Updating news for release (preliminary)

[inkscape.git] / NEWS

Inkscape 0.45: overview

   This release brings the exciting new features developed by the Google
   Summer of Code 2006 participants, as well as tons of other
   improvements across the board.

SVG filters: Gaussian blur

   Thanks to Google's Summer of Code program, Inkscape now has basic
   support for [44]SVG filters. The only filter enabled so far is
   Gaussian blur.

   With it, you can softly and naturally blur any Inkscape objects:
   paths, shapes, groups, text], images. Clones inherit blurring from
   their original, but they can also be blurred independently from the
   original (you can create blurred clones with Tile Clones, too). Both
   the fill and stroke of an object are blurred together, creating
   semitransparent margins that smoothly blend into the background.

   Gaussian blur enables a wide range of photorealistic effects:
   arbitrarily shaped shades and lights, depth of field, drop shadows,
   glows, etc. Also, blurred objects can be used as masks for other
   objects to achieve the "feathered mask" effect.
     * To blur selected objects, open the Fill and Stroke dialog
       (Ctrl+Shift+F) and use the Blur slider. The blur value is a
       percentage, with 100% corresponding to a blurring radius of 1/8 of
       the object's bounding box' perimeter (that is, for a square, a
       blur of 100% will have the radius equal to half a side).

     * The Tile Clones dialog also supports blurring. On the Blur &
       opacity tab, you can set the blur percentage per row or per column
       of your tiling, as well as randomize blurring and make it
       alternate (all the same options as for Opacity).

     * The quality of on-screen blur display is controlled by the Blur
       quality option on the new Filters tab of Inkscape Preferences
       (Ctrl+Shift+P). The available options range from best
       quality/slowest display to worst quality/fastest display, the
       default being in the middle of the range. Any setting except the
       "best quality" may introduce some rendering artifacts, especially
       when blurring thin strokes; on the other hand, the "best quality"
       setting may make Inkscape extremely slow at high zooms. These
       settings only affect the screen display of blurred objects; bitmap
       export always uses the best quality.

   Here are a few tips on using blur:
     * Masks and clipping are applied after blur. That is, if you clip an
       object and then blur it (or blur it first and then clip - it makes
       no difference), the clipped edges will remain crisp. Often, this
       is what you want. If, however, you want to blur the clipped/masked
       edges too (possibly with a different radius), you can use
       grouping: group the clipped object with some other object (which
       you can then delete from the group) and blur the group.

     * A simple drop shadow is now very easy to do: just copy the object,
       paint the copy black, blur it, shift away a bit and lower it to
       the bottom. However, such a shadow does not update when you edit
       the foreground object. If your object is already black (or, more
       generally, if you want the shadow to be the same color as the
       object), you can clone instead of copy to make the shadow
       auto-updating. But what if your foreground object is not black but
       you need a black shadow? Here's a recipe: unset the object's fill
       (it becomes black); create two clones of it; put one clone on top
       and paint any color you want; put the other clone at bottom, blur
       it and shift sideways. Now you can edit the unset-fill original
       (use Alt+click to select it) and everything will update.

     * If an object has a fill that you don't want to blur (e.g. pattern,
       or if it's a bitmap), but you just want to feather its edges, use
       a blurred transparency mask. For this, copy the object; paint it
       white; blur it as needed; scale the blurred copy down so its blur
       margins are entirely within the original object; select both the
       original and the blurred mask; do Object > Mask > Set.

     * Transforming a blurred object transforms its blur, too. This
       applies to a non-uniform scaling as well, so by squeezing a
       blurred object you make its blur squeezed as well. So, the easiest
       way to blur a path horizontally more than vertically is this:
       stretch it upwards without blur, then apply blur and squeeze it
       back into the original shape.

     * You can combine blurring with gradients. For example, an ellipse
       with elliptic opacity gradient will look much softer and more
       natural when blurred. An object with a horizontal linear opacity
       gradient, when blurred, will look like it is more blurred on its
       transparent side than on its opaque side.

     * A clone of a blurred object inherits the blur of the original.
       Therefore, such a clone can be blurred more, but you can't
       "unblur" it to make the clone sharper than its original (unless,
       of course, you unlink it). The Fill and Stroke dialog shows you
       the amount of the blur applied to this particular object; however,
       if the object is a clone of an already blurred original, the
       dialog does not reflect that.

     * Note that Firefox 2.0 does not support SVG filters, so your files
       will be displayed in Firefox 2.0 without blur. However, support
       has been added in the current development version ("trunk") and
       will be included in Firefox 3.0. The Opera web browser, as well as
       librsvg (used by Wikipedia) and Batik, support filters correctly.


Undo history

     * Inkscape now features a History Dialog accessible through
       Ctrl+Shift+H or Edit->Undo History. All changes to the document
       since it was opened are recorded here.
          + In the dialog, changes are listed from the oldest (top) to
            the newest (bottom).
          + The type of each change is indicated by an icon and a short
            description.
          + For readability, consecutive changes of the same type are
            placed in a collapsable branch showing a triangle marker and
            the number of the hidden actions in the branch.
          + By clicking on an event event in the list, you can easily
            move through the undo history, i.e. undo or redo any number
            of actions with one click.

     * The Undo and Redo commands in the Edit menu display the
       descriptions of the commands to be undone and redone,
       correspondingly. (These are the same descriptions that you see in
       the History dialog.)


Rendering improvements

     * Interruptible display: Previously, Inkscape could not do anything
       until it finishes the current screen redraw. Now the redraw is
       made interruptible, so that Inkscape responds to mouse and
       keyboard input and can abort the current redraw and start over if
       you do some screen-changing operation. As a result, Inkscape now
       feels much snappier and more interactive. This interruptibility is
       fine-tuned for some interactive operations (such as node dragging)
       so that a balance is achieved between responsiveness and
       completeness of display.

     * Radial gradients are rendered faster by at least 10%.

     * Screen render is faster by 2-3%, up to 5% for complex drawings
       with transparency.

     * Display is more responsive when working at high zoom levels when
       using a tablet.

     * Rendering (compositing) quality has been improved. This is most
       visible with (partially) transparent gradients, banding is a lot
       less pronounced now. Speed has also been improved in some cases.


Tools


Node tool

     * You can grow or shrink node selection by hovering the mouse
       pointer over a node and using mousewheel (up = grow, down =
       shrink) or the keys PageUp (grow) and PageDown (shrink). Growing
       adds the closest unselected node to the selection; shrinking
       deselects the farthest selected node. There are two modes that
       differ by how the closest/farthest nodes are chosen:

     *
          + Spatial selection (Mousewheel, PageUp/PageDown): distances to
            nodes are measured directly, regardless of which subpath a
            node belongs to.

     *
          + Linear selection (Ctrl+Mousewheel,
            Ctrl+PageUp/Ctrl+PageDown): node distances are measured along
            the path, and only the nodes belonging to the same subpath as
            the hovered node are considered (i.e. other subpaths are
            never selected).

          This technique is convenient for quickly selecting an area in a
          complex path starting from a center - for example, for node
          sculpting.


Dropper

     * Instead of the confusing toggle button, now the Controls bar for
       the Dropper tool has two checkboxes, "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha",
       which work as follows. Suppose you have an object selected and,
       using Dropper, click on an object which has red (#FF0000) fill and
       0.5 opacity (half-transparent).
          + If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is off, the selected object will
            get the fill color #800000 (i.e. faded-out red) and fill
            opacity will be at 1.0 (opaque).
          + If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is on but "Set alpha" is off,
            the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and
            fill opacity will be at 1.0.
          + If both "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha" are on, the selected
            object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity
            will be at 0.5 (half-transparent).

          If you Shift+click instead of click, the same changes will be
          made to stroke color and stroke opacity, correspondingly. Note
          that in no situation can Dropper change the master opacity of
          the selected object(s), although it can pick it just as it does
          any other kind of opacity.


Calligraphy

     * A new numeric parameter, Caps, controls the amount of protruding
       at the ends of calligraphic strokes. This parameter can range from
       0 (flat caps, default behavior in previous versions) through 1
       (approximately half-circle caps) and up to 5 (long elliptic caps).
       Rounded caps much improve the look of low-fixation strokes,
       simulating a rounded pen.

     * The "Drag" parameter has been renamed to Wiggle with a value
       inversion (i.e. low drag corresponds to high wiggle, and vice
       versa). Increase this parameter (default is 0) to make the pen
       waver and wiggle in curly patterns.


Outline mode

     * A new menu command (View > Display Mode > Toggle) and a new
       keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+<keypad 5>) switch the display mode from
       Normal to Outline and back.

     * The window title displays "(outline)" next to the file name when
       that editing window is in Outline mode.

     * An object with mask and/or clipping path, when viewed in Outline
       mode, now displays both the object itself and its clipping path
       and mask as objects, using different outline colors. By default,
       clippaths use green outlines, and masks use blue.

     * Images in Outline mode are displayed as red (by default) frames
       with two diagonals.

     * An object with no fill and no stroke, invisible and not selectable
       by mouse clicking in normal mode, can now be picked by a mouse
       click in the Outline mode using its visible outline.

     * The bug whereby stroked shapes didn't change stroke width when
       switching to Outline mode or back is fixed.

     * All outline colors are changeable by editing the "wireframecolors"
       group inside "options" in the preferences file
       (~/.inkscape/preferences.xml). The "onlight" and "ondark"
       attributes set the colors of the regular object outlines on light
       and dark backgrounds (default black and white correspondingly);
       the "images", "clips", and "masks" attributes set the colors of
       images, clipping paths, and masks (defaults are red, green, and
       blue correspondingly). Each attribute is a decimal integer
       corresponding to the hex RRGGBBAA of the color.

     * To cater for specialized uses, such as preparing input for
       personal media cutters, Inkscape now has an option to start in the
       Outline mode upon launch. To enable this, add the following line
       to your preferences.xml file:

                <group id="startmode" outline="1"/>

          placing it after the <group id="options"> opening tag.


PDF export

     * A new Cairo-based PDF exporter has been added to Inkscape.
       Inkscape 0.45 can export shapes, strokes, transparency, gradients,
       patterns, text, and images correctly to Cairo. While clipping
       paths and masks are known to be faulty or missing. Cairo will
       write a PDF with vector graphics when possible and fall back to
       raster graphics when needed. What can be exported as vectors and
       how much of the image will be rasterized when the fallback kicks
       in depends on your version of Cairo. Cairo version 1.2 with the
       pdf backend compiled in is the minimum requirement for any
       Cairo-based PDF exports.

     * [removed? - mental] The native PDF exporter introduced in Inkscape
       0.44 is improved along with the new Cairo-based PDF exporter.
       Changes since Inkscape 0.44 include: New features: bitmap images
       can be embedded, pdf files can be exported from commandline.
       Changed behaviour: the pointless text to path question is gone.
       Fixed bugs: save failure is now detected, miter limits are now >=
       1, pdfs with transparent gradient are now embeddable, eccentric
       elliptic gradients fixed, dash style inheritance fixed,
       transparency inheritance fixed.


PS/EPS export

     * There's a new option to embed the fonts used in the document in
       the PS or EPS exported file. As of now, this works for Type 1
       fonts only, not TrueType. The option is available when performing
       the export from the GUI as well as from the command line via the
       --export-embed-fonts option.


EMF export

     * Inkscape has a limited support for exporting EMF (Enhanced Meta
       File) format. This works only on Windows, and only exports strokes
       and fills with constant colours. No text, no images, no gradients,
       no transparency.


Command line

     * The new --export-pdf command line parameter allows exporting an
       SVG image to PDF from command line.


Keyboard profiles

   The previous release allowed sets of keybinding to be created for
   Inkscape in the style of other applications. Two more sets of
   keybindings have been added.
     * Adobe Illustrator
     * Macromedia Freehand

   Of course not every feature in these other programs has a direct match
   to features in Inkscape so if you can please do help us out by
   reporting any problems you may have or improvements you would like to
   request.

   Additionally, a keybinding that focuses on tablet-based illustration
   and drawing work has been added:
     * right-handed-illustration.xml

   This keybinding places all commonly-used commands under the left hand,
   so that the user's hands rarely leave the keyboard or the
   tablet/stylus.

   (To enable a profile, copy it into default.xml in the same directory,
   overwriting the old file. To restore the default Inkscape set, copy
   inkscape.xml into default.xml.)

   More of Inkscape's keys are implemented as actions and are therefore
   available for remapping via keyboard profiles. New actions include
   EditSelectNext and EditSelectPrev for selecting next/previous object
   or node (by default, they are bound to Tab/Shift+Tab; as a result of
   becoming global actions, these keys now work in all tools and not only
   in Selector and Node tool as before).

Extension effects

     * 3 new parameter types have been added to the extension effect UI:
       tabs, enumerations and optiongroups (radiobuttons). Examples are
       available of how to use these parameters in the definition of
       extensions: the new function plotter uses tabs; enumerations are
       used by the 'Pattern along path' extension; and a small developer
       example is given to illustrate the use of optiongroups (identical
       to enumerations).

     * A new extension, Render > Lorem ipsum creates the traditional
       Latin-like random text for design mock-ups. The number of
       paragraphs, the number of sentences per paragraph and the possible
       fluctuation of the number of sentences (for uneven paragraphs) can
       be adjusted. If no flowed text element is selected, a new one in a
       new layer is created, matching the size of the canvas.

     * Pattern along path: A new powerful extension (in "Generate from
       path" submenu) allows you to bend, repeat and/or stretch a pattern
       object (which can be a path or a group) along a "skeleton" path.
       This makes it easy to create a variety of patterned and shaped
       strokes. This obsoletes the old "Kochify" extension which is
       removed.

     * Color effects: A new group of extensions in the Color submenu of
       the Effects menu allows you to adjust all colors of a selection at
       once. These commands affect both fill and stroke colors, including
       gradients (but not bitmaps). The commands include a full set of
       HSL adjustments (increasing/decreasing hue, saturation, or
       lightness by 5%), Brighter and Darker (adjust brightness by up or
       down by 10%), Desaturate, Grayscale, Negative, commands for
       removing or swapping the Red, Green, Blue channels, as well as a
       Custom command where you can set your own formulas for modifying
       the color channels. These extensions are a temporary solution; in
       a future version, similar functionality will be added to Inkscape
       core.

          Note: undoing color changes on gradients exposes a bug where an
          object seems to "disappear"; this is however only a display
          issue (caused by the order in which gradients and their users
          are restored on undo) not causing any loss of information.
          Also, on large documents and large selections with gradients,
          Python's XPath code may get quite slow. Despite these
          shortcomings, we decided to add this extension, because it's
          genuinely useful functionality which was so far missing in
          Inkscape.

     * The Function Plotter has been extended, providing greater
       flexibility in x- and y-range definition.

     * g2png: The new group-to-PNG Python extension (g2png) is an easy
       way to export any group or layer to individual PNG files. It was
       first created for use in the [58]Inkscape User Manual (also
       available in SVN's user_manual module) but is also interesting for
       many other uses. If e.g. you have to draw a set of icons, you can
       draw them in the same document, thus making copying, duplicating,
       cloning etc. easier. Then just create a group for each icon, and
       with the extension, each group ends up in its own PNG file.

     * [color markers to match stroke - acspike]

     * The "Blur Edge" extension is renamed into Inset/Outset Halo to
       avoid confusion with the real Gaussian blur that we now support,
       as well as to better describe what this extension actually does:
       From the selected path, it creates a group of inset and outset
       paths that form a stepped "halo" around the object.

     * The Extract One Image extension automatically appends filename
       extension to the created bitmap file.

     * In an extension's INX file, you can specify <effects-menu
       hidden="yes"/> to hide that extension from the Effects menu.
       However, such a "hidden" extension can still be assigned a
       keyboard shortcut (by using its id as an "action" in your
       ~/.inkscape/keys/default.xml).


SVG output

   For specialized uses, several aspects of Inkscape's SVG output can now
   be customized via editing the preferences.xml file (there's no UI for
   these options). A <group id="svgoutput"> inside <group id="options">
   can have the following attributes:
     * usenamedcolors (default is 0). If nonzero, Inkscape uses symbolic
       color names (such as "white" or "lime") and three-digit color
       designations (such as $dfe) where appropriate; otherwise, it
       always uses six-digit colors (such as $d0f0e0). Note that in 0.44,
       the default was to use named colors, which created problems for
       some extension effects.

     * numericprecision (default is 8). This is the number of significant
       digits written for each number into SVG. You can lower this number
       to get slightly more compact SVG at the expense of precision.

     * minimumexponent (default is -8). In transform= attributes, any
       number whose absolute value is less than 10 to the power of
       minimumexponent (i.e. less than 10^-8 by default) is written as 0.

     * indent (default is 2) controls the number of spaces that each
       level of nesting in SVG is shifted. Set this to 0 to disable
       indentation.

     * inlineattrs (default is 0). If nonzero, attributes are placed on
       the same line as their tags; otherwise they are separated by
       newlines.


Bitmap tracing

     * A new color quantization algorithm for multiscan traces works
       faster (especially for large numbers of colors) and gives more
       adequate results with less colors used. This improves tracing
       results both for full-color photographs and for limited-color
       drawings.
     * The Trace Bitmap dialog now provides access to three more tracing
       parameters:
          + Suppress speckles: If set, spots or speckles larger than the
            given size are suppressed in the trace.
          + Smooth corners: This parameter controls how much smoothing is
            applied to corners in the traced path.
          + Optimize paths: If set, trace paths are optimized by joining
            adjacent Bezier segments with the given tolerance.
     * All controls in the Trace Bitmap dialog are reorganized to be
       easier to find. The dialog is redesigned to use two main tabs:
       Mode (where you select the tracing mode, such as brightness cutoff
       or color multiscan) and Options (where you set various tracing
       options, such as corner smoothing). The preview is placed
       horizontally to the right of the tabs. Most labels and tooltips
       are rewritten for clarity. The trace preview image is made twice
       larger.


Even more improvements

     * A 'Save a copy'-function has been added to the file menu, similar
       to the 'Save a copy' functionality of e.g. Adobe Illustrator. With
       this function, you can save your document under a new filename,
       but Inkscape will 'forget' it has done this: later saves will be
       to the old filename. The default shortcut assigned to this
       function is: Shift+Ctrl+Alt+S.

     * Text and flowed text objects behave more consistently. Now you can
       put a flowed text on path or (re)flow it into a shape just as you
       would do with a regular (unflowed) text. Previously, the need to
       convert a flowed text to text before these operations was a
       stumble for many users.

     * [new Help commands]

     * Exported PNG images have the correct resolution set in the
       headers.

     * [sculpt profiles - bbyak]

     * [new toolbar: squeezable, expansion menu, right-click menus -
       joncruz]

     * [union of a single object - acspike]

     * We removed the "hacked" filename entry field that we had added to
       the Open and Save dialogs because starting from version 2.10, GTK+
       has finally restored this field in their standard file dialog. The
       standard field at the top of the dialog supports type-ahead find
       and performs the default dialog action (open or save) by pressing
       Enter, which means you can now do a quick Ctrl+O, Ctrl+V, Enter
       sequence to open the file whose path is in your clipboard (this
       closes a long-standing usability bug). Those who use older
       versions of GTK are advised either to upgrade to 2.10 or use
       Ctrl+L to open a pop-up filename box. (Our Windows builds are
       shipped with GTK+ 2.10.)

     * The Create Bitmap function (Alt+B in the default keymap) is made
       more useful. Unless you have specific resolution or minimum size
       set for this command in preferences.xml (<group
       id="createbitmap"/>), it will take the resolution hint from the
       object whose bitmap copy you are creating (in other words, it will
       use the resolution that you specified for that object when
       exporting it via the Export Bitmap dialog), or the default 90 dpi
       if that object was not yet exported. Also, a 90 dpi bitmap (with
       its pixels exactly 1 px in size) will be snapped to the pixel
       grid. This makes it easy to use Create Bitmap for quick
       rasterization preview of an object or document. (Note: if you have
       used a previous version of Inkscape, your preferences.xml may
       contain minsize="250"; delete this for objects' resolution hints
       to work.)

     * Using extended input (i.e. tablet pressure and tilt) can now be
       disabled via Preferences (Misc tab). This is intended to be a
       last-resort option for those platform/hardware combinations that
       are not properly supported by GTK. With extended input disabled,
       you can still use your tablet as a mouse.

     * Simplify Path now had two modes when working with a group of
       paths: the default mode, which treats all of the paths as one
       large object to simplify, or the new mode, which acts the same as
       using Simplify on each path in a group separately. In
       preferences.xml, set options.simplifyindividualpaths to 1 to get
       the new mode.

     * For long Simplify operations (more than 20 paths at a time),
       Inkscape provides user feedback via the status bar as to how many
       paths have been simplified. This change also prevents Inkscape
       from appearing to have locked up during the operation.

     * New templates added for video formats (PAL, NTSC and HDTV 1080) as
       well as DVD cover templates that were not installed in the
       previous version. This will help video and DVD authoring with
       Inkscape. The business card 85×54 template is now installed as
       well.

     * The opacity of objects is now displayed as percentage, from 0 to
       100, both in the Fill & Stroke dialog (with one fractional digit)
       and in the statusbar style indicator (with no fractional digits),
       instead of from 0 to 1.0 as before. This makes opacity values
       easier to read, type, and say.

     * "Other" license type was added to the metadata/license dialog so
       that people know that they are entering a URI to an "other"
       license.

     * Doxygen DoxyFile is updated.

     * Thanks to patches submitted by users of our community, Inkscape
       can now be built on SGI IRIX 6.5.28, gcc 3.4.0 systems and on
       Tru64 systems.


Examples

     * With all the recent additions - clipping, masking, and especially
       blur - Inkscape is now able to produce extremely photorealistic
       art. In the share/examples folder in Inkscape distribution, you
       will find two brand new, stunningly realistic images of shiny
       cars: car.svgz by Konstantin Rotkevich and gallardo.svgz by
       Michael Grosberg.

     * Inkscape 0.45 does not yet have gradient meshes. But with the
       addition of Gaussian Blur, this feature suddenly got within reach.
       A new example file, gradient-mesh-experimental.svgz, explains the
       approach Inkscape will likely take to implement this feature in a
       fully SVG-compatible way.

     * Although Inkscape does not support animation yet, you can add any
       animation scripts and attributes to your SVG file manually in a
       text editor - and the file will still be editable in Inkscape.
       Tavmjong Bah used this technique to create animated-clock.svg
       which, when loaded in an SVG viewer supporting animation (such as
       Firefox, Opera, or Batik), demonstrates the intricate moving
       clockwork of a watch - and shows real time to boot! If loaded in
       Inkscape, the image is static, but instead you can freely edit any
       of the objects.


Translations

     * Remarkable improvements are in the Danish, Finnish, Nepalese and
       the Vietnamese translations of the user interface. They all jumped
       from 0 to over 90 percent in a very short timespan.

     * All people which are familiar with pig latin are now able to use
       Inkscape's user interface in that language. Isthay isway oughtbray
       otay usway ybay away ewnay anslatortray.

     * default lituanian template was not installed before, which is now
       fixed.

     * Updated British English, Catalan, Bulgarian and Thai translations.


Tutorials and Templates

     * New tutorial "Easter Eggs" by Steve Karg.

     * Added Catalan default template and elements tutorial.

     * Russian header and footer templates are added.


Bugfixes

     * When deleting a node, neighboring smooth nodes are converted to
       cusp.

     * Releasing the mouse button while dragging nodes using a tablet
       will now always release the nodes. Before this, a race condition
       could occur where dragging could continue after the mouse button
       was released.

     * An object's mask and clipping path are now preserved after
       Simplify, Object/Stroke to path, or boolean operations.

     * Ungrouping a group containing clipped/masked objects might
       sometime break the clip/mask (move it away); fixed.

     * User-supplied templates in ~/.inkscape/templates can now be SVGZ
       files in addition to SVG.

     * Previously, Inkscape didn't check if there's enough free memory
       for its pixel buffers and could crash without warning due to
       insufficient memory e.g. upon zooming in. This problem became much
       worse after implementing Gaussian blur, because rendering blurred
       objects at high zooms may require a pixel buffer much bigger than
       the visible canvas. Now this situation is handled more gracefully:
       if a display operation requires more memory than available, or
       more than 100Mb (which corresponds to a 5000x5000 pixel buffer),
       it is skipped. This may result in blurred objects "disappearing"
       at high zooms. This is purely a display issue, however, it never
       corrupts data; just zoom out (or reduce blur radius) and the
       disappeared object will show up OK.

     * When resizing objects, scaling numbers in the statusbar are no
       longer overwritten by other text when pressing special keys (alt,
       shift, ctrl).

     * To work around problems some users have had with pressure
       sensitive tablets ([66]bug), the pressure sensitivity can be
       disabled from the misc tab of Inkscape preferences dialogue. The
       tablet can then be used, though with reduced functionality.

     * The layer widget in the statusbar used to lose its current layer
       after an effect run; this is fixed.

     * When using different display resolutions or a dual screen setup,
       dialogs could be displayed off-screen; this is fixed: now Inkscape
       checks whether the saved position of the dialog is offscreen, if
       so it will move the dialog to the center of the screen. Note that
       this not solve all problems. If the dialog is still not visible,
       go to the [67]bugreport where a procedure is given to make the
       dialog visible (editting preferences.xml).

     * Performing a boolean union without selecting an object no longer
       crashes Inkscape.

     * Grid and guidelines no longer vanish when changing their color.

     * Group transformation is now correctly applied when ungrouping and
       undo'ing the ungroup.

     * Text dialog no longer discards the style of the selected text.


Known problems


Problem with Dialogs on Top on Microsoft Windows (win32)

   [Describe minimizing of document window problem, and solution:
   right-click taskbar button and press "Restore"]

OSX 10.3.9: cannot open files

   This bug is due to a missing symbol (_statvfs) in the system library
   /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib on 10.3.9. The dependency is introduced by
   one of the gnome-vf2 modules. It is not something we can easily fix
   other than by not linking with gnome-vfs2, which we will do for or
   upcoming 0.45 release if no other solution becomes apparent.
   [mjwybrow]

Problems with some Debian libgc-6.7 packages

     * Inkscape will hang or crash when linked with the first Debian
       packaged version of the Boehm garbage collection library. This
       problem was fixed in version 1:6.7-2 of the package. If you have
       libgc 6.7 on your Debian-based system, make sure that you are
       using that version of the package or later.


Beware of defective themes on Linux

     * Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the
       gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have
       filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part
       of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem. Update: this
       bug appears to be fixed in newer versions of gtk-engines. If you
       are affected by this problem please update to a newer version of
       gtk-engines. If problems persist then please inform the
       gtk-engines maintainers of the problem.

     * A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package
       gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on
       KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or
       uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both
       problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.