Release notes/1.3
These Release Notes are in Draft Status.
Note: Not all animations work, due to Wiki bugs with resizing images. Release notes will be transferred to website, there animations will be working. Important Links:
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Pending questions:
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Release highlights
- Pattern editor, pattern canvas controls, and pattern performance.
- Shape builder - New tool for building complex shapes from simple shapes. (Live Boolean tool)
- Live path effects dialog - Totally new and improved
- Filter editor - New redesign
- And so much more!
Performance
There has been lots of effort to improve performance of all aspects in Inkscape. Lots of refactoring of various inefficient code, rewritten handling of patterns, and moving bitmap tracing off-main-thread are some examples.
Canvas rendering is now both multithreaded and done off-main-thread. This should significantly improve performance while zooming/panning/transforming objects if your CPU has more than one core.
In some cases you can see 2-4x speed improvements.
You can set core count in Preferences > Rendering > Number of Threads
. The default is to use as many as possible.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4760
General user interface
Color palettes have an indicator showing the stroke and fill of the selected object. The first 4 colors are pinned and have the ability to become larger than the rest. Colors can be pinned/unpinned in the context menu (Right clcik).
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4957
Pasting
- The
Paste size
entry in theEdit
menu has been renamed toPaste…
. - A new pasting feature
On Page
has been added to this renamed menu to paste the copied object(s) into the same position on a different page. For this to work correctly, you must select the page to paste on by either:- selecting an object on that page before pasting
- selecting the page with the page tool
- changing the current page using the buttons in the status bar
Snap toolbar
An option was added in Edit → Preferences → Interface → Toolbars
to show snapping options permanently in a dedicated toolbar, similar to Inkscape version 1.1 and earlier for faster access when doing detailed work.
Keyboard shortcuts
The keyboard shortcuts for aligning objects vertically and horizontally have been moved to the numeric keypad, where the other alignment shortcuts are, too:
- Vertical alignment was moved from Ctrl+Alt+T to Ctrl+Alt+Numpad 1
- Horizontal alignment was moved from Ctrl+Alt+H to Ctrl+Alt+Numpad 7
If you find yourself unable to reach the new shortcuts (for example, because your laptop does not have a keypad, or because the shortcuts do not work - may be the case on Linux with Xfce), you can set them to something else by changing both the alignment shortcut and the function that now uses that shortcut (if any). Use the search in Edit > Preferences > Interface > Keyboard
. It also allows searching for shortcuts, not only for their name (e.g. search for 'ctrl+alt+t' to find the new default action that is executed when that combo is pressed).
Color Picker
Added support for the OKLab and OKLch color spaces which have just been adopted into the CSS Color Module Level 4 draft recommendation. OKLab is described in detail by its creator in an interesting blog post. The new picker is called "OKHSL" and is available from the dropdown.
Alternative text (probably wrong, as Inkscape does not seem to support those color spaces at all):
Color spaces
Inkscape now supports the OKLab and OKLch color spaces, which have just been adopted into the CSS Color Module Level 4 draft recommendation. For those who would like to learn more, OKLab is described in detail by its creator in a blog post.
Support has also been added to the color picker. It can be enabled in Edit → Preferences → Interface → Color Selector
as "OKHSL", and will then be available in any color picker's dropdown. Note that color values will still be written as RGB hex codes in the SVG source.
Rulers
Improved look. Fixed a performance penalty by caching text labels. Added indicator of selection (it's possible to turn off in preferences).
Command bar
Improved UI https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4988
Canvas
Pressing F
temporarily hides on-canvas overlays (transformation handles, grids, guides...). This allows quick preview of final artwork without any distractions.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4395
Added display overlay controls in top right corners. You need to have scrollbars enabled to see it (CTRL+B).
OpenGL (GPU) accelerated canvas
An OpenGL-accelerated display mode was added to the canvas to speed up panning, zooming and rotating.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4133
This is NOT a fully GPU-based renderer; content is still rendered on the CPU in exactly the same way as before, so large performance improvements are not to be expected. It does however result in a smoother display and lower CPU usage, especially on HiDPI screens.
OpenGL mode is highly experimental and is turned off by default. It can be turned on at
Preferences -> Rendering -> Enable OpenGL
Note however the following caveats:
- Due to packaging problems, when using the Linux AppImage, OpenGL support either does not work (on X11) or crashes (on Wayland).
- Due to GTK3 bugs, OpenGL mode crashes on Windows, blacks out the screen on MacOS, is slower than software rendering on Linux X11, and is only really usable on Wayland.
For these reasons, it is not expected to be useful until we migrate to GTK4, where we hope that at least some of these bugs have been fixed.
Smooth auto-scrolling
Auto-scrolling happens when you drag an object off the edge of the canvas. We improved smoothness of this action.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/5027
Tools
You can right click on any tool in toolbox to see tool preferences.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4982
Selection tool
New commands:
- Reapply transform: Ctrl+Alt+T - This allows a user to perform a transformation multiple times and works from the canvas edits or from transform dialog or the select toolbar. Shortcut needs to change, it opens a terminal on Linux.
- Duplicate and transform: Ctrl+Alt+D -This performs a duplication and then reapplies the previous transform to the duplicate. Shortcut needs to change, it minimizes the window on Linux.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4506
- Clone while dragging: drag object + C - Drag and object and press C to clone it in the current position. https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4752
Node tool
Pattern editing - On canvas
Pattern editing on canvas is now easier; you can click on any part of a pattern and it will show you controls at that position. We also added an outline that shows you the edges of the pattern. The first square controls position, the circle controls rotation, and the second square controls size. Hold shift to constrain proportions.
We also fixed performance problems with patterns, so now you can have smaller patterns in project and zoom in on them without worrying about Inkscape eating up all your RAM.
Lasso selection mode
We added new lasso selection mode. Hold alt and draw around nodes you want to select. Useful for selecting nodes inside of complicated geometry.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4747
Blur editing - On canvas
New canvas controls for blurring is showed on canvas, if you add blur in fill and stroke panel or add filter that has Blur. Controls are not linked by default so you can control horizontal and vertical blurring separately. If you hold CTRL
you can control both Axiies linked. You can control arbitrary angle of blurring if you rotate your object after you set your blur.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4867
Shape Builder tool (New tool)
New tool for fast shape building and Boolean operations. Shortcut: X
.
Use: Select multiple overlapping shapes and select the Shape Builder tool. The selection will be fragmented on overlapping areas, while everything else will be hidden until you leave the shape builder. Now you Click and drag to combine segments together or hold Shift + Click and drag to subtract, and Single click on segments to split. Adding is represented by a blue color, removing by pink.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4709
Pages tool
The pages tool now has controls for margins (guides):
- An attribute on the page element to record the margin
- A new html/css style box model with tests
- New UI to set margins in the toolbar
- New on-canvas controls for moving margins (with ctrl/shift)
- New display of margins in the same canvas group as the page border
- Snapping for page margins
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4523
Gradient tool
- Allow changing the repeat setting when multiple gradients are selected.
- Show 'Multiple gradients' in the stop list when multiple gradients are selected (instead of a random stop).
- Allow editing of the offset of the start/end stops.
- Keep the stop selected after the offset is changed in the toolbar (instead of selecting the first stop of the gradient).
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4339
Path Operations
New commands:
Fracture Path → Fracture
- every overlapping path will be split into separate object.
Flatten Path → Flatten
- overlapping objects will be flattened visually (it will delete paths that are hidden behind a top path). Useful for separating colors for Screen printing and offset printing.
Masking / Clipping
- A new option to preserve clips / masks when ungrouping objects has been added (
Edit → Preferences → Behavior → Clippaths and masks: When ungroup, clip/mask is preserved in children
). The option is active by default. This means that when you now ungroup a group that has been clipped, the elements inside it will inherit the clip. Previously, the clip was removed and everything became un-clipped. To go back to previous default behavior, deactivate this new option. (MR #3564)
Dialogs
Fill and Stroke Dialog
New pattern editor
Added in to UI. You can preview patterns, change Name, Size, Rotation, Offset, Gaps and Colors for some specific patterns. We also added collections of patterns in ~paint/
so it's easier to be organized. Since this allows having many more patterns preinstalled, we also added a search function and a few new default patterns.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4938
Filter editor
Redesign of this dialog:
- Filter selection moved to a popover
- Effects are listed in a popup menu and can be selected by searching (by name)
- Adjusted connector sizes to make them more compact
- Fixed an issue where all parameters would initially be visible in a docked filter dialog
- Fixed min size of parameters panel to make it fit in a narrow docked dialog
- Reactive layout to accommodate wide dialog
- Added primitive filter attributes to fe-image and fe-tile (#1417)
- Replaced GTK color picker with Inkscape color picker
- Sources can now be hidden (for most use cases only the source graphic is useful; other inputs are broken or need ux work).
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4720
Layers and Objects
UX improvements:
- You can click and drag to change visibility of multiple objects
- Selecting on group does not auto expand
- Selecting multiple objects and and changing visibility/locking applies to all selected
- We added a search feature; it's a limited implementation - it does not auto-apply search and you need to search for more than 3 characters.
- We added a hover indicator for rows and layer colors
- Added controls for opacity and blending mode
We added shortcuts for layers navigation and actions:
- Arrows to navigate
- Space bar confirms (select, apply, open)
- Shift -> <- open close group
- Shift up down to move in Z order
Live Path Effects ( LPE )
New redesigned LPE dialog
The compact new design merges organization and controls into one unit. You can reorder LPE by dragging and dropping the whole effect. It adds a fast search box, and a fast dropdown for adding effects.
Each LPE has 5 controls:
- Show/hide controls
- Visibility of effect
- Delete effect
- Context menu
- Re-order
- Duplicate
- Set as default
- Flatten
Reorganization of LPEs
Since we needed a more compact way to show all LPEs, we decided on a list that is organized into 6 categories:
Tools, Distort, Generate, Convert, Experimental + Favorite
Changes
- Setting presets for LPE was moved into contextual menu
- Setting Favorite LPE was moved into contextual menu
- Added new feature: flatten - This will apply effect to geometry. It will apply all effects in the stack.
- We removed LPE gallery (you can still enable it in preferences if you wish:
Preferences > Behavior > LPE
) - To see experimental LPEs you need to enable it in Preferences:
Preferences > Behavior > LPE
- Added an indicator showing which object is selected
- Added conversion commands when you select text objects - since text does not support LPEs yet we added a workaround that converts text to paths or clones the text.
- If you select an object that is associated with an LPE (Clone, Boolean operations, Bend, Fill between many, etc...) you will see a button in the dialog that will take you to the linked geometry/controls.
- Labels inside effects are aligned nicely
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4677
XML Editor
We did small cosmetic changes to this dialog: smaller icons (16x16px), removed text tool tips. Added responsive layout and moved layout controls to the top in a dropdown (auto layout is the default option).
Syntax readability
For improving readability we added syntax highlighting and auto line-breaking. This works for CSS style tag, inline styling, d <path data>. You can change change highlighting themes in Preferences > Interface > Theming
d < path data >
We added a feature to round path data. You can also set how many decimal points you want to round to. This gives you granular control over optimizing size of svgs
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4885
Symbols
This dialog got a new redesign:
- Migrated dialog settings to a popover.
- Saving dialog UI state in preferences (current symbol set and settings are remembered).
- Larger range for scaling (tile size) and symbol zooming.
- Fixed symbol selection color for dark themes.
- Added option to show symbols names.
- Rendering symbols at screen resolution - sharp (high-dpi aware).
- List of symbol sets is searchable and can be filtered.
- Symbol search is live (no need to press enter).
- Symbol rendering is done on-demand, to limit memory use and time needed to switch sets.
- Stats: total number of symbols / how many are visible.
New features
- You can drag and drop symbols on canvas and they are going to be placed exactly where you dropped them.
- A new icon - the "peace" symbol.
- Improved performance.
- Add visio modern formats vssx and vsdx. Symbols are loaded once, not in each window.
- We added new stock symbols SJJB map icons.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4975
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4994
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4666
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4883
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4793
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4784
Bitmap Tracer
Got significant performance boost and a progress bar. Now it runs in the background, allowing you to cancel it if it's taking too long.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4702
Export Dialog
We added new options for how to export multipage in PDF and SVG formats.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/5002
Document Resources Dialog (NEW)
Added a new dialog that shows you an overview of what assets are currently inside your document. You can edit names and export some of the resources from this dialog.
It presents the following document assets:
- fonts
- styles
- colors
- swatches
- gradients
- filters
- patterns
- symbols
- markers
- images
- external references
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/5003
Welcome Dialog
Files are sorted by their last modified date. We Added recovery for files in this list after crash. You can see then by text Emergency save next to file.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/5058
Filters
Live path effects
Performance of most of the effects was improved. LPE Dialog was completely redesign see New redesigned LPE dialog for more details
Roughen
UI clean-up and reordering of the controls.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4872
Taper Stroke
Added support for sub-paths.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4906
Power Stroke
Added support for sub-paths.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4880
Import / Export
Refactoring of PDF and AI import
The PDF importer was using the svg group as a way of tracking the GfxState matrix, but this actually causes a lot of problems. Using the Sfx CTM matrix state directly provides dependable positions and transformations for creating objects.
- New import PDF dialog GUI using glade
- Added PDF layer support
- Merging of similar path stroke/fill objects
- Removal of state groups
- Rendering text methods, to glyphs and to text
- Embedded font handling for rendering methods
- Much better font-name detection
- ICC Color Profile support
- Margins, bleeds and page sizes retained.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4757
Templates
All template dialogs (Welcome screen, New from Template, Page tool default sizes) now use the same template sizes ([1] MR #479)
Customization / Theming
Added user.css to UI folder to allow tweaking UI without interfering with or fully overriding other css files. https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/5004
Fixed hidden icons on menus: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4686
Other
Added support for href
and xlink:href
in SVG header. This makes Inkscape more compatible with SVG 2.
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4596
MacOS-specific Changes
Windows-specific Changes
Extensions
Features
Speed up processing especially on complex documents: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4996
General Extension Changes
New Extensions
Particular extensions
Bugs fixed
All extensions
Particular extensions
Extension Development
API Changes for Third-Party Extension Developers
Extension Development Documentation
Under the hood
Command line
Added a new parameter --actions-file. You specify a list like in --actions but in a file to allow bypassing Windows comandline length limit, and also to allow reuse of action lists.
Added a new parameter --active-window / -q that runs all commands on the active window of an already-running instance of Inkscape.
Behind the curtains
Notable bugfixes
Crash fixes
Fixed a crash that occurred…
- When…
Other bug fixes
- LPE related undo bugs: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/4520
- Fixed bspline LPE with cusp nodes when initially using with node tool. https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/5016
- <use>s retain their LPE correctly when unlinked or converted to paths. The old convert to paths behaviour is still available in the Preferences. https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/5016
Even more bug fixes
There were even more issues fixed than those listed above, but these probably only affect a small proportion of users, or are relevant for development and packaging only.
For a complete list, visit our GitLab issue tracker and see the commit history.
Translations
The following UI translations received updates:
- …
The Windows installer translation was updated for:
- …
The following documentation translations received updates:
- …
Contributing to interface translations
Want to help with translations? Learn how to help!
Documentation
Contributing to documentation and documentation translation
Contributions to the documentation translations, as well as improvements to its contents, are welcome at the inkscape-docs repository.
Website
Important changes for packagers
Known issues
Other releases
- Inkscape 1.5 — development branch
- Inkscape 1.4 — current stable release branch
- Inkscape 1.3 (1.3.1, 1.3.2)
- Inkscape 1.2 (1.2.1, 1.2.2)
- Inkscape 1.1 (1.1.1, 1.1.2)
- Inkscape 1.0 (1.0.1, 1.0.2)
- Inkscape 0.92 (0.92.1, 0.92.2, 0.92.3, 0.92.4, 0.92.5)
- Inkscape 0.91
- Inkscape 0.48 (0.48.1, 0.48.2, 0.48.3, 0.48.4, 0.48.5)
- Inkscape 0.47
- Inkscape 0.46
- Inkscape 0.45
- Inkscape 0.44
- Inkscape 0.43
- Inkscape 0.42
- Inkscape 0.41
- Inkscape 0.40
- Inkscape 0.39
- Inkscape 0.38
- Inkscape 0.37
- Inkscape 0.36
- Inkscape 0.35