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index 5c4070c5bd090277e5a6b85cfd385df2ab6fbb32..043d2c10ffd78f8b7fb147e179676353d08987e8 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.
-
-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.)
-
- * 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)
+Inkscape 0.48 pre-release. More here later.