Inkscape Wiki - User contributions [en]

Release notes/0.47

2009-11-25T19:08:22Z

A b: /* Inkscape 0.47 */

==Inkscape 0.47==
'''([[AnnouncePlanning047]])'''

Inkscape 0.47 brings a host of important improvements all across the program:

* '''Timed autosave''': no more lost work

* '''Spiro splines''': an exciting new way to work with paths, fully supported in Pen, Pencil, and Node tools

* '''Auto smooth nodes''': a new type of node that keeps the path as smooth as possible as you move it or its neighbors

* New modes in '''Tweak tool''': pushing and jittering whole objects, scaling/rotating objects, deleting and duplicating using the "soft brush"

* Reworked, much more usable '''snapping system''' and a Snapping toolbar

* New '''path effects''', including sketch, hatching, envelope deformation; effects can be stacked and assigned to groups

* A huge collection of '''preset filters''' in the new Filters menu

* New cairo-based '''PS and EPS export''': improved quality, more features supported, fallback rasterization for filters and transparency

* '''Spell checker''' for text objects in a document

* Many '''new extensions''': restacking, calendar, printing marks, cartesian and polar grids, interpolating attributes

* '''Optimized SVG code''' options, now with their own Preferences page

* Many other improvements, usability tweaks, memleak stops, and misc bugfixes

==Refactoring effort==

The focus of the 0.47 release was to clean up legacy code and push forward the migration to clean object-oriented C++. The goal of this effort was to increase reliability and maintainability of Inkscape. In the long run, it will mean fewer bugs and more new features, because it will be easier to develop and find bugs in Inkscape.

===Migration to lib2geom===
Many parts of the code have been changed to use the 2geom library for geometrical calculations instead of the old libnr and livarot libraries.

===Preferences===
Instead of global functions directly manipulating an XML document, the preferences API is now exposed through the <code>Inkscape::Preferences</code> singleton. It abstracts away the way the preferences are stored in memory. In the future it may allow for different user settings storage backends (like GConf or the upcoming dconf on GNOME desktops or .plist files on OS X). Previously, Inkscape directly manipulated an internal XML document.

The Preferences directory has been moved on Linux (and Mac OS X) from ~/.inkscape to ~/.config/inkscape to better conform to Linux desktop standards.

==Tools==

===Node tool===

* In previous versions of Inkscape, no visual feedback was given back to the user when hovering over paths when using the ''Node tool''. In this update, hovering over a path with the ''Node tool'' now results in a highlighted path outline being displayed. '''Note:''' the duration and color of the new path outline feature can be configured in the '''Tools > Node''' section of the '''Inkscape Preferences''' dialog.

* The Node tool can now edit '''clipping paths''' and '''masks''' of objects on canvas, without releasing them. If the selected object has a clipping path and mask, the corresponding buttons on the controls bar of the tool will be enabled; pressing these buttons will display the editable paths or handles of the clippath or mask. A clipping path is stroked green, a mask is stroked blue (the same colors as those used for them in Outline mode).

* Snapping has been improved (more details in Snapping below).

* When dragging a node handle with '''Ctrl''' pressed, it now snaps not only to the 15 degree increments starting from 0 and to the original handle direction, but also to the direction of the opposite handle (if it exists) or of the opposite line segment (if it is a straight line).

* The behavior of the buttons/shortcuts that make a node smooth or cusp has been improved:
** If a node is already a cusp (diamond shaped), pressing Shift+C again on it will retract both its handles. As this works for any number of selected nodes, you can always retract all handles in all nodes by selecting all nodes and pressing Shift+C twice.
** If a non-smooth node is next to a straight line segment, pressing Shift+S once makes it ''half-smooth'': it now has one handle aligned with that line segment. Another press of Shift+S will expand the second handle as well turning it into a full smooth node. If a node is between two curve segments, Shift+S will expand both handles as before.

*'''Auto smooth nodes''': this is a new node type, similar to the one Xara Xtreme has. An auto node is a smooth node which automatically adjusts (rotates and stretches) its handles when this node or its neighbors are moved. This adjustment (same as what you get when you convert node type to Smooth, but continuous) keeps the curve at this node as smooth as possible. It feels a bit like Spiro paths (see below); although not as smooth as a Spiro, auto nodes may often be preferable as they work without applying any path effect. Whenever you manually adjust the ''handles'' of an auto node or drag the adjacent ''curve'', the node loses its auto state and becomes simply smooth; for this reason, it is recommended to edit smooth nodes with the node handles hidden via a toggle button on the Node tool controls bar. Auto nodes are represented by little circles, as opposed to smooth/symmetric nodes (squares) and cusp nodes (diamonds). To convert selected node(s) to auto, press '''Shift+A''' or use the corresponding node type button on the controls bar.

===Tweak tool===

Several new modes are added to the Tweak tool for transforming, duplicating, and deleting selected objects using the same "soft brush" metaphor that the path editing and coloring modes use. Using these new modes, it is easy to "sculpt" scatterings of small objects, such as clone tilings, into complex and naturalistic textures.

* '''Push mode''' moves those selected objects that are under the brush in the direction in which you move the brush. This is similar to the Push path mode, except that the Move mode affects entire objects and not parts of the paths under the brush.

* '''Attract/Repel Objects mode''' moves those selected objects that are under the brush towards the cursor (default) or away from cursor (with '''Shift''' pressed). This is similar to the Attract/repel path mode, except that the Move in/out mode affects entire objects and not parts of the paths under cursor.

* '''Jitter mode''' moves those selected objects that are under the brush in random directions and by random amounts, but the overall amount of movement depends on Force, pen pressure (if you're using a tablet pen), on the closeness of the object to the center of brush, and on how long you apply the brush.

* '''Scale mode''' scales those selected objects that are under the brush down (by default) or up (with '''Shift''' pressed). The speed of scaling depends on Force, pen pressure (if you're using a tablet pen), on the closeness of the object to the center of brush, and on how long you apply the brush.

* '''Rotate mode''' rotates those selected objects that are under the brush clockwise (by default) or counterclockwise (with '''Shift''' pressed). The speed of rotation depends on Force, pen pressure (if you're using a tablet pen), on the closeness of the object to the center of brush, and on how long you apply the brush.

* '''Duplicate/delete mode''' randomly duplicates those selected objects that are under the brush (by default) or deletes them (with '''Shift''' pressed). The chance of an object to be duplicated and deleted depends on Force, pen pressure (if you're using a tablet pen), on the closeness of the object to the center of brush, and on how long you apply the brush. Like with the regular Duplicate command, duplicating with Tweak tool places the copies right over the originals, and you may need to use the Jitter mode to ruffle them apart. The duplicates created by the tool are automatically added to selection if the originals objects were in selection (e.g. if you're tweaking a group of objects, they are duplicated within that group and are not by themselves selected).

*'''Blur mode''' blurs the selected objects under the brush more (by default) or less (with Shift pressed). The amount of blur added or removed depends on Force, pen pressure (if you're using a tablet pen), on the closeness of the object to the center of brush, and on how long you apply the brush.

Also, the existing path editing modes of the tool have been rearranged: now Shrink and Grow are one mode (shrinks by default, grows with Shift), and Attract and Repel are one mode (attracts by default, repels with Shift). Here is a complete list of modes and shortcuts of the Tweak tool:

Shift+m, Shift+0 move mode
Shift+i, Shift+1 attract/repel objects mode
Shift+z, Shift+2 jitter mode
Shift+<, Shift+>, Shift+3 scale mode
Shift+[, Shift+], Shift+4 rotate mode
Shift+d, Shift+5 duplicate/delete mode
Shift+p, Shift+6 push path mode
Shift+s, Shift+7 shrink/grow path mode
Shift+a, Shift+8 attract/repel path mode
Shift+r, Shift+9 roughen mode
Shift+c paint mode
Shift+j color jitter mode
Shift+b blur mode

In Paint mode, painting with Shift inverts the color you're applying (e.g. when painting with yellow, Shift will switch the applied color to blue).

===Calligraphy tool===

* The tool's settings can now be set from a preset (see the drop-down list in the controls bar). Several presets are provided that imitate various drawing implements and styles.

* When drawing with '''Alt''' pressed, Inkscape ''subtracts'' the new path you are creating from the selected path. With '''Shift''', it ''unions'' the new path with the selected path. This allows you to quickly patch or erase defects in a stroke you have drawn, without leaving the tool.

* The behavior of the tool when tracking a guide (drawing with '''Ctrl''') has been improved:

:* The initial "jerk" when you start drawing is suppressed.

:* The undesired flipping of the stroke to the other side of the guide path, when drawing along closed paths, is fixed.

:* If you lose connection with your guide path, the tool tries to continue moving in the same direction as if by inertia, so as to minimize the tearoff jerk.

===Paint Bucket tool===
* Paint Bucket is now more tightly integrated with potrace. As a result, memory and CPU usage on each fill operation have been reduced significantly.

===Eraser Tool===
A new tool, Eraser, has been added to the main toolbox. Its shortcut is '''Shift+E'''. It has two main modes, selectable by toggle buttons on its controls bar:

* '''Delete Objects''' mode: any shape touched by dragging is deleted completely. This is analogous to "touch selection" in Selector followed by '''Del'''.
* '''Cut mode''': dragging subtracts, using a boolean Subtract operation, parts of paths it touches. On the controls bar, you can adjust the Width of the trace left by the tool. If nothing is selected, it acts on all objects in the current layer, whether selected or not; if there's a selection, its action is limited to selection. This mode is similar to '''Alt+drag''' in Calligraphic tool.

===Pen and Pencil===

====New modes====

Apart from the regular Bezier mode, these drawing tools now provide several new modes:

* '''Spiro mode''': This mode automatically applies the new Spiro Splines path effect (see the section on new effects) to any newly drawn path. As mentioned below, it is not yet possible to preview a spiro before it is finished. This mode is available in both Pen and Pencil tools.

* '''Polyline mode''' (Pen only): This mode makes it easy to draw many straight line segments by disallowing any curves, even when you accidentally drag with the mouse instead of clicking.

* '''Paraxial mode''' (Pen only): create straight line segments that are parallel to one of the coordinate axes. This works similar to the Polyline mode with '''Ctrl'''. Normally, each next line segment is drawn perpendicular to the previous one, but the direction of the line segment being drawn can be toggled by pressing '''Shift'''. If you click on the start anchor, the path gets closed with an L-shaped segment (its direction of which can also be flipped with '''Shift''').

====Stroke shapes====

As a first step towards [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Vector-brushes this blueprint], it is now possible to automatically apply predefined vector '''shapes''' to path strokes in Pen and Pencil tools. The choice of shapes in the drop-down list on the controls bar includes:

* '''Triangle in''' and '''Triangle out''': tapering out in both directions

* '''Ellipse''': smooth elliptic shape stretching along path

* '''From clipboard''': any path you had previously selected and copied to clipboard

To adjust the width of the stroke, open the Path Effect Editor, choose "Pattern along path" effect, and edit its Width parameter. It is measured in units of the original size of the applied shape; the triangles and ellipse are all 10px in size, and the clipboard size can be any size. The default value of Width is 1.00, which means the triangle/elliptic strokes will be 10px wide and the from-clipboard stroke will be as wide as the copied object was tall.

====Pencil smoothing====

In Pencil tool, the controls bar now provides the '''Smoothing''' parameter, changeable in the range from 1 to 100, which controls how much smoothing is applied to the freehand lines you draw. Small Smoothing values produce rough lines with many nodes; large values give smooth lines with few nodes. Previously, this control was only available in Inkscape Preferences.

====Pencil sketch mode====

The sketch mode is still experimental. In essence, it enables the artist to draw many strokes, which Inkscape then averages into a single path. It tries to mimic sketching with a real pencil and paper, taking the 'visual average' of many strokes and condensing it into one stroke.

Pick the pencil tool, press '''Alt''', and sketch away; release Alt to finalize the result. After each stroke (a stroke starts when the mouse button is pressed down, and ends when it is released), the resulting path will be an average of the old result and the newly drawn stroke. In Inkscape's Pencil tool preferences, one can choose to either average between all drawn strokes (so that all stroke have the same weight), or just the new stroke and the old result (so that later strokes have greater weight).

Currently, going back and forth between A and B in one stroke does not give the expected result; it will result in a long path going back and forth, instead of the visually expected path going from A to B just once. We are working on this (difficult!) issue. For best results, draw strokes only from A to B (and not from B to A).

===Text tool===

* When editing multiline or flowed text, the '''PgUp''' and '''PgDn''' keys now work to move the cursor by one screen (i.e. by as many lines as fit into the screen at current zoom).

* The usability of the font family drop-down list in the Text tool controls bar has been improved: it no longer steals focus, all keyboard shortcuts work as designed ('''Alt+X''' to access the family control, '''Alt+down''' to open the drop-down list with font previews, '''arrows''' to move in the list, '''Enter''' to set chosen font) and the completion feature works (start typing a family name and a pop-up list with possible completions appears).

:A remaining problem that may be fixed in a future version is that the first opening of the drop-down list of family names may be slow (several seconds) if you have many fonts installed (the delay is Inkscape generating the previews for all fonts). Subsequent openings of the list are much faster.

===Connector tool===

* Connectors are now drawn to the edges of shapes, rather than to the bounding box of shapes.
* The routing buffer around shapes is now altered in the correct direction when the user changes this via the spacing control fon the connector toolbar.
* A bug has been fixed where the spinboxes on the connector toolbar did not properly respond to single clicks of their up and down arrows.

==Path effects==

===Path Effects stacking===

More than one Path Effect can be assigned to an object. A new UI was created to control the stack in the Path Effects Editor (Shift+Ctrl+7): the '''Effect list''' shows the stack of effects for the selected object; below, buttons allow you to move a selected effect in the stack up or down or remove it from stack.

The stack works from top to bottom, i.e. the topmost listed effect is applied first, the second one works on the result of the first, and so on until the bottom effect which produces the final visible result. A new effect that you choose in the "Apply new effect" list and created by the '''Add''' button gets added to the end of the current stack.

===Path Effects for groups===

Path effects can now be assigned to a group. In most cases, the effect is applied recursively to the member paths, but for Bend Path and Envelope Deformation the result that the distortion applies to the group as a whole.

* You can, as usual, enter the group by double-clicking on it, and edit the paths there watching the transformed result update live.

* Path effects can be assigned to groups of groups, applying recursively to all grouped paths.

* The ''Convert Object to Path'' command (Ctrl+Shift+C), when applied to a group with effects applied, removes these effects from group and converts all its member paths to effect-less paths looking exactly as before.

===Misc new features===

* The '''Paste Path Effect''' command in Path menu can now assign the path effect of the clipboard's path to any number of paths, going recursively into groups if necessary.

* A new command, '''Remove Path Effect''' in Path menu, removes any path effects from all selected objects, going recursively into groups if necessary.

* Path effects can now be assigned to the sides of a 3D box (use '''Ctrl+click''' to select individual sides) without breaking its 3D functionality.

* The Pen and Pencil tools now correctly work with paths with effects: you can continue such a path or add a new subpath to it by drawing with '''Shift''', while preserving the effects applied to it.

* Path parameters of effects can now link to existing shapes or texts. For example, now it is possible to use a text as the pattern for the Pattern Along Path effect, or shape a path with the Envelope Deformation where one of the envelope sides is text! Since the effect links to the text, not copies it, the result will update live if you edit the text.

* Lib2geom now has an implementation for EllipticalArc. For Inkscape, this means that it is now possible to directly copy-paste ellipse shapes to path parameters (e.g. 'pattern' in Pattern along Path), without the need to convert the ellipse to path first.

===New effects===

* '''Sketch''': Simulates hand-drawn lines. A set of parameters lets you tune the effect. They are all summarized in this [[:Image:SketchParameters.png|picture]].

:[[Image:SketchExemple.png|300px]]

* '''Hatches''': Fills the shape with rough, randomized hatches, simulating a quick hand drawing. It is configurable through numeric parameters as well as on-screen handles visible in Node tool.
:[[Image:hatches-lpe.png|300px]].

* '''von Koch''': This effect creates fractal pictures. A collection of transformations (rotations, rescalings, etc...) is recursively applied to the input path. The transforms are derived from a "reference" path (a line segment) and a "generating" path (basically a collection of segments): the transforms are those needed to move the reference segment onto each segment of the generating path (components in the generating path having more than one segment might be used to define shearing/mirroring transforms). A famous example is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_snowflake von Koch's snowflake].
:[[Image:VonKochExample.png|300px]]

:''Warning'': the complexity of the output path grows exponentially fast with the number of generations. As a guardrail, an editable complexity bound is provided, above which the effect is disabled.

* '''Knot''': Creates a knot from a flat self-intersecting curve: at each crossing, one strand is interrupted to make it look like it's going under the other. The "sign" of each crossing (first strand interrupted, second interrupted, or no interruptions) can be set independently by clicking the on-screen handle which can be dragged from one crossing to the other.
:[[Image:KnotExample.png|300px]]

:''Warning'': as far as possible, the lpe tries to keep the modifications of crossing signs unchanged under small deformations. For large or topology changing deformations however, some or all crossings might jump back to their default orientation.

* '''Spiro splines''' are a novel way of defining curvilinear paths [http://www.levien.com/spiro/ developed by Raph Levien]. It takes some getting used to, but for certain tasks (such as lettershape design) Spiros have a clear advantage over Bezier curves. Recently, Spiro support was added to the FontForge font editor; now it is available in Inkscape too, which means you can use all the convenient Inkscape path tools (moving and transforming groups of nodes, node sculpting, etc.) on Spiro paths.

:A Spiro path is defined by a sequence of points, but unlike a regular path with Bezier curves, all Spiro points lie on the path and there are no off-path handles. The curvature of the path is defined entirely by the positions of the points and their types. The path behaves very similar to a springy rod which is forced to pass through the given points and which uses the minimum possible curvature to satisfy the requirement. As such, it feels quite natural and the resulting path is very smooth - not just superficially smooth (i.e. having no cusps), but smooth at a deeper level, which you can achieve with Beziers only after a lot of laborious tweaking.

:To create a Spiro path, select any path and assign the "Spiro spline" path effect to it. There are no parameters. Each node of your path becomes a point of a Spiro path, depending on the type of node:

:* Smooth nodes (those with two collinear Bezier handles; use Shift+S to make a node smooth) become smooth curve points of the Spiro path. Note that the length or direction of the Bezier handles of the source path is ignored; the only thing that matters is their collinearity.

:* Cusp nodes of the source path become corner points of the Spiro path, like free hinges on the springy rod. Between two corner points, the path is always a straight line. To make a node cusp, retract its Bezier handles by Ctrl+click, or press Shift+C and move one of the handles so they are no longer collinear.

:* Half-smooth nodes - those with one Bezier handle collinear with a straight line segment on the other hand - become "left" or "right" points on the Spiro path which behave exactly the same: they sit between a straight line and a curve and enforce that these two segments join smoothly without a cusp. To create such a node, make sure one of the segments is a line (select its ends and press Shift+L), then Ctrl+drag the remaining handle to make it snap to the direction of the straight line segment on the other side, or press Shift+S to lock it to that direction.

:Note that what matters is the actual collinearity of a node's handles, regardless of the node type that the node has in the Node tool; for example, if a node designated as cusp (diamond-shaped) has collinear handles, it will become a smooth curve point of the Spiro path.

:Some configurations of points do not converge and produce wild loops and spirals instead of a smooth curve. According to Raph, "The spline solver in this release is _not_ numerically robust. When you start drawing random points, you'll quickly run into divergence. However, "sensible" plates based on real fonts usually converge." Avoid too sharp changes in direction between points to prevent divergence. Hopefully, the robustness of the algorithm will be improved in future releases.

:For now, to edit Spiro paths viewing the result in real time, you have to use the Node tool; it is recommended to turn off the red highlight of the source path. The Pen tool does not yet allow you to preview a Spiro as you draw, although you can paste the Spiro effect on the path and see the result as soon as the path is finalized.

:You can always use the Node tool to continue a Spiro path by duplicating and dragging away its end nodes. Also, when you have a Spiro path selected, you can add a new subpath to it with Pen or Pencil if you start drawing with Shift.

* '''Construct Grid''': Draws a grid using the first three nodes of a path. The center node defines the origin. The other two nodes define the direction and length of the two adjacent sides of the first cell. If a path has more than three nodes, the other nodes are ignored. One can select the number of cells in the two orthogonal directions.

* '''Envelope Deformation''': Allows you to deform an object (or a group of object) by deforming its sides. Modifications are done by deforming the four path parameters: Top, Bottom, Left and Right; for each, you can edit it with Node tool, copy, paste, or link to an existing path in the document.

* '''Ruler''': Draws ruler marks along the path; you can set distance between the marks, their length for major and minor marks, the major/minor ratio, and other parameters.

* '''Interpolate Subpaths''': Creates a given number of interpolated paths between the (first) two subpaths of a path (the subpaths after the second subpath are ignored). The interpolations are spread along an editable trajectory path.
:[[Image:InterpolateSubpathsExample.png|342px]]



===Notable effect bugfixes and changes===

We try to refrain from changing the behavior of existing path effects, because it will change appearance in old files when opened in a new version of Inkscape (but not in any other SVG viewer or editor). However, when an effect is really broken, we have to fix it:

* '''Pattern Along Path''':
**The pattern used to be stretched across discontinuities (separate subpaths). This has been fixed; now it treats a discontinuous path as a group of continuous paths and applies the effect separately to each.
** Successive copies of the pattern can now be fused into continuous paths (using the new "fuse nearby ends" feature) so that "filling" the result works as expected.

* '''Bend Path''':
** Closed input paths would sometimes result in unclosed output paths. This has been fixed.

==Import/Export==
===PostScript and EPS import===

Inkscape's PS and EPS import now uses Ghostscript instead of pstoedit. If you need to open files of these types, install Ghostscript and make sure the directory with the <code>ps2pdf</code> utility from Ghostscript installation is in your PATH. On importing a file, you will see a preferences dialog, similar to PDF import; for multipage PS files, this dialog allows you to select which page to open.

===PDF import===

* A new checkbox on the PDF import dialog, '''Replace PDF fonts with closest-named installed fonts''' (on by default) attempts to replace all font names in the imported PDF with the most similar names of those fonts installed on your system. For example, if the PDF uses the font "TimesNewRomanPSMT" and you have "Times New Roman" installed, that font will be used, which will likely give you a more correct appearance than the unknown font "TimesNewRomanPSMT" that will be displayed as the default sans serif font. This is a temporary fix necessary because Inkscape cannot yet extract the fonts from the PDF files it imports nor can it embed them into SVG; when it gets these capabilities, such font name conversion will become unnecessary because all fonts will be preserved.

* Importing PDF files now works '''from the command line'''. For example,

inkscape file.pdf --export-plain-svg=file.svg

:will take the first page of the PDF and use the default import options, and save the result to SVG. If you try to import PDF without an <code>--export</code> command, it will show the import options dialog as before and open the file in the UI.

===PDF, PostScript, and EPS export===

The new Cairo-based PS and EPS exporter provides much better support for various vector features, including clipping paths, patterns, and non-ASCII characters. Those features that are not supported by the targeted format become embedded bitmaps that preserve the appearance. In particular:

* '''transparency''' is always rasterized in PS or EPS but not PDF, as PDF supports vector transparency;

* '''filters''', such as blur, are by default rasterized in all three formats (PS, EPS, PDF). This can be turned off by unchecking the "Rasterize filter effects" option in the UI or adding the '''--export-ignore-filters''' option via the command line. In this case, filtered objects are rendered as vectors without filters and without rasterization.

* The '''resolution''' for rasterizing the filters can be set in the UI in the "Resolution for rasterization (dpi)" parameter or on the command line by '''--export-dpi''' parameter (same as used for exporting SVG documents to bitmaps). The default is 90 dpi. The '''rendering quality''' of filters for rasterization, as well as for bitmap export, is always the best possible regardless of what you have set in the Filters tab of Preferences (which only affects on-screen rendering). For example,

inkscape --export-pdf=out.pdf --export-dpi=300 file.svg

:will export file.svg to out.pdf, rasterizing any filtered objects in it at 300 dpi. (If there are no filtered objects, the --export-dpi has no effect.)

All of PS, EPS, and PDF export formats uniformly support the export area options (page or drawing) and the new export-id option:

* You can now export a single object from a complex document (for example, a single layer) if you specify the ID of that object in the "Limit export to the object with ID" field in the GUI or via the '''--export-id=ID''' option on the command line. The export will show only that object (all others will not be exported). The BoundingBox (page size) of the exported PS/EPS/PDF file will correspond to the bounding box of that object. You can override this with "Export area is page" (GUI) or '''--export-area-page''' (command line) option which forces the output to have the size of the SVG document's page (this may not be possible with EPS, see below).

* The "Export area is page" (GUI) or '''--export-area-page''' (command line) option forces the output to have the size of the SVG document's page. This is the default for PS and PDF but not for EPS.

:*Note, the specification of the EPS format does not allow a bounding box to extend beyond the content. This is enforced by the Cairo graphics library which means that when <code>--export-area-page</code> is used with EPS export, the page bounding box will be trimmed inwards (but never expanded outwards) to the bounding box of the content if it is smaller. If you want a file which has a %BoundingBox different from the bounding box of its content, you can use PS or PDF export formats instead of EPS, or add a white background rectangle with the required size to source document before exporting to EPS.

:* The '''--export-bbox-page''' command line parameter has been removed; use '''--export-area-page''' instead.

:* The '''--export-area-page''' option was renamed from '''--export-area-canvas''' for consistency with the use of the terms page and canvas in the GUI.

* The "Export area is drawing" (GUI) or '''--export-area-drawing''' (command line) option forces the output to have the size of the exported objects' bounding box, regardless of page size. If no --export-id is specified, this means the bounding box of the entire drawing; with --export-id, this means the bounding box of the exported object only. This is the default for EPS. Note that checking "Export area is page" or using '''--export-area-page''' overrides this setting for PS and PDF output.

* The '''--export-embed-fonts''' option is removed. Inkscape now always embeds and subsets all fonts used in the document when exporting PS, EPS, or PDF.

===UniConvertor-based import and export===

Inkscape can now use UniConvertor to import files of the following types:

* Corel DRAW versions 7 to X4 document files (CDR)
* Corel DRAW versions 7 to X4 Template files (CDT)
* Corel DRAW Presentation Exchange files (CMX)
* Corel DRAW Compressed Exchange files (CCX)
* sK1 files (SK1)
* Computer Graphics Metafiles (CGM)
* Windows Metafiles (WMF)
* HPGL (AutoCAD) Plot files (PLT) (requires UniConvertor 1.1.4)

Inkscape can now use UniConvertor to export files of the following types:

* Windows Metafiles (WMF)
* sK1 files (SK1)
* HPGL (AutoCAD) Plot files (PLT) (requires UniConvertor 1.1.4)

Text objects are not supported as of UniConvertor 1.1.4.

On Windows, UniConvertor is included with Inkscape distribution and does not require separate installation.

===HPGL export===

In addition to the HPGL export via UniConvertor listed above, Inkscape can now export to HPGL (Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language) via an internal routine that is geared towards various cutters/plotters.

===JavaFX export===

Inkscape can export drawings to JavaFX format (.fx file extension).

===DXF import and export===

* DXF export for desktop cutting plotters is much faster than in previous versions. A new option was added to provide support for RoboMaster desktop cutting software. Also, polylines and polysplines are now supported.

* DXF import is new. It supports a number of the simpler DXF shapes: line, Bezier spline, ellipse, circular arc, text.

===PNG export===

* PNG export has been updated to include metadata if present in the source SVG. This includes the Author, Copyright, Creation Time, Description, and Title fields. PNG metadata can be viewed using the ImageMagick <code>identify</code> command.

* Export filenames that are relative (e.g. <code>../file.png</code> or simply <code>file.png</code>) are now resolved relative to the document's location. This applies to the filenames you type in the Export dialog as well as those stored in export hints in the document itself (and used by the "Batch export" checkbutton as well as in command line export with <code>--export-use-hints</code>). However, export filenames specified directly on the command line are not resolved, which in effect means they work, as before, from the current working directory from which you run the export command.

===OCAL (Open Clip Art Library) Export===
* Export to Openclipart.org has been disabled for 0.47 as it had become non-functional and needs to be re-written.

==Autosave==

The new autosave feature allow for automatic timed backups as work goes on. Saved versions are put in a designated directory and do not overwrite the original SVG file nor each other.

In Inkscape Preferences (Ctrl+Shift+P), '''Save''' tab, you can enable this feature and specify various options:

* the time interval between backups, in minutes;

* the directory where you want the backups to be stored;

* and the maximum number of saved backups (if this number is exceeded, old backups will start to be deleted).

==Extensions==

* The former Effects menu is renamed to '''Extensions'''. This is less confusing and better reflects the content of the menu: a collection of extensions, written mostly in Python, which perform various tasks with or without selection.

===New and improved extensions===

* The new '''Arrange > Restack''' extension restacks (changes the z-order of) selected objects, with options including: left to right, top to bottom (or vice versa), radial outward or inward, or at an arbitrary angle. You can also specify what point of an object is used to calculate its position for restacking.

* The new '''Generate from Path > Extrude''' extension is similar to the old Extrude effect, which has been renamed Motion. The new effect requires two paths and draws connection lines or polygons between their nodes. If you want more dense extrusion, add more nodes to the paths. All the extrusion polygons are separate (grouped) objects, so they can be easily painted by the Tweak tool to get nicely shaded ribbons, 3D letters, and the like.

* The new '''Generate from Path > Scatter''' extension spreads copies of pattern along arbitrary "skeleton" paths. The pattern must be the topmost object in the selection. Groups of paths, shapes, clones are allowed.

* The improved '''Modify Path > Add Nodes''' extension now allows segments to be divided into a given number of subsegments.

* The new '''Modify Path > Convert to Dashes''' extension takes the dash pattern of the stroke and explicitly cuts the curve to duplicate this pattern. This can be used to allow desktop cutting plotters, which don't understand dashed stroke style, to cut dashed paths. You can also achieve interesting effects with smoothly varying dash length if you edit the resulting path with Node Sculpting technique (Alt+drag with Node tool).

* The new '''Render > Add printing marks''' extension adds printing marks and color bars required by print bureaus. You can either manually define margins by which cut marks are created.

* The new '''Render > 3D Polyhedron''' extension draws 2D projections of 3D polyhedrons and other 3D shapes. You can choose one of a number of predefined shapes (cube, octahedron, truncated dodecahedron and others) or load a shape definition from an OBJ file. The shape can be rotated around any of the three axes by arbitrary amount; you can also define various style options such as color of the faces and stroke width, and enable shading with adjustable light source position.

* The new '''Render > Alphabet Soup''' extension is a vector rework of Matt Chrisholm's [http://www.theory.org/artprojects/alphabetsoup/main.html script]. Alphabet Soup randomly mashes glyph elements together to make exotic-looking text.

* The new '''Render > Cartesian Grid''' extension plots Cartesian (square) grids that do not fill the page, but offer three levels of division, logarithmic scales (with clutter-reduction and arbitrary base) and customizable line width. All like elements (e.g. x-axis subminor divisions) are put into subgroups together. A proper border is also drawn, with an independent line width.

* The new '''Render > Polar Grid''' extension plots a polar coordinate grid, with options for arbitrary-base logarithmic subdivisions, clutter-reduction around the origin, circumferential labels and custom line widths.

* The new '''Render > Draw from Triangle''' extension takes a triangle drawn as a path (only the first three nodes of a path are counted) and allows to draw many triangle-related geometrical objects such as circumcircles, excentral triangles, etc. It also lets you specify custom trilinear coordinates and triangle centre functions, as well as compute basic triangle properties such as area and semiperimeter.

* The new '''Render > Guides Creator''' extension quickly creates horizontal and vertical guides for subdividing the canvas. You can choose the divisions from None, 1/2, 1/3 ... to 1/10.

* The new '''Render > Calendar''' extension draws a calendar for a given year with localizable month/weekday names, colors, and many other options.

* The new '''Render > Foldable Box''' extension creates foldouts for paper boxes.

* The new '''Text > Convert to Braille''' extension recodes English (or just Latin letters) text to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille Braille] code. It is not intended to create a real Braille text for visually impaired people, just an accurate graphical representation of Braille text to be used in illustrations.

* The new '''Modify Path > Interpolate Attribute in a Group''' extension takes a group of objects and assigns to its members interpolated values of an attribute of your choice, such as width, height, opacity, etc.

* The new '''Web > JavaScript''' extensions allow you to set various interactive JavaScript attributes, such as onclick or onfocus, on SVG elements. Inkscape does not support them on rendering but you might need them for other SVG viewers such as Firefox.

===Extension API changes===

* While the "Live preview" checkbox is useful for most effects, for some it just does not make sense. Now, you can add the attribute <code>needs-live-preview="false"</code> in the <code>effect</code> element in the .inx file of the effect to suppress this checkbox for your effect.

* Parameters passed to extensions (via the <param> element) now can have a boolean attribute, <code>gui-hidden</code>, to indicate that the parameter should not be represented in the GUI. If all parameters are marked as hidden, no GUI is presented for such extension.

* All '''.inx''' files are now properly formatted XML files with their own namespace of: <code><nowiki>http://www.inkscape.org/namespace/inkscape/extension</nowiki></code> and a Relax NG schema to define it. More information can be found on the [[Extensions]] page.

==Filters==

The Filter Editor (former Filter Effects) and Remove Filters commands are moved from the Object menu to the new '''Filters''' top-level menu, which also contains a collection of preset filters.

===Preset filters===

The Filter Editor is powerful, but can be quite cumbersome. You can now apply complex '''preset filters''' to selected objects with a single command by choosing it from the new ''Filters'' top-level menu. Submenus categorize the filters by function or appearance. To view a sampler of all preset filters, open '''filters.svg''' document from Inkscape's examples (<code>share/examples</code> in the Inkscape tree).

Most filters apply immediately after selecting the command; some present a dialog where you can adjust some of the parameters before applying the filter (such filters have "..." at the end of the command in the menu).

By default, if the selected object already has some filter applied, the chosen filter will be '''merged''' with the existing filter for combined effect. However you can also '''overlay''' several filters to an object while keeping them separated: simply press Ctrl+G after applying any filter and then apply another one; the filters will then display separately in the Filters Editor.

You can easily add your own filters to these menus. Simply place any SVG file with the filters to the <code>filters</code> subdirectory of your config directory (<code>~/.config/Inkscape/</code> on Linux) and the filters will be picked up from it when you start Inkscape. By default, they will be placed in the ''Personal'' submenu under ''Effects > Filters''. If you want to control this, add the following attributes to the <code>filter</code> element:

inkscape:label is the command label
inkscape:menu is the submenu to place the command into
inkscape:menu-tooltip is the tooltip (displayed in the statusbar
as you select the command)

===''No Filters'' rendering mode===
In order to facilitate editing documents that use lots of SVG filter effects, filter effects can now be disabled for a particular document window by selecting ''View > Display mode > No Filters'' from the menu. This provides an intermediate step between Normal and Outline view modes.

The ''Toggle View'' command in the ''Display Mode'' submenu ('''Ctrl+keypad 5''') toggles between all 3 modes in a loop: Normal, No filters, Outline.

===Filter quality setting===

In addition to the Blur Quality setting, Inkscape now has a general ''Filter Effects Quality'' setting on the Filters tab of Inkscape Preferences. It affects all filters and gives you an opportunity to seek optimum balance between speed and accuracy when rendering filters.

* '''Best quality''' is the quality used when exporting.
* '''Better quality''' uses fast methods for transforming images, which occasionally shows up as jagged edges. Full rendering resolution is used.
* Anything below that also uses low resolution rendering for filters.

For exporting images, the best quality is used regardless of this setting.

==SVG support==

===Optimized CSS properties===

* As a file size optimization, Inkscape does not write into SVG some of the stroke properties if the object has <code>stroke:none</code> and some of the fill properties when it has <code>fill:none</code>. The only situation where this might affect you is if you remove stroke from an object and then turn it back on - the object will get the default stroke instead of the same it had before.

:Also, in manually-edited SVG where a parent group has no stroke but sets some stroke properties to be inherited by its descendants, you will need to set stroke property to other than none on the group, and suppress inheritance with stroke:none on those children that don't need it.

:Specifically, if stroke:none, the following properties do not get written to SVG:

stroke-width
stroke-linecap
stroke-linejoin
stroke-miterlimit
stroke-opacity
stroke-dasharray
stroke-dashoffset

:Note that this does not include marker properties, which means you can still have markers on a path without visible stroke.

:If fill:none, the following properties do not get written to SVG:

fill-opacity
fill-rule

*The <code>opacity</code> property is not written if it has the default value of 1 (this property is not inherited, so the change should have no side effects).

*The <code>marker-start</code>, <code>marker-mid</code>, and <code>marker-end</code> properties are not written if the <code>marker</code> property is already present with the same value.

===Optimized path data===

In this version, the size of the path data written in the <code>d=</code> attribute of <code>path</code> elements is reduced by about 10%. Inkscape generates the shortest possible path strings by avoiding repeated operators and using relative coordinates (when it helps).

This is controlled by the options on the '''SVG output''' page of Inkscape Preferences dialog. Also, you can change the following attributes in <code>group id="svgoutput"</code> in your preferences.xml file:

* <code>allowrelativecoordinates</code> (default 1) to switch relative coordinates on (1) or off (0)
* <code>forcerepeatcommands</code> (default 0) to force repeating operators (1) or allow use of the more compact representation without repeated operators (0)



===Horizontal and vertical path segments===

If an SVG contains paths with shorthands for horizontal and vertical path segments ('H' or 'V'), then Inkscape will try to maintain those shorthands if possible, so the saved file will also contain them.

===<script> tag preserved===

While Inkscape does not yet support SVG scripting via the <script> element, this element is now preserved after editing the file in Inkscape.

===Initial SVG Fonts support===

As a SoC 2008 project, JucaBlues implemented initial parsing and rendering of [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/fonts.html SVG Fonts].
You can design fonts within Inkscape, but using them to render text on the canvas is not yet supported. We are waiting for libpango to implement proper support of the user-fonts feature.

Currently, the main benefit of this feature is to improve the font design workflow when working with FontForge: You can save SVG files with fonts embedded and import them into Fontforge, and you only need one file per font instead of one file per glyph.

An SVG font is a mapping of chunks of SVG drawing to characters. When a certain character is used in a string, its respective glyph is rendered. If no glyph is declared for a certain character, then there is a default "missing glyph" that is rendered. You can set the drawing that defines this missing glyph; this is done by clicking on the '''Missing Glyph: From Selection...''' button at the top of the dialog.

Here's an example of a font design workflow:

# Open the SVG Font dialog by _Text > SVG Fonts_.
# Click '''New''' under the font list. Select the new font in list; you can rename it by clicking on its name and typing a new name. You will see a set of black squares in the text preview area. This is the preview text being rendered. It only uses the default missing glyph (which is initially defined as a black square) because no specific glyphs were defined yet.
# Draw something that you want to use for the missing glyph
# Click '''Missing Glyph: From selection...'''
# Draw a glyph for the "a" character (character matching is case sensitive)
# On the '''Glyphs''' tab, click '''Add glyph'''
# Type "a" in the '''Matching String''' column (at the moment, handling of the glyph-name attribute is not implemented)
# With the row selected, click '''Get curves from selection...'''
# Now, you will see the "a" glyph in the preview rendering if the preview text contains it. You can edit the preview text as needed to view different characters.

Repeat steps 5 through 9 for every glyph you wish to add to your font, then save the SVG file and open it in FontForge for further editing.

===SVG Test Suite Compliance===

As a result of last year's GSoC, there is now a rendering test framework along with a number of tests (found in the SVN repository [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/gsoc-testsuite/tester/ here]). These tests can be run reasonably easily on any system (you don't need to be able to compile Inkscape) and include a large part of the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/ [[W3C]] SVG Test Suite]. See [http://home.hccnet.nl/th.v.d.gronde/inkscape/ResultViewer.html this page] or [http://auriga.mine.nu/inkscape/ this page] for up-to-date rendering results. Also see [[TestingInkscape]] for information on running and creating rendering tests.



==Editing Aids==

===Grids===
* The dotted rectangular grid now shows small crosses at the intersection points of emphasis lines.

===Guides===

* Guides can now be rotated using the mouse. Each guide has an anchor (visible as a little circle) around which it can rotate.
:*'''Drag''' a guide anywhere to move it.
:*'''Shift+drag''' to rotate a guide about its anchor (additionally press '''Ctrl''' to constrain the rotation angle to multiples of 15 degrees).
:*'''Ctrl+drag''' to move the anchor along the guide.
:*Press '''Del''' while hovering the mouse over the guide to delete it.

* There is now an option in the Preferences dialog ('''Tools''' page) to treat groups as single objects during conversion to guides (as opposed to converting each object inside the group separately).

===Snapping===

Inkscape's snapping code has undergone major changes to make it more reliable and easier to use. Snapping to objects now invokes routines from the 2geom library, which is actively maintained and less error-prone than the old livarot library.

There is a new '''snapping toolbar''' to control the snapping options and modes. Use _View > Show/Hide > Snap_ controls bar to show or hide this toolbar. The toolbar contains toggle buttons for various snapping modes (snap nodes, snap to paths, etc.) as well as a master snapping toggle that disables and reenables all activated modes.

Also, to control some of the snapping features, a '''Snapping''' tab has been created in the Inkscape Preferences dialog. The new features found on this tab are:
* '''Snap indicator''': When snapping has occurred, an indicator is displayed at that specific position. For now that indicator is just a cross that disappears after a second. In the future the shape of the indicator will be related to the type of target that has been snapped to.
* '''Snap delay''': Inkscape now optionally waits some time after the mouse pointer has stopped moving before it tries to snap. This makes Inkscape much more responsive on complex documents and allows moving objects in a straight line over a grid, amongst others.
* Inkscape can be forced to only try snapping the (source) node that is '''closest to the mouse pointer''', à la Corel DRAW. When this mode is enabled, a snap indicator will shortly be shown at that node. This will give you maximum control of the snapping which is useful for complex drawings with many nodes.
* When multiple snap solutions are found, Inkscape can either prefer the closest transformation (when the weight slider is set to 0; this is the old mode), or prefer the moved object's node that was initially the closest to the pointer (when the slider is set to 1). The way Inkscape calculates the preferred snap has been improved too, which should lead to more predictable snapping.

Other improvements are:
* The '''Node tool''' now snaps to any unselected node (both cusp and smooth) within the path that's being edited, and nodes of other paths. It also snaps to the path itself, but only to the stationary segments in between two unselected nodes, not to the segment being currently reshaped. It is now also possible to snap while moving nodes along a vertical or horizontal constraint.
* In the Document Properties dialog, the checkbox for "always snap" has been replaced by a pair of radiobuttons; this should eliminate most of the confusion surrounding this option.
* Holding the '''Shift''' key now also disables snapping while dragging node handles and while creating single dots.
* During constrained drawing (using '''Ctrl'''), Inkscape will now only snap to the points on the constrained line.
* In the Selector tool, snapping while skewing or moving with a constraint (with '''Ctrl''') has been improved.
* Also in the Selector tool, while moving, Inkscape will now snap the bounding box of each selected item individually instead of the selection as a whole

Inkscape can consider the following objects for snapping, depending on the toggles in the Snapping toolbar:
* Clipping paths and masks
* Midpoints of line segments
* Midpoints of bounding box edges
* Page border
* Intersections of any kind of paths
* Smooth nodes
* Cusp nodes
* Each of the handle points (when creating new shapes)
* Radius handles of rectangles
* Single dots

==Other features==

===Spell checker===

There's now a built-in spell checker. Press '''Ctrl+Alt+K''' or choose ''Text > Check spelling'' to check all visible text objects in your document (they need not be selected) in turn, going top-to-bottom and left-to-right. Once a misspelled word is found, a red frame around it is displayed, and the object with the misspelling is selected; if you are in Text tool, it also places the text cursor at the beginning of the misspelled word.

In the dialog, you can choose one of the listed suggestions and '''Accept''' it (this button is disabled unless you choose something in the list); '''Ignore''' the word for the rest of this session; or '''Add''' the word to the local dictionary.

Also, since the dialog does not lock Inkscape's window, you can simply edit the word with Text tool. Once you edit it to something acceptable to the speller, it will automatically turn off the red frame and continue checking the
document.

On Linux, you need to install Aspell and its dictionaries for the languages you want to check. On Windows, for now, only the English dictionary is included with Inkscape builds.

===Desktop integration improvements===

* '''Clipboard is system-wide''': you can now copy/paste objects between different Inkscape instances as well as between Inkscape and other applications (which must be able to handle SVG on the clipboard to use this).

* '''Open Recent menu''' now integrates with Windows recent documents management as well as freedesktop.org recent document lists (used by Gnome, KDE and Xfce). The list can be cleared from the Preferences dialog (the Interface tab).

* '''Themable Icons''': all icons used in Inkscape are now themable using the standard freedesktop.org theming mechanism. The list of names used is available [[themable icons|here]].

===Shell mode===

If you run inkscape with <code>--shell</code>, it will enter a shell mode. In this mode, you type in commands at the prompt and Inkscape executes them, without you having to run a new copy of Inkscape for each command. This feature is mostly useful for scripting and server uses: it adds no new capabilities but allows you to improve the speed and memory requirements of any script that repeatedly calls Inkscape to perform command line tasks (such as export or conversions). Each command in shell mode must be a complete valid Inkscape command line but without the Inkscape program name, for example:

$ inkscape --shell
Inkscape 0.46+devel interactive shell mode. Type 'quit' to quit.
>file.svg --export-pdf=file.pdf
>otherfile.svg --export-png=bitmap.png
Background RRGGBBAA: ffffff00
Area 0:0:744.094:1052.36 exported to 744 x 1052 pixels (90 dpi)
Bitmap saved as: bitmap.png
>quit

===Gesture-based stroke width adjustment===

Similar to editing the fill or stroke colors by dragging away from the color swatch in the status bar (added in 0.46), this version allows you to drag away from the stroke width value displayed there to change the stroke width of selection. Dragging above the 45-degree line from the swatch increases the width (up to four times the original width), dragging below it decreases the width (down to zero). With this feature, quick yet precise stroke width adjustments are possible without opening any dialogs or menus.

===Tool switching by input device===

Tablets and other input devices that report separate hardware (e.g. pen tip and eraser on the two ends of the pen) are now recognized and current tool can be set to change (to Calligraphic Pen or Eraser) in response to the physical tool being used.

===Layers===

* The Layers dialog now can hide or show '''all layers other than the current''': click on the layer name with right mouse button to get the pop-up menu. The ''Solo'' feature allows you to quickly switch between working layers and check their content in isolation.

* A new command, '''Duplicate Layer''', has been added to the Layers menu to duplicate an existing layer with all of its objects (even hidden or locked) and any sub-layers.

* The Add Layer dialog can be opened with '''Ctrl+Shift+N''' (N for new).

* Layer names can now be non-unique within the document.

* Several layer handling inconsistencies have been fixed.

===Editing bitmaps in an external editor===

Linked (but not embedded) bitmaps can be '''edited in an external application'''. Right-click an image and choose ''Edit externally...''

An image will reload when its linked file changes on disk. Both the external editor application to use and the reload behavior are configurable on the ''Bitmaps'' page of the Inkscape Preferences dialog.

===Command for relinking clones===

A new command, '''Relink Clone to Copied''' in ''Edit > Clone'', allows you to relink any clone to a different original object without changing its other properties. Just copy (Ctrl+C) the object you want to be the new original, select any number of clones, and choose the Relink command. Now all selected clones are linked to the copied object.

Note that this may cause the clone to move if the new original and the old original objects are in different positions.

===Automatic relinking of clones on Duplicate===

If you turn on the '''When duplicating original+clones: Relink duplicated clones''' option on the ''Clones'' tab of Inkscape Preferences (default is off), duplicating a selection containing both a clone and its original (possibly in groups) will relink the duplicated clone to the duplicated original instead of the old original.

===Pattern editing===

When editing pattern fills:
* The pattern origin and scale handles now snap.
* The pattern scaling can now be different in X and Y direction. Press '''Ctrl''' to have a fixed 1:1 ratio scaling (old behavior).
* The handles are now positioned at the corners of the unit cell, instead of only a quarter of that cell as before. So, now a rectangle filled with pattern will have all of the pattern handles in the corners, making it harder to manipulate them. However, the handles can be dragged outside the rectangle by moving the pattern's origin handle.

===Transform dialog: spacing out option===

Previously, the ''Apply to each object separately'' checkbox had no effect for the ''Move'' tab of the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M). Now, if several objects are selected, this checkbox is on, and "Relative move" is on, each object is shifted '''relative to the closest selected object''' on the left (for X) or below (for Y).

For example, if you have a horizontal row of objects and you move them relatively by x = 5 px with "Apply to each object separately" on, the leftmost object will shift by 5px, the next one to the right by 10px, and so on; the rightmost selected object is displaced by 5*n px where n is the number of selected objects. As a result, the distance in each pair of adjacent objects will increase by 5px and the whole row will be spaced out, much like a letterspacing adjustment spaces out a text string. Moving these objects by X=-5px will, conversely, squeeze them tighter together: the leftmost will move by -5px, the next one by -10px, and so on. For Y, the effect is the same except that the move starts from the object closest to the bottom (i.e. with smallest Y coordinate).

When determining the order of shifting objects, for X, the left edges of their bounding boxes are sorted horizontally, and for Y, the bottoms of their bounding boxes are sorted vertically. The order of selecting the objects or their z-order do not matter.

===Converting text to path produces a group===

Converting a text or flowed text to path (Ctrl+Shift+C) now produces a '''group of paths''', one path for each glyph of text, instead of a single monolithic path as before. Apart from easier manipulation, an additional advantage is that if your text contained styled spans (i.e. fragments with different color, opacity, or other properties), these styles will be preserved by the corresponding glyph paths after the conversion. You can still easily get a single path out of such a group by selecting it and doing Combine (Ctrl+K).

===Combine works on groups===

The Combine command now works transparently on groups, i.e. combines paths inside selected groups at any level of grouping.

===Exclusion works on multiple paths===
The Exclusion boolean operation can now operate on an arbitrary number of paths.

===No more Whiteboard===
The configure flag for Whiteboard has been removed since the feature was non-functional. This menu item will no longer exist in the releases until it is properly fixed to avoid any confusion.

===Save As directory===
On the '''Save''' tab in Inkscape Preferences, an option was added to change the behavior to our old behavior. When this option is on, the "Save as..." dialog will always open in the directory where the currently open document is. When it's off, it will open in the directory where you last saved a file using that dialog..

===Packaging Improvements===
Packaging for OSX and Windows has been worked on heavily and greatly improved during this release cycle. Inkscape also now has a Portable version available for Windows.

==User interface==

===Inkscape Preferences dialog===

* This dialog has been rearranged for more logical grouping of options. New pages have been added: '''Bitmaps''' (options for the new update-on-file-change and external editor features), '''UI''' (options for toolbar icon sizes), '''SVG Output''' (options for SVG formatting, introduced in 0.46 and now editable from the dialog as well), and '''Save''' (save directory and autosave options).

===Bitmap Copy resolution===

* A new option on the Bitmaps tab, '''Resolution for Create Bitmap Copy''', allows you to set the resolution of the bitmap created by the corresponding command (by default bound to Alt+B). The default value of 90 dpi forces the resulting bitmap to align with the default 1px-spaced grid on the canvas.

===Zoom correction factor===

* The Interface tab has an adjustable ruler for '''Zoom correction factor'''. Move the slider until the ruler's on-screen size matches its true size. This is used as a reference point for the 100% (original size) zoom command.

===Interface language choice===

* The application's interface language can be set from the preferences dialog, Interface tab. You'll have to restart Inkscape for this choice to take effect.

===Toolbars===

* On the Interface tab, the toolbar icon sizes for the three main toolbars are now separately configurable and to a few different sizes. This allows for a more compact user interface.
* The vertical toolbox has been converted to a standard GtkToolbar, which fixed the problem of it pushing the main window taller. Tools that don't fit automatically go into a popup menu.
* When torn off, toolbars now keep the size they last had in the main window. They can be resized by docking, resizing the main window, and then undocking again.
* Some controls (such as the Width in Calligraphic/Tweak/Eraser tools, Tremor, Wiggle, and Mass in Calligraphic, Threshold in Paintbucket, Tolerance in Pencil) are converted from numeric editable fields into draggable sliders, with labels and values (usually in the range 0..100) displayed on top. As these values don't usually require high precision, this makes adjusting them much easier and faster.

===Clone/original visualization===

When you press '''Shift+D''' to find and select the original of the selected clone, Inkscape draws a '''dashed blue line''' between the centers of the bounding boxes of the clone and the original. This line disappears after one second.

===File dialogs===
* The Windows builds of Inkscape now have Windows-native file dialogs to keep consistency with other Windows applications.
* Two new entries in the File type list, '''All Bitmaps''' and '''All Vectors''', allow you to limit the listing to bitmap or vector formats only.

===Document Properties dialog===
* New Color Management tab. In this new tab, you can declare multiple ICC color profiles for the current document.
* New Script tab. ?

===Object Properties dialog===
* New Title and Description fields. The Title attribute is intended to be used as tooltip. [sas]
* New Interactivity section to add JavaScript calls.

===Miscellaneous===
* The confusing icons on buttons in the controls bar of the Dropper tool (pick/assign opacity) are replaced by text labels.
* Hovering over a swatch now shows the name of the swatch in the status bar. This makes it easier for tablet users to identify a swatch by name, as holding a stylus still enough for the tooltip to show up may be difficult.
* In the Align and Distribute dialog, there is an option to treat all selected objects as a group when aligning. This spares the trouble of manually grouping them, aligning, and ungrouping afterwards.

==Notable bug fixes==

* Several '''memory leaks''' are stopped, reducing the memory consumption during long editing sessions considerably. Closing the last window with a document now frees memory used by that document immediately.

* '''Copy/paste''' between Inkscape and other programs, as well as between different Inkscape instances, finally works as expected.

* '''No more ID clashes on import and paste''': previously, importing or pasting SVG objects might sometimes distort their colors, because the imported objects referred to gradients with the same IDs as those that already exist in the document but look different. Now, IDs of all gradients in the pasted document are checked for clashes with those in the host document, and if necessary changed with all their users updated correspondingly, so such unexpected color changes will never happen.

* The '''visual bounding box''' (which is the default bounding box type used by Inkscape) of an object with a filter applied now includes the expanded area of the filter. For '''single blur filter''' (such as the blur you apply with a slider in the Fill and Stroke dialog), this expands the bounding box by 2.4*radius; although theoretically, blur is infinite, this is the distance at which the opacity of the object drops below the perceptibility threshold of our renderer. For all other filters, the area is expanded by the relative amounts you specify on the "Filter general settings" tab of the Filter Editor dialog.

:Only visual bounding box is affected; if you use geometric bounding box, you will notice no change in most cases. However, the '''Export Bitmap''' dialog always uses the visual bounding box for selection of the export area; this means that you can now export a blurred object to bitmap without any clipping of the blur.

* Bounding box calculation does not include the invisible objects, [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/252547 bug #252547].

* Various fixes to PS and PDF rendering of objects involving masks, patterns, and/or bitmaps: [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/208217 bug #208217], [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/217212 bug #217212] and others.

* File dialogs (Open, Save, Save as) now remember the last visited directory.

* The <code>--vacuum-defs</code> command line parameter erroneously deleted markers which are in use.

* No more garbage lines in Outline mode.

* No more artifacts left by the circle cursor in Tweak tool.

* The '''Bend Path''' and '''Pattern along Path''' path effects now work correctly with closed paths.

* Several '''[[ViewBoxToDo|viewBox]]''' related bugs fixed:
:* Documents with viewBox are now editable without transformation defects. In particular this affected documents created with e.g. pstoedit. [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/168370 bug #168370]
:* Resizing the page adjusts viewBox [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/167682 bug #167682].
:* preserveAspectRatio parsing code was fixed [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/166885 bug #166885].

* Several fixes allow Inkscape to correctly render and edit SVG files that use <code>currentColor</code> in objects' style (this includes files created by gnuplot).

* Inkscape is now able to handle paths with only 'movetos', i.e. "M 0,0 M 1,1 M 2,2". These kind of paths can be used to only show markers on a path without the rest of the path visible.

* Open paths (as opposed to closed) are now correctly drawn when start and end points are equal (SVG test suite ''paths-data-10-t.svg'').

* The shorthand 'marker' property is now correctly interpreted (SVG test suite ''painting-marker-03-f.svg'').

* Coordinates and lengths specified in percentages are now correctly interpreted (SVG test suite ''coords-units-02-b.svg'').

* Horizontally scrolling the canvas with a tilt wheel (present on several Logitech mice such as the LX5) in the Bezier tool will no longer finish the path being drawn.



=Known issues=

* First time opening of the drop-down list with font families in Text tool may be slow, especially if you have many fonts installed. Subsequent accesses of this list are fast.

=Previous releases=

* [[ReleaseNotes046]]
* [[ReleaseNotes045]]
* [[ReleaseNotes044]]
* [[ReleaseNotes043]]
* [[ReleaseNotes042]]
* [[ReleaseNotes041]]
* [[ReleaseNotes040]]
* [[ReleaseNotes039]]
* [[ReleaseNotes038]]
* [[ReleaseNotes037]]
* [[ReleaseNotes036]]
* [[ReleaseNotes035]]

[[Category:Marketing]]

AboutScreenTranslation

2009-10-29T22:15:57Z

A b:

"Draw Freely" about screen translations:

*about.bg.svg -> РИϹУВАЙ ϹВОБОДНО
*about.br.svg -> Tresit Dinask
*about.de.svg -> Frei Zeichnen
*about.es.svg -> Dibuja libremente or Dibuja en libertad(*)
*about.fr.svg -> Dessiner librement (*)
*about.gl.svg -> Debuxa con liberdade
*hu -> Rajzoljon szabadon
*about.it.svg -> Disegna in Libertà
*about.nl.svg -> Vrij tekenen (*)
*about.pl.svg -> Rysuj swobodnie (*)
*about.pt_BR.svg -> Desenhe Livremente
*about.ru.svg -> Рисуй свободно
*about.sk.svg -> Kreslite slobodne (*)
*about.sl.svg -> Rišite svobodno
*about.sr@latin.svg -> Slobodno crtaj
*about.sr.svg -> Слободно цртај (*)

(*) Confirmed

Documentation translation

2009-10-11T19:27:52Z

A b: /* Tutorial Translation */

Go Back to the main [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Translation_information Translation information] page.

== Tutorial Translation ==

Inkscape's tutorial sources are in Docbook XML format, with illustrations in SVG.

The ''translations'' of the tutorials however are in the well-know PO format. If you want to help, download them here:

http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/doc-docbook/trunk/

* Each tutorial is in its own subdirectory. You need the <code><LANG>.po</code> file, for example <code>basic/fr.po</code>. Please coordinate with the previous translator listed in that file!
* If there is none of these files, get the <code><tutorial>.pot</code> file, rename it to <code><LANG>.po</code> and start translating.

Once you are satisfied with what you have done, submit it to the Launchpad bug tracker. Open a new bug with name translation to <your language>, upload the po-file there as attachment. You need to create an account on ubuntu launchpad if you have no account there, yet.

Thanks!

When adding a new tutorial SVG to the SVN ([http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/share/tutorials/ to the tutorial directory]), it's recommended to also perform the following steps:

* Add the filename of the tutorial SVG (and any additional files it needs, like PNG images referenced from the SVG) to '''share/tutorials/Makefile.am''' in the [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ main inkscape trunk].
* If the SVG refers to a PNG, then that PNG should exist in the SVG's directory -- make sure to also commit that PNG.
* Modify the translation of the tutorial filename in the main PO file so as to make Inkscape display the localized tutorial instead of the default (English) one. An example: if the <code>"tutorial-basic.svg"</code> string is translated the following way in '''po/fr.po'''
:<code>msgid "tutorial-basic.svg"</code>
:<code>msgstr "tutorial-basic.fr.svg"</code>

:then whenever the locale is French, Inkscape will display the French (and not the default English) basic tutorial for users.
* Update the [[TranslationStatus | translation status]] in the wiki.

You may also check the tutorials with the [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/po/check_for_tutorial_problems.sh?view=log check_for_tutorial_problems.sh] script. See the comments inside the script for more information.

== Verification ==

To create up-to-date tutorials (the '''tutorial-*.svg''' files), you'll need to build
them from the tutorial PO files. Here's how to do it:
# Install Saxon 6.5.x (Saxon is a tool that converts XML to SVG using XSLT, see [http://saxon.sf.net saxon.sf.net]) if it's not already installed. You can install it with your package manager or by downloading the appropriate file from the Saxon homepage and unzipping it into a suitable directory. You need to install version 6.5.x -- the build process doesn't work with newer versions. E.g. under openSUSE, install '''saxon-6.5.5''' or a similarly named package -- NOT '''saxon8''' or similar. The build scripts need to find '''saxon.jar''' in your Java classpath -- you may want to check your classpath in case of a Java problem.
# Install Java SDK (JRE is not enough) if it's not already installed. Under openSUSE, the package name should be '''java-1_6_0-sun-devel''' or something similar. You can check your installation with <pre>type java</pre> from the command line -- check that '''java''' actually points to the SDK's '''java''' executable that you installed.
# Update your local copy of the [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/doc-docbook/trunk/ docbook trunk] and the [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ main inkscape trunk] from SVN.
# <pre>cd doc-docbook/javaclasses/org/inkscape/xslt; javac files.java</pre> ('''doc-docbook/''' being the root of your local copy of the docbook trunk) (this rebuilds '''files.class''', which is a Java class file)
# <pre>cd doc-docbook/</pre> ('''doc-docbook/''' being the root of your local copy of the docbook trunk)
# <pre>make svg</pre> (this creates all tutorial SVGs for all languages -- can take long)
# Check the newly created tutorial SVGs (which you'll find in their specific tutorial directories: '''advanced/''', '''basic/''', ...) for overlapping text (often caused by font settings) and other problems. It's recommended to perform the check under a different operating system. If the SVGs have overlapping text, check the default fonts on your computer.
# If you want to commit the newly created tutorial SVGs, then copy the new '''tutorial-*.svg''' files to the '''share/tutorials/''' directory of your local copy of the main inkscape trunk and commit them to the main inkscape trunk.

For more information, see '''doc-docbook/README''' (WebSVN version [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/doc-docbook/trunk/README?view=log here]) and '''doc-docbook/Makefile.targets''' (WebSVN version [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/doc-docbook/trunk/Makefile.targets?view=log here]).

== Keyboard and mouse translation ==

* TBD

== User Manual ==
* See also [[Embedded Help]]
* First download the user manual xml document from [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/inkscape/user_manual/trunk/xml/ SVN]
* edit the trunk/xml/inkscapeUTF.xml file. All languages are inside.
* Just read the file, choose the language reference you want to use (en, fr...) and translate by duplicating the node and changing lang attribute to yours.
* when finishing editing, if necessary edit the Makefile and add your language to the Makefile. In every case test your file with some tools (xmllint...) or just type again "make your_language" : syntax errors will be displayed : please correct them.
* submit your work as a patch in the patch tracker and warn Cédric Gemy (cedric at le-radar.com) by email.

== Manual pages (man)==

* first download inkscape.pod from [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/inkscape.pod?view=log SVN]
* rename it to inkscape.xx.pod, where xx is the code for your language
* open inkscape.xx.pod in your favourite text editor (pay attention to encoding which must be UTF8), and directly translate in the file.
* you can take a look at a first example of translation with inkscape.fr.pod
* finally, submit your work in the patch tracker and drop a mail to the inkscape devel mailing list.

== Translation information ==
Go Back to the main [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Translation_information Translation information] page.

[[Category: Developer Discussion]]

Documentation translation

2009-10-10T09:50:22Z

A b: /* Tutorial Translation */

Go Back to the main [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Translation_information Translation information] page.

== Tutorial Translation ==

Inkscape's tutorial sources are in Docbook XML format, with illustrations in SVG.

The ''translations'' of the tutorials however are in the well-know PO format. If you want to help, download them here:

http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/doc-docbook/trunk/

* Each tutorial is in its own subdirectory. You need the <code><LANG>.po</code> file, for example <code>basic/fr.po</code>. Please coordinate with the previous translator listed in that file!
* If there is none of these files, get the <code><tutorial>.pot</code> file, rename it to <code><LANG>.po</code> and start translating.

Once you are satisfied with what you have done, submit it to the Launchpad bug tracker. Open a new bug with name translation to <your language>, upload the po-file there as attachment. You need to create an account on ubuntu launchpad if you have no account there,yet.

Thanks!

When adding a new tutorial SVG to the SVN ([http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/share/tutorials/ to the tutorial directory]), it's recommended to also perform the following steps:

* Add the filename of the tutorial SVG (and any additional files it needs, like PNG images referenced from the SVG) to '''share/tutorials/Makefile.am''' in the [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ main inkscape trunk].
* If the SVG refers to a PNG, then that PNG should exist in the SVG's directory -- make sure to also commit that PNG.
* Modify the translation of the tutorial filename in the main PO file so as to make Inkscape display the localized tutorial instead of the default (English) one. An example: if the <code>"tutorial-basic.svg"</code> string is translated the following way in '''po/fr.po'''
:<code>msgid "tutorial-basic.svg"</code>
:<code>msgstr "tutorial-basic.fr.svg"</code>

:then whenever the locale is French, Inkscape will display the French (and not the default English) basic tutorial for users.
* Update the [[TranslationStatus | translation status]] in the wiki.

== Verification ==

To create up-to-date tutorials (the '''tutorial-*.svg''' files), you'll need to build
them from the tutorial PO files. Here's how to do it:
# Install Saxon 6.5.x (Saxon is a tool that converts XML to SVG using XSLT, see [http://saxon.sf.net saxon.sf.net]) if it's not already installed. You can install it with your package manager or by downloading the appropriate file from the Saxon homepage and unzipping it into a suitable directory. You need to install version 6.5.x -- the build process doesn't work with newer versions. E.g. under openSUSE, install '''saxon-6.5.5''' or a similarly named package -- NOT '''saxon8''' or similar. The build scripts need to find '''saxon.jar''' in your Java classpath -- you may want to check your classpath in case of a Java problem.
# Install Java SDK (JRE is not enough) if it's not already installed. Under openSUSE, the package name should be '''java-1_6_0-sun-devel''' or something similar. You can check your installation with <pre>type java</pre> from the command line -- check that '''java''' actually points to the SDK's '''java''' executable that you installed.
# Update your local copy of the [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/doc-docbook/trunk/ docbook trunk] and the [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ main inkscape trunk] from SVN.
# <pre>cd doc-docbook/javaclasses/org/inkscape/xslt; javac files.java</pre> ('''doc-docbook/''' being the root of your local copy of the docbook trunk) (this rebuilds '''files.class''', which is a Java class file)
# <pre>cd doc-docbook/</pre> ('''doc-docbook/''' being the root of your local copy of the docbook trunk)
# <pre>make svg</pre> (this creates all tutorial SVGs for all languages -- can take long)
# Check the newly created tutorial SVGs (which you'll find in their specific tutorial directories: '''advanced/''', '''basic/''', ...) for overlapping text (often caused by font settings) and other problems. It's recommended to perform the check under a different operating system. If the SVGs have overlapping text, check the default fonts on your computer.
# If you want to commit the newly created tutorial SVGs, then copy the new '''tutorial-*.svg''' files to the '''share/tutorials/''' directory of your local copy of the main inkscape trunk and commit them to the main inkscape trunk.

For more information, see '''doc-docbook/README''' (WebSVN version [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/doc-docbook/trunk/README?view=log here]) and '''doc-docbook/Makefile.targets''' (WebSVN version [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/doc-docbook/trunk/Makefile.targets?view=log here]).

== Keyboard and mouse translation ==

* TBD

== User Manual ==
* See also [[Embedded Help]]
* First download the user manual xml document from [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/inkscape/user_manual/trunk/xml/ SVN]
* edit the trunk/xml/inkscapeUTF.xml file. All languages are inside.
* Just read the file, choose the language reference you want to use (en, fr...) and translate by duplicating the node and changing lang attribute to yours.
* when finishing editing, if necessary edit the Makefile and add your language to the Makefile. In every case test your file with some tools (xmllint...) or just type again "make your_language" : syntax errors will be displayed : please correct them.
* submit your work as a patch in the patch tracker and warn Cédric Gemy (cedric at le-radar.com) by email.

== Manual pages (man)==

* first download inkscape.pod from [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/inkscape.pod?view=log SVN]
* rename it to inkscape.xx.pod, where xx is the code for your language
* open inkscape.xx.pod in your favourite text editor (pay attention to encoding which must be UTF8), and directly translate in the file.
* you can take a look at a first example of translation with inkscape.fr.pod
* finally, submit your work in the patch tracker and drop a mail to the inkscape devel mailing list.

== Translation information ==
Go Back to the main [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Translation_information Translation information] page.

[[Category: Developer Discussion]]

Documentation translation

2009-10-09T22:16:40Z

A b: /* Tutorial Translation */

Go Back to the main [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Translation_information Translation information] page.

== Tutorial Translation ==

Inkscape's tutorial sources are in Docbook XML format, with illustrations in SVG.

The ''translations'' of the tutorials however are in the well-know PO format. If you want to help, download them here:

http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/doc-docbook/trunk/

* Each tutorial is in its own subdirectory. You need the <code><LANG>.po</code> file, for example <code>basic/fr.po</code>. Please coordinate with the previous translator listed in that file!
* If there is none of these files, get the <code><tutorial>.pot</code> file, rename it to <code><LANG>.po</code> and start translating.

Once you are satisfied with what you have done, submit it to the Launchpad bug tracker. Open a new bug with name translation to <your language>, upload the po-file there as attachment. You need to create an account on ubuntu launchpad if you have no account there,yet.

Thanks!

== Verification ==

To create up-to-date tutorials (the '''tutorial-*.svg''' files), you'll need to build
them from the tutorial PO files. Here's how to do it:
# Install Saxon 6.5.x (Saxon is a tool that converts XML to SVG using XSLT, see [http://saxon.sf.net saxon.sf.net]) if it's not already installed. You can install it with your package manager or by downloading the appropriate file from the Saxon homepage and unzipping it into a suitable directory. You need to install version 6.5.x -- the build process doesn't work with newer versions. E.g. under openSUSE, install '''saxon-6.5.5''' or a similarly named package -- NOT '''saxon8''' or similar. The build scripts need to find '''saxon.jar''' in your Java classpath -- you may want to check your classpath in case of a Java problem.
# Install Java SDK (JRE is not enough) if it's not already installed. Under openSUSE, the package name should be '''java-1_6_0-sun-devel''' or something similar. You can check your installation with <pre>type java</pre> from the command line -- check that '''java''' actually points to the SDK's '''java''' executable that you installed.
# Update your local copy of the [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/doc-docbook/trunk/ docbook trunk] and the [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ main inkscape trunk] from SVN.
# <pre>cd doc-docbook/javaclasses/org/inkscape/xslt; javac files.java</pre> ('''doc-docbook/''' being the root of your local copy of the docbook trunk) (this rebuilds '''files.class''', which is a Java class file)
# <pre>cd doc-docbook/</pre> ('''doc-docbook/''' being the root of your local copy of the docbook trunk)
# <pre>make svg</pre> (this creates all tutorial SVGs for all languages -- can take long)
# Check the newly created tutorial SVGs (which you'll find in their specific tutorial directories: '''advanced/''', '''basic/''', ...) for overlapping text (often caused by font settings) and other problems. It's recommended to perform the check under a different operating system. If the SVGs have overlapping text, check the default fonts on your computer.
# If you want to commit the newly created tutorial SVGs, then copy the new '''tutorial-*.svg''' files to the '''share/tutorials/''' directory of your local copy of the main inkscape trunk and commit them to the main inkscape trunk.

For more information, see '''doc-docbook/README''' (WebSVN version [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/doc-docbook/trunk/README?view=log here]) and '''doc-docbook/Makefile.targets''' (WebSVN version [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/inkscape/doc-docbook/trunk/Makefile.targets?view=log here]).

== Keyboard and mouse translation ==

* TBD

== User Manual ==
* See also [[Embedded Help]]
* First download the user manual xml document from [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/inkscape/user_manual/trunk/xml/ SVN]
* edit the trunk/xml/inkscapeUTF.xml file. All languages are inside.
* Just read the file, choose the language reference you want to use (en, fr...) and translate by duplicating the node and changing lang attribute to yours.
* when finishing editing, if necessary edit the Makefile and add your language to the Makefile. In every case test your file with some tools (xmllint...) or just type again "make your_language" : syntax errors will be displayed : please correct them.
* submit your work as a patch in the patch tracker and warn Cédric Gemy (cedric at le-radar.com) by email.

== Manual pages (man)==

* first download inkscape.pod from [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/inkscape.pod?view=log SVN]
* rename it to inkscape.xx.pod, where xx is the code for your language
* open inkscape.xx.pod in your favourite text editor (pay attention to encoding which must be UTF8), and directly translate in the file.
* you can take a look at a first example of translation with inkscape.fr.pod
* finally, submit your work in the patch tracker and drop a mail to the inkscape devel mailing list.

== Translation information ==
Go Back to the main [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Translation_information Translation information] page.

[[Category: Developer Discussion]]

TranslationStatus

2009-10-08T17:31:33Z

A b: /* Tutorials */

Go Back to the main [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Translation_information Translation information] page.

= Interface translation (po files) =

* There are some graphical statistics for the current UI translation progress at [http://mfloryan.statnet.pl/~mfloryan/inkscape/] - (started in May 2009)

* Preliminary note : the names and e-mail addresses of contributors and last translator can be found in the header of the po file (simply open it with your favorite text editor or in Linux you can use the command '''head de.po''' to view the first 10 lines of the file de.po)

* General information

Status updated on 19 July 2006

Total number of localizable strings: '''2213'''

Total number of PO files: '''44'''

Average translated: 1345 ('''60 %'''), fuzzy: 408 ( 18 %), untranslated: 459 ( 20 %)

* '''Amharic''': am.po

translated: 78 ('''3 %'''), fuzzy: 660 ( 29 %), untranslated: 1475 ( 66 %)

* '''Azerbaijani/Turkic''': az.po

translated: 65 ('''2 %'''), fuzzy: 932 ( 42 %), untranslated: 1216 ( 54 %)

* '''Belarusian''': be.po

translated: 159 ('''7 %'''), fuzzy: 1026 ( 46 %), untranslated: 1028 ( 46 %)

* '''Catalan''': ca.po

translated: 2075 ('''93 %'''), fuzzy: 97 ( 4 %), untranslated: 41 ( 1 %)

* '''Czech''': cs.po

translated: 2085 ('''94 %'''), fuzzy: 98 ( 4 %), untranslated: 30 ( 1 %)

* '''Danish''': da.po

translated: 2210 ('''100 %'''), fuzzy: 0 ( 0 %), untranslated: 3 ( 0 %)

* '''German''': de.po

translated: 2107 ('''95 %'''), fuzzy: 84 ( 3 %), untranslated: 22 ( 0 %)

* '''Greek''': el.po

translated: 328 ('''14 %'''), fuzzy: 965 ( 43 %), untranslated: 920 ( 41 %)

* '''English/Great Britain''': en_GB.po

translated: 2087 ('''94 %'''), fuzzy: 97 ( 4 %), untranslated: 29 ( 1 %)

* '''Spanish''': es.po

translated: 2085 ('''94 %'''), fuzzy: 97 ( 4 %), untranslated: 31 ( 1 %)

* '''Spanish/Mexico''': es_MX.po

translated: 337 ('''15 %'''), fuzzy: 1014 ( 45 %), untranslated: 862 ( 38 %)

* '''Estonian''': et.po

translated: 9 ('''0 %'''), fuzzy: 861 ( 38 %), untranslated: 1343 ( 60 %)

* '''Basque''': eu.po

translated: 2075 ('''93 %'''), fuzzy: 99 ( 4 %), untranslated: 39 ( 1 %)

* '''Finnish''': fi.po

translated: 2213 ('''100 %'''), fuzzy: 0 ( 0 %), untranslated: 0 ( 0 %)

* '''French''': fr.po

translated: 2192 ('''99 %'''), fuzzy: 11 ( 0 %), untranslated: 10 ( 0 %)

* '''Irish''': ga.po

translated: 14 ('''0 %'''), fuzzy: 794 ( 35 %), untranslated: 1405 ( 63 %)

* '''Galician''': gl.po

translated: 84 ('''3 %'''), fuzzy: 1046 ( 47 %), untranslated: 1083 ( 48 %)

* '''Hungarian''': hu.po

translated: 2085 ('''94 %'''), fuzzy: 97 ( 4 %), untranslated: 31 ( 1 %)

* '''Italian''': it.po

translated: 2078 ('''93 %'''), fuzzy: 97 ( 4 %), untranslated: 38 ( 1 %)

* '''Japanese''': ja.po

translated: 1290 ('''58 %'''), fuzzy: 511 ( 23 %), untranslated: 412 ( 18 %)

* '''Korean''': ko.po

translated: 836 ('''37 %'''), fuzzy: 81 ( 3 %), untranslated: 1296 ( 58 %)

* '''Lithuanian''': lt.po

translated: 1892 ('''85 %'''), fuzzy: 98 ( 4 %), untranslated: 223 ( 10 %)

* '''Macedonian''': mk.po

translated: 0 ('''0 %'''), fuzzy: 679 ( 30 %), untranslated: 1534 ( 69 %)

* '''Nepali''': ne.po

translated: 2088 ('''97 %'''), fuzzy: 1 ( 0 %), untranslated: 55 ( 3 %)

* '''Norwegian/Bokmål dialect''': nb.po

translated: 2085 ('''94 %'''), fuzzy: 97 ( 4 %), untranslated: 31 ( 2 %)

* '''Norwegian/Nynorsk''': nn.po

translated: 1592 ('''71 %'''), fuzzy: 372 ( 16 %), untranslated: 249 ( 11 %)

* '''Dutch: nl.po'''

translated: 1439 ('''65 %'''), fuzzy: 478 ( 21 %), untranslated: 296 ( 13 %)

* '''Piglatin''': pig.po

translated: ('''100 %'''), fuzzy: 0 ( 0 %), untranslated: 0 ( 0 %)

* '''Punjabi''': pa.po

translated: 907 ('''40 %'''), fuzzy: 432 ( 19 %), untranslated: 874 ( 39 %)

* '''Polish''': pl.po

translated: 2073 ('''93 %'''), fuzzy: 98 ( 4 %), untranslated: 42 ( 1 %)

* '''Portuguese''': pt.po

translated: 185 ( '''8 %'''), fuzzy: 1089 ( 49 %), untranslated: 939 ( 42 %)

* '''Portuguese/Brazil''': pt_BR.po

translated: 1495 ('''67 %'''), fuzzy: 444 ( 20 %), untranslated: 274 ( 12 %)

* '''Romanian''': ro.po

translated: 0 ('''0 %'''), fuzzy: 0 ( 0 %), untranslated: 0 ( 0 %)

* '''Russian''': ru.po

translated: 2081 ('''94 %'''), fuzzy: 98 ( 4 %), untranslated: 34 ( 1 %)

* '''Slovak''': sk.po

translated: 844 ('''38 %'''), fuzzy: 748 ( 33 %), untranslated: 621 ( 28 %)

* '''Slovenian''': sl.po

translated: 2085 ('''94 %'''), fuzzy: 97 ( 4 %), untranslated: 31 ( 1 %)

* '''Serbian''': sr.po

translated: 2087 ('''94 %'''), fuzzy: 97 ( 4 %), untranslated: 29 ( 1 %)

* '''Serbian@Latine''': sr@Latn.po

translated: 2087 ('''94 %'''), fuzzy: 97 ( 4 %), untranslated: 29 ( 1 %)

* '''Swedish''': sv.po

translated: 564 ('''25 %'''), fuzzy: 824 ( 37 %), untranslated: 825 ( 37 %)

* '''Turkish''': tr.po

translated: 893 ('''40 %'''), fuzzy: 656 ( 29 %), untranslated: 664 ( 30 %)

* '''Ukrainian''': uk.po

translated: 1466 ('''66 %'''),fuzzy: 466 ( 21 %), untranslated: 281 ( 12 %)

* '''Vietnamese''': vi.po

translated: 2213 ('''100 %'''), fuzzy: 0 ( 0 %), untranslated: 0 ( 0 %)

* '''Chinese/Simplified''': zh_CN.po

translated: 2083 ('''94 %'''), fuzzy: 98 ( 4 %), untranslated: 32 ( 1 %)

* '''Chinese/Traditional''': zh_TW.po

translated: 2085 ('''94 %'''), fuzzy: 98 ( 4 %), untranslated: 30 ( 1 %)

= Tutorials =

Already available in svn (as of Oct 2009):
* Basic: bg, ca, cs, da, de, eo, es, eu, fr, hu, it, ja, nl, nn, pl, pt_BR, ru, sk, sl, tr, vi, zh_CN, zh_TW
* Shapes: ca, cs, de, es, eu, fr, hu, it, ja, pl, pt_BR, ru, sk, sl, vi, zh_CN, zh_TW
* Advanced: ca, cs, de, es, eu, fr, hu, it, ja, pl, pt_BR, ru, sk, sl, vi, zh_CN, zh_TW
* Tracing: ca, de, es, eu, fr, hu, ja, pl, pt_BR, ru, sk, sl, vi, zh_TW
* Calligraphy: ca, cs, de, es, eu, fr, hu, ja, pl, pt_BR, ru, sk, sl, vi, zh_TW
* Elements of design: ca, de, es, eu, fr, hu, ja, pl, pt_BR, ru, sk, sl, zh_TW
* Tips and tricks: ca, de, es, eu, fr, hu, it, ja, pl, pt_BR, ru, sk, sl, vi, zh_TW
* Interpolate: de, hu, pl, sl, vi

= Keys (shortcuts) =

Already available in svn :
* de
* en
* fr
* sl

= Windows installer =

Already available in svn :
* catalan.nsh
* czech.nsh
* english.nsh
* french.nsh
* german.nsh
* italian.nsh
* polish.nsh
* slovak.nsh
* spanish.nsh

= Wiki translation =

= Website =

2006-08 001.inc de en it

2006-07 001.inc de en it

2006-06 010.inc de en it

2006-06 009.inc de en it

2006-06 008.inc de en it

2006-06 007.inc de en it

2006-06 006.inc de en

2006-06 005.inc de en

2006-06 004.inc de en

2006-06 003.inc de en

2006-06 002.inc de en

2006-06 001.inc de en

2006-05 007.inc de en

2006-05 006.inc de en

2006-05 005.inc de en

2006-05 004.inc de en

2006-05 003.inc de en

2006-05 002.inc de en

2006-05 001.inc de en es it

2006-04 005.inc de en es

2006-04 004.inc de en es

2006-04 003.inc de en

2006-04 002.inc de en

2006-04 001.inc de en fr

2006-02 001.inc en fr

2006-01 003.inc en fr

2006-01 002.inc en fr

2006-01 001.inc en fr it

2005-11 007.inc de en fr it

= News =

GNOME has the following at >50%.

bg, ca, cs, de, en_CA, en_GB, es, fi, fr, nb, ne, nl, pl, pt, pt_BR, ru, sk, sr, sv, uk, vi, zh_CN, and zh_TW

Of these, we have some at >80% already. The ones not at 80% are:

bg, en_CA, en_GB, fi, nb, ne, nl, pl, pt, pr_BR, ru, sk, sr, sv, uk, vi

pl, pt_BR, ru, sr, and uk are between 60-80%, so these seem like they should not be hard to boost to at least 80%! en_CA and en_GB ought to also be easy, aye?

= Translation information =
Go Back to the main [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Translation_information Translation information] page.

InkscapeTranslatorComments

2008-04-13T22:08:13Z

A b: comments for translators

This page contains comments and descriptions (meant to be used by translators) about strings in the Inkscape sources.

'''"art box", "bleed box", "crop box", "media box", "trim box"'''

http://www.acrobatusers.com/tech_corners/javascript_corner/tips/2006/page_bounds/

'''"Dublin Core Entities"'''

http://www.dublincore.org/

'''"H"''' (src/widgets/toolbox.cpp)

means "hue"

'''"Intercept", "Slope"'''

http://id.mind.net/~zona/mmts/functionInstitute/linearFunctions/lsif.html

'''"Invalid SIOX result", "SIOX foreground selection"'''

SIOX stands for Simple Interactive Object Extraction

'''"Kernel"'''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_(matrix)

'''"L"''' (src/widgets/toolbox.cpp)

means "lightness"

'''"L-system"'''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindenmayer_system

'''"Make connectors with end-markers (arrows) point downwards"'''

it makes a directed graph where all directed connectors (with arrows) point in one direction - down

'''"O"''' (src/widgets/toolbox.cpp)

means "opacity"

'''"Perfect-Bound Cover"'''

info on Perfect Binding:
http://www.powis.com/resources/learn/printing_terminology.php

'''"Remove merge node"'''

a history list entry after clicking (thus deleting) a merge node (triangle) in the Filter Effects dialog

'''"RGB Barrel"'''

"RGB channel rotation" as in rgb->gbr->brg->grb (rotating like a barrel)

'''"S"''' (src/widgets/toolbox.cpp)

means "saturation"

----

'''Items in Effects/Raster menu'''

ImageMagick bitmap effects:
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php

Compiling Inkscape

2008-01-15T10:00:48Z

A b:

Hopefully, Inkscape will compile right out of the box. If it doesn't, well that's what this page is for.

Jot down notes, questions, findings, tips, etc. here on things you run into. It's a good idea to
make mention of what version of the code you're trying to compile, the distribution you're running,
and other such information that might be pertinent.

If legitimate bugs are found or patches developed, please move them to the tracker at Sourceforge
rather than inlining them here.

= Notes =
Inkscape needs automake1.7 or automake1.8 to compile NOT automake1.9 it has a bug ( link: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=10288631 ) that prevents compiling of Inkscape. If you have already tried to do a $ make with automake1.9 then $ ./autogen.sh from your inkscape-cvs dir and proceed as normal.
(On the other hand, I've repeatedly built it with automake-1.9.4. ralf)

You may want to also [http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OtherProjects#plugins add plugins] durring or after compiling.

= OS & Distribution Specific =
* '''Linux'''
** [[CompilingAutopackage|Autopackage]] (multi-distro)
** [[CompilingFedora|Fedora]]
** [[CompilingGentoo|Gentoo]]
** [[CompilingDebian|Debian]]
** [[CompilingUbuntu|Ubuntu]]
** [[CompilingYellowDog|Yellow Dog]]
** [[CompilingSuse|Suse]]
** [[CompilingSlackware|Slackware]]
** [[CompilingYoper|Yoper]]
** [[CompilingMandrake|Mandrakelinux]]
* [[CompilingMacOsX|Mac OS X]]
* [[Win32Port|Windows]]
* [[CompilingSPARC|SPARC]]
* [[CompilingSunSolaris|Sun Solaris]]
* [[CompilingStatic|Static Compiles]]

= Package Config (pkg-config) =

If you must compile and install any of these from source, you may find an error like this when trying to
compile them or Inkscape itself:

checking for gtk+-2.0 >= 2.0.0 libxml-2.0 >= 2-2.4.24 sigc++-1.2 gtkmm-2.0... Package gtkmm-2.0 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `gtkmm-2.0.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'gtkmm-2.0' found

A solution is to set the PKG_CONFIG_PATH variable as so:

for bash:
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/pkgconfig
for csh:
setenv PKG_CONFIG_PATH /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/pkgconfig

A good place to put this line is in your .bashrc or .cshrc file

= Getting and Installing Source packages =

If your distro does not have some packages available (like many don't, ie, Fedora Core 2), you must often download
source packages and build and install them yourself. Actually this is not that hard, and is similar to
doing a Gentoo 'emerge.'

* Usually you download a file with a name like somepackage-1.0.tar.gz. Unpack it with

$ tar zxf somepackage-1.0.tar.gz
or
$ tar jxf somepackage-1.0.tar.bz2

* Then 'cd' into the new directory.

* Configure it with the command:

$ ./configure

* Build it with:

$ make

* As the 'root' user, install it with:

# make install

== Boehm-GC ==

Source: http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/gc_source

* Download this file:
** http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/gc_source/gc6.7.tar.gz
* Unpack it
** tar zxf gc6.7.tar.gz
* Configure and build it
** cd gc6.7
** ./configure --disable-shared --enable-static
** make
* Install it
** su (or however else you become root)
** make install

Binaries: If searching for a package for GC, the name of it is sometimes:

* gc
* libgc
* gc-devel
* libgc-devel
* boehm-gc (on Gentoo)
* debian/ubuntu: sudo apt-get install libgc-dev

== libSigc++ ==

Source: http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/libsigc++/2.0/

With this file, and for [[GlibMM]] and [[GtkMM]] below, it is usually desirable for us developers to
build this C++ library statically. This removes a dependency that might be difficult for an
end-user during installation. Configure it with:

./configure --enable-static --disable-shared

== [[GlibMM]] ==

Source: http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/glibmm/2.8/

== [[GtkMM]] ==

Source: http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/gtkmm/2.8/

= Developer Compilation =

Plain vanilla compilation is done as documented in INSTALL; ./autogen.sh (optionally); ./configure; make; su && make test; make install (optional). See INSTALL for more on that.

But if you're going to be doing a lot of development, there's some tricks and techniques you should know,
to get best results.

# Turn off optimization
# Use ccache for faster compilation
# Set up a separate build directory (nice for testing both gcc and g++, or cross compiling)
# Use the -j N flag to optimize for the number of processors in your machine, with N = 1 + no. proc's

Example: Setting up both gcc and g++ build environments (in separate tree), and using ccache for faster
compilations on a dual-processor machine, with no optimization, assuming /bin/bash:

mkdir build-gcc build-g++
cvs checkout inkscape
cd inkscape
libtoolize --copy --force
./autogen.sh
cd ../build-gcc
CFLAGS='-g -O0 -Wall' CC='ccache gcc' ../inkscape/configure
cd ../build-g++
CXXFLAGS='-g -O0 -Wall' CXX='ccache g++' ../inkscape/configure
cd ../build-gcc && make -j 3
cd ../build-g++ && make -j 3

Turning off just optimization (which can produce strange results in debuggers):

export CXXFLAGS='-g -O0 -Wall'
export CFLAGS='-g -O0 -Wall'
./configure

[[Category:Developer Documentation]]

Interface translation

2007-01-21T17:02:44Z

A b: info on how to disambiguate a string

Go Back to the main [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Translation_information Translation information] page.

== Introduction to PO file format ==

If you've never translated a PO file before, you will find its syntax very simple. The PO format is a really simple format, which probably at least partly explains its success and widespread use. The format is basically a hash list consisting of msgid and msgstr pairs, with the msgid being the original English string and key, and the msgstr being the translated value of it. Below is an example of a message.

#: gedit/dialogs/gedit-plugin-program-location-dialog.c:78
#: gedit/dialogs/program-location-dialog.glade2.h:2
msgid "Set program location..."
msgstr "Ställ in programplats..."

In addition to the msgid and msgstr parts, a message usually also has lines starting with #: that tells what source files and what lines the string used as msgid was extracted from. These lines have no syntactic value. They are only there as a help for translators and developers to know where a message came from.

A message in a PO file can be in one of essentially three different states. The message can be translated, fuzzy, or untranslated. A message counts as translated as soon as the msgstr part of it is non-empty. In a similar manner, an untranslated message is one where the msgstr is empty. The fuzzy state is special and essentially means that there is a translation in the msgstr part, but that this translation is most likely not entirely correct, and that it thus needs manual attention by a translator. A message can become fuzzy in one of two ways:

* The original string that the msgid represents was changed in the source code. A typo in the string may have been fixed or the string altered in some other way. The translator needs to check that the msgstr is still valid and make changes if necessary.
* A new string has been added to the source, and the string is very similar, but not identical, to the msgid of an already existing, translated message. Then the msgstr of that message will be automatically reused for the new message, but the new message will also at the same time be marked fuzzy so that the translator knows there is some difference that he or she needs to adapt the translation to match.

There is always one special message in each valid PO file: the PO file header. It is encoded with the msgid for the empty string ("") as the key, and the actual header values are in the msgstr part. This unfortunately means that if you mark an empty string for translation, you will get the entire PO file header back as the "translation". In almost all cases this is probably not what you want. Hence, do not mark empty strings for translation.

== Get the PO file for your language ==

Download the .po file for your language from here:

http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/po/

If a .po file for your language does not yet exist, then you will have to get an empty template file to start a new translation.
The most straightforward way to obtain the inkscape.pot template is to download it from here (updated weekly):

http://inkscape.modevia.com/potfile/inkscape.pot

Alternatively, you can checkout the full SVN project repository and generate the project template. Information on how to get the source tree can be found [http://inkscape.org/svn.php here]. Then, you have to follow some steps in order to generate the template:

1. "./autogen.sh"
2. "./configure"
3. enter the "po" directory: "cd po"
4. generate the current PO template: "intltool-update --pot"

To make an absolutely up-to-date translation (in case the PO file in SVN is not up-to-date enough),

1. update your local copy of Inkscape in the usual way: "svn update"
2. merge your existing translations into the new POT file (inkscape.pot):

"msgmerge your_latest_PO_file inkscape.pot > new_PO_file"

If you want to update ALL .po files in po/, cd there and run:

make update-po

Now that you have an empty PO template, you can start translating the messages.

== Tools for translators ==

You can edit PO files from any plain text editor, since they are simple text files. However, many useful tools have been developed to provide a simple experience translating PO files.

* emacs' po-mode (contained in the gettext distribution; the version in po-utils is old)
* kbabel (http://i18n.kde.org/tools/kbabel/)
* gtranslator (http://gtranslator.sourceforge.net/)
* poEdit (http://poedit.sourceforge.net/)
* GEdit (installed on GNOME desktops) has a syntax highlight mode for PO file syntax.

And last but not least, [http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/ gettext] utils, which are installed on every linux distribution. You can see a complete reference too from installed info pages by running the command:

info gettext

== A few important things to remember ==

* Some strings that can be ambiguous or having several meanings according to different contexts may have a context prefix : "Context|Amibiguous string". In this case, simply translate "Ambiguous string", the "Context|" string is just a not to translate indication. (Some info on how to disambiguate a string can be found [http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/glib/glib-I18N.html#Q-:CAPS here].)
* After translating a fuzzy string (one that is marked with a ", fuzzy" comment), please remove its "fuzzy" tag -- otherwise this translation will be discarded by the build process, meaning that this string will show up untranslated. KBabel can do this automatically (see KBabel settings).
* Before publishing your work (after you have finished updating the PO file), please update the "PO-Revision-Date" and "Last-Translator" fields in the PO file header. KBabel can do this automatically.

== Review ==

This is the start of a list of places to get translation reviews done. So far:
http://www.linux.it/tp/

== Verification ==

Before submitting your file in the patch tracker, please make sure it is valid:
* Make sure the file is encoded in UTF-8
* Make sure it is a valid po file and obtain some statistics about it: simply run "msgfmt --statistics -cv translationFile.po" from a command window
* Make sure it is correctly formatted: run "check-markup translationFile.po" from a command window and verify it doesn't output any error message. "check-markup" perl script can be found in the /po directory of Inkscape svn trunk

== Locale Testing ==

Before reporting that a locale doesn't work in Inkscape, you need to make sure that your system has that locale correctly set up. To do this, you need to generally find a way to run "locale-gen". (Under Debian/Ubuntu this is via "dpkg-reconfigure locales".) If you set both the LANG and LANGUAGE variables and check a regular tool, you should see the correct language for both the libc error (first line) and the tool error (second line):

LANG=es_MX LANGUAGE=es_MX ls -z
ls: opción inválida -- z
Pruebe `ls --help' para más información.

If it reports the regular C messages, your locale has not been correctly configured, and you'll need to find the right way to run "locale-gen" for your distribution:

LANG=es_ES LANGUAGE=es_MX ls -z
ls: invalid option -- z
Try `ls --help' for more information.

== Submit finished work ==

Upload your work via the [[SourceForge]] patch tracker:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=93438&atid=604308

(Check the Upload checkbox and add your file or patch.)

(Don't forget to compress your file before uploading it, as sourcefoge tracker doesn't accept large files.)

Additionally, you may send a message to Inskcape's translators mailing list.

== Programmers ==
Please make sure you use [http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_mono/gettext.html#SEC150 dgettext] for any pluralized strings.

= Windows installer translation =

Strings for Windows installer are saved in *.nsh files. Each translation has its own file located in ''packaging\win32\'' directory of subversion checkout. Get this file in similar way of getting *.po file.
=== Translating ===
# Get the file according to your language. If there is not such a file, copy ''english.nsh'' file and rename it to ''yourlanguage.nsh''.
# Translate strings in the file
# Change '''!insertmacro MUI_LANGUAGE "English"''' and each occurence of '''${LANG_ENGLISH}''' to values corresponding with your language. For example '''!insertmacro MUI_LANGUAGE "Czech"''' and '''${LANG_CZECH}'''.
# Change header information in '''yourlanguage.nsh''' file, like "windows code page" and "Authors" to proper values.
=== Testing the translation ===
# This part is optional but recommended. For this part you need [http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page NSIS installer] and run <pre>make -f Makefile.mingw dist</pre> command after succesfull compilation of Inkscape. This command prepares binary of Inkscape for installator creation.
# Add filename of your file to '''inkscape.nsi''' file, "STRING LOCALIZATION" section, "Language files" subsection.
# Right click on the inkscape.nsi file and choose "Compile NSIS Script". The installer compilation will start.
# When the installer is finished, run it to test translations of strings in Installer and Uninstaller parts.
# If the translation is tested succesfully, submit it to the patch tracker at sourceforge.net and mark as "Translation". If you haven't tested your translation yet, submit it too but enter this information to the patch information. You will be contacted about its correctness.

= Default template translation =

* To translate default template, modify the default.svg file and save it as default.xx.svg where "xx" is ISO code of your language. The file can be found in ''/usr/share/inkscape/templates/'' directory on Linux, or ''C:\Program Files\Inkscape\share\templates\'' directory on MS Windows(tm). Also you can get it from [http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/share/templates/ SVN repository].
* You need to modify your PO translation as well to use your localized default template. Look up for a msgid "default.svg" on the PO file and translate it accordingly to the file name of the localized template.
* To test it, save it to the proper location and restart Inkscape. Default document should be now based on your localized template. (This is valid if your system is properly set to your locales).
* Upload default.xx.svg to the patch tracker.

To translate default template can be used Inkscape as well as any UTF-8 encoding capable text editor.

= Translation information =
Go Back to the main [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Translation_information Translation information] page.

Release notes/0.45

2007-01-12T10:58:23Z

A b: /* Translations */

= 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 [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/filters.html 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 in the list, you can easily move through the undo history, i.e. undo or redo any number of actions with one click.

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

= Rendering improvements =

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

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

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

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

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

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

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

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

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

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

== Dropper ==

* Instead of the confusing toggle button, now the Controls bar for the Dropper tool has two checkboxes, "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha", which work as follows. Suppose you have an object selected and, using Dropper, click on an object which has red (#FF0000) fill and 0.5 opacity (half-transparent).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is off, the selected object will get the fill color #800000 (i.e. faded-out red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0 (opaque).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is on but "Set alpha" is off, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0.
** If both "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha" are on, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 0.5 (half-transparent).
:If you Shift+click instead of click, the same changes will be made to stroke color and stroke opacity, correspondingly. Note that in no situation can Dropper change the master opacity of the selected object(s), although it can pick it just as it does any other kind of opacity.

== Calligraphy ==

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

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

= Outline mode =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= PDF export =

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

* [removed? - mental] The native PDF exporter introduced in Inkscape 0.44 is improved along with the new Cairo-based PDF exporter. Changes since Inkscape 0.44 include: New features: bitmap images can be embedded, pdf files can be exported from commandline. Changed behavior: 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 <code>--export-embed-fonts</code> 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 colors. No text, no images, no gradients, no transparency.

= Command line =

* The new <code>--export-pdf</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> in the same directory, overwriting the old file. To restore the default Inkscape set, copy <code>inkscape.xml</code> into <code>default.xml</code>.)

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 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 [http://www.le-radar.com/?mm/inkscape 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.

* Recent fixes in the processing of SVG <defs /> have made it possible to implement the often requested '''Color Markers to Match Stroke''' effect. It is no longer necessary to spend long stretches of time hand editing XML to recolor arrow heads and other markers.

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

= SVG output =

For specialized uses, several aspects of Inkscape's SVG output can now be customized via editing the preferences.xml file (there's no UI for these options). A <group id="svgoutput"> inside <group id="options"> can have the following attributes:

* usenamedcolors (default is 0). If nonzero, Inkscape uses symbolic color names (such as "white" or "lime") and three-digit color designations (such as $dfe) where appropriate; otherwise, it always uses six-digit colors (such as $d0f0e0). Note that in 0.44, the default was to use named colors, which created problems for some extension effects.

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

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

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

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

= Bitmap tracing =

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

= Even more improvements =

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

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

* [new Help commands]

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

* [sculpt profiles - bbyak]

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

* The Path -> Union (Ctrl++) operation now functions when only a single object is selected. Use this to remove self-intersections from objects.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Doxygen DoxyFile is updated.

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

= Examples =

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

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

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

= Translations =

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

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

* Default Lithuanian template was not installed before, which is now fixed.

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

= Tutorials and Templates =

* New tutorial "Easter Eggs" by Steve Karg.

* Added Catalan default template and elements tutorial.

* Russian header and footer templates are added.

= Dependency Changes =

[short text about using GK 2.8 now, and other dependency changes?]

= Bugfixes =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* To work around problems some users have had with pressure sensitive tablets ([http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1281512&group_id=93438&atid=604306 bug]), the pressure sensitivity can be disabled from the misc tab of Inkscape preferences dialogue. The tablet can then be used, though with reduced functionality.

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

* When using different display resolutions or a dual screen setup, dialogs could be displayed off-screen; this is fixed: now Inkscape checks whether the saved position of the dialog is offscreen, if so it will move the dialog to the center of the screen. Note that this not solve all problems. If the dialog is still not visible, go to the [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1250236&group_id=93438 bugreport] where a procedure is given to make the dialog visible (editting preferences.xml).

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

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

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

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

= Known problems =

==== Problem with Dialogs on Top on Microsoft Windows (win32) ====

* Although "Dialogs on Top" is available on Windows, it does not work completely like how it should (yet!). When the document window is minimized, the dialogs still appear in the UI; they are not minimized together with the document window. Because of this, it is not possible to get the document window back by clicking on the taskbar button. The solution to this problem is the following: '''Right-click the taskbar button and press "Restore".''' Hopefully, future releases of GTK will have found a solution for this problem.

==== OSX 10.3.9: cannot open files ====

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

==== Problems with some Debian libgc-6.7 packages ====

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

==== Beware of defective themes on Linux ====

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

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

=== Previous releases ===

* [[ReleaseNotes044]]
* [[ReleaseNotes043]]
* [[ReleaseNotes042]]
* [[ReleaseNotes041]]
* [[ReleaseNotes040]]
* [[ReleaseNotes039]]
* [[ReleaseNotes038]]
* [[ReleaseNotes037]]
* [[ReleaseNotes036]]
* [[ReleaseNotes035]]

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.45

2007-01-12T10:58:04Z

A b: /* Translations */

= 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 [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/filters.html 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 in the list, you can easily move through the undo history, i.e. undo or redo any number of actions with one click.

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

= Rendering improvements =

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

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

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

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

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

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

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

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

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

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

== Dropper ==

* Instead of the confusing toggle button, now the Controls bar for the Dropper tool has two checkboxes, "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha", which work as follows. Suppose you have an object selected and, using Dropper, click on an object which has red (#FF0000) fill and 0.5 opacity (half-transparent).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is off, the selected object will get the fill color #800000 (i.e. faded-out red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0 (opaque).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is on but "Set alpha" is off, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0.
** If both "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha" are on, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 0.5 (half-transparent).
:If you Shift+click instead of click, the same changes will be made to stroke color and stroke opacity, correspondingly. Note that in no situation can Dropper change the master opacity of the selected object(s), although it can pick it just as it does any other kind of opacity.

== Calligraphy ==

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

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

= Outline mode =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= PDF export =

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

* [removed? - mental] The native PDF exporter introduced in Inkscape 0.44 is improved along with the new Cairo-based PDF exporter. Changes since Inkscape 0.44 include: New features: bitmap images can be embedded, pdf files can be exported from commandline. Changed behavior: 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 <code>--export-embed-fonts</code> 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 colors. No text, no images, no gradients, no transparency.

= Command line =

* The new <code>--export-pdf</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> in the same directory, overwriting the old file. To restore the default Inkscape set, copy <code>inkscape.xml</code> into <code>default.xml</code>.)

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 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 [http://www.le-radar.com/?mm/inkscape 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.

* Recent fixes in the processing of SVG <defs /> have made it possible to implement the often requested '''Color Markers to Match Stroke''' effect. It is no longer necessary to spend long stretches of time hand editing XML to recolor arrow heads and other markers.

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

= SVG output =

For specialized uses, several aspects of Inkscape's SVG output can now be customized via editing the preferences.xml file (there's no UI for these options). A <group id="svgoutput"> inside <group id="options"> can have the following attributes:

* usenamedcolors (default is 0). If nonzero, Inkscape uses symbolic color names (such as "white" or "lime") and three-digit color designations (such as $dfe) where appropriate; otherwise, it always uses six-digit colors (such as $d0f0e0). Note that in 0.44, the default was to use named colors, which created problems for some extension effects.

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

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

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

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

= Bitmap tracing =

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

= Even more improvements =

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

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

* [new Help commands]

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

* [sculpt profiles - bbyak]

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

* The Path -> Union (Ctrl++) operation now functions when only a single object is selected. Use this to remove self-intersections from objects.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Doxygen DoxyFile is updated.

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

= Examples =

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

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

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

= Translations =

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

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

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

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

= Tutorials and Templates =

* New tutorial "Easter Eggs" by Steve Karg.

* Added Catalan default template and elements tutorial.

* Russian header and footer templates are added.

= Dependency Changes =

[short text about using GK 2.8 now, and other dependency changes?]

= Bugfixes =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* To work around problems some users have had with pressure sensitive tablets ([http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1281512&group_id=93438&atid=604306 bug]), the pressure sensitivity can be disabled from the misc tab of Inkscape preferences dialogue. The tablet can then be used, though with reduced functionality.

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

* When using different display resolutions or a dual screen setup, dialogs could be displayed off-screen; this is fixed: now Inkscape checks whether the saved position of the dialog is offscreen, if so it will move the dialog to the center of the screen. Note that this not solve all problems. If the dialog is still not visible, go to the [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1250236&group_id=93438 bugreport] where a procedure is given to make the dialog visible (editting preferences.xml).

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

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

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

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

= Known problems =

==== Problem with Dialogs on Top on Microsoft Windows (win32) ====

* Although "Dialogs on Top" is available on Windows, it does not work completely like how it should (yet!). When the document window is minimized, the dialogs still appear in the UI; they are not minimized together with the document window. Because of this, it is not possible to get the document window back by clicking on the taskbar button. The solution to this problem is the following: '''Right-click the taskbar button and press "Restore".''' Hopefully, future releases of GTK will have found a solution for this problem.

==== OSX 10.3.9: cannot open files ====

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

==== Problems with some Debian libgc-6.7 packages ====

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

==== Beware of defective themes on Linux ====

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

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

=== Previous releases ===

* [[ReleaseNotes044]]
* [[ReleaseNotes043]]
* [[ReleaseNotes042]]
* [[ReleaseNotes041]]
* [[ReleaseNotes040]]
* [[ReleaseNotes039]]
* [[ReleaseNotes038]]
* [[ReleaseNotes037]]
* [[ReleaseNotes036]]
* [[ReleaseNotes035]]

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.45

2007-01-12T10:56:41Z

A b: /* Even more improvements */

= 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 [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/filters.html 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 in the list, you can easily move through the undo history, i.e. undo or redo any number of actions with one click.

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

= Rendering improvements =

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

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

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

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

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

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

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

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

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

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

== Dropper ==

* Instead of the confusing toggle button, now the Controls bar for the Dropper tool has two checkboxes, "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha", which work as follows. Suppose you have an object selected and, using Dropper, click on an object which has red (#FF0000) fill and 0.5 opacity (half-transparent).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is off, the selected object will get the fill color #800000 (i.e. faded-out red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0 (opaque).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is on but "Set alpha" is off, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0.
** If both "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha" are on, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 0.5 (half-transparent).
:If you Shift+click instead of click, the same changes will be made to stroke color and stroke opacity, correspondingly. Note that in no situation can Dropper change the master opacity of the selected object(s), although it can pick it just as it does any other kind of opacity.

== Calligraphy ==

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

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

= Outline mode =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= PDF export =

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

* [removed? - mental] The native PDF exporter introduced in Inkscape 0.44 is improved along with the new Cairo-based PDF exporter. Changes since Inkscape 0.44 include: New features: bitmap images can be embedded, pdf files can be exported from commandline. Changed behavior: 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 <code>--export-embed-fonts</code> 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 colors. No text, no images, no gradients, no transparency.

= Command line =

* The new <code>--export-pdf</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> in the same directory, overwriting the old file. To restore the default Inkscape set, copy <code>inkscape.xml</code> into <code>default.xml</code>.)

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 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 [http://www.le-radar.com/?mm/inkscape 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.

* Recent fixes in the processing of SVG <defs /> have made it possible to implement the often requested '''Color Markers to Match Stroke''' effect. It is no longer necessary to spend long stretches of time hand editing XML to recolor arrow heads and other markers.

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

= SVG output =

For specialized uses, several aspects of Inkscape's SVG output can now be customized via editing the preferences.xml file (there's no UI for these options). A <group id="svgoutput"> inside <group id="options"> can have the following attributes:

* usenamedcolors (default is 0). If nonzero, Inkscape uses symbolic color names (such as "white" or "lime") and three-digit color designations (such as $dfe) where appropriate; otherwise, it always uses six-digit colors (such as $d0f0e0). Note that in 0.44, the default was to use named colors, which created problems for some extension effects.

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

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

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

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

= Bitmap tracing =

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

= Even more improvements =

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

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

* [new Help commands]

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

* [sculpt profiles - bbyak]

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

* The Path -> Union (Ctrl++) operation now functions when only a single object is selected. Use this to remove self-intersections from objects.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Doxygen DoxyFile is updated.

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

= Examples =

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

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

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

= Translations =

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

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

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

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

= Tutorials and Templates =

* New tutorial "Easter Eggs" by Steve Karg.

* Added Catalan default template and elements tutorial.

* Russian header and footer templates are added.

= Dependency Changes =

[short text about using GK 2.8 now, and other dependency changes?]

= Bugfixes =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* To work around problems some users have had with pressure sensitive tablets ([http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1281512&group_id=93438&atid=604306 bug]), the pressure sensitivity can be disabled from the misc tab of Inkscape preferences dialogue. The tablet can then be used, though with reduced functionality.

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

* When using different display resolutions or a dual screen setup, dialogs could be displayed off-screen; this is fixed: now Inkscape checks whether the saved position of the dialog is offscreen, if so it will move the dialog to the center of the screen. Note that this not solve all problems. If the dialog is still not visible, go to the [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1250236&group_id=93438 bugreport] where a procedure is given to make the dialog visible (editting preferences.xml).

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

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

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

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

= Known problems =

==== Problem with Dialogs on Top on Microsoft Windows (win32) ====

* Although "Dialogs on Top" is available on Windows, it does not work completely like how it should (yet!). When the document window is minimized, the dialogs still appear in the UI; they are not minimized together with the document window. Because of this, it is not possible to get the document window back by clicking on the taskbar button. The solution to this problem is the following: '''Right-click the taskbar button and press "Restore".''' Hopefully, future releases of GTK will have found a solution for this problem.

==== OSX 10.3.9: cannot open files ====

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

==== Problems with some Debian libgc-6.7 packages ====

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

==== Beware of defective themes on Linux ====

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

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

=== Previous releases ===

* [[ReleaseNotes044]]
* [[ReleaseNotes043]]
* [[ReleaseNotes042]]
* [[ReleaseNotes041]]
* [[ReleaseNotes040]]
* [[ReleaseNotes039]]
* [[ReleaseNotes038]]
* [[ReleaseNotes037]]
* [[ReleaseNotes036]]
* [[ReleaseNotes035]]

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.45

2007-01-12T10:55:55Z

A b: /* Extension effects */

= 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 [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/filters.html 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 in the list, you can easily move through the undo history, i.e. undo or redo any number of actions with one click.

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

= Rendering improvements =

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

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

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

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

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

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

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

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

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

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

== Dropper ==

* Instead of the confusing toggle button, now the Controls bar for the Dropper tool has two checkboxes, "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha", which work as follows. Suppose you have an object selected and, using Dropper, click on an object which has red (#FF0000) fill and 0.5 opacity (half-transparent).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is off, the selected object will get the fill color #800000 (i.e. faded-out red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0 (opaque).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is on but "Set alpha" is off, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0.
** If both "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha" are on, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 0.5 (half-transparent).
:If you Shift+click instead of click, the same changes will be made to stroke color and stroke opacity, correspondingly. Note that in no situation can Dropper change the master opacity of the selected object(s), although it can pick it just as it does any other kind of opacity.

== Calligraphy ==

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

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

= Outline mode =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= PDF export =

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

* [removed? - mental] The native PDF exporter introduced in Inkscape 0.44 is improved along with the new Cairo-based PDF exporter. Changes since Inkscape 0.44 include: New features: bitmap images can be embedded, pdf files can be exported from commandline. Changed behavior: 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 <code>--export-embed-fonts</code> 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 colors. No text, no images, no gradients, no transparency.

= Command line =

* The new <code>--export-pdf</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> in the same directory, overwriting the old file. To restore the default Inkscape set, copy <code>inkscape.xml</code> into <code>default.xml</code>.)

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 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 [http://www.le-radar.com/?mm/inkscape 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.

* Recent fixes in the processing of SVG <defs /> have made it possible to implement the often requested '''Color Markers to Match Stroke''' effect. It is no longer necessary to spend long stretches of time hand editing XML to recolor arrow heads and other markers.

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

= SVG output =

For specialized uses, several aspects of Inkscape's SVG output can now be customized via editing the preferences.xml file (there's no UI for these options). A <group id="svgoutput"> inside <group id="options"> can have the following attributes:

* usenamedcolors (default is 0). If nonzero, Inkscape uses symbolic color names (such as "white" or "lime") and three-digit color designations (such as $dfe) where appropriate; otherwise, it always uses six-digit colors (such as $d0f0e0). Note that in 0.44, the default was to use named colors, which created problems for some extension effects.

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

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

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

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

= Bitmap tracing =

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

= Even more improvements =

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

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

* [new Help commands]

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

* [sculpt profiles - bbyak]

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

* The Path -> Union (Ctrl++) operation now functions when only a single object is selected. Use this to remove self-intersections from objects.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Doxygen DoxyFile is updated.

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

= Examples =

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

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

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

= Translations =

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

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

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

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

= Tutorials and Templates =

* New tutorial "Easter Eggs" by Steve Karg.

* Added Catalan default template and elements tutorial.

* Russian header and footer templates are added.

= Dependency Changes =

[short text about using GK 2.8 now, and other dependency changes?]

= Bugfixes =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* To work around problems some users have had with pressure sensitive tablets ([http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1281512&group_id=93438&atid=604306 bug]), the pressure sensitivity can be disabled from the misc tab of Inkscape preferences dialogue. The tablet can then be used, though with reduced functionality.

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

* When using different display resolutions or a dual screen setup, dialogs could be displayed off-screen; this is fixed: now Inkscape checks whether the saved position of the dialog is offscreen, if so it will move the dialog to the center of the screen. Note that this not solve all problems. If the dialog is still not visible, go to the [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1250236&group_id=93438 bugreport] where a procedure is given to make the dialog visible (editting preferences.xml).

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

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

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

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

= Known problems =

==== Problem with Dialogs on Top on Microsoft Windows (win32) ====

* Although "Dialogs on Top" is available on Windows, it does not work completely like how it should (yet!). When the document window is minimized, the dialogs still appear in the UI; they are not minimized together with the document window. Because of this, it is not possible to get the document window back by clicking on the taskbar button. The solution to this problem is the following: '''Right-click the taskbar button and press "Restore".''' Hopefully, future releases of GTK will have found a solution for this problem.

==== OSX 10.3.9: cannot open files ====

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

==== Problems with some Debian libgc-6.7 packages ====

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

==== Beware of defective themes on Linux ====

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

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

=== Previous releases ===

* [[ReleaseNotes044]]
* [[ReleaseNotes043]]
* [[ReleaseNotes042]]
* [[ReleaseNotes041]]
* [[ReleaseNotes040]]
* [[ReleaseNotes039]]
* [[ReleaseNotes038]]
* [[ReleaseNotes037]]
* [[ReleaseNotes036]]
* [[ReleaseNotes035]]

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.45

2007-01-12T10:54:43Z

A b: /* Extension effects */

= 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 [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/filters.html 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 in the list, you can easily move through the undo history, i.e. undo or redo any number of actions with one click.

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

= Rendering improvements =

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

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

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

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

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

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

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

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

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

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

== Dropper ==

* Instead of the confusing toggle button, now the Controls bar for the Dropper tool has two checkboxes, "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha", which work as follows. Suppose you have an object selected and, using Dropper, click on an object which has red (#FF0000) fill and 0.5 opacity (half-transparent).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is off, the selected object will get the fill color #800000 (i.e. faded-out red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0 (opaque).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is on but "Set alpha" is off, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0.
** If both "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha" are on, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 0.5 (half-transparent).
:If you Shift+click instead of click, the same changes will be made to stroke color and stroke opacity, correspondingly. Note that in no situation can Dropper change the master opacity of the selected object(s), although it can pick it just as it does any other kind of opacity.

== Calligraphy ==

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

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

= Outline mode =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= PDF export =

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

* [removed? - mental] The native PDF exporter introduced in Inkscape 0.44 is improved along with the new Cairo-based PDF exporter. Changes since Inkscape 0.44 include: New features: bitmap images can be embedded, pdf files can be exported from commandline. Changed behavior: 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 <code>--export-embed-fonts</code> 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 colors. No text, no images, no gradients, no transparency.

= Command line =

* The new <code>--export-pdf</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> in the same directory, overwriting the old file. To restore the default Inkscape set, copy <code>inkscape.xml</code> into <code>default.xml</code>.)

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 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 [http://www.le-radar.com/?mm/inkscape 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.

* Recent fixes in the processing of SVG <defs /> have made it possible to implement the often requested '''Color Markers to Match Stroke''' effect. It is no longer necessary to spend long stretches of time hand editing XML to recolor arrow heads and other marker.

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

= SVG output =

For specialized uses, several aspects of Inkscape's SVG output can now be customized via editing the preferences.xml file (there's no UI for these options). A <group id="svgoutput"> inside <group id="options"> can have the following attributes:

* usenamedcolors (default is 0). If nonzero, Inkscape uses symbolic color names (such as "white" or "lime") and three-digit color designations (such as $dfe) where appropriate; otherwise, it always uses six-digit colors (such as $d0f0e0). Note that in 0.44, the default was to use named colors, which created problems for some extension effects.

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

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

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

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

= Bitmap tracing =

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

= Even more improvements =

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

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

* [new Help commands]

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

* [sculpt profiles - bbyak]

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

* The Path -> Union (Ctrl++) operation now functions when only a single object is selected. Use this to remove self-intersections from objects.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Doxygen DoxyFile is updated.

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

= Examples =

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

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

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

= Translations =

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

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

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

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

= Tutorials and Templates =

* New tutorial "Easter Eggs" by Steve Karg.

* Added Catalan default template and elements tutorial.

* Russian header and footer templates are added.

= Dependency Changes =

[short text about using GK 2.8 now, and other dependency changes?]

= Bugfixes =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* To work around problems some users have had with pressure sensitive tablets ([http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1281512&group_id=93438&atid=604306 bug]), the pressure sensitivity can be disabled from the misc tab of Inkscape preferences dialogue. The tablet can then be used, though with reduced functionality.

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

* When using different display resolutions or a dual screen setup, dialogs could be displayed off-screen; this is fixed: now Inkscape checks whether the saved position of the dialog is offscreen, if so it will move the dialog to the center of the screen. Note that this not solve all problems. If the dialog is still not visible, go to the [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1250236&group_id=93438 bugreport] where a procedure is given to make the dialog visible (editting preferences.xml).

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

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

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

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

= Known problems =

==== Problem with Dialogs on Top on Microsoft Windows (win32) ====

* Although "Dialogs on Top" is available on Windows, it does not work completely like how it should (yet!). When the document window is minimized, the dialogs still appear in the UI; they are not minimized together with the document window. Because of this, it is not possible to get the document window back by clicking on the taskbar button. The solution to this problem is the following: '''Right-click the taskbar button and press "Restore".''' Hopefully, future releases of GTK will have found a solution for this problem.

==== OSX 10.3.9: cannot open files ====

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

==== Problems with some Debian libgc-6.7 packages ====

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

==== Beware of defective themes on Linux ====

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

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

=== Previous releases ===

* [[ReleaseNotes044]]
* [[ReleaseNotes043]]
* [[ReleaseNotes042]]
* [[ReleaseNotes041]]
* [[ReleaseNotes040]]
* [[ReleaseNotes039]]
* [[ReleaseNotes038]]
* [[ReleaseNotes037]]
* [[ReleaseNotes036]]
* [[ReleaseNotes035]]

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.45

2007-01-12T10:53:52Z

A b: /* EMF export */

= 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 [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/filters.html 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 in the list, you can easily move through the undo history, i.e. undo or redo any number of actions with one click.

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

= Rendering improvements =

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

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

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

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

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

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

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

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

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

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

== Dropper ==

* Instead of the confusing toggle button, now the Controls bar for the Dropper tool has two checkboxes, "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha", which work as follows. Suppose you have an object selected and, using Dropper, click on an object which has red (#FF0000) fill and 0.5 opacity (half-transparent).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is off, the selected object will get the fill color #800000 (i.e. faded-out red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0 (opaque).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is on but "Set alpha" is off, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0.
** If both "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha" are on, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 0.5 (half-transparent).
:If you Shift+click instead of click, the same changes will be made to stroke color and stroke opacity, correspondingly. Note that in no situation can Dropper change the master opacity of the selected object(s), although it can pick it just as it does any other kind of opacity.

== Calligraphy ==

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

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

= Outline mode =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= PDF export =

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

* [removed? - mental] The native PDF exporter introduced in Inkscape 0.44 is improved along with the new Cairo-based PDF exporter. Changes since Inkscape 0.44 include: New features: bitmap images can be embedded, pdf files can be exported from commandline. Changed behavior: 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 <code>--export-embed-fonts</code> 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 colors. No text, no images, no gradients, no transparency.

= Command line =

* The new <code>--export-pdf</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> in the same directory, overwriting the old file. To restore the default Inkscape set, copy <code>inkscape.xml</code> into <code>default.xml</code>.)

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 [http://www.le-radar.com/?mm/inkscape 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.

* Recent fixes in the processing of SVG <defs /> have made it possible to implement the often requested '''Color Markers to Match Stroke''' effect. It is no longer necessary to spend long stretches of time hand editing XML to recolor arrow heads and other marker.

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

= SVG output =

For specialized uses, several aspects of Inkscape's SVG output can now be customized via editing the preferences.xml file (there's no UI for these options). A <group id="svgoutput"> inside <group id="options"> can have the following attributes:

* usenamedcolors (default is 0). If nonzero, Inkscape uses symbolic color names (such as "white" or "lime") and three-digit color designations (such as $dfe) where appropriate; otherwise, it always uses six-digit colors (such as $d0f0e0). Note that in 0.44, the default was to use named colors, which created problems for some extension effects.

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

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

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

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

= Bitmap tracing =

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

= Even more improvements =

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

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

* [new Help commands]

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

* [sculpt profiles - bbyak]

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

* The Path -> Union (Ctrl++) operation now functions when only a single object is selected. Use this to remove self-intersections from objects.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Doxygen DoxyFile is updated.

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

= Examples =

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

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

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

= Translations =

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

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

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

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

= Tutorials and Templates =

* New tutorial "Easter Eggs" by Steve Karg.

* Added Catalan default template and elements tutorial.

* Russian header and footer templates are added.

= Dependency Changes =

[short text about using GK 2.8 now, and other dependency changes?]

= Bugfixes =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* To work around problems some users have had with pressure sensitive tablets ([http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1281512&group_id=93438&atid=604306 bug]), the pressure sensitivity can be disabled from the misc tab of Inkscape preferences dialogue. The tablet can then be used, though with reduced functionality.

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

* When using different display resolutions or a dual screen setup, dialogs could be displayed off-screen; this is fixed: now Inkscape checks whether the saved position of the dialog is offscreen, if so it will move the dialog to the center of the screen. Note that this not solve all problems. If the dialog is still not visible, go to the [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1250236&group_id=93438 bugreport] where a procedure is given to make the dialog visible (editting preferences.xml).

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

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

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

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

= Known problems =

==== Problem with Dialogs on Top on Microsoft Windows (win32) ====

* Although "Dialogs on Top" is available on Windows, it does not work completely like how it should (yet!). When the document window is minimized, the dialogs still appear in the UI; they are not minimized together with the document window. Because of this, it is not possible to get the document window back by clicking on the taskbar button. The solution to this problem is the following: '''Right-click the taskbar button and press "Restore".''' Hopefully, future releases of GTK will have found a solution for this problem.

==== OSX 10.3.9: cannot open files ====

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

==== Problems with some Debian libgc-6.7 packages ====

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

==== Beware of defective themes on Linux ====

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

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

=== Previous releases ===

* [[ReleaseNotes044]]
* [[ReleaseNotes043]]
* [[ReleaseNotes042]]
* [[ReleaseNotes041]]
* [[ReleaseNotes040]]
* [[ReleaseNotes039]]
* [[ReleaseNotes038]]
* [[ReleaseNotes037]]
* [[ReleaseNotes036]]
* [[ReleaseNotes035]]

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.45

2007-01-12T10:53:27Z

A b: /* PDF export */

= 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 [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/filters.html 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 in the list, you can easily move through the undo history, i.e. undo or redo any number of actions with one click.

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

= Rendering improvements =

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

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

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

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

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

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

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

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

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

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

== Dropper ==

* Instead of the confusing toggle button, now the Controls bar for the Dropper tool has two checkboxes, "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha", which work as follows. Suppose you have an object selected and, using Dropper, click on an object which has red (#FF0000) fill and 0.5 opacity (half-transparent).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is off, the selected object will get the fill color #800000 (i.e. faded-out red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0 (opaque).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is on but "Set alpha" is off, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0.
** If both "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha" are on, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 0.5 (half-transparent).
:If you Shift+click instead of click, the same changes will be made to stroke color and stroke opacity, correspondingly. Note that in no situation can Dropper change the master opacity of the selected object(s), although it can pick it just as it does any other kind of opacity.

== Calligraphy ==

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

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

= Outline mode =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= PDF export =

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

* [removed? - mental] The native PDF exporter introduced in Inkscape 0.44 is improved along with the new Cairo-based PDF exporter. Changes since Inkscape 0.44 include: New features: bitmap images can be embedded, pdf files can be exported from commandline. Changed behavior: 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 <code>--export-embed-fonts</code> 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 <code>--export-pdf</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> in the same directory, overwriting the old file. To restore the default Inkscape set, copy <code>inkscape.xml</code> into <code>default.xml</code>.)

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 [http://www.le-radar.com/?mm/inkscape 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.

* Recent fixes in the processing of SVG <defs /> have made it possible to implement the often requested '''Color Markers to Match Stroke''' effect. It is no longer necessary to spend long stretches of time hand editing XML to recolor arrow heads and other marker.

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

= SVG output =

For specialized uses, several aspects of Inkscape's SVG output can now be customized via editing the preferences.xml file (there's no UI for these options). A <group id="svgoutput"> inside <group id="options"> can have the following attributes:

* usenamedcolors (default is 0). If nonzero, Inkscape uses symbolic color names (such as "white" or "lime") and three-digit color designations (such as $dfe) where appropriate; otherwise, it always uses six-digit colors (such as $d0f0e0). Note that in 0.44, the default was to use named colors, which created problems for some extension effects.

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

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

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

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

= Bitmap tracing =

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

= Even more improvements =

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

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

* [new Help commands]

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

* [sculpt profiles - bbyak]

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

* The Path -> Union (Ctrl++) operation now functions when only a single object is selected. Use this to remove self-intersections from objects.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Doxygen DoxyFile is updated.

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

= Examples =

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

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

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

= Translations =

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

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

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

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

= Tutorials and Templates =

* New tutorial "Easter Eggs" by Steve Karg.

* Added Catalan default template and elements tutorial.

* Russian header and footer templates are added.

= Dependency Changes =

[short text about using GK 2.8 now, and other dependency changes?]

= Bugfixes =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* To work around problems some users have had with pressure sensitive tablets ([http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1281512&group_id=93438&atid=604306 bug]), the pressure sensitivity can be disabled from the misc tab of Inkscape preferences dialogue. The tablet can then be used, though with reduced functionality.

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

* When using different display resolutions or a dual screen setup, dialogs could be displayed off-screen; this is fixed: now Inkscape checks whether the saved position of the dialog is offscreen, if so it will move the dialog to the center of the screen. Note that this not solve all problems. If the dialog is still not visible, go to the [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1250236&group_id=93438 bugreport] where a procedure is given to make the dialog visible (editting preferences.xml).

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

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

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

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

= Known problems =

==== Problem with Dialogs on Top on Microsoft Windows (win32) ====

* Although "Dialogs on Top" is available on Windows, it does not work completely like how it should (yet!). When the document window is minimized, the dialogs still appear in the UI; they are not minimized together with the document window. Because of this, it is not possible to get the document window back by clicking on the taskbar button. The solution to this problem is the following: '''Right-click the taskbar button and press "Restore".''' Hopefully, future releases of GTK will have found a solution for this problem.

==== OSX 10.3.9: cannot open files ====

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

==== Problems with some Debian libgc-6.7 packages ====

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

==== Beware of defective themes on Linux ====

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

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

=== Previous releases ===

* [[ReleaseNotes044]]
* [[ReleaseNotes043]]
* [[ReleaseNotes042]]
* [[ReleaseNotes041]]
* [[ReleaseNotes040]]
* [[ReleaseNotes039]]
* [[ReleaseNotes038]]
* [[ReleaseNotes037]]
* [[ReleaseNotes036]]
* [[ReleaseNotes035]]

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.45

2007-01-12T10:51:56Z

A b: /* Undo history */

= 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 [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/filters.html 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 in the list, you can easily move through the undo history, i.e. undo or redo any number of actions with one click.

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

= Rendering improvements =

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

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

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

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

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

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

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

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

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

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

== Dropper ==

* Instead of the confusing toggle button, now the Controls bar for the Dropper tool has two checkboxes, "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha", which work as follows. Suppose you have an object selected and, using Dropper, click on an object which has red (#FF0000) fill and 0.5 opacity (half-transparent).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is off, the selected object will get the fill color #800000 (i.e. faded-out red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0 (opaque).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is on but "Set alpha" is off, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0.
** If both "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha" are on, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 0.5 (half-transparent).
:If you Shift+click instead of click, the same changes will be made to stroke color and stroke opacity, correspondingly. Note that in no situation can Dropper change the master opacity of the selected object(s), although it can pick it just as it does any other kind of opacity.

== Calligraphy ==

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

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

= Outline mode =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= PDF export =

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

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

= PS/EPS export =

* There's a new option to embed the fonts used in the document in the PS or EPS exported file. As of now, this works for Type 1 fonts only, not TrueType. The option is available when performing the export from the GUI as well as from the command line via the <code>--export-embed-fonts</code> 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 <code>--export-pdf</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> in the same directory, overwriting the old file. To restore the default Inkscape set, copy <code>inkscape.xml</code> into <code>default.xml</code>.)

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 [http://www.le-radar.com/?mm/inkscape 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.

* Recent fixes in the processing of SVG <defs /> have made it possible to implement the often requested '''Color Markers to Match Stroke''' effect. It is no longer necessary to spend long stretches of time hand editing XML to recolor arrow heads and other marker.

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

= SVG output =

For specialized uses, several aspects of Inkscape's SVG output can now be customized via editing the preferences.xml file (there's no UI for these options). A <group id="svgoutput"> inside <group id="options"> can have the following attributes:

* usenamedcolors (default is 0). If nonzero, Inkscape uses symbolic color names (such as "white" or "lime") and three-digit color designations (such as $dfe) where appropriate; otherwise, it always uses six-digit colors (such as $d0f0e0). Note that in 0.44, the default was to use named colors, which created problems for some extension effects.

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

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

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

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

= Bitmap tracing =

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

= Even more improvements =

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

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

* [new Help commands]

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

* [sculpt profiles - bbyak]

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

* The Path -> Union (Ctrl++) operation now functions when only a single object is selected. Use this to remove self-intersections from objects.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Doxygen DoxyFile is updated.

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

= Examples =

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

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

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

= Translations =

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

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

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

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

= Tutorials and Templates =

* New tutorial "Easter Eggs" by Steve Karg.

* Added Catalan default template and elements tutorial.

* Russian header and footer templates are added.

= Dependency Changes =

[short text about using GK 2.8 now, and other dependency changes?]

= Bugfixes =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* To work around problems some users have had with pressure sensitive tablets ([http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1281512&group_id=93438&atid=604306 bug]), the pressure sensitivity can be disabled from the misc tab of Inkscape preferences dialogue. The tablet can then be used, though with reduced functionality.

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

* When using different display resolutions or a dual screen setup, dialogs could be displayed off-screen; this is fixed: now Inkscape checks whether the saved position of the dialog is offscreen, if so it will move the dialog to the center of the screen. Note that this not solve all problems. If the dialog is still not visible, go to the [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1250236&group_id=93438 bugreport] where a procedure is given to make the dialog visible (editting preferences.xml).

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

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

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

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

= Known problems =

==== Problem with Dialogs on Top on Microsoft Windows (win32) ====

* Although "Dialogs on Top" is available on Windows, it does not work completely like how it should (yet!). When the document window is minimized, the dialogs still appear in the UI; they are not minimized together with the document window. Because of this, it is not possible to get the document window back by clicking on the taskbar button. The solution to this problem is the following: '''Right-click the taskbar button and press "Restore".''' Hopefully, future releases of GTK will have found a solution for this problem.

==== OSX 10.3.9: cannot open files ====

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

==== Problems with some Debian libgc-6.7 packages ====

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

==== Beware of defective themes on Linux ====

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

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

=== Previous releases ===

* [[ReleaseNotes044]]
* [[ReleaseNotes043]]
* [[ReleaseNotes042]]
* [[ReleaseNotes041]]
* [[ReleaseNotes040]]
* [[ReleaseNotes039]]
* [[ReleaseNotes038]]
* [[ReleaseNotes037]]
* [[ReleaseNotes036]]
* [[ReleaseNotes035]]

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.45

2007-01-12T10:51:23Z

A b: /* SVG filters: Gaussian blur */

= 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 [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/filters.html SVG filters]. The only filter enabled so far is '''Gaussian blur'''.

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

Gaussian blur enables a wide range of photorealistic effects: arbitrarily shaped shades and lights, depth of field, drop shadows, glows, etc. Also, blurred objects can be used as masks for other objects to achieve the "feathered mask" effect.

* To blur selected objects, open the Fill and Stroke dialog (Ctrl+Shift+F) and use the '''Blur''' slider. The blur value is a percentage, with 100% corresponding to a blurring radius of 1/8 of the object's bounding box' perimeter (that is, for a square, a blur of 100% will have the radius equal to half a side).

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

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

Here are a few tips on using blur:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= Undo history =

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

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

= Rendering improvements =

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

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

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

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

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

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

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

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

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

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

== Dropper ==

* Instead of the confusing toggle button, now the Controls bar for the Dropper tool has two checkboxes, "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha", which work as follows. Suppose you have an object selected and, using Dropper, click on an object which has red (#FF0000) fill and 0.5 opacity (half-transparent).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is off, the selected object will get the fill color #800000 (i.e. faded-out red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0 (opaque).
** If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is on but "Set alpha" is off, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0.
** If both "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha" are on, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 0.5 (half-transparent).
:If you Shift+click instead of click, the same changes will be made to stroke color and stroke opacity, correspondingly. Note that in no situation can Dropper change the master opacity of the selected object(s), although it can pick it just as it does any other kind of opacity.

== Calligraphy ==

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

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

= Outline mode =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= PDF export =

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

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

= PS/EPS export =

* There's a new option to embed the fonts used in the document in the PS or EPS exported file. As of now, this works for Type 1 fonts only, not TrueType. The option is available when performing the export from the GUI as well as from the command line via the <code>--export-embed-fonts</code> 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 <code>--export-pdf</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> in the same directory, overwriting the old file. To restore the default Inkscape set, copy <code>inkscape.xml</code> into <code>default.xml</code>.)

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 [http://www.le-radar.com/?mm/inkscape 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.

* Recent fixes in the processing of SVG <defs /> have made it possible to implement the often requested '''Color Markers to Match Stroke''' effect. It is no longer necessary to spend long stretches of time hand editing XML to recolor arrow heads and other marker.

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

= SVG output =

For specialized uses, several aspects of Inkscape's SVG output can now be customized via editing the preferences.xml file (there's no UI for these options). A <group id="svgoutput"> inside <group id="options"> can have the following attributes:

* usenamedcolors (default is 0). If nonzero, Inkscape uses symbolic color names (such as "white" or "lime") and three-digit color designations (such as $dfe) where appropriate; otherwise, it always uses six-digit colors (such as $d0f0e0). Note that in 0.44, the default was to use named colors, which created problems for some extension effects.

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

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

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

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

= Bitmap tracing =

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

= Even more improvements =

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

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

* [new Help commands]

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

* [sculpt profiles - bbyak]

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

* The Path -> Union (Ctrl++) operation now functions when only a single object is selected. Use this to remove self-intersections from objects.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Doxygen DoxyFile is updated.

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

= Examples =

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

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

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

= Translations =

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

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

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

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

= Tutorials and Templates =

* New tutorial "Easter Eggs" by Steve Karg.

* Added Catalan default template and elements tutorial.

* Russian header and footer templates are added.

= Dependency Changes =

[short text about using GK 2.8 now, and other dependency changes?]

= Bugfixes =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* To work around problems some users have had with pressure sensitive tablets ([http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1281512&group_id=93438&atid=604306 bug]), the pressure sensitivity can be disabled from the misc tab of Inkscape preferences dialogue. The tablet can then be used, though with reduced functionality.

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

* When using different display resolutions or a dual screen setup, dialogs could be displayed off-screen; this is fixed: now Inkscape checks whether the saved position of the dialog is offscreen, if so it will move the dialog to the center of the screen. Note that this not solve all problems. If the dialog is still not visible, go to the [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1250236&group_id=93438 bugreport] where a procedure is given to make the dialog visible (editting preferences.xml).

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

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

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

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

= Known problems =

==== Problem with Dialogs on Top on Microsoft Windows (win32) ====

* Although "Dialogs on Top" is available on Windows, it does not work completely like how it should (yet!). When the document window is minimized, the dialogs still appear in the UI; they are not minimized together with the document window. Because of this, it is not possible to get the document window back by clicking on the taskbar button. The solution to this problem is the following: '''Right-click the taskbar button and press "Restore".''' Hopefully, future releases of GTK will have found a solution for this problem.

==== OSX 10.3.9: cannot open files ====

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

==== Problems with some Debian libgc-6.7 packages ====

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

==== Beware of defective themes on Linux ====

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

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

=== Previous releases ===

* [[ReleaseNotes044]]
* [[ReleaseNotes043]]
* [[ReleaseNotes042]]
* [[ReleaseNotes041]]
* [[ReleaseNotes040]]
* [[ReleaseNotes039]]
* [[ReleaseNotes038]]
* [[ReleaseNotes037]]
* [[ReleaseNotes036]]
* [[ReleaseNotes035]]

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.44

2006-06-19T09:07:15Z

A b: /* Layers dialog */

== 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: <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, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ 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 <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) 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 <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html 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 ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> 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 its 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 <code>#rrggbb</code> 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 old tabbed dialog is gone; the new dialog fits much better with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

* 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!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: 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 <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

== 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 ==

=== 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 pressure-sensitive when you are using a 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: [[http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png 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 <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> 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 [http://www.siox.org siox.org]) implemented in its bitmap tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see [http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg 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 snapping to guides and grids, you can now snap to other objects' paths and/or nodes. As with grid and guide snapping, you can separately enable snapping of bboxes to objects and/or snapping of nodes to objects. Be aware, however, that this is experimental code - there may be surprises. It may also be slow in large documents with thousands of objects.

* In addition to the snap sensitivity sliders in Document Preferences (which set snap distances in px), there are Always snap checkboxes (separately for object, grid and guide snapping) which force snapping at any distance.

* Grid snapping now applies only to the visible grid lines. For example, if you have zoomed out so that only every 10th grid line is visible, snapping will only apply to these visible lines. In addition, default grid snap sensitivity is set to "Always snap". This will hopefully reduce the number of "snapping does not work" complaints from users who didn't zoom in close enough to see that snapping does in fact work, but only at sub-px distances to the 1px-spaced grid. At the same time, you can still snap to finely grained distances if you zoom in.

* 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.

= Extension effects =

* The Effects menu is now officially on and no longer an optional "experimental feature" as in past versions. The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed. Inkscape 0.44 comes with about 30 effects that perform a variety of useful tasks, such as path blending, randomization, function plotting etc.

* Python effects (which includes almost all currently available effects) 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: [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png] as well as in the new example file <code>share/examples/l-systems.svg</code>.

* 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 GIMP. Requires Python, PyXML and GIMP. GIMP 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows yet.

= 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 <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), 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 <code>default.svg</code> 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 <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> 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 <code>--query-*</code> 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 #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 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.

* Inkscape is now significantly translated to 18 languages: Basque, Catalan, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål dialect), Polish, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovenian, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Vietnamese. Additionally, 21 more languages have some level of translation. Average translation ratio has increased from 49% to 59% in this release.

* Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors: Czech, Portuguese (Brazilian) 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 some Debian libgc-6.7 packages ===

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

=== Problems with "Composite" option of X.org ===

* Some prereleases of inkscape-0.44 could crash if the "Composite" option were enabled in X.org's configuration. This is not a problem in the final release.

=== 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. Correct namespace URLs are as follows, with typical namespace prefixes given in parenthesis:
** '''Sodipodi''' (''sodipodi''): http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd
** '''Inkscape''' (''inkscape''): http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape
** '''XLink''' (''xlink''): http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink
** '''SVG''' (''svg'' or none): http://www.w3.org/2000/svg
** '''RDF''' (''rdf''): http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
** '''Creative Commons''' (''cc''): http://web.resource.org/cc/
** '''Dublin Core Metadata''' (''dc''): http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/

=== Beware of defective themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem. Update: this bug appears to be fixed in newer versions of gtk-engines. However, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of any further problem.
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

=== 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 <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> 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 <code>menus.xml</code> 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)

Release notes/0.44

2006-06-19T08:55:54Z

A b: /* Translations */

== 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: <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, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ 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 <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) 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 <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html 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 ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> 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 <code>#rrggbb</code> 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 old tabbed dialog is gone; the new dialog fits much better with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

* 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!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: 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 <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

== 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 ==

=== 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 pressure-sensitive when you are using a 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: [[http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png 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 <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> 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 [http://www.siox.org siox.org]) implemented in its bitmap tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see [http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg 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 snapping to guides and grids, you can now snap to other objects' paths and/or nodes. As with grid and guide snapping, you can separately enable snapping of bboxes to objects and/or snapping of nodes to objects. Be aware, however, that this is experimental code - there may be surprises. It may also be slow in large documents with thousands of objects.

* In addition to the snap sensitivity sliders in Document Preferences (which set snap distances in px), there are Always snap checkboxes (separately for object, grid and guide snapping) which force snapping at any distance.

* Grid snapping now applies only to the visible grid lines. For example, if you have zoomed out so that only every 10th grid line is visible, snapping will only apply to these visible lines. In addition, default grid snap sensitivity is set to "Always snap". This will hopefully reduce the number of "snapping does not work" complaints from users who didn't zoom in close enough to see that snapping does in fact work, but only at sub-px distances to the 1px-spaced grid. At the same time, you can still snap to finely grained distances if you zoom in.

* 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.

= Extension effects =

* The Effects menu is now officially on and no longer an optional "experimental feature" as in past versions. The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed. Inkscape 0.44 comes with about 30 effects that perform a variety of useful tasks, such as path blending, randomization, function plotting etc.

* Python effects (which includes almost all currently available effects) 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: [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png] as well as in the new example file <code>share/examples/l-systems.svg</code>.

* 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 GIMP. Requires Python, PyXML and GIMP. GIMP 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows yet.

= 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 <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), 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 <code>default.svg</code> 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 <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> 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 <code>--query-*</code> 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 #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 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.

* Inkscape is now significantly translated to 18 languages: Basque, Catalan, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål dialect), Polish, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovenian, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Vietnamese. Additionally, 21 more languages have some level of translation. Average translation ratio has increased from 49% to 59% in this release.

* Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors: Czech, Portuguese (Brazilian) 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 some Debian libgc-6.7 packages ===

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

=== Problems with "Composite" option of X.org ===

* Some prereleases of inkscape-0.44 could crash if the "Composite" option were enabled in X.org's configuration. This is not a problem in the final release.

=== 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. Correct namespace URLs are as follows, with typical namespace prefixes given in parenthesis:
** '''Sodipodi''' (''sodipodi''): http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd
** '''Inkscape''' (''inkscape''): http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape
** '''XLink''' (''xlink''): http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink
** '''SVG''' (''svg'' or none): http://www.w3.org/2000/svg
** '''RDF''' (''rdf''): http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
** '''Creative Commons''' (''cc''): http://web.resource.org/cc/
** '''Dublin Core Metadata''' (''dc''): http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/

=== Beware of defective themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem. Update: this bug appears to be fixed in newer versions of gtk-engines. However, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of any further problem.
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

=== 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 <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> 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 <code>menus.xml</code> 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)

Release notes/0.44

2006-06-19T08:46:08Z

A b: /* Translations */

== 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: <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, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ 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 <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) 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 <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html 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 ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> 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 <code>#rrggbb</code> 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 old tabbed dialog is gone; the new dialog fits much better with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

* 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!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: 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 <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

== 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 ==

=== 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 pressure-sensitive when you are using a 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: [[http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png 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 <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> 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 [http://www.siox.org siox.org]) implemented in its bitmap tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see [http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg 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 snapping to guides and grids, you can now snap to other objects' paths and/or nodes. As with grid and guide snapping, you can separately enable snapping of bboxes to objects and/or snapping of nodes to objects. Be aware, however, that this is experimental code - there may be surprises. It may also be slow in large documents with thousands of objects.

* In addition to the snap sensitivity sliders in Document Preferences (which set snap distances in px), there are Always snap checkboxes (separately for object, grid and guide snapping) which force snapping at any distance.

* Grid snapping now applies only to the visible grid lines. For example, if you have zoomed out so that only every 10th grid line is visible, snapping will only apply to these visible lines. In addition, default grid snap sensitivity is set to "Always snap". This will hopefully reduce the number of "snapping does not work" complaints from users who didn't zoom in close enough to see that snapping does in fact work, but only at sub-px distances to the 1px-spaced grid. At the same time, you can still snap to finely grained distances if you zoom in.

* 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.

= Extension effects =

* The Effects menu is now officially on and no longer an optional "experimental feature" as in past versions. The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed. Inkscape 0.44 comes with about 30 effects that perform a variety of useful tasks, such as path blending, randomization, function plotting etc.

* Python effects (which includes almost all currently available effects) 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: [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png] as well as in the new example file <code>share/examples/l-systems.svg</code>.

* 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 GIMP. Requires Python, PyXML and GIMP. GIMP 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows yet.

= 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 <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), 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 <code>default.svg</code> 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 <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> 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 <code>--query-*</code> 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 #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 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.

* Inkscape is now significantly translated to 17 languages: Basque, Catalan, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (bokmål dialect), Polish, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovenian, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Vietnamese. Additionally, 21 more languages have some level of translation. Average translation ratio has increased from 49% to 59% in this release.

* Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors: Czech, Portuguese (Brazilian) 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 some Debian libgc-6.7 packages ===

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

=== Problems with "Composite" option of X.org ===

* Some prereleases of inkscape-0.44 could crash if the "Composite" option were enabled in X.org's configuration. This is not a problem in the final release.

=== 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. Correct namespace URLs are as follows, with typical namespace prefixes given in parenthesis:
** '''Sodipodi''' (''sodipodi''): http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd
** '''Inkscape''' (''inkscape''): http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape
** '''XLink''' (''xlink''): http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink
** '''SVG''' (''svg'' or none): http://www.w3.org/2000/svg
** '''RDF''' (''rdf''): http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
** '''Creative Commons''' (''cc''): http://web.resource.org/cc/
** '''Dublin Core Metadata''' (''dc''): http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/

=== Beware of defective themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem. Update: this bug appears to be fixed in newer versions of gtk-engines. However, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of any further problem.
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

=== 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 <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> 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 <code>menus.xml</code> 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)

Release notes/0.44

2006-06-10T23:20:21Z

A b: /* Translations */

== 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: <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, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ 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 <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) 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 <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html 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 ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> 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 <code>#rrggbb</code> 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 old tabbed dialog is gone; the new dialog fits much betters with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

* 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!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: 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 <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

== 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 ==

=== 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: [[http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png 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 <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> 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 [http://www.siox.org siox.org]) implemented in its bitmap tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see [http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg 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 snapping to guides and grids, you can now snap to other objects' paths and/or nodes. As with grid and guide snapping, you can separately enable snapping of bboxes to objects and/or snapping of nodes to objects. Be aware, however, that this is experimental code - there may be surprises. It may also be slow in large documents with thousands of objects.

* In addition to the snap sensitivity sliders in Document Preferences (which set snap distances in px), there are Always snap checkboxes (separately for object, grid and guide snapping) which force snapping at any distance.

* Grid snapping now applies only to the visible grid lines. For example, if you have zoomed out so that only every 10th grid line is visible, snapping will only apply to these visible lines. In addition, default grid snap sensitivity is set to "Always snap". This will hopefully reduce the number of "snapping does not work" complaints from users who didn't zoom in close enough to see that snapping does in fact work, but only at sub-px distances to the 1px-spaced grid. At the same time, you can still snap to finely grained distances if you zoom in.

* 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.

= Extension effects =

* The Effects menu is now officially on and no longer an optional "experimental feature" as in past versions. The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed. Inkscape 0.44 comes with about 30 effects that perform a variety of useful tasks, such as path blending, randomization, function plotting etc.

* Python effects (which includes almost all currently available effects) 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: [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png] as well as in the new example file <code>share/examples/l-systems.svg</code>.

* 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 GIMP. Requires Python, PyXML and GIMP. GIMP 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows yet.

= 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 <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), 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 <code>default.svg</code> 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 <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> 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 <code>--query-*</code> 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 #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 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.

* Inkscape is now significantly translated to 14 languages: Catalan, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovenian, Spanish and Traditional Chinese. Additionally, 24 more languages have some level of translation. Average translation ratio has increased from 49% to 57% in this release.

* Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors: Czech, Portuguese (Brazilian) 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 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.

=== Problems with "Composite" option of X.org ===

* On Linux, Inkscape may crash if you have the "Composite" option enabled in your X.org configuration. To disable this option, comment out this line in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Option "Composite" "Enable"

:so it becomes

#Option "Composite" "Enable"

:and restart X.

=== 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 <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> 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 <code>menus.xml</code> 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)

Release notes/0.44

2006-06-10T23:11:19Z

A b: /* Translations */

== 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: <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, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ 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 <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) 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 <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html 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 ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> 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 <code>#rrggbb</code> 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 old tabbed dialog is gone; the new dialog fits much betters with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

* 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!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: 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 <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> 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 <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

== 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 ==

=== 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: [[http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png 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 <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> 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 [http://www.siox.org siox.org]) implemented in its bitmap tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see [http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg 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 snapping to guides and grids, you can now snap to other objects' paths and/or nodes. As with grid and guide snapping, you can separately enable snapping of bboxes to objects and/or snapping of nodes to objects. Be aware, however, that this is experimental code - there may be surprises. It may also be slow in large documents with thousands of objects.

* In addition to the snap sensitivity sliders in Document Preferences (which set snap distances in px), there are Always snap checkboxes (separately for object, grid and guide snapping) which force snapping at any distance.

* Grid snapping now applies only to the visible grid lines. For example, if you have zoomed out so that only every 10th grid line is visible, snapping will only apply to these visible lines. In addition, default grid snap sensitivity is set to "Always snap". This will hopefully reduce the number of "snapping does not work" complaints from users who didn't zoom in close enough to see that snapping does in fact work, but only at sub-px distances to the 1px-spaced grid. At the same time, you can still snap to finely grained distances if you zoom in.

* 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.

= Extension effects =

* The Effects menu is now officially on and no longer an optional "experimental feature" as in past versions. The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed. Inkscape 0.44 comes with about 30 effects that perform a variety of useful tasks, such as path blending, randomization, function plotting etc.

* Python effects (which includes almost all currently available effects) 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: [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png] as well as in the new example file <code>share/examples/l-systems.svg</code>.

* 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 GIMP. Requires Python, PyXML and GIMP. GIMP 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows yet.

= 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 <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), 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 <code>default.svg</code> 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 <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> 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 <code>--query-*</code> 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 #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 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.

* Inkscape is now significantly translated to 14 languages: Catalan, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovenian, Spanish and Traditional Chinese. Additionally, 24 more languages have some level of translation. Average translation ratio has increased from 49% to 57% in this release.

* Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors: Czech, Portuguese (Brazillian) 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 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.

=== Problems with "Composite" option of X.org ===

* On Linux, Inkscape may crash if you have the "Composite" option enabled in your X.org configuration. To disable this option, comment out this line in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Option "Composite" "Enable"

:so it becomes

#Option "Composite" "Enable"

:and restart X.

=== 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 <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> 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 <code>menus.xml</code> 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)