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| author | buliabyak <buliabyak@users.sourceforge.net> | |
| Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:04:52 +0000 (20:04 +0000) | ||
| committer | buliabyak <buliabyak@users.sourceforge.net> | |
| Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:04:52 +0000 (20:04 +0000) |
| NEWS | patch | blob | history |
index 5c4070c5bd090277e5a6b85cfd385df2ab6fbb32..88062d39b508a041b5c21784ffbcac470e5b1573 100644 (file)
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
Release Notes
- Inkscape 0.43
-
-In brief
-
- The focus of this release is on the exciting new features sponsored by
- Google via their Summer of Code program. However, we have quite a bunch of
- other stuff too. Here are the highlights:
-
- * Connectors: A new Connector tool implements creation, editing, and
- autorouting (object-avoiding) of connector lines between objects.
- Indispensable for diagramming. (A Google SoC project.)
- * Inkboard collaborative editing: You can now connect to other Inkscape
- users over the Net and edit a shared document together, watching
- others' changes and making yours! (A Google SoC project.)
- * Pressure and tilt sensitivity: the Calligraphy tool can now use a
- tablet pen with pressure/tilt support to vary the width and angle of
- the calligraphic stroke.
- * Better node editing: You can freely drag/bend/stretch a Bezier curve
- by any point (not only by a node), as well as add a new node at any
- point on the curve.
- * New extensions for envelope distortion, whirling, and adding nodes.
- * Improved precision, expanded limits, many usability improvements and
- bugfixes.
-
- Tavmjong Bah has updated his online book, A Guide to Inkscape
- (http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/index.php), to cover
- the Inkscape 0.43 features. This guide is not included with the Inkscape
- release. Users are encouraged to read the guide in addition to these
- release notes and the help included with Inkscape.
-
-Connectors
-
- * Inkscape now includes preliminary support for connectors. Connectors
- are lines drawn between objects, that stay connected to the objects as
- these objects are manipulated. Any object may have a "connector-avoid"
- property, which, when set, causes connectors to automatically route
- around the object.
-
- * The Connector tool (Ctrl+F2 or the o key) is a new way of creating and
- rerouting connectors, as well as marking objects "avoided" for the
- purpose of routing connectors.
-
- * A new connector can be drawn by clicking and dragging from any
- point on the canvas. The connector is finalized when the mouse is
- released. Connectors can also be created with two clicks, rather
- than click-and-drag, if this is preferred. In this case, click once
- on an empty point on the canvas to begin drawing the connector,
- then move the mouse to the new connector's target point and then
- click again to finalize the connector. Single clicking on a canvas
- object selects/deselects that object, just as in other tools.
-
- * Connection point handles are shown while the mouse cursor is
- hovering over a non-connector object in the connector tool.
- Currently they are shown only at the center of objects. When
- creating a connector, if the connector is started or ended over a
- connection point then the connector will be attached to that
- object. From then on the connector will be automatically rerouted
- whenever the attached object is moved.
-
- * Connectors attached to objects are currently drawn to the bounding
- box of those objects. It is planned that they will be drawn instead
- to the edges of objects.
-
- * A selected connector will show two endpoint handles. By clicking
- and dragging these, the connector can be rerouted and
- attached/detached from objects.
-
- * The Make connectors avoid selected objects button marks all objects
- in the selection as "avoided", causing all current and future
- connectors to automatically avoid these objects.
-
- * The Make connectors ignore selected objects button marks all
- objects in the selection as "ignored", causing all current and
- future connectors to completely ignore these objects. This is the
- default for all canvas items, i.e., no objects are automatically
- routed around by default.
-
-Inkboard
-
- A first release of the Inkboard collaborative editing system (also known
- as a "white board") is present in this version of Inkscape.
-
- * Inkboard must be enabled at compile time by passing --enable-inkboard
- to the configure script: Inkboard has known bugs, and may present
- security issues.
-
- * Inkboard uses the XMPP (http://www.xmpp.org/) protocol (used by Jabber
- (http://www.jabber.org/)) to link together Inkscape clients in a
- shared document session. Therefore, if you have a Jabber account, you
- can use Inkboard. (There are some exceptions, which are listed below
- in the "Known issues" section.) Inkboard uses the Loudmouth
- (http://loudmouth.imendio.org/) library for Jabber connectivity;
- versions 0.17.2 and above of the Loudmouth library are known to work.
-
- * Inkboard sessions may occur between two users or a group of users in a
- chatroom setting.
-
- Inkboard usage
-
- * You must first connect to a Jabber server before sharing a document.
- To do this, go to Whiteboard -> Connect to Jabber server. You will be
- prompted to enter a server name, your username, and password. You may
- specify a specific port to connect on, and whether or not you would
- like to connect via SSL.
-
- * After connecting, you may establish a session with another user or a
- chatroom. To connect to another user, go to Whiteboard -> Share with
- user. Inkboard can import your Jabber contact list, and will present a
- list of online contacts to you. You may select any contact in the
- contact list, or enter a Jabber ID to connect to.
-
- * Similarly, you can establish a connection with a chatroom by going to
- Whiteboard -> Share with chatroom.
-
- * If you are contacted by another user, Inkscape will present a dialog
- telling you that you have received an invitation. The dialog contains
- the Jabber ID of the user contacting you, and offers you three
- choices: decline the invitation, accept the invitation, or accept the
- invitation in a new window.
-
- * Inkboard can record a session's contents for playback at a later time.
-
- * If you are establishing a session, click the Write session file
- checkbox in the share with user dialog to enable session
- recording. You will need to provide the name of a file to which
- the session contents can be written.
- * If you are accepting a session invitation, click the Write
- session file checkbox in the invitation dialog to enable session
- recording. You will need to provide the name of a file to which
- the session contents can be written.
- * To play back a session, go to Whiteboard -> Open session file.
-
- * The Whiteboard -> Dump XML tracker menu item is intended for debugging
- purposes only.
-
-Pressure and tilt sensitivity
-
- Support for extended input devices has been added.
-
- * The Calligraphy tool now has optional pressure and tilt support from
- an input device such as a tablet. Pressure can be used to alter the
- width of the pen and tilt can be used to alter the angle of the pen's
- nib.
-
- * A standard input device dialog has been added (in File menu). Input
- device settings are saved to and loaded from the preferences.
+
+ From Inkscape Wiki
+
+ Contents
+
+ * 1 Inkscape 0.44: overview
+ * 2 Performance
+
+ * 2.1 Outline mode
+ * 2.2 Speed
+
+ * 3 SVG conformance
+
+ * 3.1 Color profile support
+ * 3.2 <switch> support
+ * 3.3 SVG output
+
+ * 4 Interface
+
+ * 4.1 Layers dialog
+ * 4.2 Selected style indicator
+ * 4.3 Tool style indicators
+ * 4.4 Controls bar for the Text tool
+ * 4.5 Docked color palette
+ * 4.6 Inkscape Preferences dialog
+ * 4.7 Document Properties / Metadata dialogs
+ * 4.8 Configurable keyboard
+ * 4.9 Menus
+ * 4.10 Statusbar
+ * 4.11 Theme
+
+ * 5 Tools
+
+ * 5.1 Node tool
+
+ * 5.1.1 Node sculpting
+ * 5.1.2 "Show handles" toggle
+ * 5.1.3 New deletion behavior
+ * 5.1.4 Preserving positions of nodes and handles
+ * 5.1.5 Miscellaneous
+
+ * 5.2 Calligraphic pen
+
+ * 5.2.1 Tremor
+ * 5.2.2 Pen width
+ * 5.2.3 Selection
+ * 5.2.4 Style
+
+ * 5.3 Pen tool
+
+ * 6 Clipping and masking
+ * 7 Transformations
+
+ * 7.1 Transform dialog
+ * 7.2 Persistent rotation centers
+ * 7.3 Pasting size
+
+ * 8 Connectors and automatic layout
+ * 9 Selective tracing with SIOX
+ * 10 Snapping
+ * 11 Sublayers
+ * 12 Markers
+ * 13 Extensions
+ * 14 Formats
+ * 15 Miscellaneous shortcuts
+ * 16 Miscellaneous improvements
+ * 17 Miscellaneous bugfixes
+ * 18 Translations
+ * 19 Internal
+ * 20 Known problems
+
+ * 20.1 Problems with libgc-6.7
+ * 20.2 Namespaces may need fixing
+ * 20.3 Beware of defective themes on Linux
+ * 20.4 Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it
+
+ * 21 Previous releases
+
+
+Inkscape 0.44: overview
+
+ Inkscape 0.44 is bigger and better than ever. Some highlights:
+
+ * Layers dialog
+
+ * Outline mode, many performance improvements
+
+ * Native PDF export with transparency
+
+ * Clipping and masking support
+
+ * Configurable keyboard shortcuts, including Xara X emulation
+
+ * Docked color palette in the editing window
+
+ * Interactive indicator of the style of selection in the statusbar
+
+ * Innovative "node sculpting" and other improvements in Node tool
+
+ * Extensions are enabled by default and work on all major platforms
+
+ * Better SVG support: <switch> element, ICC color profiles for images
+
+ * Persistent rotation centers, Paste Size command
+
+ * New icons, redesigned preferences dialogs, rearranged menus, many
+ cosmetic improvements
+
+ * Hundreds of bugfixes and smaller features
+
+ * Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since
+ our last release, Firefox 1.5 was released with SVG support enabled by
+ default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right
+ in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing
+ any plugins!
+
+
+ Performance
+
+
+Outline mode
+
+ An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View >
+ Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:
+
+ * all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light
+ background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel
+ regardless of zoom), without fill;
+
+ * text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;
+
+ * bitmaps are shown as is;
+
+ * any opacity and gradients are ignored.
+
+ The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode
+ (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be
+ slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed;
+ it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your
+ document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding
+ "stray objects".
+
+
+Speed
+
+ In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with
+ complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed
+ improvements in many areas.
+
+ * Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is
+ faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex
+ stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.
+
+ * Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for
+ node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path
+ selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least
+ ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and
+ node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected
+ nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when
+ working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing
+ several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.
+
+ * An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such
+ as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster
+ compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving
+ clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in
+ which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.
+
+ * Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in
+ share/icons/icons.svg) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for
+ all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This
+ eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.
+
+ * Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially
+ big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory
+ use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process
+ the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now
+ almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40
+ times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the
+ zoom, the greater is the gain).
+
+ * The Path > Break Apart command is now dozens of times (up to 100x)
+ faster for complex paths with thousands of subpaths.
+
+
+ SVG conformance
+
+
+Color profile support
+
+ Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with
+ LittleCMS support (if you run configure with --enable-lcms switch),
+ Inkscape passes the ICC color profile test by W3C. The <color-profile>
+ element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for
+ <image> elements.
+
+
+<switch> support
+
+ Rendering support for SVG 1.1's Conditional Processing Module has been
+ implemented, including switch element, requiredFeatures,
+ requiredExtensions, systemLanguage attributes. Inkscape passes the
+ Conditional processing tests ([1] and [2]) by W3C.
+
+
+SVG output
+
+ * In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name
+ (`white') or three-digit form (`#f3c') when possible.
+
+ * The numeric values in transform attributes are written without
+ insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by
+ absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to
+ reduce clutter.
+
+
+ Interface
+
+
+Layers dialog
+
+ A Layers dialog (Ctrl+Shift+L) is implemented in this version. It works in
+ parallel with the quick layer selector in the statusbar, so you can use
+ whichever is more convenient for you.
+
+ * In the dialog, you can click on a layer to make it current, as well as
+ toggle layers visible/hidden and locked/unlocked. You don't need to
+ make a layer current to toggle it visibility or lock status.
+
+ * A hierarchical tree of layers is represented by a tree-like display in
+ the dialog. You can expand or collapse branches of the tree to make
+ the layer structure of a document easier to navigate.
+
+ * At the bottom of the dialog, there are buttons for adding a new layer,
+ moving the current layer up or down (either one step or all the way to
+ top or bottom), and deleting the current layer.
+
+ * Below the buttons, there's a slider and a spinbutton for adjusting the
+ opacity of the current layer. A layer's opacity affects all objects in
+ that layer in the same way as opacity of a group.
+
+
+Selected style indicator
+
+ A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and
+ change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text
+ selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool,
+ this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or
+ gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the
+ Fill&Stroke dialog.)
+
+ * The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill
+ and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient
+ handles, they always display the same style.)
+
+ * Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch
+ (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the
+ master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected),
+ None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R
+ Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different
+ (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).
+
+ * Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m
+ ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same
+ fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects
+ with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the
+ average of these colors).
+
+ * Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog
+ with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.
+
+ * Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following
+ items:
+
+ * Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog
+ with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
+ * Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke
+ color that was last applied to anything.
+ * Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the
+ fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator.
+ (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects:
+ select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
+ * Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current
+ color (does not affect opacity).
+ * White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color
+ (fully opaque).
+ * Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke
+ color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in
+ the #rrggbb hex format.
+ * Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types
+ and colors, if any).
+ * Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not
+ master transparency!).
+ * Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
+ * Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected
+ objects.
+
+ * Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from
+ selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator
+ displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command
+ from the popup menu.
+
+ * Drag and Drop of colors onto a fill/stroke indicator sets the fill and
+ stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.
+
+ * The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection
+ (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke
+ widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch.
+ Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style
+ tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you
+ to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose
+ one of the presets to assign to selection.
+
+ * To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field
+ (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of
+ the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected
+ objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with
+ preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the
+ opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).
+
+ The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged
+ for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also
+ a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.
+
+
+Tool style indicators
+
+ For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text),
+ the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the
+ right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will
+ have.
+
+ * The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to
+ use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For
+ example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected)
+ changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last
+ set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your
+ "brush" before you start to draw.
+
+
+Controls bar for the Text tool
+
+ * This version adds the beginnings of a Controls Bar for the Text tool
+ (previously empty). Now you can select the font family, size, apply
+ bold and italic styles, change alignment and text orientation without
+ opening the Text and Font dialog.
+
+ * All controls are instant-apply and work on the entire text object (if
+ nothing selected) or text selection. They can also apply to multiple
+ text objects (though you would need to switch to Selector to select
+ multiple text objects, then switch back to Text tool for its
+ controls).
+
+ * The font-family drop-down contains names and previews of all fonts;
+ unlike other programs, we didn't apply each font to its name, but
+ added a separate preview string displayed with gray color after each
+ font's name. This design ensures readability of font family names and
+ provides maximum useful information in a limited space.
+
+ * We will be adding more controls (including spacing and kerning) to
+ this bar for the next versions.
+
+
+Docked color palette
+
+ * Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette
+ (Ctrl+Shift+W). Now the color swatches palette is embedded in the main
+ UI, at the bottom of the window between the canvas and the statusbar.
+ It is enabled by default; use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or
+ disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the
+ floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the
+ swatches menu.
+
+ * The Wrap option (off by default) in the swatches menu converts the
+ palette from a single row into a frame 2 or 3 rows high, for better
+ access to colors in large palettes.
+
+ * Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
+
+ * Dragging colors from a palette shows a live swatch of the color
+ being dragged under cursor.
+ * Drag and Drop of colors onto the selected style indicator in the
+ statusbar sets the fill or stroke of the selected object(s).
+ * Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set
+ their fill, or shift+dropped to set their stroke. This affects
+ only the object you drop the color on, regardless of whether that
+ object is selected or not.
+ * Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.
+
+ * The new Inkscape default color palette was added. It contains a range
+ of grays, standard HTML named colors, and a full range of colors
+ sorted by their HSL values (475 colors overall). It is generated by a
+ Python script which is available from Inkscape SVN in share/palettes.
+
+ * Several specialized color palettes, useful in color-coordinated
+ projects, were created or borrowed from GIMP: Grays, Reds, Greens,
+ Blues, Gold, Royal, Khaki, Hilite, and Topographic.
+
+ * All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge)
+ are made smaller overall.
+
+
+Inkscape Preferences dialog
+
+ Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and
+ redesigned, with numerous bugs fixed in the rewrite.
+
+ * The dialog is now fully GNOME-HIG compliant.
+
+ * As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more
+ precision.
+
+
+Document Properties / Metadata dialogs
+
+ * The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and
+ it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document
+ Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.
+
+ * A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if
+ there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the
+ canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very
+ easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.
+
+ * New controls: the new object snapping features required their own
+ property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a
+ slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).
+
+ * Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related
+ was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own,
+ the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were
+ categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely
+ rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.
+
+ * Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no
+ longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license
+ URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed;
+ data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same
+ window.
+
+ * HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details
+ are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.
+
+ * Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest
+ 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.
+
+
+Configurable keyboard
+
+ Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!
+
+ At this time, not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts
+ customized. However, the majority of actions, including everything you see
+ in the menus, are already configurable, and we're working on making more
+ actions configurable.
+
+ On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from
+ share/keys/default.xml. That file is a copy of inkscape.xml in the same
+ directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other
+ vector editors:
+
+ * xara.xml: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys
+
+ You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all
+ profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still
+ have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some
+ vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files
+ have a simple XML-based format described in inkscape.xml.
+
+ You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the
+ main default.xml. If your profile directory (~/.inkscape on Linux)
+ contains a keys subdirectory with a default.xml file, the keybindings from
+ that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict)
+ the default bindings. The format of your own default.xml is the same as
+ that of the main default.xml.
+
+
+Menus
+
+ * Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and
+ Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.
+
+ * Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more
+ descriptive names and tips.
+
+ * Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved
+ into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.
+
+ * The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and
+ several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.
+
+
+Statusbar
+
+ * In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports
+ their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays
+
+ 5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.
+
+ instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to
+ 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:
+
+ 5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer
+ LayerName.
+
+ The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the
+ objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in
+ selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:
+
+ 5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.
+
+ * In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such,
+ and the group ID is given, for example:
+
+ Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)
+
+ If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for
+ example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it),
+ the number of parents is reported:
+
+ 2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents
+ (layer content)
+
+ If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is
+ reported since this also implies different parents:
+
+ 2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers
+
+ * In Node tool, if your node selection includes nodes from different
+ subpaths, statusbar reports the number of subpaths with selection and
+ the total number of subpaths, for example:
+
+ 2 of 195 nodes selected in 2 of 36 subpaths.
+
+ * The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip
+ that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar.
+
+ * The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is
+ insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to
+ show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).
+
+
+Theme
+
+ * Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre
+ Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and
+ cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the
+ icons represent more self-evident.
+
+
+ Tools
+
Node tool
- * Clicking on a selected path selects the two nodes closest to the click
- point. Shift+click adds or removes these two nodes to the node
- selection (when only one path is selected; otherwise Shift+click works
- as in Selector).
-
- * Double click or Ctrl+Alt+click anywhere on the selected path (even if
- it is under other objects) creates a new node at the click point,
- without changing the shape of the path. (Previously, you could only
- add a node in the middle of a segment by using a toolbar button.)
-
- * You can now edit the selected path (even if it's under other objects)
- by dragging any curve point, not only node(s) as before. In many cases
- it's a much more convenient way to reshape paths than anything
- available before. When you drag a curve close enough to one of the
- nodes, only that node's handle(s) are affected; if you drag a point
- midway between two nodes, both nodes' handles are adjusted.
-
- * When mouse is over a draggable path, the cursor is changed to
- include a hand.
-
- * As in Selector, if you press Shift before starting to drag, you always
- get a node selection rubberband rectangle (even if you start on a path
- but not a node!).
-
- * After duplicating (Shift+D) an endnode, the selected node is always
- the new endnode, so you can move it at once.
-
- * Selected nodes are displayed a little larger than non-selected ones.
-
-Extensions
-
- * Add Nodes: Adds nodes to the selected paths. Each segment of the
- selected path is subdivided into ceil(Length/Max) equal length
- segments. Lengths are measured in SVG User Units calculated from the
- path data and does not take into account any transforms.
-
- * Whirl: Twists the selected paths around the specified center point.
- * Summer's Night: Linearly distorts a path into the destination
- quadrilateral. The destination quadrilateral is specified by a four
- node path (closed or not). To use, draw and position a four node path.
- Select the four node path first and then add to selection the path you
- wish to distort. The original position of the four nodes is considered
- to be clockwise around the bounding box of the path to distort
- beginning in the upper left corner.
-
- * The Wavy extension is renamed to Function Plotter and got many fixes
- and improvements. Importantly, now you don't have to provide an
- analytic formula for the derivative; instead, check the "Calculate the
- first derivative numerically" checkbox and it will itself calculate
- the angle at each node. In the function/derivative formulas, you can
- use functions from the math (http://docs.python.org/lib/module-math.html)
- and random (http://docs.python.org/lib/module-random.html) Python
- modules. As before, you need to have a rectangle selected before calling
- this extension.
-
- * Development continues on SVGSlice but it has not yet been fully
- integrated into Inkscape. Please visit Digital Unleashed
- (http://www.digitalunleashed.com/giving.php) for details and downloads.
-
-More new functionality
-
- * A separate project, the Open Clip Art Library Browser provides an easy
- way to browse local and remote clipart collections and insert clipart
- into Inkscape. Please visit
- http://www.python.org/pypi/clipartbrowser/0.41 for details and
- downloads. (A Google SoC project.)
+ Node sculpting
+
+ An entirely new way of manipulating paths in Node tool is added in this
+ version: Node sculpting. Normally, when you have several nodes selected
+ and you drag one of them, all selected nodes move by the same amount. Now,
+ if you Alt-drag one of the selected nodes, only that node is fully
+ displaced; other selected nodes are moved less than the full amount, so
+ that those farthest from the drag point remain stationary. This is similar
+ to "proportional editing" or "soft selection" in 3D editors such as
+ Blender.
+
+ So, for example, if you select several nodes on a straight line and
+ Alt+drag the middle selected node, the path will bend into a smooth
+ bell-like curve. Nodes' handles are also adjusted correspondingly to keep
+ the overall shape smooth and natural. (If you don't have enough nodes on a
+ path fragment that you want to reshape in this way, just select the end
+ nodes of that fragment and press Ins a few times to populate it with
+ nodes.)
+
+ Moreover, node sculpting is sensitive to pressure of your tablet pen. If
+ you press slightly, your curve will have a narrow sharp tip (i.e. the
+ nearest neighbors of your dragged node will move only a bit); if you press
+ hard, the curve's tip will be wide and blunt (i.e. the nearest neighbors
+ will move almost as much as the dragged node). (Hint: to stop dragging
+ without losing your shape, first release Alt and then lift the tip of the
+ pen.)
+
+ There are many possible applications of the sculpting technique. To take a
+ simple example, selecting all nodes of an ellipse-like shape and
+ Alt+dragging one of them will smoothly and naturally stretch and skew the
+ entire shape in any direction. Doing the same to a complex path, such as
+ star or spiral, will twist and punch it without destroying its intricate
+ structure - this is the way to get squashed or self-intersecting stars,
+ eccentric spirals and other shapes not easily doable before. Selecting
+ only part of all nodes allows you to smoothly reshape parts of the figure
+ without disturbing the rest.
+
+ When applied to text converted to path, node sculpting is a fun and easy
+ way to twist, bend and distort it, achieving effects similar to
+ "perspective envelope" or "curvilinear envelope" in other programs - but
+ in a more powerful and flexible way. For example, by selecting all or part
+ of the text's nodes and Alt-dragging, you can not only make a wavy banner
+ out of a paragraph of text, but also apply a "magnifying lens"-like effect
+ to any word in the middle.
+
+ Especially useful node sculpting is for complex natural paths, such as
+ calligraphic strokes or bitmap traces, where you often want to do
+ large-scale pushes and bends without destroying the small-scale features.
+ Things like making a calligraphic stroke narrower in one place and wider
+ in another, or changing the proportions, extending the ear or flattening
+ the nose of a head - all this is now much faster and more natural to do
+ using sculpting. It is also a new way to create new paths, too - starting
+ from en ellipse with added nodes, it takes just a few Alt+drags to tweak
+ it into a silhouette of a head, or a map of Australia, or an Inkscape
+ logo!
+
+ Some examples are shown on the screenshot:
+ [www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png].
+
+
+ "Show handles" toggle
+
+ The Controls bar for the Nodes tool now includes a toggle button which
+ controls whether Bezier handles are shown on selected nodes (on by
+ default). Selecting and dragging nodes on node-dense paths in zoom-out
+ (e.g. for node sculpting) may be extremely difficult without hiding the
+ handles, as it's hard to pick a node and not a handle when handles are
+ shown.
+
+
+ New deletion behavior
+
+ * In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by
+ Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible,
+ the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to
+ those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the
+ form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you
+ Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete
+ it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old
+ deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via
+ Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.
+
+
+ Preserving positions of nodes and handles
+
+ * When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric
+ by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one
+ of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the
+ other handle is rotated/scaled to match.
+
+ * Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can
+ preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse
+ over it, so that only the other node is moved.
+
+
+ Miscellaneous
+
+ * The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e.
+ subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire
+ path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with
+ current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)
+
+ * The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool
+ is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.
+
+
+Calligraphic pen
+
+
+ Tremor
+
+ * Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the
+ Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To
+ enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the
+ Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from
+ 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight
+ unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands
+ the creative range of the tool.
+
+
+ Pen width
+
+ * In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way
+ that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were
+ in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes
+ sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of
+ zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your
+ drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but
+ feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but
+ now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant
+ in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the
+ checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by
+ double-clicking the tool button).
+
+ * The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100,
+ which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous
+ version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value
+ in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the
+ default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100%
+ zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom
+ levels.
+
+
+ Selection
+
+ * A new preferences option for the Calligraphic tool, Keep selected,
+ controls whether the newly created object remains selected after you
+ finish drawing it. If you turn it off (by default it's on) and set the
+ tool to using Last Set color, you can easily choose a new color by
+ clicking on the palette without having to worry if this will change
+ the color of the stroke you just created. (Watch the tool style
+ indicator at the right end of the Controls bar for the style of the
+ next stroke you will draw.)
+
+ * Esc deselects selected objects in Calligraphic, as in most other
+ tools.
+
+
+ Style
+
+ * The stroke you're drawing is now shown, while you're drawing it, with
+ the correct color and opacity that it will eventually have, instead of
+ always black as before.
+
+ * On a new Inkscape installation, this tool now uses the last set style
+ by default instead of the fixed black as before (this is changeable in
+ the Inkscape Preferences for the tool).
+
+
+Pen tool
+
+ * While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by
+ the same keys as in Node tool - that is, arrows, with Shift (for 10x
+ displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.
+
+ * Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path
+ being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U),
+ again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.
+
+ * By popular demand, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished,
+ Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc),
+ instead of undoing the previous action.
+
+ * In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last
+ created point on the unfinished path.
+
+
+ Clipping and masking
+
+ Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.
+
+ * Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a
+ clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is
+ visible.
+
+ * To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the
+ clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the
+ other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
+ * You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual.
+ The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each
+ clipped object.
+ * To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping
+ path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is
+ inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.
+
+ * Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called
+ mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully
+ transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become
+ fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate
+ levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for
+ example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
+
+ * To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask
+ object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order,
+ and do Object > Mask > Set.
+ * You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual.
+ The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked
+ object.
+ * To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is
+ returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on
+ top of the unmasked object in z-order.
+
+ * Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the
+ bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox
+ as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath
+ of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)
+
+ * Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked",
+ correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.
+
+ * Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks
+ for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which
+ may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
+
+ * Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown
+ correctly upon loading of the document.
+ * Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
+ * Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted
+ between documents.
+
+
+ Transformations
+
+
+Transform dialog
+
+ Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):
+
+ * The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to
+ scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that
+ object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed
+ as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions.
+ (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).
+
+ * The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.
+
+ * The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size
+ increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale
+ proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the
+ width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally
+ with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to
+ specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will
+ have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that
+ specific object.)
+
+ * The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement
+ (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of
+ the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage
+ displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting
+ the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g.
+ horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle
+ being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain
+ horizontal).
+
+ * The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the
+ current transform= matrix of an object, or post-multiply the
+ transform= with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current
+ matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in
+ the Object Properties dialog is removed.)
+
+ * The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active
+ document window and updates its values accordingly.
+
+ * The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added
+ for better usability.
+
+ * Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.
+
+
+Persistent rotation centers
+
+ * The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by
+ Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you
+ select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the
+ document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is
+ moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always
+ remains the same unless you move it explicitly.
+
+ * When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center
+ of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center
+ set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects
+ will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box
+ (as before).
+
+ * Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the
+ object's box.
+
+ * Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action;
+ you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.
+
+ * Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the
+ Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's
+ rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of
+ the first selected object).
+
+ * Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including
+ clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.
+
+
+Pasting size
+
+ A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match
+ the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all
+ in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:
+
+ * Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the
+ clipboard object(s).
+
+ * Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection
+ horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the
+ clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the
+ Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock
+ is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in
+ the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.
+
+ * Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height
+ Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that
+ they scale each selected object separately to make it match the
+ size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).
+
+
+ Connectors and automatic layout
+
+ * There have been numerous bugfixes and several improvements to the
+ behaviour of connectors and the connector tool:
+
+ * Connectors moved as part of a selection will now stay attached to
+ other objects in the selection, rather than becoming detached
+ from them.
+ * By default, the Connector tool will not attach connectors to text
+ objects. There is a new checkbox in the connector preferences to
+ control this setting.
+ * The margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting
+ connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the
+ controls bar.
+
+ * Automatic Diagram Layout: A new button is available in the Align and
+ Distribute dialog that performs automatic layout of diagrams involving
+ a network of shapes and connectors. Layout is accomplished using
+ force-directed graph layout based on the Kamada-Kawai algorithm. This
+ algorithm treats edges as if they are springs such that the distance
+ between nodes will be proportional to the path length - number of
+ connectors - between them. Disconnected components (where not every
+ shape is connected) will be arranged around the circumference of a
+ circle.
+
+ * There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects
+ enough that they don't overlap each other. A minimum spacing between
+ the boundaries of objects can be specified. Together with the
+ automatic layout tool, described above, this should be a significant
+ addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. Removing overlaps is
+ different from the "Unclump" button in that the former is completely
+ deterministic and guarantees removing overlaps on the first
+ application, but is not concerned with visual perceptive distances
+ between objects. Unclumping, on the other hand, attempts to equalize
+ perceptive distances between objects and can be applied repeatedly for
+ gradual effect.
+
+
+ Selective tracing with SIOX
+
+ * Inkscape 0.44 has an early version of the Simple Interactive Object
+ Extraction (SIOX) algorithm (see siox.org) implemented in its bitmap
+ tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see
+ this file. This clever algorithm from the realm of Image Recognition
+ allows you to select areas of similar color, with the goal of
+ extracting a foreground area from the background. To use:
+
+ * Enable the SIOX checkbox in addition to your usual tracing
+ options.
+ * Select both the bitmap and an object that covers the foreground
+ and part of background, leaving only background areas of the
+ image uncovered.
+ * Hit OK. SIOX will now analyze and attempt to pull out the
+ foreground-colored areas you want, and trace only those parts of
+ the image.
+
+ * The full SIOX selection mechanism (e.g. the ability to identify
+ foreground and background areas separately) is not implemented yet,
+ but is planned for a future release.
+
+
+ Snapping
+
+ * In addition to be able to snap to guides and grids, you can now snap
+ to objects or their paths or nodes. Be aware, however, that this is
+ both experimental code - there may be surprises - and you can easily
+ find yourself in a situation where inkscape tries to snap your 1000
+ nodes to 1000 surrounding objects, something that will take over your
+ CPU. So be careful what option you turn on in the Document Preferences
+ dialog and where you use it.
+
+ * Guidelines are made easier to pick: now you don't need to position
+ mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it, instead there's a small
+ position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).
+
+
+ Sublayers
+
+ Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by
+ entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true
+ persistent sublayers within a layer.
+
+ * The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below,
+ or inside the current layer.
+
+ * In Preferences (Selecting tab), options are added allowing the "Select
+ All" command and Tab key selection to work either in the current layer
+ only or in the current layer and its sublayers.
+
+
+ Markers
+
+ * Converting stroke to path now correctly processes dashed strokes. For
+ paths with markers, this command now creates a group containing the
+ stroke converted to path and all its markers as independent objects
+ (i.e. they are not markers anymore, but instead you can easily
+ transform them or paint them any color, as a workaround for the
+ "markers don't take the color of the stroke" bug; to be properly
+ fixed, this bug requires implementing some SVG 1.2 features).
+
+ * The DimensionIn and DimensionOut markers are changed so that the arrow
+ tips exactly correspond to node positions. It is now very easy to make
+ dimension lines that correspond to drawn objects. The dimension
+ specifications can now easily be chained by splitting a straight line
+ at a point and assigning DimensionIn/Out markers to the resulting
+ smaller paths whose endpoints coincide.
+
+ * All arrow markers in the standard set are moved on the path so that
+ their tips are as close as possible to the corresponding node of the
+ path. Complete coincidence is not possible, because it would cause the
+ blunt end of the stroke itself to be visible under the sharp tip of
+ the arrow, distorting its shape. However, now the arrow tips are much
+ closer to their nodes than before, and probably sufficiently close for
+ many practical situations.
+
+ * A new RazorWire path marker was added. By applying it as a mid-marker
+ you can get a good approximation of a razor wire.
+
+
+ Extensions
+
+ * The Effects menu is now always on, it's no longer an "experimental
+ feature". The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed.
+
+ * Python extensions (which includes almost all currently available
+ extensions) work on Windows out of the box, using a copy of Python
+ shipping with Inkscape. The only minor inconvenience is that when an
+ effect is launched, you get an empty console window that stays on
+ while the effect is doing its work. (Don't close that window, it will
+ disappear by itself when the effect is finished.)
+
+ * A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any
+ LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this
+ formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips,
+ and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.
+
+ * A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current
+ selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet
+ the specified criteria for flatness.
+
+ * A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path
+ in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).
+
+ * The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal
+ distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before,
+ which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.
+
+ * The Render > L-system (formerly "Fractal (Lindenmayer)") effect is
+ improved in this version. Now you can specify different angle values
+ for turning left and right, which makes it possible to smoothly bend
+ some L-systems sideways. Also, you can separately randomize the step
+ length and the angles by a given percent for more natural look (this
+ works especially well with plant-like branching shapes). This effect
+ can be used to create Penrose tiling, Sierpinsky triangle, Dragon
+ curve and other famous mathematical artefacts, as well as various
+ meanders, friezes, patterns, and trees. Some examples can be seen on
+ this screenshot:
+ inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png as well
+ as in the new example file share/examples/l-systems.svg.
+
+ * The Interpolate Path, Random Tree, and L-system effects are fixed to
+ place their result on the current layer instead of document root and
+ in the center of the (last-saved) document view instead of 0,0 as
+ before.
+
+ * INX files now have the ability to hold more information. This includes
+ tooltips and descriptions of the extensions. These are all also
+ translatable.
+
+ * Thanks to keyboard configurability, it is now possible to assign
+ keyboard shortcuts to those effects you use most often, so you can
+ activate them without going into the menu.
+
+
+ Formats
+
+ * Inkscape's PDF export is now native (i.e. does not require any
+ external applications) and supports transparency, including gradients
+ with transparency. This replaced the old export extension that
+ required Ghostscript and worked via Postscript, losing any
+ transparency. The new PDF export is still immature; in particular it
+ does not handle text, so you should check "Convert text to path" on
+ the export options dialog. Other things not yet supported include:
+ gradients on stroke; eccentric elliptic gradients; patterns, masks,
+ and clipping paths; embedded images.
+
+ * You can now Save as Compressed Inkscape SVG with media.This save
+ option collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive
+ for distribution. Although you cannot open the resulting archive
+ directly with inkscape, the media is linked such that after unzipping
+ you can open the SVG file immediately.
+
+ * An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade
+ and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file
+ with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format
+ should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.
+
+ * Inkscape can open/import default files generated by the Xfig vector
+ graphics editor. This requires that the fig2dev command (transfig) is
+ in your PATH.
+
+ * Starting with this version, there is a limited ability to export
+ Inkscape drawing shapes as Open Document Format drawings (.odg files).
+ Currently the export is limited to text, shapes, and solid fill and
+ strokes. This output will be improved in the coming months. In the
+ meantime, however, ODG output is already useful for getting your SVG
+ drawings into the Open Document world, in particular into an office
+ suite such as OpenOffice.org.
+
+ * The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e.
+ layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them
+ into an XCF for procesing in the Gimp. Requires Python, PyXML and
+ Gimp. Gimp 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named gimp. A
+ version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path.
+ Does not function in Windows.
+
+
+ Miscellaneous shortcuts
+
+ * Now you can use Shift+middle button drag, in any tool, to zoom into an
+ area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster
+ because it does not require switching away from your current tool.
+ Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom
+ in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set
+ of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.
+
+ * In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e.
+ mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For
+ example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery
+ becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the
+ gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle
+ is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the
+ Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.)
+ This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike
+ linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.
+
+ * In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a
+ temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one
+ layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).
+
+
+ Miscellaneous improvements
+
+ * Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in
+ the templates subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux
+ it's ~/.inkscape/templates), then in the system-wide Inkscape
+ templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top
+ of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default
+ template with your own one (the default.svg in the profile directory
+ has priority over the system-wide one).
+
+ * When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke
+ width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message
+ is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the
+ program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of
+ complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and
+ were surprised by the result.
+
+ * Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k,
+ 4k etc.
+
+ * In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool
+ is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and
+ opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the
+ selected style indicator in the statusbar.
+
+ * In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.
+
+ * The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners
+ with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still
+ available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when
+ scaling rectangles).
+
+ * Added a new --export-area-canvas command line parameter that causes
+ the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as
+ --export-area-drawing and --export-area can now be used along with
+ --export-id and --export-id-only for greater flexibility.
+
+ * The --query-* command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding
+ box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with
+ inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use
+ of Inkscape.
+
+ * The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now
+ possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.
+
+ * Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can
+ now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes
+ (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the
+ --query-* command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of
+ tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are
+ still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)
+
+ * The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer
+ accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing
+ "Broken image".
+
+ * Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each
+ selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate
+ command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.
+
+ * The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged
+ into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes
+ itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable),
+ and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when
+ the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build
+ information in the upper right corner.
+
+ * In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped
+ horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation;
+ the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon
+ sets.
+
+ * The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a
+ closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer
+ lock in the statusbar).
+
+ * The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser,
+ same as those used by Open and Save.
+
+
+ Miscellaneous bugfixes
+
+ * Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI not only did not
+ cause Inkscape to complain, but could also "pollute" Inkscape's
+ internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently
+ saved documents by the incorrect namespace. This is now fixed, but as
+ a result, documents with incorrect namespace URIs will no longer load.
+ You will have to edit them in a text editor to fix the namespaces.
+
+ * With newer versions of GTK, dragging with graphics tablet pen did not
+ work in some tools and contexts (in particular, in Node and Rectangle
+ tools). This is fixed.
+
+ * Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired
+ shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension
+ which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width
+ when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both
+ for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the
+ Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects"
+ option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer
+ lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in
+ the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There
+ may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects
+ with different stroke widths.
+
+ * Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify
+ stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px
+ stroke.
+
+ * The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include
+ stroke width. This has been fixed.
+
+ * Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units
+ instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins
+ rendered as bevel).
+
+ * The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when
+ you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively
+ correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the
+ unfinished path in Pen tool.
+
+ * Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's
+ font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially)
+ very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in
+ each session is gone.
+
+ * Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and
+ copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to
+ objects with transforms.
+
+ * An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom
+ operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape
+ redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive
+ because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing
+ changes on the screen). This is fixed.
+
+ * Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in
+ visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.
+
+ * The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the
+ initial dot.
+
+ * Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with
+ SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.
+
+ * Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts
+ directory, in addition to the other standard places.
+
+ * Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we
+ now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which
+ is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.
+
+ * Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file
+ for extensions.
+
+ * More document memory is now freed when documents are closed.
+
+ * EPS output now correctly includes an %%EOF footer.
+
+ * There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though
+ annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse
+ was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if
+ the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This
+ regression has been fixed.
+
+ * The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects
+ between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour.
+ This has been fixed.
+
+ * There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious
+ outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been
+ fixed.
+
+ * There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks
+ in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same
+ time (see bug #1352522 for further details). This should be fixed,
+ although the fix has not been widely tested.
+
+ * There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session
+ invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result
+ of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.
+
+
+ Translations
+
+ * INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the
+ user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs,
+ file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by
+ translators.
+
+ * Now, 38 languages are translated, of which 12 significantly: Catalan,
+ Czech, German, Spanish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Lituanian,
+ Russian, Slovene, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. Average
+ translation ratio has increased from 49% to 55%.
+
+ * Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors :
+ Czech, Portuguese (Brazil) and Russian.
+
+
+ Internal
+
+ * The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which
+ lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget
+ objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs,
+ too, and the code is much more readable.
+
+ * Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the
+ purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended
+ with 40% of include lines removed!
+
+
+ Known problems
+
+
+ Problems with libgc-6.7
+
+ * Inkscape will hang or even crash when linked with this (newest)
+ version of the Boehm garbage collection library. Make sure you use
+ libgc-6.5 or 6.6 until this is sorted out.
+
+
+ Namespaces may need fixing
+
+ * Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with
+ wrong namespace URIs. This has been fixed, but such corrupted
+ documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require
+ their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand.
+
+
+ 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, however, but it would be
+ nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers
+ of the problem. See especially
+ http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312115 (thanks to Thomas
+ Wood)
+ * 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.
+
+
+ Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it
+
+ * If you were using certain CVS/SVN builds from autumn of 2005, you may
+ have the file menus.xml hanging around in your profile directory (e.g.
+ ~/.inkscape on Linux). In that case you will see many errors about
+ verbs that cannot be found, and some commands in menus will be
+ disabled. Make sure to delete menus.xml to fix this.
+
+
+ Previous releases
+
+ * ReleaseNotes043
+ (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
+ * ReleaseNotes042
+ (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
+ * ReleaseNotes041
+ (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
+ * ReleaseNotes040
+ (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
+ * ReleaseNotes039
+ (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
+ * ReleaseNotes038
+ (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
+ * ReleaseNotes037
+ (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
+ * ReleaseNotes036
+ (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
+ * ReleaseNotes035
+ (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)
+
+ Retrieved from "http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_Notes"
+
+ This page has been accessed 18,760 times. This page was last modified
+ 19:56, 9 June 2006.
- * A separate utility has been developed to convert between DXF and SVG
- formats. Please visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/dxf-svg-convert
- for details and downloads. (A Google SoC project.)
-
- * Improved support for viewBox: If the root <svg> element of your
- document has width/height attributes set in percentage units and
- there's a viewBox on that element, then:
-
- * The canvas size is set to the value of the viewBox attribute.
- * Changing the canvas size in Document Preferences sets the
- viewBox, without touching the width/height values.
-
- This does not affect regular documents created in Inkscape, but
- makes it easier to edit other SVG files that use viewBox.
-
- * The new command line parameter, --export-area-snap, used with bitmap
- export to snap the export area outwards to the nearest integer SVG
- user unit (px) values. If you are using the default export resolution
- of 90dpi and your graphics are pixel-snapped to minimize antialiasing,
- this switch allows you to preserve this alignment even if you are
- exporting an area (for example, with --export-id or
- --export-area-drawing) which is itself not pixel-aligned.
-
- * When saving as Postscript, you now have the option to convert or not
- convert texts to paths (previously only available for EPS export).
-
-Interface and usability
-
- * The Icon Preview dialog has been improved. A toggle has been added to
- switch between previewing the entire document or just the current
- selection. A larger 128x128 size has been added to the defaults. The
- sizes are now read from the preferences file and can be customized.
-
- * Rectangles and ellipses now use different handle shapes, so it's much
- easier to see which handle does what. The two square handles change
- the size of the object, while the two round handles adjust the
- rounding corners (in rectangles) and arc/segment ends (in ellipses).
-
- * The controls for the Rectangle tool now include W and H fields for
- setting the width/height of selected rectangle(s) numerically.
-
- * In the controls of Rectangle and Ellipse tools, the "Not rounded" and
- "Make whole" buttons are now grayed out when the selected object
- cannot use the corresponding function (i.e. when a rectangle is
- already not rounded and the ellipse is already whole, which are the
- defaults).
-
- * When editing text with the Text tool, the keypad + and - keys type the
- corresponding characters if NumLock is on (otherwise they zoom in and
- out as before). (Still does not work on Windows.)
-
- * In the Text tool, Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down now move one paragraph up or
- down correspondingly.
-
- * The Calligraphic tool, in addition to the Ctrl+F6 shortcut, has a new
- one-letter shortcut, `c'.
-
- * The Pen, Pencil, and Calligraphy tools finally have mouse cursors of
- their own.
-
- * The canvas width/height fields in Document Preferences are never
- grayed out. Instead, the menu of the canvas sizes scrolls itself to
- "Custom" or to an appropriate standard size as you edit width/height.
-
- * Rectangle editing handles now snap to grid/guides (snapping for other
- shapes' handles is expected to come in subsequent releases).
-
- * The pattern move handle is restricted to horizontal/vertical when Ctrl
- is pressed.
-
- * In the Selector, dragging the rotation center handle snaps to the
- edges and central axes of the selection's bounding box.
-
- * In the Pen tool, while you are drawing a path, the statusbar displays
- the distance and angle of the current mouse point from the last
- created node of the path. This makes it easy to create a path from the
- given lengths and angles of linear segments. When you are dragging to
- create a curve handle, the statusbar also displays the length and the
- angle of the handle.
-
- * A new preference option, Compass-like angle display (in the Steps
- tab), allows you to have absolute angles specified in a compass
- notation (0 at north, 0 to 360 range, increasing clockwise) instead of
- the default trigonometric notation (0 at east, -180 to 180 range,
- increasing counterclockwise). This affects the statusbar angle display
- for path segments and the handles in Pen and Node tools.
-
- * The Pen and Pencil tools now display helpful statusbar hints when the
- mouse is over one of the end anchors of the selected path.
-
- * The precision of most editable length fields is increased from 0.01 to
- 0.001.
-
- * The minimum zoom is extended from 4% to 1%.
-
- * Work has begun on menu sensitivity and configurability, but has been
- disabled in the release.
-
-Packaging, documentation, examples
-
- * The windows installer has now a modular structure that allows the
- selection of separate features such as examples, tutorials, or
- translations. All options are supported for a silent installation.
- * Windows packages now contain the release notes (NEWS file), authors
- and translators lists, the README file, the GPL and the LGPL license
- files.
- * The Inkscape man page is updated with additional examples.
- * The About dialog now more closely resembles the stock Gtk About
- dialog. A full list of authors and translators, as well as the license
- are now viewable.
-
-Translations
-
- * The MacOS X package now includes interface translations and reads the
- user language setting, as specified in System Preferences, to use the
- corresponding translation language.
- * Many interface and tutorial translations have been updated.
-
-Important bugfixes
-
- * A systematic error when scaling objects with stroke via the Selector
- controls panel (W and H fields) is fixed.
- * In stroke dash patterns in CSS, comma separators were erroneously
- replaced by spaces upon writing the document. For now, Inkscape will
- still be capable of reading both space-separated and comma-separated
- lists (for compatibility with old files), but it now always writes
- correct comma-separated lists on output.
- * Due to a bug, Inkscape tended to replace relative paths to embedded
- images by absolute, which made them fail after moving a document to
- another computer; this is fixed.
- * The precision of most boolean operations and offsets is improved,
- especially noticeably for small paths.
- * In text on path, in some cases letters were distributed unevenly along
- a curve; this is now fixed.
- * Searching by text in the Find dialog (Ctrl+F) was broken, now fixed.
- * Some of the stock markers were missing in the marker menus in the Fill
- & Stroke dialog.
- * The bounding box of a stroke with markers now includes the markers.
-
-Internal progress
-
- * Source documentation: the big goal is to have a brief description for
- classes and most functions in every source file; this now holds for
- more than 100 files of the 1350 files in the source code. The doxygen
- index file now shows many useful links to external documentation and a
- categorization of main directory files which should be useful for
- beginners in particular.
- * Removed trailing fractional zeros in SVG for cleaner and more compact
- markup.
- * C++ Encapsulation: the View class hierarchy has been reimplemented in
- C++, after separating the widget classes from each class. The number
- of dependencies on the central file desktop.h (about 100) was reduced
- by half.
-
-Known issues
-
- Windows 95/98/ME support
-
- * Due to issues in GTK 2.8 beyond our control this version of Inkscape
- will not work on Windows 95/98/ME. Please do not send us crash reports
- from those platforms. We hope to be able to resume support for these
- platforms in the future, but no specific committments can be made at
- this point.
-
- Problems on Linux under KDE
-
- * SuSE, Fedora Core 4: Inkscape and other GTK programs are known to
- crash if the KDE Baghira theme and 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.
- * Kubuntu: For similar reasons, Inkscape can crash on Kubuntu Breezy
- when, at the same time, the gtk2-engines-smooth package is installed.
- Removing it resolves the problem. Both problems also affect older
- versions of Inkscape.
-
- Pressure and tilt sensitivity
-
- * Pressure and tilt sensitivity do not currently work on MacOS X, due to
- a limitation of the MacOS X version of X11.
- * There are known issues with the current version of the X.org server
- not releasing events on extended devices that use pressure
- sensitivity. What that translates to is you can start a stroke, but
- when you lift your pen, the stroke won't end (and will just continue
- when you put your pen back on the tablet). This seem to be linked to
- the usage of /dev/psaux for the mouse instead of /dev/input/mouseXX,
- see http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/index.php/howto/mouse1)
- * The current version of GTK for Windows has a bug that affects tilt
- sensitivity.
-
- Inkboard
-
- * Imported bitmaps are not transmitted to other users in a whiteboard
- session.
- * At present, Inkboard relies on Loudmouth
- (http://loudmouth.imendio.org/) to provide Jabber connectivity,
- which means that it is limited to Linux builds of Inkscape.
- Inkboard is currently being redesigned to use a cross-platform
- Jabber client; this redesign will be present in a future release.
- * Inkboard cannot yet connect to Google Talk clients. This will be
- remedied in a future release. (The reason is because it expects the
- "server" portion of a Jabber ID to be the same as the server that it
- contacts, which is not the case for the Google Talk network.)
- * Inkboard's handling of concurrent modifications is still very rough.
- Future releases will make this more robust.
-
- See http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=93438&atid=604306 for a
- full list of known issues. If you find a bug not listed here, then please
- report the bug: see instructions at http://inkscape.org/report_bugs.php
- (the Report Bugs link from http://inkscape.org/).
-
-Previous releases
-
- * ReleaseNotes042 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes042)
- * ReleaseNotes041 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes041)
- * ReleaseNotes040 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes040)
- * ReleaseNotes039 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes039)
- * ReleaseNotes038 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes038)
- * ReleaseNotes037 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes037)
- * ReleaseNotes036 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes036)
- * ReleaseNotes035 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes035)