From b6b416ec12d0442df6b3b9d9256476a295b07551 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: bryce Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:41:17 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Updating news for release (preliminary) --- NEWS | 2062 +++++++++++++++++++--------------------------------------- 1 file changed, 664 insertions(+), 1398 deletions(-) diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS index 5318138a3..78607eb38 100644 --- a/NEWS +++ b/NEWS @@ -1,1460 +1,726 @@ - Release Notes - Contents +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 - * 1 Inkscape 0.44: overview - * 2 Performance - - * 2.1 Outline mode - * 2.2 Speed - - * 3 SVG conformance - - * 3.1 Color profile support - * 3.2 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 Extension effects - * 14 Formats - * 15 Miscellaneous shortcuts - * 16 Miscellaneous improvements - * 17 Miscellaneous bugfixes - * 18 Translations - * 19 Internal - * 20 Known problems - - * 20.1 Problems with some Debian libgc-6.7 packages - * 20.2 Problems with "Composite" option of X.org - * 20.3 Namespaces may need fixing - * 20.4 Beware of defective themes on Linux - * 20.5 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 optional Xara X - compatibility - - * 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: 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! +Node tool - Performance + * 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 - 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; + * A new menu command (View > Display Mode > Toggle) and a new + keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+) switch the display mode from + Normal to Outline and back. - * bitmaps are shown as is; + * The window title displays "(outline)" next to the file name when + that editing window is in Outline mode. - * any opacity and gradients are ignored. + * 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. - 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". + * 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. -Speed + * The bug whereby stroked shapes didn't change stroke width when + switching to Outline mode or back is fixed. - 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. + * 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. - * 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. + * 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: - * 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. + placing it after the opening tag. - * 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 - element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for - elements. - - - 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. +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