in chart form:
What you see here is the pattern produced in HTML format using a locally-installed knitting font (specifically the Knitter's Magazine font by David Xenakis). Some of the formatting is a bit rough around the edges, but the final form will look nicer.
If you don't like the Knitter's Magazine font, you can easily plug in a different implementation of the chart writer that uses a different font (such as Aire River). You can also use a fixed-width font and text art laid out on a grid. (See the text art form of Nutkin2.)
As a knitter, you will be able to apply your own favorite symbols for knitting maneuvers instead of the defaults. You will be able to choose which instructions get charted and which become written instructions. As a designer, you can make your chart look exactly the way you intended it to look by providing a set of images that will correspond exactly to each instruction. (Design software such as Knit Visualizer could make this quite easy to do.)
Don't like charts at all? You can simply set an option to always produce written directions, even if the pattern was originally designed from a chart.
Nutkin Two, of course, is a very basic (almost simplistic) example of a chart. Charts can (and often do) get much more complex. However, I'm quite optimistic that, while there will be challenges along the way, most designs conceived as charts will be able to be represented in KnitML and still be able to be interpreted as charts.
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If you are running OS X 10.5 and were having trouble getting GPEC to work, try GPEC 0.1.1a. The short answer is that 10.5 runs Java 6, but Mac's Java JVM only runs 64-bit programs, and some underlying code in Eclipse still needs to run some 32- bit software. Since Mac comes with Java 5 as well, 0.1.1a simply uses Java 5 instead of the default version from the operating system.
This should all work in theory. Being that I don't own a Mac, please advise me if I need to try again.
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A new version of the Graphical Pattern Editor / Composer has been released. Susan has been working hard to make it more usable and give it some pretty graphics. Thanks, Susan!
Try it out and let me know what you think.
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Right now they are just outlines, but topics will include descriptions major components in a KnitML pattern, as well as some guidelines for developing KnitML patterns. My hope is that this will help people understand a bit more about how to go about writing a pattern in KnitML. (Samples help, but they don't explain the concepts.)
Please check out the wiki and let me know if this is helpful.
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