Comment 6 for bug 692719

Tested with Inkscape 0.48+devel r9967 on OS X 10.5.8: looks fine to me :)

I'm not sure about using the 'A' (arc) path command: Inkscape renders it correctly (using bézier curves internally), and converts the 'A' path commands to 'C' (cubic Bézier) as soon as the path is node-edited. Possibly the extension could generate an Inkscape/sodipodi 'ellipse' which would allow to edit the object with the circle/ellipse tool in Inkscape? Or an SVG <circle> basic shape (as done by the 'Number nodes' extension), possibly allowing easier manipulation of the object in animations since it does reference the center point (unlike a path with 'arc' commands)?

Another thought (just an idea): would it be possible to alternatively (optionally) define the radius in % of the overall width or of a relevant radius of the gear as actually rendered based on the parameters? Admittedly, I haven't tried to figure out how each of the gear parameters influences the final dimensions of the gear ;) - nor do I know if technically the hole is ever defined in relative terms instead of absolute values for the radius…

> this is a patch vs. the current 0.49.x branch of Inkscape, (…)

Providing the patch against trunk (0.49.x at the moment) is fine. It might be backported to the 0.48.x branch, but since that branch is maintained for bug fix releases of 0.48.0, it is more likely that the new feature will go into the next stable release.

> I hope to do more minor patches in Inkscape, (…)

Great! :) If you plan to work on more features / patches, you could consider using bazaar to create a local branch or checkout of lp:inkscape and for example create patches with 'bzr diff <filename>' or 'bzr diff <dirname>':
<http://inkscape.org/bzr.php?lang=en>

Note that once two of your contributions (patches or bug fixes) have been accepted and committed, you can apply for membership in the 'Inkscape Developers' team and get bzr commit access yourself.