Inkscape Wiki - User contributions [en]

Release notes/0.46

2007-07-27T16:56:54Z

Gbanaszk: Bolded a few key words

=Inkscape 0.46=
'''(not released yet)'''

Major things in this release:

* Paintbucket tool

* 3D box tool

* LPEs

* native PDF and AI import

* new SVG filters and UI

* full on-canvas gradient editing

* engraver's toolbox

* touch selection

* command line access to verbs

* snapping made usable

=Speed and interactivity=

* In this version, Inkscape starts using the [http://www.cairographics.org cairo] library for rendering. It is now used for '''outline mode''' display which, thanks to using cairo and other optimizations, redraws '''faster by about 25%'''. More impressive are memory savings: thanks to cairo, in outline mode Inkscape now takes only about '''50% of the memory''' used by 0.45 for the same file.

* '''Smart redraw directionality:''' With complex images and/or on slow computers, you may have noticed that Inkscape redraws the screen image in horizontal strips, and these strips are painted sequentially top to bottom. Now this direction is automatically changed based on where your mouse cursor is. In particular, if mouse is closer to the bottom of the area to redraw, strips will be painted in the bottom-to-top order. This significantly improves the responsiveness and interactivity in some situations. For example, when you are node-editing the bottom part of a complex path, the entire path needs to be redrawn on each change, but now this redraw starts from the bottom and therefore the you see the effect of your changes at once - i.e. while screen redraw may still lag behind your mouse movement, this lag is less noticeable.

* '''Faster blur''' for exporting and high quality on-screen rendering: Inkscape now uses an IIR (Infinite Impulse Response) filter for blurring with large radius. This greatly improves the speed of blur redraw at high zooms or in high-resolution export (or simply with very large blur radius). On the other hand, the results are an approximation to a true Gaussian blur, so a drawing may look slightly different from the mathematically precise blur (usually the differences are far from visible, though). This code is mainly based on: ''Recursive Gaussian Derivative Filters'' by L.J. van Vliet, I.T. Young and P.W. Verbeek (see the source code for more detailed references).

* '''Moving the cursor around''' in a file with large and complex paths has become much snappier and more responsive. Previously, in extreme cases Inkscape could freeze for seconds while catching up with the mouse cursor; such delays are now eliminated.

* Several improvements make '''canvas panning and scrolling''' smoother and more interactive in complex slow-rendering documents:

:* When panning by the middle mouse button, Inkscape no longer attempts to redraw the canvas while your mouse button is pressed. Any redrawing only happens after you release the mouse. As a result, the newly revealed parts of the canvas are somewhat more "dirty" but the '''panning is smoother than before''', with few if any "hiccups".

:* Previously, if you start panning with middle button while Inkscape is still redrawing screen in a complex drawing, panning sometimes completely failed or moved canvas just a little step. Now it is '''guaranteed to pan the canvas all the way''' from mouse-press point to mouse-release point in any case, even if sometimes it fails to show the intermediate positions.

:* When pressing and holding Ctrl+arrows to scroll canvas, Inkscape normally accelerates scrolling so that each next scrolling step is bigger than the previous. Previously, in complex drawings this acceleration sometimes got interrupted, which made scrolling annoyingly bumpy and slow. Now this is fixed so that '''scrolling is smoothly accelerated''' even in a slow-rendering document.

:* The default '''starting speed and acceleration''' of Ctrl+arrows scrolling are slightly increased. (They are both settable in Preferences.)

=Tools=

==Paint Bucket tool==

The new Paint Bucket tool works exactly as you would expect: click in any area bounded on all sides and it will '''fill it with color'''. Being a vector tool, however, Inkscape's Paint Bucket just creates a new ''path'' that "fills in" the area in which you clicked.

It is important to note that the tool is '''perceptual''', not geometric. That is, when looking for the boundaries around the point you clicked, it takes for such boundaries any ''visible'' color changes. This means that filling will stop at gradients, blurs, and even the color boundaries in imported bitmaps, but will ignore any paths or other objects that are fully (or almost) transparent or for any other reason do not stand out from the background. In short, it will work exactly as if you were filling a rasterized version of your image in a bitmap editor like Photoshop or GIMP - but will give you a vector object to work with.

For example, now you can scan a pencil sketch, import the bitmap into Inkscape, and quickly fill all its cells with colors even without tracing the bitmap first. This is a very convenient and interactive way of digitizing your paper drawings, making the '''traditional bitmap tracing unnecessary''' in many cases.

Internally, the tool works by performing a bitmap-based flood fill on a rendered version of the visible canvas, then tracing the resulting fill using [[potrace]] and placing the traced path into the document.

It places the rendered path onto the current layer, so you can have a layer on top (for example, "Inks") and select the layer below ("Colors") and do the fills so that they always appear below the Inks.

The '''resolution''' of the bitmap image used to perform the trace is dependent upon your '''current zoom level''' -- the more zoomed in to an area that you are, the higher the resolution of the bitmap-based flood fill. So, if you are got a fill that is too imprecise, has rough corners, or don't go into small nooks and appendices where it is supposed to go, just undo, zoom in closer and repeat filling from the same point. Conversely, if the fill leaks out through a small gap, zoom out to make the gap less visible and fill again.

Like all object-creating tools, the Paint Bucket may use the '''last-set style''' for the objects it creates (this is the default), or it can use its own '''fixed style'''. You can switch between these modes on this tool's page in Inkscape Preferences (Ctrl+Shift+P).

In the tool's '''Controls bar''':

* '''Tolerance''' (set in per cent units) controls how large must be color difference at a point (compared to the initial click point) to stop the fill. Zero tolerance means only the area of strictly the same color will be filled; the larger the tolerance, the easier it will be for the fill to leak into adjacent different-color areas. The default value is 10%.

* You can control the amount of '''inset/outset''' to be applied to the created fill path. Setting a positive outset causes fill paths to be larger than the filled bitmap area (good for eliminating anti-aliasing errors), while setting a negative outset causes the path to be smaller. This works the same as the Outset and Inset path commands.

* Paint Bucket's perceptual fill can use either all visible colors or specific color '''channels'''. You can restrict the fill algorithm to the following channels:
** Red
** Green
** Blue
** Hue
** Saturation
** Lightness
** Alpha

* An '''auto gap''' setting. When enabled, Paint Bucket will try to close any gaps in the area boundaries that would normally cause the fill to spill out of the desired area. There are four settings to auto gap:
** None
** Small (fill gaps up to 2 pixels in size)
** Medium (4 pixels)
** Large (6 pixels)

* A '''style swatch''' on the far right of the bar shows the style that will be used for the next fill object you create.

The tool's '''shortcuts''' are:

* '''Single click''' performs filling from the click point.

* '''Shift+click''' performs filling from the click point and then unions the resulting path with the selected path. This way, if your first attempt did not fill in all of the desired area, you can Shift+click the remaining corner to fill it in separately and combine the result with the result of the previous fill.

* '''Ctrl+click''' on an object simply changes that object's fill to the current fill color of the tool, and '''Shift+Ctrl+click''' changes the stroke to the current stroke color.

* '''Click and drag''' performs filling from '''all of the points''' that you pass while dragging (you will see your path visualized by a red line). From each point, the fill spreads to the neighbors with the colors similar to that point - in other words, it's like clicking with this tool at each point of the drag path and unioning the results. This lets you easily fill an area occupied by a gradient or blur - just drag from the darkest to the lightest points in the area you want to fill.

* '''Alt+click and drag''' works similarly to simple drag, except from each point of the drag path, the fill spreads to the neighbors (if any) with the colors similar to the ''initial point'' (the point where you started the drag). This lets you fill a series of similarly-colored yet separated areas (for example, multiple cells in a cartoon) by starting the drag in one of those areas, and alt+dragging the tool through all the other areas.

==3D Box tool==

Inkscape is a two-dimensional drawing tool. However, very often it is used to draw three-dimensional objects. The new '''3D box tool''' helps you create such 3D drawings by automating the most common operation: creating a three-dimensional box in a given perspective. The tool automatically ensures that all sides of the box lie on the corresponding perspective lines. We're not going to compete with Blender - but even simple things can go a long way.

Currently in the 3D box tool you can:

* draw a 3D box by dragging on canvas

* adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles

In SVG, a 3D box is represented as a '''group''' (svg:g) with a special extension attribute (in inkscape namespace); this group contains the 6 quadrilateral '''paths''' representing the sides of the box. Only the 3D box tool treats this object as a box; for all other tools it is just a group, so you can select any of the paths by Ctrl+click, apply any style to it, delete it, etc. You can of course transform the entire box or any face in it using Selector or Node tools.

[max]

==Gradient Tool==
Stops in gradients can be added, deleted, and edited on-canvas now.
*Stops can be added by '''double clicking''' or by '''Ctrl+Alt+Click''' on the gradient line.
*Stops can be deleted by '''Ctrl+Alt+Click''' on a stop or by the '''Del''' key for all the selected stop(s).
:*When you delete an end stop, the nearest intermediate stop becomes the new end stop of the gradient (without moving - i.e., the gradient span becomes shorter).
:*When you delete an end stop and there are no intermediate stops, the object will be painted with a solid fill taken from the color & opacity of the remaining stop.
*More than one stop can be selected at a time by '''Shift+click'''.
:*Can be moved together if next to each other.
:*Can be deleted at the same time.
:*When you have one of the '''gradient handles selected''', its style (color and opacity) is reflected by the selected style indicator (left of the statusbar) and the Fill&Stroke dialog. Previously, opacity of a gradient handle was reflected as fill-opacity and stroke-opacity; now it is reflected as '''master opacity''' (the "O:" spinbutton in the selected style indicator, the "Master opacity" slider in Fill&Stroke). This makes it much easier to view and change opacity of gradient handles using only the selected style indicator in the statusbar.
:*When multiple gradient stops are selected, the selected style indicator (in the statusbar) displays and controls the averaged color and opacity of the selected stops.
*If the selected object(s) have gradient in fill or stroke, the '''selected style indicator''' in the bottom-left corner of the editing window now displays a '''live gradient preview''' prefixed by '''R''' or '''L''' to indicate Radial or Linear gradients (instead of displaying "L Gradient" or "R Gradient" text labels as before). Also, this and other similar widget now use italic font face to indicate <i>None</i> and bold to indicate <b>Unset</b>.
* When copy/pasting or duplicating an object with gradient, it now automatically gets a '''copy''' of the original gradient, so modifying it does not affect the source object's gradient anymore (before, you had to press the Duplicate button on the Gradient controls bar for this).

==Calligraphy tool: Engraver's Toolbox ==

Several new features were added to the Calligraphic pen to make
Inkscape capable of the ancient art of '''line
engraving'''. Traditional engraving is a very labour-intensive
process, and while for a long time it was the only practical way
of reproducing lifelike images in black-and-white print, about a
century ago it was almost completely displaced by automatic
halftone screens. However, line engravings have their
characteristic charm, and there's no reason not to try to
resurrect this art form with the help of Inkscape.

A brief visual guide to the new functionality can be seen on
these screenshots:

http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.46-engraving1.png

http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.46-engraving2.png

===Tracking a guide path with Ctrl===

One of the most common operations in line engraving is
'''hatching''' (or sometimes ''cross-hatching'' when several
hatching grids cross): filling a space with many parallel
straight or variously curved lines (usually of varying width to
represent a gradual shading). You could try to achieve a similar
effect with e.g. path interpolation (blending), but it is rather
cumbersome and limited; manual drawing of hatch lines, on the
other hand, is tedious and nearly impossible to do
uniformly. Now Inkscape provides "assisted hatching" by
'''tracking a guide path''', allowing you to hatch quickly and
uniformly and at the same time giving you sufficient manual
control over the process.

Here's how to do this. First, select the '''guide path''' that
you will track. It may be another calligraphic stroke, any path
or shape, or even a letter of a text object. Then switch to
Calligraphic pen, select the desired parameters (line width,
angle, fixation etc.) and, before starting to draw, press
Ctrl. You will see a gray '''track circle''' centered at your
mouse pointer and touching the closest point on the selected
guide path. (If you have no guide path selected, a statusbar
message will tell you to select it.)

Now move your mouse close to the guide path, so that the track
circle radius is equal to the desired spacing of your hatch
pattern, and start drawing along the guide path. At that moment,
the radius of the circle gets locked; now the circle slides
along the guide path - and the actual stroke is drawn by the
center of the tracking circle, ''not'' by your mouse point. As
a result, you are getting a smooth stroke going parallel to the
guide path and always at the same distance from it.

When the stroke is ready, release your mouse button (or lift
your tablet pen) but '''do not let go of the Ctrl key''' because
as long as you have it pressed, the tool remembers the hatch
spacing you set when you started drawing. Now, you have just
created a new stroke and, as usual with Inkscape tools, it gets
selected instead of what was selected before. In our case, this
means that the newly drawn stroke itself becomes the new guide
path. Next, you can draw a second stroke along the first one,
then a third one along the second, etc. Eventually you can fill
any desired space with uniform hatching.

Alternatively, if you uncheck "Select new path" in the Calligraphy tool preferences, newly created strokes will not be selected, so your original guide path will be kept selected. In this mode, Inkscape will increase the tracking distance after each created stroke so that you can create uniformly spaced hatching by tracking a single guide path.

The attachment to the guide path is not absolute. If you stray
your mouse pointer far enough from the guide path, you will be
able to tear it off (the track circle turns from green to red)
and move freely. This is intentional; this feature allows you,
for example, to continue drawing a stroke past the end of a
guide stroke, thus making your hatching cover a wider area than
the initial guide path. Special care is taken to make such
tearing off as smooth as possible and to suppress violent jerks,
but this is not always possible; the general advice is to not
try to hatch too fast. If jerking and unintended tearoffs still
bother you, try increasing the Mass parameter.

Also, special code is in place to prevent flipovers - accidental
jumps to the other side of the guide path. Brief flipovers are
suppressed, but if you intentionally go over to the other side
and stay there, eventually Inkscape will obey and your tracking
stroke will also flip over to follow you.

Tracking a guide also allows some slight feedback by gradually
changing the tracking distance in response to your drawing
behavior. Thus, if you're consistently trying to draw closer or
farther from the guide than the current tracking distance, the
distance will correspondingly decrease or increase, so you will
get a hatching that is slightly spacing in or out. (The effect
is very slight, however, so as not to become a nuisance.) Also,
note that since tracking follows the edge of the stroke, strokes
of varying width (such as those tracing background, see below)
will result in gradual bending of the hatching pattern as you
proceed.

===Tracing background by stroke width===

There is a new toggle button on the Calligraphy tool's controls
bar, '''Trace background'''. When on, the width of your pen
depends on the lightness of the background under the stroke in
each point, so that white translates into the minimum stoke
width (1) and black translates to the maximum (which is set by the
Width parameter). This can work alone or in combination with
pressure sensitivity, depending on whether the "Use pressure" button
is also toggled.

This feature allows you to not only hatch over an imported
bitmap image or any drawing, but to do so automatically
reproducing the highlights and shades of the background with
your strokes becoming lighter and heavier as needed.

===Thinning/thickening of paths with Alt===

Even with background tracing, the visible lightness/darkness of
a hatching may not correspond too well to your artistic
intention. Also, with guide tracking, the ends of strokes are
often far from ideal - they may be too blunt or have unsightly
bends or blobs. This is where the new thinning/thickening
function is indispensable.

While in the Calligraphy tool, press Alt. You will see a
orange-colored circle indicating the area that will be affected;
this area is 10 times the size of the pen when you draw (so you
can change it by changing the Width parameter on the
toolbar).

Now select some or all of the paths or groups containing paths (as with most
tools in Inkscape, only selected objects are changed), for
example by pressing Ctrl+A, and start '''Alt+dragging''' over
them. Where you touch them, paths become thinner, as if
melting away, up until total disappearance. Conversely,
'''Shift+Alt+dragging''' makes selected paths thicker in places
where you touch them.

As with the Calligraphy pen itself, the '''size''' of the
thinning/thickening area by default depends on zoom; simply
zooming in or out is often easier than adjusting the width if
you want to cover a smaller or larger area.

The '''force''' of
the effect also depends on zoom (or in other words, it stays the
same when measured by screen pixels, same as when you move and
object by Alt+arrow keys). Between the center and the edge of the circle, the force decreases along a '''bell-like curve''', so that the action of the tool on paths is always smooth. Also, if you have a pressure-sensitive tablet, the force of thinning/thickening also
depends on '''pen pressure'''; tapping slightly produces gradual
lightening or darkening of your drawing, while pressing heavily
will work as a kind of quick "erasing" (with Alt) or
"blackening" (with Alt+Shift).

Of course, thinning/thickening is useful '''not only for calligraphic strokes'''. You can select any simple path (such as
an ellipse converted to path) and start '''sculpting''' it,
spawning smooth treacle-like appendages with Alt+Shift and
melting them away with Alt. Unlike the "node sculpting" mode in
the Node tool, however, this does not require adding new nodes
to the shape or selecting any nodes. This new functionality is
somewhat similar to the "Pucker" and "Bloat" tools in the latest
versions of Adobe Illustrator, except that in Inkscape it works
softer and is easier to control.

'''Known problems with thinning/thickening:''' (1) it is rather
slow; (2) it quickly eats memory; and (3) it is sometimes buggy
- thin calligraphic strokes may suddenly disappear or change
their shape drastically as you're Alt+stroking them. For (3), it
helps to undo the bad change and try again with less pressure on
the pen - if you do your thinning in several light touches
instead of one heavy press, usually you will be able to get the
desired result without the buggy behavior. In general, however,
all these problems stem from the livarot library that we use for
geometric manipulation of paths. Fortunately, livarot is
scheduled for replacement by lib2geom, a new library now in
development, so hopefully these issues will be addressed then.

===Misc features===

* For consistency with other drawing tools, drawing with '''Shift''' in Calligraphy tool automatically '''unions''' the newly created stroke with whatever paths were selected (and selects the result). Thus, you can do a series of overlapping Shift+strokes to create one unioned path object instead of separate objects as before.

* To facilitate changing the Width parameter, the Home/End keys in Calligraphy tool switch you to the minimum (1) and maximum (100) width, correspondingly. (This is in addition to the Left/Right arrow keys that change Width by 1; remember also that you can press Alt+X, type any width, and press Enter.)

==Selector==

* A new selection mode is available: '''selecting by touch'''. In this mode, you draw a freehand path across the objects; when you release mouse button, all objects that are touched by this path get selected. This mode is very convenient in situations where you need to select objects so intermingled that selecting them by the rectangular rubberband is too difficult and so numerous that click-selecting them one by one is too tedious.

:To activate selecting by touch, whenever you are drawing a rubberband rectangle, just press '''Alt''' to switch it to the touch mode. The rectangle will disappear and a red ''touch path'' will be shown instead. When dragging from an empty space, you can press '''Alt''' first and then start to drag to get the touch mode (note that your selection must be empty, otherwise Alt+dragging will move the selected objects instead). To start a touch selection from a point over an object, or to add to existing selection by touching, press '''Shift+Alt''' and then start to drag.

* Previously, the only way to switch selection from scale mode to rotate mode or back was to click on it, which was rather inconvenient when the selected object is in a group or under other objects. Now you can switch modes with keyboard as well by pressing '''Shift+S''' in Selector tool.

* Draging the '''scale handles with Alt''' now scales selection by an integer factor, i.e. up to '''2''', '''3''', '''4''', etc. times the original size or down to '''1/2'''. '''1/3''', '''1/4''', etc. of the original size (in any of the two dimensions independently). This replaces the old and rarely used "slow" scaling mode with Alt.

* '''Horizontal/vertical flipping''': So far, flipping a selection made it flip within its bounding box, so that the latter remained fixed. In the move/scale mode of the selector tool, this behaviour remains unchanged. However, in rotate/shear mode flipping now happens about an (imaginary) vertical/horizontal axis through the rotation center. This is very handy, since the latter can be freely dragged around and snaps to all kinds of objects if desired.

==Node tool==
[sculpt profiles - bbyak]

* If any of the nodes in the currently selected path is mouseovered, then horizontal/vertical flipping ('H' and 'V' keys), stepwise rotation ('[' and ']' keys) and scaling ('<' and '>' keys) now all use this specific node as center/axis. If there is no mouseovered node, the center of the bounding box is used instead (as is currently the case unconditionally). Nodes that are covered by one of their handles are also detected as mouseovered.

* [helper path display - johan]

==Text tool==
* [text toolbar - deadchip?]
* If text contains a tref element, the text tool's behavior may not be as expected. Please see [[#The tref Element]]

=SVG=

==The tref Element==

The actual character data contained in a text element can either be embedded directly, or it can be the character content of an element referenced by a '''tref'''.

While the textual content from the referenced element will be stripped of any markup before being used by the '''tref''', the '''tref''' element can itself have the same attributes as a '''tspan'''. In fact, when rendered, it is as though the '''tref''' element is replaced by a '''tspan''' with the same attributes, and the referenced character data is embedded in that '''tspan'''.

Inkscape can now correctly open files with tref elements, and new '''tref''' elements can be created manually in the XML editor.

The property '''xlink:href''' is used to refer to another element whose character data will be used. Any element can be referred to except an ancestor of the '''tref'''. When any of the text contained in the referred element changes, the '''tref''' will immediately be updated to display the new data.

Existing tref elements can be converted into tspan elements with '''Edit > Clone > Unlink Clone'''. If more than one '''tref''' is contained within a selection, all '''trefs''' will be converted into '''tspans'''. All attributes applied to the '''tref''' will be retained in the new '''tspan'''.

A '''tref''' element can be mixed with any other elements allowed to be contained by a text element.

The cloned character data rendered by the '''tref''' may not be edited, but any characters surrounding it can be changed. Styles cannot be applied to a subset of the cloned characters, but if all are selected, a style can be applied to the '''tref'''.

=Filters=

==New filters supported==

* The '''feBlend''' filter primitive gives us image blending modes, like in many image manipulation programs. These modes are screen, multiply, darken and lighten. There's a caveat, though: when blending an object against an semi-transparent background, the background will be accumulated twice, resulting in thicker objects under the bounding box of blended object. This is a limitation of current version of SVG format, not a bug in Inkscape.

* The '''feOffset''' filter primitive offsets the image by an user-defined amount. For example, this is useful for drop shadows, as the shadow has to be in a slightly different position than the actual object.

[[Filter Effects]]

==Filters UI==

* New dialog for creating and modifying filter effects ('''Object>Filter Effects...''')
* The list at the left of the dialog displays all filters currently in the document.
** New filters can be added with the '''Add''' button beneath the list
** Filters can be renamed by double-clicking on any filter in the list
** Right-clicking a filter for the pop-up menu allows duplicating or removing a filter.
* The second list, at the left of the dialog, displays the '''filter primitives''' that are contained within the currently-selected filter.
** New primitives can be added by selecting the primitive type from the combo box beneath the list, and then pressing the '''Add''' button.
** Right-clicking a primitive for the pop-up menu allows duplicating or removing a primitive.
** Primitives can be rearranged by clicking and dragging any filter in the list.
** When a filter is selected, the '''Settings''' group at the bottom of the dialog will change to display the attributes available for that primitive. Changing a setting results in an immediate update to the document.
** The "in" and "in2" attributes for filters that support them are not shown in the '''Settings''' group. These input connections are displayed graphically in the list, under the '''Connections''' column.
*** Inputs for a particular filter are displayed as triangles. Depending on the primitive type, there may be one or two inputs (or more for Merge primitives.) Connections can be created by clicking on a triangle and dragging.
*** There are six standard input types that can be used for any primitive input; Source Graphic, Source Alpha, Background Image, Background Alpha, Fill Paint, and Stroke Paint. These are displayed vertically on the far right of the list. Click and drag from an input triangle to one of the standard inputs to connect them.
*** Primitives can also be connected to other primitives by clicking an input triangle and dragging upwards to another primitive. A primitive can only be connected to one higher up the list.

=Live path effects=

'''Live path effects''' (not to be confused with extension effects or SVG filters) are a new way to non-destructively modify path and shape objects. LPEs only affect the path of an object and not its style. The original path is preserved and can be edited directly, and the LPEs applied to it will be updated.

Live path effects were developed as part of the GSoC 2007.

[johan]

=Extension effects=

== Live preview ==

* '''Live preview of effects''': Using the async behavior (see below), as soon as the parameters dialog for an effect is shown, the script is executed in the background and the screen updates as soon as it's finished. This can result is seemingly faster execution if no parameters are changed. If some parameters are adjusted, the script is restarted. This allows you to see immediately the effects of any parameter change without pressing the OK button on the effect's dialog.

* '''Spawn Glib API''': Scripting extension have been moved to the Glib spawn API to ensure that parameters and variables aren't interpreted by a shell. This also means that scripting extensions are executed in a separate process asynchronously allowing the GTK main loop to continue to execute.

* '''Progress dialog''': While an extension is working on a document, a small dialog is shown allowing the user to cancel the execution.

== New and improved effects ==

* The new '''Render > Barcode''' extension creates a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode barcode]. Supported types include EAN13, EAN8, UPC-A, UPC-E, UPC-5, Code39, Code39Ext, Code93, Code128, and RM4SCC.

* The new '''Render > Gear''' extension creates a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gear mechanical gear] given the number of teeth, the circular pitch (in px units), and the pressure angle.

* The new '''Render > [[Spirograph]]''' extension creates intricate mathematical curves akin to the classic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirograph mechanical Spirograph toy] (see [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/images/Spirograph_Samples.svg samples]).

* A group of new effects in the '''Text''' submenu performs various case conversions on selected text objects: converting to UPPERCASE, lowercase, Sentence case, Title Case, as well as flipping case (switching uppercase to lowercase and vice versa) and rANdoMiZInG cAse. If no texts are selected, the effect works on all texts in the document.

* Another effect in the Text submenu, '''Replace text''', performs search-and-replace on the selected text objects or (if nothing is selected) on all texts in the document. Searching is case sensitive. You can use this effect to globally delete all occurrences of some text fragment by replacing it with empty string. Conversely, if you search for an empty string and replace it with some string, this string will be inserted after every character of your text; for example, you can space out a text by replacing in it an empty string with a single space.

* A new effect, '''Replace color''' in the Color submenu, simply replaces one RRGGBB-specified color to another within selection or, if there's no selection, in the entire document. As with other effects in that submenu, the replacement affects fill, stroke, and gradient colors, but not colors of bitmaps.

*The '''Whirl''' extension uses the center of view as the center of whirl, so you don't have to enter the center coordinates numerically.

*The '''Render > Grid''' extension has got an extended range of grid spacings, from 0.1 to 1000 px.

*The '''Render > Function Plotter''' extension can now plot using polar coordinates.

== New Python XML library ==

* All Python effects are switched from the old and unmaintained PyXML library to the new powerful [http://codespeak.net/lxml/ lxml] library.

=Snapping=

* In addition to all other snapping modes and techniques, snapping has been implemented or improved in many tools and contexts:

:* Drawing of new '''shapes''' (such as rectangles or ellipses) snaps to grid/guides/shapes.

:* '''Handles''' of existing shapes and gradient handles snap.

:* '''Skewing''' objects in Selector snaps.

:* Snapping to objects works for '''images''' and '''clones''' (not only paths/shapes as before).

:* Snapping of '''text baselines''' works again.

:* When moved in Selector, an object snaps with its '''rotation axis''' (which is by default in the geometric center of bbox, but can be arbitrarily moved and its position is remembered for every object).

:Other snapping fixes and improvements include:

:* Snapping distance is now set in screen pixels and is therefore independent of zoom.

:* The bug where "node-to-node" snapping caused jerky movement of nodes is fixed.

:* The aspect ratio is correctly preserved while scaling objects with snapping turned on.

:* All four bounding box corners now snap instead of only the lower-left and upper-right as before.

:* Snapping while uniformly scaling has been improved.

* The confusing "Default transformations origin" option is removed. Now Inkscape always uses the opposite edge of the object's bounding box as the transformation origin (though the bounding box itself can now be different, see next item).

* A new preference option has been added to specify the kind of '''bounding box''' to be used for transforming objects (see Inkscape Preferences, Tools, Selector). You can choose between the '''visual bounding box''' (which takes into account the stroke width, markers, and blur margins; this is the default behavior) or '''geometric bounding box''' (which encloses only the path itself, disregarding stroke width).

=Grids=

* a new tab in the document properties dialog, solely meant for grids; the former grid/guide tab is now solely for guides. I envision a list of guides there in the future, for easier deletion of guides etc.
* more than one grid can be active at the same time, although i am having trouble in finding a usefull case for this
* multiple views on the same document share the same grids, but the grid can be turned off for each view separately. For example: one could have an overview view without grid enabled. Duplicate that window and zoom in on some detail; then grids can be shown only for that view, and snapping will only happen in those views for which grids are enabled. (sorry i am not able to explain more clearly)
* grid information is now stored in SVG as a child of sodipodi:namedview. Can someone please make an extension that converts an old grid definition to the new format?
* axonometric grid (not yet snapping)
* dots instead of lines

From developer perspective:

* implementation of new grids is much easier now; subclassing CanvasGrid and adding an entry in the is enough. Have a peek at how the rectangular grid is implemented (CanvasXYGrid).
* note that there is no longer "the grid", there might be several grids active now!

[Future plans (i will not be working on this soon, due to GSoC Live effects!):
** possibility of enabling not all but a selection of grids for a view. Eg. when there are 4 grids defined in the document, only enable grid2 for a certain view.
** new grids!
** better snapping mechanism to enable snapping to intersections of guides&grids and grids&grids.

A side effect of removal of old gridcode: apparantly the origin of the desktop rules used to be set to the origin of the grid. I find this strange: specifying a grid origin of (2,2) would have me think the origin would be at ruler location (2,2) instead of (0,0) as it is in 0.45.1.
I have commented the grid-origin correction to the ruler range, because now there is not a single grid anymore to correct it for. Isn't there a control somewhere to define the documents origin? Now the ruler origin is set to (0,0) -- johan]

=Bitmap export=

* '''Batch export''': The Bitmap Export dialog (Ctrl+Shift+E) got a new checkbox, ''Batch export all selected objects''. This checkbox is available when two or more objects are selected. If it is checked, instead of exporting selection as a whole, Inkscape exports each selected object separately into its own PNG file. This uses each object's export hints (i.e. export filename and DPI) if they are remembered from a previous export; otherwise, the filename is created from the object ID and the DPI is 90 pixels per inch. '''Caution:''' Unlike regular export, batch export overwrites all existing PNG files without warning.

:This makes it possible to implement all kinds of '''image slicing''' and automated export scenarios. For example, if you are working on a web site design, you can create a separate "export" layer. In that layer, "slice" your web page image into separate areas by creating invisible rectangles with no fill and no stroke. Select each rectangle (by Tab/Shift+Tab, or by switching to Outline mode where even an invisible rectangle can be selected by clicking on its outline) and export it into the corresponding filename (which gets saved as that object's export hint). After that, if you do any changes to your graphics, it's very easy to reexport all the slices: just switch to the "export" layer, select all in that layer (Ctrl+A), and export with the ''Batch export selected objects'' checkbox on.

* '''Hide all except selected''': A new checkbox allows you to hide in the exported image everything except selected object(s).

* The Export dialog automatically appends the '''.png''' extension to the export filename you specify.

=Import/Export=

* [libpoppler PDF/AI import - miklos]

:* '''Implemented features''': The libpoppler based import extension can import shapes, text, clippaths and non-masked images from PDF documents. It supports tiling patterns (XStep and YStep attributes are ignored), axial and radial gradients (only those made up of sampled functions). Currently it will only import the first page of the opened document.

:* '''Text editing tips''': Any text imported from PDF or AI has each letter's precise place on the page ''fixed''. While this preserves the exact appearance (e.g. justification of text blocks) of the imported document, it makes editing such text difficult: deleting text fails to contract the text line and inserting text fails to expand it, i.e. typed letters overlay the existing letters. (However, you still can replace a letter with another letter of about the same width, although you may need to kern it into place with Alt+arrows.)

::To work around this, select the text object you want to edit and use '''Text > Remove manual kerns''' command. This will remove the exact positioning information, so if the text block was justified it will lose justification, but instead you will be able to edit it as usual.

::Note that there is a way to select even a single line in a text block. For this, open the XML editor, expand the <svg:text> tree branch corresponding to your text, and select any of the <svg:tspan> objects under it. Now you can remove manual kerns from this line only. After you finish editing the line, you can manually justify it back, for example by adding spaces, manual kerns (Alt+arrows), or by adjusting letterspacing (select the whole line and use Alt+> or Alt+<).

* '''[if enabled! - mental]''' A new cairo-based PDF exporter has been added to Inkscape. Inkscape 0.46 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.

* [cairo ps export - adib]

* [new wpg lib - ted gould]

=Command line=

Several new command line options are added that make Inkscape even more scriptable and automatable than before.

* --verb-list will list all the Verb IDs and their names in Inkscape. This makes writing your own menus and hotkeys much easier as you can easily find out what the choices are.

* --verb followed by a verb ID allows you to specify a verb to be called on every document opened by Inkscape initially from the command line.

* --select followed by a node ID will allow you to add a node to the list of selected objects.

These options can be used, for example, for performance testing. You could do something like this:

$ time inkscape --verb=FileClose my_complex_file.svg

to measure the time it takes to load and display the file.

Of course, with the ability to select objects, it can be much more useful than
that. You can call extension effects, or any other verb, then FileSave and
FileClose to automate all kinds of operations on your drawings.

=UI=

== [toolbars - [[JonCruz]]] ==

[calligraphy: menus, tooltips; star; ...]

Switched to stock GTK+ toolbars.

Extra magic secret sauce added.

== [filedialogs - [[JonCruz]]] ==

== Print dialog integration ==

* '''Print Dialog''': The GTK Unix Print Dialog has been hooked up! From the dialog, you can select any of the Postscript-capable printers known to your system and configure them as with any other GTK application.

== Saving window geometry globally ==

Previously, window geometry (size and position of document windows) could only be saved into the document (so that each document stored its own window geometry). Now, a new option is added to save the geometry of the last used window to the preferences and apply this geometry to all new windows. Thus, with the "Save geometry to preferences" option enabled, new windows will open with the shape of the most recent previous window. This mode also remembers and restores the maximized/fullscreen state (unlike geometry saved to documents).

=Even more improvements=

* '''Gnome VFS Improvements''': Gnome VFS Non-Local files are now usable through all of our file choosers in Open, Save and Export. This compile-time option allowed people to open any Gnome-VFS-based URI from the command-line in the past, but not non-local resources (WebDAV, SFTP, etc) and this now allows for all the lovely possibilities Gnome-VFS provides.

* In previous versions, Inkscape didn't allow you to '''group a single object.''' Yet in some cases, this operation is useful (for example, to blur the clipped edged of an object, or apply more than one clippath/mask to an object). Now this limitation is removed; just select any single object and group it to get a single-object group.

* The somewhat cryptic "F:" and "S:" labels in the selected style indicator (at the left end of the statusbar) and in tool's style swatches are now spelled out as '''Fill:''' and '''Stroke:'''. We believe this makes the interface, even if less space-efficient, a bit more friendly for newbies.

* The '''style swatches''' at the right end of object-creating tools' control bars now open the Preferences page of the corresponding tool when clicked. Also, now these swatches display a tooltip explaining its purpose (e.g. "Style of new rectangles", "Style of new calligraphic strokes", etc.)

* After dragging a curve segment in Node tool, Inkscape no longer selects the two adjacent nodes if they were not selected before.

* The '''Tile Clones''' dialog now uses the object's defined '''rotation axis''' (which can be freely moved by Selector tool and which is saved separately for each object) for all rotations (including both symmetry rotations and the Rotation tab rotations), scales, and flips. This renders unnecessary the previous workarounds where you had to group an object with another transparent object to affect how it's rotated by the clone tiler.

* In '''Pencil''' and '''Calligraphic''' tools, pressing '''Esc''' or '''Ctrl+Z''' while drawing cancels the currently drawn path or stroke. When not drawing, these keys work as before (Esc deselects, Ctrl+Z undoes last action). (This is the same behavior as in the Pen tool where it was introduced in a previous version.)

* A set of new verbs has been added to allow the user to easily '''unlock all locked objects''' or '''unhide all hidden objects'''. There are two variants one that operates on the current layer and its children and one that operates globally. While searching for hidden or locked object descendants of locked layers are ignored.

* The list of folder shortcuts in the '''Open''' dialog includes the folder with Inkscape's SVG '''examples''' for easy access. Similarly, the '''Save''' dialog has a shortcut for the user's own '''templates''' dialog making it easy to save the current document as a template (if saved as <code>default.svg</code>, it will be loaded every time you run Inkscape or create new document with Ctrl+N; with any other name, it will be added to the File > New submenu).

* For time-intensive operations such as Paint Bucket and Simplify, the system's busy wait cursor is displayed to indicate to the user that Inkscape is actively working, and not frozen.

* [statusbar updates: save, ...]

* Several improvements in '''inkview''': busy cursor is shown while loading file, the button window stays on top and responds to keyboard shortcuts; several memleaks stopped and bugs fixed. The "slideshow mode" of the main inkscape application (-s or --slideshow command line option) is removed; use inkview instead.

* In Document Metadata dialog, updated Creative Commons Licenses to version 3.0.

* In addition to Shift+click, right clicking on a colour swatch now also sets the stroke colour.

=Notable bugfixes=

These are bugfixes compared to 0.45.1; for a list of fixes in 0.45.1 compared to 0.45, see [[ReleaseNotes045|0.45.1 release notes]]

* The '''sodipodi:docbase''' attribute is no longer added to the root <svg> element. This attribute used to keep the latest directory that the document was saved to, and thus represented a mild privacy violation (i.e., by sharing your Inkscape SVG files you allowed others to have a peek into your directory structure). Note, however, that Inkscape does not remove this attribute from old documents it opens; if you want you can remove it yourself. Inkscape just no longer creates this attribute in new documents.

* Inkscape now properly quotes <code>font-family</code> values and therefore can use fonts with various nonalphanumeric characters in their names, which previously failed.

* If you have saved documents with a previous version of Inkscape which used '''right-to-left text''' (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew) then the paragraph alignment of non-flowed text has been reversed in this release. This is due to a bug in previous versions - the new behaviour is compliant with the SVG specification and compatible with other editors and viewers. To correct your images, simply reverse the paragraph alignment by selecting the text and clicking the appropriate button on the toolbar.

* A large family of bugs was exterminated where an object's style could only refer other objects (such as gradients, patterns, and filters) that come after it in the document. Now any objects can be referenced from a style regardless of their place in the document. This fixed the disappearance of gradients/patterns/filters after you undo an effect, as well as lots of assorted crashes and misrenderings (mostly on non-Inkscape SVG files).

* '''Stock markers''' now appear in the "recently used markers" section of the marker selector dropdowns in the Fill & Stroke dialog. Before, any markers with stock id's (including markers modified by the user) were hidden, making it difficult to work with modified stock markers.

* A regression in 0.45 caused crashes when undo or redo was attempted before the previous action could complete (e.g. pressing ctrl+z while you are still drawing a rectangle). This is now fixed.

* Previously, if there was a single invalid property in a <code>style</code> attribute, the entire attribute was discarded, i.e. the object lost all styling. Now Inkscape's behavior is more compliant to the CSS specification: it ignores only the invalid property but reads in all the rest.

* Several bugs are fixed in searching for linked images. Now moving SVG documents with their associated images to a different place or a different machine should work more reliably.

* Master opacity did not apply to stroke markers as it should; fixed.

* Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration URI points to right location now.

* Text objects didn't display the pattern editing handles; fixed.

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.46

2007-07-27T16:54:27Z

Gbanaszk: Add reference to tref

=Inkscape 0.46=
'''(not released yet)'''

Major things in this release:

* Paintbucket tool

* 3D box tool

* LPEs

* native PDF and AI import

* new SVG filters and UI

* full on-canvas gradient editing

* engraver's toolbox

* touch selection

* command line access to verbs

* snapping made usable

=Speed and interactivity=

* In this version, Inkscape starts using the [http://www.cairographics.org cairo] library for rendering. It is now used for '''outline mode''' display which, thanks to using cairo and other optimizations, redraws '''faster by about 25%'''. More impressive are memory savings: thanks to cairo, in outline mode Inkscape now takes only about '''50% of the memory''' used by 0.45 for the same file.

* '''Smart redraw directionality:''' With complex images and/or on slow computers, you may have noticed that Inkscape redraws the screen image in horizontal strips, and these strips are painted sequentially top to bottom. Now this direction is automatically changed based on where your mouse cursor is. In particular, if mouse is closer to the bottom of the area to redraw, strips will be painted in the bottom-to-top order. This significantly improves the responsiveness and interactivity in some situations. For example, when you are node-editing the bottom part of a complex path, the entire path needs to be redrawn on each change, but now this redraw starts from the bottom and therefore the you see the effect of your changes at once - i.e. while screen redraw may still lag behind your mouse movement, this lag is less noticeable.

* '''Faster blur''' for exporting and high quality on-screen rendering: Inkscape now uses an IIR (Infinite Impulse Response) filter for blurring with large radius. This greatly improves the speed of blur redraw at high zooms or in high-resolution export (or simply with very large blur radius). On the other hand, the results are an approximation to a true Gaussian blur, so a drawing may look slightly different from the mathematically precise blur (usually the differences are far from visible, though). This code is mainly based on: ''Recursive Gaussian Derivative Filters'' by L.J. van Vliet, I.T. Young and P.W. Verbeek (see the source code for more detailed references).

* '''Moving the cursor around''' in a file with large and complex paths has become much snappier and more responsive. Previously, in extreme cases Inkscape could freeze for seconds while catching up with the mouse cursor; such delays are now eliminated.

* Several improvements make '''canvas panning and scrolling''' smoother and more interactive in complex slow-rendering documents:

:* When panning by the middle mouse button, Inkscape no longer attempts to redraw the canvas while your mouse button is pressed. Any redrawing only happens after you release the mouse. As a result, the newly revealed parts of the canvas are somewhat more "dirty" but the '''panning is smoother than before''', with few if any "hiccups".

:* Previously, if you start panning with middle button while Inkscape is still redrawing screen in a complex drawing, panning sometimes completely failed or moved canvas just a little step. Now it is '''guaranteed to pan the canvas all the way''' from mouse-press point to mouse-release point in any case, even if sometimes it fails to show the intermediate positions.

:* When pressing and holding Ctrl+arrows to scroll canvas, Inkscape normally accelerates scrolling so that each next scrolling step is bigger than the previous. Previously, in complex drawings this acceleration sometimes got interrupted, which made scrolling annoyingly bumpy and slow. Now this is fixed so that '''scrolling is smoothly accelerated''' even in a slow-rendering document.

:* The default '''starting speed and acceleration''' of Ctrl+arrows scrolling are slightly increased. (They are both settable in Preferences.)

=Tools=

==Paint Bucket tool==

The new Paint Bucket tool works exactly as you would expect: click in any area bounded on all sides and it will '''fill it with color'''. Being a vector tool, however, Inkscape's Paint Bucket just creates a new ''path'' that "fills in" the area in which you clicked.

It is important to note that the tool is '''perceptual''', not geometric. That is, when looking for the boundaries around the point you clicked, it takes for such boundaries any ''visible'' color changes. This means that filling will stop at gradients, blurs, and even the color boundaries in imported bitmaps, but will ignore any paths or other objects that are fully (or almost) transparent or for any other reason do not stand out from the background. In short, it will work exactly as if you were filling a rasterized version of your image in a bitmap editor like Photoshop or GIMP - but will give you a vector object to work with.

For example, now you can scan a pencil sketch, import the bitmap into Inkscape, and quickly fill all its cells with colors even without tracing the bitmap first. This is a very convenient and interactive way of digitizing your paper drawings, making the '''traditional bitmap tracing unnecessary''' in many cases.

Internally, the tool works by performing a bitmap-based flood fill on a rendered version of the visible canvas, then tracing the resulting fill using [[potrace]] and placing the traced path into the document.

It places the rendered path onto the current layer, so you can have a layer on top (for example, "Inks") and select the layer below ("Colors") and do the fills so that they always appear below the Inks.

The '''resolution''' of the bitmap image used to perform the trace is dependent upon your '''current zoom level''' -- the more zoomed in to an area that you are, the higher the resolution of the bitmap-based flood fill. So, if you are got a fill that is too imprecise, has rough corners, or don't go into small nooks and appendices where it is supposed to go, just undo, zoom in closer and repeat filling from the same point. Conversely, if the fill leaks out through a small gap, zoom out to make the gap less visible and fill again.

Like all object-creating tools, the Paint Bucket may use the '''last-set style''' for the objects it creates (this is the default), or it can use its own '''fixed style'''. You can switch between these modes on this tool's page in Inkscape Preferences (Ctrl+Shift+P).

In the tool's '''Controls bar''':

* '''Tolerance''' (set in per cent units) controls how large must be color difference at a point (compared to the initial click point) to stop the fill. Zero tolerance means only the area of strictly the same color will be filled; the larger the tolerance, the easier it will be for the fill to leak into adjacent different-color areas. The default value is 10%.

* You can control the amount of '''inset/outset''' to be applied to the created fill path. Setting a positive outset causes fill paths to be larger than the filled bitmap area (good for eliminating anti-aliasing errors), while setting a negative outset causes the path to be smaller. This works the same as the Outset and Inset path commands.

* Paint Bucket's perceptual fill can use either all visible colors or specific color '''channels'''. You can restrict the fill algorithm to the following channels:
** Red
** Green
** Blue
** Hue
** Saturation
** Lightness
** Alpha

* An '''auto gap''' setting. When enabled, Paint Bucket will try to close any gaps in the area boundaries that would normally cause the fill to spill out of the desired area. There are four settings to auto gap:
** None
** Small (fill gaps up to 2 pixels in size)
** Medium (4 pixels)
** Large (6 pixels)

* A '''style swatch''' on the far right of the bar shows the style that will be used for the next fill object you create.

The tool's '''shortcuts''' are:

* '''Single click''' performs filling from the click point.

* '''Shift+click''' performs filling from the click point and then unions the resulting path with the selected path. This way, if your first attempt did not fill in all of the desired area, you can Shift+click the remaining corner to fill it in separately and combine the result with the result of the previous fill.

* '''Ctrl+click''' on an object simply changes that object's fill to the current fill color of the tool, and '''Shift+Ctrl+click''' changes the stroke to the current stroke color.

* '''Click and drag''' performs filling from '''all of the points''' that you pass while dragging (you will see your path visualized by a red line). From each point, the fill spreads to the neighbors with the colors similar to that point - in other words, it's like clicking with this tool at each point of the drag path and unioning the results. This lets you easily fill an area occupied by a gradient or blur - just drag from the darkest to the lightest points in the area you want to fill.

* '''Alt+click and drag''' works similarly to simple drag, except from each point of the drag path, the fill spreads to the neighbors (if any) with the colors similar to the ''initial point'' (the point where you started the drag). This lets you fill a series of similarly-colored yet separated areas (for example, multiple cells in a cartoon) by starting the drag in one of those areas, and alt+dragging the tool through all the other areas.

==3D Box tool==

Inkscape is a two-dimensional drawing tool. However, very often it is used to draw three-dimensional objects. The new '''3D box tool''' helps you create such 3D drawings by automating the most common operation: creating a three-dimensional box in a given perspective. The tool automatically ensures that all sides of the box lie on the corresponding perspective lines. We're not going to compete with Blender - but even simple things can go a long way.

Currently in the 3D box tool you can:

* draw a 3D box by dragging on canvas

* adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles

In SVG, a 3D box is represented as a '''group''' (svg:g) with a special extension attribute (in inkscape namespace); this group contains the 6 quadrilateral '''paths''' representing the sides of the box. Only the 3D box tool treats this object as a box; for all other tools it is just a group, so you can select any of the paths by Ctrl+click, apply any style to it, delete it, etc. You can of course transform the entire box or any face in it using Selector or Node tools.

[max]

==Gradient Tool==
Stops in gradients can be added, deleted, and edited on-canvas now.
*Stops can be added by '''double clicking''' or by '''Ctrl+Alt+Click''' on the gradient line.
*Stops can be deleted by '''Ctrl+Alt+Click''' on a stop or by the '''Del''' key for all the selected stop(s).
:*When you delete an end stop, the nearest intermediate stop becomes the new end stop of the gradient (without moving - i.e., the gradient span becomes shorter).
:*When you delete an end stop and there are no intermediate stops, the object will be painted with a solid fill taken from the color & opacity of the remaining stop.
*More than one stop can be selected at a time by '''Shift+click'''.
:*Can be moved together if next to each other.
:*Can be deleted at the same time.
:*When you have one of the '''gradient handles selected''', its style (color and opacity) is reflected by the selected style indicator (left of the statusbar) and the Fill&Stroke dialog. Previously, opacity of a gradient handle was reflected as fill-opacity and stroke-opacity; now it is reflected as '''master opacity''' (the "O:" spinbutton in the selected style indicator, the "Master opacity" slider in Fill&Stroke). This makes it much easier to view and change opacity of gradient handles using only the selected style indicator in the statusbar.
:*When multiple gradient stops are selected, the selected style indicator (in the statusbar) displays and controls the averaged color and opacity of the selected stops.
*If the selected object(s) have gradient in fill or stroke, the '''selected style indicator''' in the bottom-left corner of the editing window now displays a '''live gradient preview''' prefixed by '''R''' or '''L''' to indicate Radial or Linear gradients (instead of displaying "L Gradient" or "R Gradient" text labels as before). Also, this and other similar widget now use italic font face to indicate <i>None</i> and bold to indicate <b>Unset</b>.
* When copy/pasting or duplicating an object with gradient, it now automatically gets a '''copy''' of the original gradient, so modifying it does not affect the source object's gradient anymore (before, you had to press the Duplicate button on the Gradient controls bar for this).

==Calligraphy tool: Engraver's Toolbox ==

Several new features were added to the Calligraphic pen to make
Inkscape capable of the ancient art of '''line
engraving'''. Traditional engraving is a very labour-intensive
process, and while for a long time it was the only practical way
of reproducing lifelike images in black-and-white print, about a
century ago it was almost completely displaced by automatic
halftone screens. However, line engravings have their
characteristic charm, and there's no reason not to try to
resurrect this art form with the help of Inkscape.

A brief visual guide to the new functionality can be seen on
these screenshots:

http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.46-engraving1.png

http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.46-engraving2.png

===Tracking a guide path with Ctrl===

One of the most common operations in line engraving is
'''hatching''' (or sometimes ''cross-hatching'' when several
hatching grids cross): filling a space with many parallel
straight or variously curved lines (usually of varying width to
represent a gradual shading). You could try to achieve a similar
effect with e.g. path interpolation (blending), but it is rather
cumbersome and limited; manual drawing of hatch lines, on the
other hand, is tedious and nearly impossible to do
uniformly. Now Inkscape provides "assisted hatching" by
'''tracking a guide path''', allowing you to hatch quickly and
uniformly and at the same time giving you sufficient manual
control over the process.

Here's how to do this. First, select the '''guide path''' that
you will track. It may be another calligraphic stroke, any path
or shape, or even a letter of a text object. Then switch to
Calligraphic pen, select the desired parameters (line width,
angle, fixation etc.) and, before starting to draw, press
Ctrl. You will see a gray '''track circle''' centered at your
mouse pointer and touching the closest point on the selected
guide path. (If you have no guide path selected, a statusbar
message will tell you to select it.)

Now move your mouse close to the guide path, so that the track
circle radius is equal to the desired spacing of your hatch
pattern, and start drawing along the guide path. At that moment,
the radius of the circle gets locked; now the circle slides
along the guide path - and the actual stroke is drawn by the
center of the tracking circle, ''not'' by your mouse point. As
a result, you are getting a smooth stroke going parallel to the
guide path and always at the same distance from it.

When the stroke is ready, release your mouse button (or lift
your tablet pen) but '''do not let go of the Ctrl key''' because
as long as you have it pressed, the tool remembers the hatch
spacing you set when you started drawing. Now, you have just
created a new stroke and, as usual with Inkscape tools, it gets
selected instead of what was selected before. In our case, this
means that the newly drawn stroke itself becomes the new guide
path. Next, you can draw a second stroke along the first one,
then a third one along the second, etc. Eventually you can fill
any desired space with uniform hatching.

Alternatively, if you uncheck "Select new path" in the Calligraphy tool preferences, newly created strokes will not be selected, so your original guide path will be kept selected. In this mode, Inkscape will increase the tracking distance after each created stroke so that you can create uniformly spaced hatching by tracking a single guide path.

The attachment to the guide path is not absolute. If you stray
your mouse pointer far enough from the guide path, you will be
able to tear it off (the track circle turns from green to red)
and move freely. This is intentional; this feature allows you,
for example, to continue drawing a stroke past the end of a
guide stroke, thus making your hatching cover a wider area than
the initial guide path. Special care is taken to make such
tearing off as smooth as possible and to suppress violent jerks,
but this is not always possible; the general advice is to not
try to hatch too fast. If jerking and unintended tearoffs still
bother you, try increasing the Mass parameter.

Also, special code is in place to prevent flipovers - accidental
jumps to the other side of the guide path. Brief flipovers are
suppressed, but if you intentionally go over to the other side
and stay there, eventually Inkscape will obey and your tracking
stroke will also flip over to follow you.

Tracking a guide also allows some slight feedback by gradually
changing the tracking distance in response to your drawing
behavior. Thus, if you're consistently trying to draw closer or
farther from the guide than the current tracking distance, the
distance will correspondingly decrease or increase, so you will
get a hatching that is slightly spacing in or out. (The effect
is very slight, however, so as not to become a nuisance.) Also,
note that since tracking follows the edge of the stroke, strokes
of varying width (such as those tracing background, see below)
will result in gradual bending of the hatching pattern as you
proceed.

===Tracing background by stroke width===

There is a new toggle button on the Calligraphy tool's controls
bar, '''Trace background'''. When on, the width of your pen
depends on the lightness of the background under the stroke in
each point, so that white translates into the minimum stoke
width (1) and black translates to the maximum (which is set by the
Width parameter). This can work alone or in combination with
pressure sensitivity, depending on whether the "Use pressure" button
is also toggled.

This feature allows you to not only hatch over an imported
bitmap image or any drawing, but to do so automatically
reproducing the highlights and shades of the background with
your strokes becoming lighter and heavier as needed.

===Thinning/thickening of paths with Alt===

Even with background tracing, the visible lightness/darkness of
a hatching may not correspond too well to your artistic
intention. Also, with guide tracking, the ends of strokes are
often far from ideal - they may be too blunt or have unsightly
bends or blobs. This is where the new thinning/thickening
function is indispensable.

While in the Calligraphy tool, press Alt. You will see a
orange-colored circle indicating the area that will be affected;
this area is 10 times the size of the pen when you draw (so you
can change it by changing the Width parameter on the
toolbar).

Now select some or all of the paths or groups containing paths (as with most
tools in Inkscape, only selected objects are changed), for
example by pressing Ctrl+A, and start '''Alt+dragging''' over
them. Where you touch them, paths become thinner, as if
melting away, up until total disappearance. Conversely,
'''Shift+Alt+dragging''' makes selected paths thicker in places
where you touch them.

As with the Calligraphy pen itself, the '''size''' of the
thinning/thickening area by default depends on zoom; simply
zooming in or out is often easier than adjusting the width if
you want to cover a smaller or larger area.

The '''force''' of
the effect also depends on zoom (or in other words, it stays the
same when measured by screen pixels, same as when you move and
object by Alt+arrow keys). Between the center and the edge of the circle, the force decreases along a '''bell-like curve''', so that the action of the tool on paths is always smooth. Also, if you have a pressure-sensitive tablet, the force of thinning/thickening also
depends on '''pen pressure'''; tapping slightly produces gradual
lightening or darkening of your drawing, while pressing heavily
will work as a kind of quick "erasing" (with Alt) or
"blackening" (with Alt+Shift).

Of course, thinning/thickening is useful '''not only for calligraphic strokes'''. You can select any simple path (such as
an ellipse converted to path) and start '''sculpting''' it,
spawning smooth treacle-like appendages with Alt+Shift and
melting them away with Alt. Unlike the "node sculpting" mode in
the Node tool, however, this does not require adding new nodes
to the shape or selecting any nodes. This new functionality is
somewhat similar to the "Pucker" and "Bloat" tools in the latest
versions of Adobe Illustrator, except that in Inkscape it works
softer and is easier to control.

'''Known problems with thinning/thickening:''' (1) it is rather
slow; (2) it quickly eats memory; and (3) it is sometimes buggy
- thin calligraphic strokes may suddenly disappear or change
their shape drastically as you're Alt+stroking them. For (3), it
helps to undo the bad change and try again with less pressure on
the pen - if you do your thinning in several light touches
instead of one heavy press, usually you will be able to get the
desired result without the buggy behavior. In general, however,
all these problems stem from the livarot library that we use for
geometric manipulation of paths. Fortunately, livarot is
scheduled for replacement by lib2geom, a new library now in
development, so hopefully these issues will be addressed then.

===Misc features===

* For consistency with other drawing tools, drawing with '''Shift''' in Calligraphy tool automatically '''unions''' the newly created stroke with whatever paths were selected (and selects the result). Thus, you can do a series of overlapping Shift+strokes to create one unioned path object instead of separate objects as before.

* To facilitate changing the Width parameter, the Home/End keys in Calligraphy tool switch you to the minimum (1) and maximum (100) width, correspondingly. (This is in addition to the Left/Right arrow keys that change Width by 1; remember also that you can press Alt+X, type any width, and press Enter.)

==Selector==

* A new selection mode is available: '''selecting by touch'''. In this mode, you draw a freehand path across the objects; when you release mouse button, all objects that are touched by this path get selected. This mode is very convenient in situations where you need to select objects so intermingled that selecting them by the rectangular rubberband is too difficult and so numerous that click-selecting them one by one is too tedious.

:To activate selecting by touch, whenever you are drawing a rubberband rectangle, just press '''Alt''' to switch it to the touch mode. The rectangle will disappear and a red ''touch path'' will be shown instead. When dragging from an empty space, you can press '''Alt''' first and then start to drag to get the touch mode (note that your selection must be empty, otherwise Alt+dragging will move the selected objects instead). To start a touch selection from a point over an object, or to add to existing selection by touching, press '''Shift+Alt''' and then start to drag.

* Previously, the only way to switch selection from scale mode to rotate mode or back was to click on it, which was rather inconvenient when the selected object is in a group or under other objects. Now you can switch modes with keyboard as well by pressing '''Shift+S''' in Selector tool.

* Draging the '''scale handles with Alt''' now scales selection by an integer factor, i.e. up to '''2''', '''3''', '''4''', etc. times the original size or down to '''1/2'''. '''1/3''', '''1/4''', etc. of the original size (in any of the two dimensions independently). This replaces the old and rarely used "slow" scaling mode with Alt.

* '''Horizontal/vertical flipping''': So far, flipping a selection made it flip within its bounding box, so that the latter remained fixed. In the move/scale mode of the selector tool, this behaviour remains unchanged. However, in rotate/shear mode flipping now happens about an (imaginary) vertical/horizontal axis through the rotation center. This is very handy, since the latter can be freely dragged around and snaps to all kinds of objects if desired.

==Node tool==
[sculpt profiles - bbyak]

* If any of the nodes in the currently selected path is mouseovered, then horizontal/vertical flipping ('H' and 'V' keys), stepwise rotation ('[' and ']' keys) and scaling ('<' and '>' keys) now all use this specific node as center/axis. If there is no mouseovered node, the center of the bounding box is used instead (as is currently the case unconditionally). Nodes that are covered by one of their handles are also detected as mouseovered.

* [helper path display - johan]

==Text tool==
* [text toolbar - deadchip?]
* If text contains a tref element, the text tool's behavior may not be as expected. Please see [[#The tref Element]]

=SVG=

==The tref Element==

The actual character data contained in a text element can either be embedded directly, or it can be the character content of an element referenced by a tref.

While the textual content from the referenced element will be stripped of any markup before being used by the tref, the tref element can itself have the same attributes as a tspan. In fact, when rendered, it is as though the tref element is replaced by a tspan with the same attributes, and the referenced character data is embedded in that tspan.

Inkscape can now correctly open files with tref elements, and new tref elements can be created manually in the XML editor.

The property xlink:href is used to refer to another element whose character data will be used. Any element can be referred to except an ancestor of the tref. When any of the text contained in the referred element changes, the tref will immediately be updated to display the new data.

Existing tref elements can be converted into tspan elements with Edit > Clone > Unlink Clone. If more than one tref is contained within a selection, all trefs will be converted into tspans. All attributes applied to the tref will be retained in the new tspan.

A tref element can be mixed with any other elements allowed to be contained by a text element.

The cloned character data rendered by the tref may not be edited, but any characters surrounding it can be changed. Styles cannot be applied to a subset of the cloned characters, but if all are selected, a style can be applied to the tref.

=Filters=

==New filters supported==

* The '''feBlend''' filter primitive gives us image blending modes, like in many image manipulation programs. These modes are screen, multiply, darken and lighten. There's a caveat, though: when blending an object against an semi-transparent background, the background will be accumulated twice, resulting in thicker objects under the bounding box of blended object. This is a limitation of current version of SVG format, not a bug in Inkscape.

* The '''feOffset''' filter primitive offsets the image by an user-defined amount. For example, this is useful for drop shadows, as the shadow has to be in a slightly different position than the actual object.

[[Filter Effects]]

==Filters UI==

* New dialog for creating and modifying filter effects ('''Object>Filter Effects...''')
* The list at the left of the dialog displays all filters currently in the document.
** New filters can be added with the '''Add''' button beneath the list
** Filters can be renamed by double-clicking on any filter in the list
** Right-clicking a filter for the pop-up menu allows duplicating or removing a filter.
* The second list, at the left of the dialog, displays the '''filter primitives''' that are contained within the currently-selected filter.
** New primitives can be added by selecting the primitive type from the combo box beneath the list, and then pressing the '''Add''' button.
** Right-clicking a primitive for the pop-up menu allows duplicating or removing a primitive.
** Primitives can be rearranged by clicking and dragging any filter in the list.
** When a filter is selected, the '''Settings''' group at the bottom of the dialog will change to display the attributes available for that primitive. Changing a setting results in an immediate update to the document.
** The "in" and "in2" attributes for filters that support them are not shown in the '''Settings''' group. These input connections are displayed graphically in the list, under the '''Connections''' column.
*** Inputs for a particular filter are displayed as triangles. Depending on the primitive type, there may be one or two inputs (or more for Merge primitives.) Connections can be created by clicking on a triangle and dragging.
*** There are six standard input types that can be used for any primitive input; Source Graphic, Source Alpha, Background Image, Background Alpha, Fill Paint, and Stroke Paint. These are displayed vertically on the far right of the list. Click and drag from an input triangle to one of the standard inputs to connect them.
*** Primitives can also be connected to other primitives by clicking an input triangle and dragging upwards to another primitive. A primitive can only be connected to one higher up the list.

=Live path effects=

'''Live path effects''' (not to be confused with extension effects or SVG filters) are a new way to non-destructively modify path and shape objects. LPEs only affect the path of an object and not its style. The original path is preserved and can be edited directly, and the LPEs applied to it will be updated.

Live path effects were developed as part of the GSoC 2007.

[johan]

=Extension effects=

== Live preview ==

* '''Live preview of effects''': Using the async behavior (see below), as soon as the parameters dialog for an effect is shown, the script is executed in the background and the screen updates as soon as it's finished. This can result is seemingly faster execution if no parameters are changed. If some parameters are adjusted, the script is restarted. This allows you to see immediately the effects of any parameter change without pressing the OK button on the effect's dialog.

* '''Spawn Glib API''': Scripting extension have been moved to the Glib spawn API to ensure that parameters and variables aren't interpreted by a shell. This also means that scripting extensions are executed in a separate process asynchronously allowing the GTK main loop to continue to execute.

* '''Progress dialog''': While an extension is working on a document, a small dialog is shown allowing the user to cancel the execution.

== New and improved effects ==

* The new '''Render > Barcode''' extension creates a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode barcode]. Supported types include EAN13, EAN8, UPC-A, UPC-E, UPC-5, Code39, Code39Ext, Code93, Code128, and RM4SCC.

* The new '''Render > Gear''' extension creates a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gear mechanical gear] given the number of teeth, the circular pitch (in px units), and the pressure angle.

* The new '''Render > [[Spirograph]]''' extension creates intricate mathematical curves akin to the classic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirograph mechanical Spirograph toy] (see [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/images/Spirograph_Samples.svg samples]).

* A group of new effects in the '''Text''' submenu performs various case conversions on selected text objects: converting to UPPERCASE, lowercase, Sentence case, Title Case, as well as flipping case (switching uppercase to lowercase and vice versa) and rANdoMiZInG cAse. If no texts are selected, the effect works on all texts in the document.

* Another effect in the Text submenu, '''Replace text''', performs search-and-replace on the selected text objects or (if nothing is selected) on all texts in the document. Searching is case sensitive. You can use this effect to globally delete all occurrences of some text fragment by replacing it with empty string. Conversely, if you search for an empty string and replace it with some string, this string will be inserted after every character of your text; for example, you can space out a text by replacing in it an empty string with a single space.

* A new effect, '''Replace color''' in the Color submenu, simply replaces one RRGGBB-specified color to another within selection or, if there's no selection, in the entire document. As with other effects in that submenu, the replacement affects fill, stroke, and gradient colors, but not colors of bitmaps.

*The '''Whirl''' extension uses the center of view as the center of whirl, so you don't have to enter the center coordinates numerically.

*The '''Render > Grid''' extension has got an extended range of grid spacings, from 0.1 to 1000 px.

*The '''Render > Function Plotter''' extension can now plot using polar coordinates.

== New Python XML library ==

* All Python effects are switched from the old and unmaintained PyXML library to the new powerful [http://codespeak.net/lxml/ lxml] library.

=Snapping=

* In addition to all other snapping modes and techniques, snapping has been implemented or improved in many tools and contexts:

:* Drawing of new '''shapes''' (such as rectangles or ellipses) snaps to grid/guides/shapes.

:* '''Handles''' of existing shapes and gradient handles snap.

:* '''Skewing''' objects in Selector snaps.

:* Snapping to objects works for '''images''' and '''clones''' (not only paths/shapes as before).

:* Snapping of '''text baselines''' works again.

:* When moved in Selector, an object snaps with its '''rotation axis''' (which is by default in the geometric center of bbox, but can be arbitrarily moved and its position is remembered for every object).

:Other snapping fixes and improvements include:

:* Snapping distance is now set in screen pixels and is therefore independent of zoom.

:* The bug where "node-to-node" snapping caused jerky movement of nodes is fixed.

:* The aspect ratio is correctly preserved while scaling objects with snapping turned on.

:* All four bounding box corners now snap instead of only the lower-left and upper-right as before.

:* Snapping while uniformly scaling has been improved.

* The confusing "Default transformations origin" option is removed. Now Inkscape always uses the opposite edge of the object's bounding box as the transformation origin (though the bounding box itself can now be different, see next item).

* A new preference option has been added to specify the kind of '''bounding box''' to be used for transforming objects (see Inkscape Preferences, Tools, Selector). You can choose between the '''visual bounding box''' (which takes into account the stroke width, markers, and blur margins; this is the default behavior) or '''geometric bounding box''' (which encloses only the path itself, disregarding stroke width).

=Grids=

* a new tab in the document properties dialog, solely meant for grids; the former grid/guide tab is now solely for guides. I envision a list of guides there in the future, for easier deletion of guides etc.
* more than one grid can be active at the same time, although i am having trouble in finding a usefull case for this
* multiple views on the same document share the same grids, but the grid can be turned off for each view separately. For example: one could have an overview view without grid enabled. Duplicate that window and zoom in on some detail; then grids can be shown only for that view, and snapping will only happen in those views for which grids are enabled. (sorry i am not able to explain more clearly)
* grid information is now stored in SVG as a child of sodipodi:namedview. Can someone please make an extension that converts an old grid definition to the new format?
* axonometric grid (not yet snapping)
* dots instead of lines

From developer perspective:

* implementation of new grids is much easier now; subclassing CanvasGrid and adding an entry in the is enough. Have a peek at how the rectangular grid is implemented (CanvasXYGrid).
* note that there is no longer "the grid", there might be several grids active now!

[Future plans (i will not be working on this soon, due to GSoC Live effects!):
** possibility of enabling not all but a selection of grids for a view. Eg. when there are 4 grids defined in the document, only enable grid2 for a certain view.
** new grids!
** better snapping mechanism to enable snapping to intersections of guides&grids and grids&grids.

A side effect of removal of old gridcode: apparantly the origin of the desktop rules used to be set to the origin of the grid. I find this strange: specifying a grid origin of (2,2) would have me think the origin would be at ruler location (2,2) instead of (0,0) as it is in 0.45.1.
I have commented the grid-origin correction to the ruler range, because now there is not a single grid anymore to correct it for. Isn't there a control somewhere to define the documents origin? Now the ruler origin is set to (0,0) -- johan]

=Bitmap export=

* '''Batch export''': The Bitmap Export dialog (Ctrl+Shift+E) got a new checkbox, ''Batch export all selected objects''. This checkbox is available when two or more objects are selected. If it is checked, instead of exporting selection as a whole, Inkscape exports each selected object separately into its own PNG file. This uses each object's export hints (i.e. export filename and DPI) if they are remembered from a previous export; otherwise, the filename is created from the object ID and the DPI is 90 pixels per inch. '''Caution:''' Unlike regular export, batch export overwrites all existing PNG files without warning.

:This makes it possible to implement all kinds of '''image slicing''' and automated export scenarios. For example, if you are working on a web site design, you can create a separate "export" layer. In that layer, "slice" your web page image into separate areas by creating invisible rectangles with no fill and no stroke. Select each rectangle (by Tab/Shift+Tab, or by switching to Outline mode where even an invisible rectangle can be selected by clicking on its outline) and export it into the corresponding filename (which gets saved as that object's export hint). After that, if you do any changes to your graphics, it's very easy to reexport all the slices: just switch to the "export" layer, select all in that layer (Ctrl+A), and export with the ''Batch export selected objects'' checkbox on.

* '''Hide all except selected''': A new checkbox allows you to hide in the exported image everything except selected object(s).

* The Export dialog automatically appends the '''.png''' extension to the export filename you specify.

=Import/Export=

* [libpoppler PDF/AI import - miklos]

:* '''Implemented features''': The libpoppler based import extension can import shapes, text, clippaths and non-masked images from PDF documents. It supports tiling patterns (XStep and YStep attributes are ignored), axial and radial gradients (only those made up of sampled functions). Currently it will only import the first page of the opened document.

:* '''Text editing tips''': Any text imported from PDF or AI has each letter's precise place on the page ''fixed''. While this preserves the exact appearance (e.g. justification of text blocks) of the imported document, it makes editing such text difficult: deleting text fails to contract the text line and inserting text fails to expand it, i.e. typed letters overlay the existing letters. (However, you still can replace a letter with another letter of about the same width, although you may need to kern it into place with Alt+arrows.)

::To work around this, select the text object you want to edit and use '''Text > Remove manual kerns''' command. This will remove the exact positioning information, so if the text block was justified it will lose justification, but instead you will be able to edit it as usual.

::Note that there is a way to select even a single line in a text block. For this, open the XML editor, expand the <svg:text> tree branch corresponding to your text, and select any of the <svg:tspan> objects under it. Now you can remove manual kerns from this line only. After you finish editing the line, you can manually justify it back, for example by adding spaces, manual kerns (Alt+arrows), or by adjusting letterspacing (select the whole line and use Alt+> or Alt+<).

* '''[if enabled! - mental]''' A new cairo-based PDF exporter has been added to Inkscape. Inkscape 0.46 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.

* [cairo ps export - adib]

* [new wpg lib - ted gould]

=Command line=

Several new command line options are added that make Inkscape even more scriptable and automatable than before.

* --verb-list will list all the Verb IDs and their names in Inkscape. This makes writing your own menus and hotkeys much easier as you can easily find out what the choices are.

* --verb followed by a verb ID allows you to specify a verb to be called on every document opened by Inkscape initially from the command line.

* --select followed by a node ID will allow you to add a node to the list of selected objects.

These options can be used, for example, for performance testing. You could do something like this:

$ time inkscape --verb=FileClose my_complex_file.svg

to measure the time it takes to load and display the file.

Of course, with the ability to select objects, it can be much more useful than
that. You can call extension effects, or any other verb, then FileSave and
FileClose to automate all kinds of operations on your drawings.

=UI=

== [toolbars - [[JonCruz]]] ==

[calligraphy: menus, tooltips; star; ...]

Switched to stock GTK+ toolbars.

Extra magic secret sauce added.

== [filedialogs - [[JonCruz]]] ==

== Print dialog integration ==

* '''Print Dialog''': The GTK Unix Print Dialog has been hooked up! From the dialog, you can select any of the Postscript-capable printers known to your system and configure them as with any other GTK application.

== Saving window geometry globally ==

Previously, window geometry (size and position of document windows) could only be saved into the document (so that each document stored its own window geometry). Now, a new option is added to save the geometry of the last used window to the preferences and apply this geometry to all new windows. Thus, with the "Save geometry to preferences" option enabled, new windows will open with the shape of the most recent previous window. This mode also remembers and restores the maximized/fullscreen state (unlike geometry saved to documents).

=Even more improvements=

* '''Gnome VFS Improvements''': Gnome VFS Non-Local files are now usable through all of our file choosers in Open, Save and Export. This compile-time option allowed people to open any Gnome-VFS-based URI from the command-line in the past, but not non-local resources (WebDAV, SFTP, etc) and this now allows for all the lovely possibilities Gnome-VFS provides.

* In previous versions, Inkscape didn't allow you to '''group a single object.''' Yet in some cases, this operation is useful (for example, to blur the clipped edged of an object, or apply more than one clippath/mask to an object). Now this limitation is removed; just select any single object and group it to get a single-object group.

* The somewhat cryptic "F:" and "S:" labels in the selected style indicator (at the left end of the statusbar) and in tool's style swatches are now spelled out as '''Fill:''' and '''Stroke:'''. We believe this makes the interface, even if less space-efficient, a bit more friendly for newbies.

* The '''style swatches''' at the right end of object-creating tools' control bars now open the Preferences page of the corresponding tool when clicked. Also, now these swatches display a tooltip explaining its purpose (e.g. "Style of new rectangles", "Style of new calligraphic strokes", etc.)

* After dragging a curve segment in Node tool, Inkscape no longer selects the two adjacent nodes if they were not selected before.

* The '''Tile Clones''' dialog now uses the object's defined '''rotation axis''' (which can be freely moved by Selector tool and which is saved separately for each object) for all rotations (including both symmetry rotations and the Rotation tab rotations), scales, and flips. This renders unnecessary the previous workarounds where you had to group an object with another transparent object to affect how it's rotated by the clone tiler.

* In '''Pencil''' and '''Calligraphic''' tools, pressing '''Esc''' or '''Ctrl+Z''' while drawing cancels the currently drawn path or stroke. When not drawing, these keys work as before (Esc deselects, Ctrl+Z undoes last action). (This is the same behavior as in the Pen tool where it was introduced in a previous version.)

* A set of new verbs has been added to allow the user to easily '''unlock all locked objects''' or '''unhide all hidden objects'''. There are two variants one that operates on the current layer and its children and one that operates globally. While searching for hidden or locked object descendants of locked layers are ignored.

* The list of folder shortcuts in the '''Open''' dialog includes the folder with Inkscape's SVG '''examples''' for easy access. Similarly, the '''Save''' dialog has a shortcut for the user's own '''templates''' dialog making it easy to save the current document as a template (if saved as <code>default.svg</code>, it will be loaded every time you run Inkscape or create new document with Ctrl+N; with any other name, it will be added to the File > New submenu).

* For time-intensive operations such as Paint Bucket and Simplify, the system's busy wait cursor is displayed to indicate to the user that Inkscape is actively working, and not frozen.

* [statusbar updates: save, ...]

* Several improvements in '''inkview''': busy cursor is shown while loading file, the button window stays on top and responds to keyboard shortcuts; several memleaks stopped and bugs fixed. The "slideshow mode" of the main inkscape application (-s or --slideshow command line option) is removed; use inkview instead.

* In Document Metadata dialog, updated Creative Commons Licenses to version 3.0.

* In addition to Shift+click, right clicking on a colour swatch now also sets the stroke colour.

=Notable bugfixes=

These are bugfixes compared to 0.45.1; for a list of fixes in 0.45.1 compared to 0.45, see [[ReleaseNotes045|0.45.1 release notes]]

* The '''sodipodi:docbase''' attribute is no longer added to the root <svg> element. This attribute used to keep the latest directory that the document was saved to, and thus represented a mild privacy violation (i.e., by sharing your Inkscape SVG files you allowed others to have a peek into your directory structure). Note, however, that Inkscape does not remove this attribute from old documents it opens; if you want you can remove it yourself. Inkscape just no longer creates this attribute in new documents.

* Inkscape now properly quotes <code>font-family</code> values and therefore can use fonts with various nonalphanumeric characters in their names, which previously failed.

* If you have saved documents with a previous version of Inkscape which used '''right-to-left text''' (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew) then the paragraph alignment of non-flowed text has been reversed in this release. This is due to a bug in previous versions - the new behaviour is compliant with the SVG specification and compatible with other editors and viewers. To correct your images, simply reverse the paragraph alignment by selecting the text and clicking the appropriate button on the toolbar.

* A large family of bugs was exterminated where an object's style could only refer other objects (such as gradients, patterns, and filters) that come after it in the document. Now any objects can be referenced from a style regardless of their place in the document. This fixed the disappearance of gradients/patterns/filters after you undo an effect, as well as lots of assorted crashes and misrenderings (mostly on non-Inkscape SVG files).

* '''Stock markers''' now appear in the "recently used markers" section of the marker selector dropdowns in the Fill & Stroke dialog. Before, any markers with stock id's (including markers modified by the user) were hidden, making it difficult to work with modified stock markers.

* A regression in 0.45 caused crashes when undo or redo was attempted before the previous action could complete (e.g. pressing ctrl+z while you are still drawing a rectangle). This is now fixed.

* Previously, if there was a single invalid property in a <code>style</code> attribute, the entire attribute was discarded, i.e. the object lost all styling. Now Inkscape's behavior is more compliant to the CSS specification: it ignores only the invalid property but reads in all the rest.

* Several bugs are fixed in searching for linked images. Now moving SVG documents with their associated images to a different place or a different machine should work more reliably.

* Master opacity did not apply to stroke markers as it should; fixed.

* Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration URI points to right location now.

* Text objects didn't display the pattern editing handles; fixed.

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.46

2007-07-27T16:49:48Z

Gbanaszk: Added information about new tref support.

=Inkscape 0.46=
'''(not released yet)'''

Major things in this release:

* Paintbucket tool

* 3D box tool

* LPEs

* native PDF and AI import

* new SVG filters and UI

* full on-canvas gradient editing

* engraver's toolbox

* touch selection

* command line access to verbs

* snapping made usable

=Speed and interactivity=

* In this version, Inkscape starts using the [http://www.cairographics.org cairo] library for rendering. It is now used for '''outline mode''' display which, thanks to using cairo and other optimizations, redraws '''faster by about 25%'''. More impressive are memory savings: thanks to cairo, in outline mode Inkscape now takes only about '''50% of the memory''' used by 0.45 for the same file.

* '''Smart redraw directionality:''' With complex images and/or on slow computers, you may have noticed that Inkscape redraws the screen image in horizontal strips, and these strips are painted sequentially top to bottom. Now this direction is automatically changed based on where your mouse cursor is. In particular, if mouse is closer to the bottom of the area to redraw, strips will be painted in the bottom-to-top order. This significantly improves the responsiveness and interactivity in some situations. For example, when you are node-editing the bottom part of a complex path, the entire path needs to be redrawn on each change, but now this redraw starts from the bottom and therefore the you see the effect of your changes at once - i.e. while screen redraw may still lag behind your mouse movement, this lag is less noticeable.

* '''Faster blur''' for exporting and high quality on-screen rendering: Inkscape now uses an IIR (Infinite Impulse Response) filter for blurring with large radius. This greatly improves the speed of blur redraw at high zooms or in high-resolution export (or simply with very large blur radius). On the other hand, the results are an approximation to a true Gaussian blur, so a drawing may look slightly different from the mathematically precise blur (usually the differences are far from visible, though). This code is mainly based on: ''Recursive Gaussian Derivative Filters'' by L.J. van Vliet, I.T. Young and P.W. Verbeek (see the source code for more detailed references).

* '''Moving the cursor around''' in a file with large and complex paths has become much snappier and more responsive. Previously, in extreme cases Inkscape could freeze for seconds while catching up with the mouse cursor; such delays are now eliminated.

* Several improvements make '''canvas panning and scrolling''' smoother and more interactive in complex slow-rendering documents:

:* When panning by the middle mouse button, Inkscape no longer attempts to redraw the canvas while your mouse button is pressed. Any redrawing only happens after you release the mouse. As a result, the newly revealed parts of the canvas are somewhat more "dirty" but the '''panning is smoother than before''', with few if any "hiccups".

:* Previously, if you start panning with middle button while Inkscape is still redrawing screen in a complex drawing, panning sometimes completely failed or moved canvas just a little step. Now it is '''guaranteed to pan the canvas all the way''' from mouse-press point to mouse-release point in any case, even if sometimes it fails to show the intermediate positions.

:* When pressing and holding Ctrl+arrows to scroll canvas, Inkscape normally accelerates scrolling so that each next scrolling step is bigger than the previous. Previously, in complex drawings this acceleration sometimes got interrupted, which made scrolling annoyingly bumpy and slow. Now this is fixed so that '''scrolling is smoothly accelerated''' even in a slow-rendering document.

:* The default '''starting speed and acceleration''' of Ctrl+arrows scrolling are slightly increased. (They are both settable in Preferences.)

=Tools=

==Paint Bucket tool==

The new Paint Bucket tool works exactly as you would expect: click in any area bounded on all sides and it will '''fill it with color'''. Being a vector tool, however, Inkscape's Paint Bucket just creates a new ''path'' that "fills in" the area in which you clicked.

It is important to note that the tool is '''perceptual''', not geometric. That is, when looking for the boundaries around the point you clicked, it takes for such boundaries any ''visible'' color changes. This means that filling will stop at gradients, blurs, and even the color boundaries in imported bitmaps, but will ignore any paths or other objects that are fully (or almost) transparent or for any other reason do not stand out from the background. In short, it will work exactly as if you were filling a rasterized version of your image in a bitmap editor like Photoshop or GIMP - but will give you a vector object to work with.

For example, now you can scan a pencil sketch, import the bitmap into Inkscape, and quickly fill all its cells with colors even without tracing the bitmap first. This is a very convenient and interactive way of digitizing your paper drawings, making the '''traditional bitmap tracing unnecessary''' in many cases.

Internally, the tool works by performing a bitmap-based flood fill on a rendered version of the visible canvas, then tracing the resulting fill using [[potrace]] and placing the traced path into the document.

It places the rendered path onto the current layer, so you can have a layer on top (for example, "Inks") and select the layer below ("Colors") and do the fills so that they always appear below the Inks.

The '''resolution''' of the bitmap image used to perform the trace is dependent upon your '''current zoom level''' -- the more zoomed in to an area that you are, the higher the resolution of the bitmap-based flood fill. So, if you are got a fill that is too imprecise, has rough corners, or don't go into small nooks and appendices where it is supposed to go, just undo, zoom in closer and repeat filling from the same point. Conversely, if the fill leaks out through a small gap, zoom out to make the gap less visible and fill again.

Like all object-creating tools, the Paint Bucket may use the '''last-set style''' for the objects it creates (this is the default), or it can use its own '''fixed style'''. You can switch between these modes on this tool's page in Inkscape Preferences (Ctrl+Shift+P).

In the tool's '''Controls bar''':

* '''Tolerance''' (set in per cent units) controls how large must be color difference at a point (compared to the initial click point) to stop the fill. Zero tolerance means only the area of strictly the same color will be filled; the larger the tolerance, the easier it will be for the fill to leak into adjacent different-color areas. The default value is 10%.

* You can control the amount of '''inset/outset''' to be applied to the created fill path. Setting a positive outset causes fill paths to be larger than the filled bitmap area (good for eliminating anti-aliasing errors), while setting a negative outset causes the path to be smaller. This works the same as the Outset and Inset path commands.

* Paint Bucket's perceptual fill can use either all visible colors or specific color '''channels'''. You can restrict the fill algorithm to the following channels:
** Red
** Green
** Blue
** Hue
** Saturation
** Lightness
** Alpha

* An '''auto gap''' setting. When enabled, Paint Bucket will try to close any gaps in the area boundaries that would normally cause the fill to spill out of the desired area. There are four settings to auto gap:
** None
** Small (fill gaps up to 2 pixels in size)
** Medium (4 pixels)
** Large (6 pixels)

* A '''style swatch''' on the far right of the bar shows the style that will be used for the next fill object you create.

The tool's '''shortcuts''' are:

* '''Single click''' performs filling from the click point.

* '''Shift+click''' performs filling from the click point and then unions the resulting path with the selected path. This way, if your first attempt did not fill in all of the desired area, you can Shift+click the remaining corner to fill it in separately and combine the result with the result of the previous fill.

* '''Ctrl+click''' on an object simply changes that object's fill to the current fill color of the tool, and '''Shift+Ctrl+click''' changes the stroke to the current stroke color.

* '''Click and drag''' performs filling from '''all of the points''' that you pass while dragging (you will see your path visualized by a red line). From each point, the fill spreads to the neighbors with the colors similar to that point - in other words, it's like clicking with this tool at each point of the drag path and unioning the results. This lets you easily fill an area occupied by a gradient or blur - just drag from the darkest to the lightest points in the area you want to fill.

* '''Alt+click and drag''' works similarly to simple drag, except from each point of the drag path, the fill spreads to the neighbors (if any) with the colors similar to the ''initial point'' (the point where you started the drag). This lets you fill a series of similarly-colored yet separated areas (for example, multiple cells in a cartoon) by starting the drag in one of those areas, and alt+dragging the tool through all the other areas.

==3D Box tool==

Inkscape is a two-dimensional drawing tool. However, very often it is used to draw three-dimensional objects. The new '''3D box tool''' helps you create such 3D drawings by automating the most common operation: creating a three-dimensional box in a given perspective. The tool automatically ensures that all sides of the box lie on the corresponding perspective lines. We're not going to compete with Blender - but even simple things can go a long way.

Currently in the 3D box tool you can:

* draw a 3D box by dragging on canvas

* adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles

In SVG, a 3D box is represented as a '''group''' (svg:g) with a special extension attribute (in inkscape namespace); this group contains the 6 quadrilateral '''paths''' representing the sides of the box. Only the 3D box tool treats this object as a box; for all other tools it is just a group, so you can select any of the paths by Ctrl+click, apply any style to it, delete it, etc. You can of course transform the entire box or any face in it using Selector or Node tools.

[max]

==Gradient Tool==
Stops in gradients can be added, deleted, and edited on-canvas now.
*Stops can be added by '''double clicking''' or by '''Ctrl+Alt+Click''' on the gradient line.
*Stops can be deleted by '''Ctrl+Alt+Click''' on a stop or by the '''Del''' key for all the selected stop(s).
:*When you delete an end stop, the nearest intermediate stop becomes the new end stop of the gradient (without moving - i.e., the gradient span becomes shorter).
:*When you delete an end stop and there are no intermediate stops, the object will be painted with a solid fill taken from the color & opacity of the remaining stop.
*More than one stop can be selected at a time by '''Shift+click'''.
:*Can be moved together if next to each other.
:*Can be deleted at the same time.
:*When you have one of the '''gradient handles selected''', its style (color and opacity) is reflected by the selected style indicator (left of the statusbar) and the Fill&Stroke dialog. Previously, opacity of a gradient handle was reflected as fill-opacity and stroke-opacity; now it is reflected as '''master opacity''' (the "O:" spinbutton in the selected style indicator, the "Master opacity" slider in Fill&Stroke). This makes it much easier to view and change opacity of gradient handles using only the selected style indicator in the statusbar.
:*When multiple gradient stops are selected, the selected style indicator (in the statusbar) displays and controls the averaged color and opacity of the selected stops.
*If the selected object(s) have gradient in fill or stroke, the '''selected style indicator''' in the bottom-left corner of the editing window now displays a '''live gradient preview''' prefixed by '''R''' or '''L''' to indicate Radial or Linear gradients (instead of displaying "L Gradient" or "R Gradient" text labels as before). Also, this and other similar widget now use italic font face to indicate <i>None</i> and bold to indicate <b>Unset</b>.
* When copy/pasting or duplicating an object with gradient, it now automatically gets a '''copy''' of the original gradient, so modifying it does not affect the source object's gradient anymore (before, you had to press the Duplicate button on the Gradient controls bar for this).

==Calligraphy tool: Engraver's Toolbox ==

Several new features were added to the Calligraphic pen to make
Inkscape capable of the ancient art of '''line
engraving'''. Traditional engraving is a very labour-intensive
process, and while for a long time it was the only practical way
of reproducing lifelike images in black-and-white print, about a
century ago it was almost completely displaced by automatic
halftone screens. However, line engravings have their
characteristic charm, and there's no reason not to try to
resurrect this art form with the help of Inkscape.

A brief visual guide to the new functionality can be seen on
these screenshots:

http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.46-engraving1.png

http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.46-engraving2.png

===Tracking a guide path with Ctrl===

One of the most common operations in line engraving is
'''hatching''' (or sometimes ''cross-hatching'' when several
hatching grids cross): filling a space with many parallel
straight or variously curved lines (usually of varying width to
represent a gradual shading). You could try to achieve a similar
effect with e.g. path interpolation (blending), but it is rather
cumbersome and limited; manual drawing of hatch lines, on the
other hand, is tedious and nearly impossible to do
uniformly. Now Inkscape provides "assisted hatching" by
'''tracking a guide path''', allowing you to hatch quickly and
uniformly and at the same time giving you sufficient manual
control over the process.

Here's how to do this. First, select the '''guide path''' that
you will track. It may be another calligraphic stroke, any path
or shape, or even a letter of a text object. Then switch to
Calligraphic pen, select the desired parameters (line width,
angle, fixation etc.) and, before starting to draw, press
Ctrl. You will see a gray '''track circle''' centered at your
mouse pointer and touching the closest point on the selected
guide path. (If you have no guide path selected, a statusbar
message will tell you to select it.)

Now move your mouse close to the guide path, so that the track
circle radius is equal to the desired spacing of your hatch
pattern, and start drawing along the guide path. At that moment,
the radius of the circle gets locked; now the circle slides
along the guide path - and the actual stroke is drawn by the
center of the tracking circle, ''not'' by your mouse point. As
a result, you are getting a smooth stroke going parallel to the
guide path and always at the same distance from it.

When the stroke is ready, release your mouse button (or lift
your tablet pen) but '''do not let go of the Ctrl key''' because
as long as you have it pressed, the tool remembers the hatch
spacing you set when you started drawing. Now, you have just
created a new stroke and, as usual with Inkscape tools, it gets
selected instead of what was selected before. In our case, this
means that the newly drawn stroke itself becomes the new guide
path. Next, you can draw a second stroke along the first one,
then a third one along the second, etc. Eventually you can fill
any desired space with uniform hatching.

Alternatively, if you uncheck "Select new path" in the Calligraphy tool preferences, newly created strokes will not be selected, so your original guide path will be kept selected. In this mode, Inkscape will increase the tracking distance after each created stroke so that you can create uniformly spaced hatching by tracking a single guide path.

The attachment to the guide path is not absolute. If you stray
your mouse pointer far enough from the guide path, you will be
able to tear it off (the track circle turns from green to red)
and move freely. This is intentional; this feature allows you,
for example, to continue drawing a stroke past the end of a
guide stroke, thus making your hatching cover a wider area than
the initial guide path. Special care is taken to make such
tearing off as smooth as possible and to suppress violent jerks,
but this is not always possible; the general advice is to not
try to hatch too fast. If jerking and unintended tearoffs still
bother you, try increasing the Mass parameter.

Also, special code is in place to prevent flipovers - accidental
jumps to the other side of the guide path. Brief flipovers are
suppressed, but if you intentionally go over to the other side
and stay there, eventually Inkscape will obey and your tracking
stroke will also flip over to follow you.

Tracking a guide also allows some slight feedback by gradually
changing the tracking distance in response to your drawing
behavior. Thus, if you're consistently trying to draw closer or
farther from the guide than the current tracking distance, the
distance will correspondingly decrease or increase, so you will
get a hatching that is slightly spacing in or out. (The effect
is very slight, however, so as not to become a nuisance.) Also,
note that since tracking follows the edge of the stroke, strokes
of varying width (such as those tracing background, see below)
will result in gradual bending of the hatching pattern as you
proceed.

===Tracing background by stroke width===

There is a new toggle button on the Calligraphy tool's controls
bar, '''Trace background'''. When on, the width of your pen
depends on the lightness of the background under the stroke in
each point, so that white translates into the minimum stoke
width (1) and black translates to the maximum (which is set by the
Width parameter). This can work alone or in combination with
pressure sensitivity, depending on whether the "Use pressure" button
is also toggled.

This feature allows you to not only hatch over an imported
bitmap image or any drawing, but to do so automatically
reproducing the highlights and shades of the background with
your strokes becoming lighter and heavier as needed.

===Thinning/thickening of paths with Alt===

Even with background tracing, the visible lightness/darkness of
a hatching may not correspond too well to your artistic
intention. Also, with guide tracking, the ends of strokes are
often far from ideal - they may be too blunt or have unsightly
bends or blobs. This is where the new thinning/thickening
function is indispensable.

While in the Calligraphy tool, press Alt. You will see a
orange-colored circle indicating the area that will be affected;
this area is 10 times the size of the pen when you draw (so you
can change it by changing the Width parameter on the
toolbar).

Now select some or all of the paths or groups containing paths (as with most
tools in Inkscape, only selected objects are changed), for
example by pressing Ctrl+A, and start '''Alt+dragging''' over
them. Where you touch them, paths become thinner, as if
melting away, up until total disappearance. Conversely,
'''Shift+Alt+dragging''' makes selected paths thicker in places
where you touch them.

As with the Calligraphy pen itself, the '''size''' of the
thinning/thickening area by default depends on zoom; simply
zooming in or out is often easier than adjusting the width if
you want to cover a smaller or larger area.

The '''force''' of
the effect also depends on zoom (or in other words, it stays the
same when measured by screen pixels, same as when you move and
object by Alt+arrow keys). Between the center and the edge of the circle, the force decreases along a '''bell-like curve''', so that the action of the tool on paths is always smooth. Also, if you have a pressure-sensitive tablet, the force of thinning/thickening also
depends on '''pen pressure'''; tapping slightly produces gradual
lightening or darkening of your drawing, while pressing heavily
will work as a kind of quick "erasing" (with Alt) or
"blackening" (with Alt+Shift).

Of course, thinning/thickening is useful '''not only for calligraphic strokes'''. You can select any simple path (such as
an ellipse converted to path) and start '''sculpting''' it,
spawning smooth treacle-like appendages with Alt+Shift and
melting them away with Alt. Unlike the "node sculpting" mode in
the Node tool, however, this does not require adding new nodes
to the shape or selecting any nodes. This new functionality is
somewhat similar to the "Pucker" and "Bloat" tools in the latest
versions of Adobe Illustrator, except that in Inkscape it works
softer and is easier to control.

'''Known problems with thinning/thickening:''' (1) it is rather
slow; (2) it quickly eats memory; and (3) it is sometimes buggy
- thin calligraphic strokes may suddenly disappear or change
their shape drastically as you're Alt+stroking them. For (3), it
helps to undo the bad change and try again with less pressure on
the pen - if you do your thinning in several light touches
instead of one heavy press, usually you will be able to get the
desired result without the buggy behavior. In general, however,
all these problems stem from the livarot library that we use for
geometric manipulation of paths. Fortunately, livarot is
scheduled for replacement by lib2geom, a new library now in
development, so hopefully these issues will be addressed then.

===Misc features===

* For consistency with other drawing tools, drawing with '''Shift''' in Calligraphy tool automatically '''unions''' the newly created stroke with whatever paths were selected (and selects the result). Thus, you can do a series of overlapping Shift+strokes to create one unioned path object instead of separate objects as before.

* To facilitate changing the Width parameter, the Home/End keys in Calligraphy tool switch you to the minimum (1) and maximum (100) width, correspondingly. (This is in addition to the Left/Right arrow keys that change Width by 1; remember also that you can press Alt+X, type any width, and press Enter.)

==Selector==

* A new selection mode is available: '''selecting by touch'''. In this mode, you draw a freehand path across the objects; when you release mouse button, all objects that are touched by this path get selected. This mode is very convenient in situations where you need to select objects so intermingled that selecting them by the rectangular rubberband is too difficult and so numerous that click-selecting them one by one is too tedious.

:To activate selecting by touch, whenever you are drawing a rubberband rectangle, just press '''Alt''' to switch it to the touch mode. The rectangle will disappear and a red ''touch path'' will be shown instead. When dragging from an empty space, you can press '''Alt''' first and then start to drag to get the touch mode (note that your selection must be empty, otherwise Alt+dragging will move the selected objects instead). To start a touch selection from a point over an object, or to add to existing selection by touching, press '''Shift+Alt''' and then start to drag.

* Previously, the only way to switch selection from scale mode to rotate mode or back was to click on it, which was rather inconvenient when the selected object is in a group or under other objects. Now you can switch modes with keyboard as well by pressing '''Shift+S''' in Selector tool.

* Draging the '''scale handles with Alt''' now scales selection by an integer factor, i.e. up to '''2''', '''3''', '''4''', etc. times the original size or down to '''1/2'''. '''1/3''', '''1/4''', etc. of the original size (in any of the two dimensions independently). This replaces the old and rarely used "slow" scaling mode with Alt.

* '''Horizontal/vertical flipping''': So far, flipping a selection made it flip within its bounding box, so that the latter remained fixed. In the move/scale mode of the selector tool, this behaviour remains unchanged. However, in rotate/shear mode flipping now happens about an (imaginary) vertical/horizontal axis through the rotation center. This is very handy, since the latter can be freely dragged around and snaps to all kinds of objects if desired.

==Node tool==
[sculpt profiles - bbyak]

* If any of the nodes in the currently selected path is mouseovered, then horizontal/vertical flipping ('H' and 'V' keys), stepwise rotation ('[' and ']' keys) and scaling ('<' and '>' keys) now all use this specific node as center/axis. If there is no mouseovered node, the center of the bounding box is used instead (as is currently the case unconditionally). Nodes that are covered by one of their handles are also detected as mouseovered.

* [helper path display - johan]

==Text tool==
* [text toolbar - deadchip?]

=SVG=

==The tref Element==

The actual character data contained in a text element can either be embedded directly, or it can be the character content of an element referenced by a tref.

While the textual content from the referenced element will be stripped of any markup before being used by the tref, the tref element can itself have the same attributes as a tspan. In fact, when rendered, it is as though the tref element is replaced by a tspan with the same attributes, and the referenced character data is embedded in that tspan.

Inkscape can now correctly open files with tref elements, and new tref elements can be created manually in the XML editor.

The property xlink:href is used to refer to another element whose character data will be used. Any element can be referred to except an ancestor of the tref. When any of the text contained in the referred element changes, the tref will immediately be updated to display the new data.

Existing tref elements can be converted into tspan elements with Edit > Clone > Unlink Clone. If more than one tref is contained within a selection, all trefs will be converted into tspans. All attributes applied to the tref will be retained in the new tspan.

A tref element can be mixed with any other elements allowed to be contained by a text element.

The cloned character data rendered by the tref may not be edited, but any characters surrounding it can be changed. Styles cannot be applied to a subset of the cloned characters, but if all are selected, a style can be applied to the tref.

=Filters=

==New filters supported==

* The '''feBlend''' filter primitive gives us image blending modes, like in many image manipulation programs. These modes are screen, multiply, darken and lighten. There's a caveat, though: when blending an object against an semi-transparent background, the background will be accumulated twice, resulting in thicker objects under the bounding box of blended object. This is a limitation of current version of SVG format, not a bug in Inkscape.

* The '''feOffset''' filter primitive offsets the image by an user-defined amount. For example, this is useful for drop shadows, as the shadow has to be in a slightly different position than the actual object.

[[Filter Effects]]

==Filters UI==

* New dialog for creating and modifying filter effects ('''Object>Filter Effects...''')
* The list at the left of the dialog displays all filters currently in the document.
** New filters can be added with the '''Add''' button beneath the list
** Filters can be renamed by double-clicking on any filter in the list
** Right-clicking a filter for the pop-up menu allows duplicating or removing a filter.
* The second list, at the left of the dialog, displays the '''filter primitives''' that are contained within the currently-selected filter.
** New primitives can be added by selecting the primitive type from the combo box beneath the list, and then pressing the '''Add''' button.
** Right-clicking a primitive for the pop-up menu allows duplicating or removing a primitive.
** Primitives can be rearranged by clicking and dragging any filter in the list.
** When a filter is selected, the '''Settings''' group at the bottom of the dialog will change to display the attributes available for that primitive. Changing a setting results in an immediate update to the document.
** The "in" and "in2" attributes for filters that support them are not shown in the '''Settings''' group. These input connections are displayed graphically in the list, under the '''Connections''' column.
*** Inputs for a particular filter are displayed as triangles. Depending on the primitive type, there may be one or two inputs (or more for Merge primitives.) Connections can be created by clicking on a triangle and dragging.
*** There are six standard input types that can be used for any primitive input; Source Graphic, Source Alpha, Background Image, Background Alpha, Fill Paint, and Stroke Paint. These are displayed vertically on the far right of the list. Click and drag from an input triangle to one of the standard inputs to connect them.
*** Primitives can also be connected to other primitives by clicking an input triangle and dragging upwards to another primitive. A primitive can only be connected to one higher up the list.

=Live path effects=

'''Live path effects''' (not to be confused with extension effects or SVG filters) are a new way to non-destructively modify path and shape objects. LPEs only affect the path of an object and not its style. The original path is preserved and can be edited directly, and the LPEs applied to it will be updated.

Live path effects were developed as part of the GSoC 2007.

[johan]

=Extension effects=

== Live preview ==

* '''Live preview of effects''': Using the async behavior (see below), as soon as the parameters dialog for an effect is shown, the script is executed in the background and the screen updates as soon as it's finished. This can result is seemingly faster execution if no parameters are changed. If some parameters are adjusted, the script is restarted. This allows you to see immediately the effects of any parameter change without pressing the OK button on the effect's dialog.

* '''Spawn Glib API''': Scripting extension have been moved to the Glib spawn API to ensure that parameters and variables aren't interpreted by a shell. This also means that scripting extensions are executed in a separate process asynchronously allowing the GTK main loop to continue to execute.

* '''Progress dialog''': While an extension is working on a document, a small dialog is shown allowing the user to cancel the execution.

== New and improved effects ==

* The new '''Render > Barcode''' extension creates a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode barcode]. Supported types include EAN13, EAN8, UPC-A, UPC-E, UPC-5, Code39, Code39Ext, Code93, Code128, and RM4SCC.

* The new '''Render > Gear''' extension creates a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gear mechanical gear] given the number of teeth, the circular pitch (in px units), and the pressure angle.

* The new '''Render > [[Spirograph]]''' extension creates intricate mathematical curves akin to the classic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirograph mechanical Spirograph toy] (see [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/images/Spirograph_Samples.svg samples]).

* A group of new effects in the '''Text''' submenu performs various case conversions on selected text objects: converting to UPPERCASE, lowercase, Sentence case, Title Case, as well as flipping case (switching uppercase to lowercase and vice versa) and rANdoMiZInG cAse. If no texts are selected, the effect works on all texts in the document.

* Another effect in the Text submenu, '''Replace text''', performs search-and-replace on the selected text objects or (if nothing is selected) on all texts in the document. Searching is case sensitive. You can use this effect to globally delete all occurrences of some text fragment by replacing it with empty string. Conversely, if you search for an empty string and replace it with some string, this string will be inserted after every character of your text; for example, you can space out a text by replacing in it an empty string with a single space.

* A new effect, '''Replace color''' in the Color submenu, simply replaces one RRGGBB-specified color to another within selection or, if there's no selection, in the entire document. As with other effects in that submenu, the replacement affects fill, stroke, and gradient colors, but not colors of bitmaps.

*The '''Whirl''' extension uses the center of view as the center of whirl, so you don't have to enter the center coordinates numerically.

*The '''Render > Grid''' extension has got an extended range of grid spacings, from 0.1 to 1000 px.

*The '''Render > Function Plotter''' extension can now plot using polar coordinates.

== New Python XML library ==

* All Python effects are switched from the old and unmaintained PyXML library to the new powerful [http://codespeak.net/lxml/ lxml] library.

=Snapping=

* In addition to all other snapping modes and techniques, snapping has been implemented or improved in many tools and contexts:

:* Drawing of new '''shapes''' (such as rectangles or ellipses) snaps to grid/guides/shapes.

:* '''Handles''' of existing shapes and gradient handles snap.

:* '''Skewing''' objects in Selector snaps.

:* Snapping to objects works for '''images''' and '''clones''' (not only paths/shapes as before).

:* Snapping of '''text baselines''' works again.

:* When moved in Selector, an object snaps with its '''rotation axis''' (which is by default in the geometric center of bbox, but can be arbitrarily moved and its position is remembered for every object).

:Other snapping fixes and improvements include:

:* Snapping distance is now set in screen pixels and is therefore independent of zoom.

:* The bug where "node-to-node" snapping caused jerky movement of nodes is fixed.

:* The aspect ratio is correctly preserved while scaling objects with snapping turned on.

:* All four bounding box corners now snap instead of only the lower-left and upper-right as before.

:* Snapping while uniformly scaling has been improved.

* The confusing "Default transformations origin" option is removed. Now Inkscape always uses the opposite edge of the object's bounding box as the transformation origin (though the bounding box itself can now be different, see next item).

* A new preference option has been added to specify the kind of '''bounding box''' to be used for transforming objects (see Inkscape Preferences, Tools, Selector). You can choose between the '''visual bounding box''' (which takes into account the stroke width, markers, and blur margins; this is the default behavior) or '''geometric bounding box''' (which encloses only the path itself, disregarding stroke width).

=Grids=

* a new tab in the document properties dialog, solely meant for grids; the former grid/guide tab is now solely for guides. I envision a list of guides there in the future, for easier deletion of guides etc.
* more than one grid can be active at the same time, although i am having trouble in finding a usefull case for this
* multiple views on the same document share the same grids, but the grid can be turned off for each view separately. For example: one could have an overview view without grid enabled. Duplicate that window and zoom in on some detail; then grids can be shown only for that view, and snapping will only happen in those views for which grids are enabled. (sorry i am not able to explain more clearly)
* grid information is now stored in SVG as a child of sodipodi:namedview. Can someone please make an extension that converts an old grid definition to the new format?
* axonometric grid (not yet snapping)
* dots instead of lines

From developer perspective:

* implementation of new grids is much easier now; subclassing CanvasGrid and adding an entry in the is enough. Have a peek at how the rectangular grid is implemented (CanvasXYGrid).
* note that there is no longer "the grid", there might be several grids active now!

[Future plans (i will not be working on this soon, due to GSoC Live effects!):
** possibility of enabling not all but a selection of grids for a view. Eg. when there are 4 grids defined in the document, only enable grid2 for a certain view.
** new grids!
** better snapping mechanism to enable snapping to intersections of guides&grids and grids&grids.

A side effect of removal of old gridcode: apparantly the origin of the desktop rules used to be set to the origin of the grid. I find this strange: specifying a grid origin of (2,2) would have me think the origin would be at ruler location (2,2) instead of (0,0) as it is in 0.45.1.
I have commented the grid-origin correction to the ruler range, because now there is not a single grid anymore to correct it for. Isn't there a control somewhere to define the documents origin? Now the ruler origin is set to (0,0) -- johan]

=Bitmap export=

* '''Batch export''': The Bitmap Export dialog (Ctrl+Shift+E) got a new checkbox, ''Batch export all selected objects''. This checkbox is available when two or more objects are selected. If it is checked, instead of exporting selection as a whole, Inkscape exports each selected object separately into its own PNG file. This uses each object's export hints (i.e. export filename and DPI) if they are remembered from a previous export; otherwise, the filename is created from the object ID and the DPI is 90 pixels per inch. '''Caution:''' Unlike regular export, batch export overwrites all existing PNG files without warning.

:This makes it possible to implement all kinds of '''image slicing''' and automated export scenarios. For example, if you are working on a web site design, you can create a separate "export" layer. In that layer, "slice" your web page image into separate areas by creating invisible rectangles with no fill and no stroke. Select each rectangle (by Tab/Shift+Tab, or by switching to Outline mode where even an invisible rectangle can be selected by clicking on its outline) and export it into the corresponding filename (which gets saved as that object's export hint). After that, if you do any changes to your graphics, it's very easy to reexport all the slices: just switch to the "export" layer, select all in that layer (Ctrl+A), and export with the ''Batch export selected objects'' checkbox on.

* '''Hide all except selected''': A new checkbox allows you to hide in the exported image everything except selected object(s).

* The Export dialog automatically appends the '''.png''' extension to the export filename you specify.

=Import/Export=

* [libpoppler PDF/AI import - miklos]

:* '''Implemented features''': The libpoppler based import extension can import shapes, text, clippaths and non-masked images from PDF documents. It supports tiling patterns (XStep and YStep attributes are ignored), axial and radial gradients (only those made up of sampled functions). Currently it will only import the first page of the opened document.

:* '''Text editing tips''': Any text imported from PDF or AI has each letter's precise place on the page ''fixed''. While this preserves the exact appearance (e.g. justification of text blocks) of the imported document, it makes editing such text difficult: deleting text fails to contract the text line and inserting text fails to expand it, i.e. typed letters overlay the existing letters. (However, you still can replace a letter with another letter of about the same width, although you may need to kern it into place with Alt+arrows.)

::To work around this, select the text object you want to edit and use '''Text > Remove manual kerns''' command. This will remove the exact positioning information, so if the text block was justified it will lose justification, but instead you will be able to edit it as usual.

::Note that there is a way to select even a single line in a text block. For this, open the XML editor, expand the <svg:text> tree branch corresponding to your text, and select any of the <svg:tspan> objects under it. Now you can remove manual kerns from this line only. After you finish editing the line, you can manually justify it back, for example by adding spaces, manual kerns (Alt+arrows), or by adjusting letterspacing (select the whole line and use Alt+> or Alt+<).

* '''[if enabled! - mental]''' A new cairo-based PDF exporter has been added to Inkscape. Inkscape 0.46 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.

* [cairo ps export - adib]

* [new wpg lib - ted gould]

=Command line=

Several new command line options are added that make Inkscape even more scriptable and automatable than before.

* --verb-list will list all the Verb IDs and their names in Inkscape. This makes writing your own menus and hotkeys much easier as you can easily find out what the choices are.

* --verb followed by a verb ID allows you to specify a verb to be called on every document opened by Inkscape initially from the command line.

* --select followed by a node ID will allow you to add a node to the list of selected objects.

These options can be used, for example, for performance testing. You could do something like this:

$ time inkscape --verb=FileClose my_complex_file.svg

to measure the time it takes to load and display the file.

Of course, with the ability to select objects, it can be much more useful than
that. You can call extension effects, or any other verb, then FileSave and
FileClose to automate all kinds of operations on your drawings.

=UI=

== [toolbars - [[JonCruz]]] ==

[calligraphy: menus, tooltips; star; ...]

Switched to stock GTK+ toolbars.

Extra magic secret sauce added.

== [filedialogs - [[JonCruz]]] ==

== Print dialog integration ==

* '''Print Dialog''': The GTK Unix Print Dialog has been hooked up! From the dialog, you can select any of the Postscript-capable printers known to your system and configure them as with any other GTK application.

== Saving window geometry globally ==

Previously, window geometry (size and position of document windows) could only be saved into the document (so that each document stored its own window geometry). Now, a new option is added to save the geometry of the last used window to the preferences and apply this geometry to all new windows. Thus, with the "Save geometry to preferences" option enabled, new windows will open with the shape of the most recent previous window. This mode also remembers and restores the maximized/fullscreen state (unlike geometry saved to documents).

=Even more improvements=

* '''Gnome VFS Improvements''': Gnome VFS Non-Local files are now usable through all of our file choosers in Open, Save and Export. This compile-time option allowed people to open any Gnome-VFS-based URI from the command-line in the past, but not non-local resources (WebDAV, SFTP, etc) and this now allows for all the lovely possibilities Gnome-VFS provides.

* In previous versions, Inkscape didn't allow you to '''group a single object.''' Yet in some cases, this operation is useful (for example, to blur the clipped edged of an object, or apply more than one clippath/mask to an object). Now this limitation is removed; just select any single object and group it to get a single-object group.

* The somewhat cryptic "F:" and "S:" labels in the selected style indicator (at the left end of the statusbar) and in tool's style swatches are now spelled out as '''Fill:''' and '''Stroke:'''. We believe this makes the interface, even if less space-efficient, a bit more friendly for newbies.

* The '''style swatches''' at the right end of object-creating tools' control bars now open the Preferences page of the corresponding tool when clicked. Also, now these swatches display a tooltip explaining its purpose (e.g. "Style of new rectangles", "Style of new calligraphic strokes", etc.)

* After dragging a curve segment in Node tool, Inkscape no longer selects the two adjacent nodes if they were not selected before.

* The '''Tile Clones''' dialog now uses the object's defined '''rotation axis''' (which can be freely moved by Selector tool and which is saved separately for each object) for all rotations (including both symmetry rotations and the Rotation tab rotations), scales, and flips. This renders unnecessary the previous workarounds where you had to group an object with another transparent object to affect how it's rotated by the clone tiler.

* In '''Pencil''' and '''Calligraphic''' tools, pressing '''Esc''' or '''Ctrl+Z''' while drawing cancels the currently drawn path or stroke. When not drawing, these keys work as before (Esc deselects, Ctrl+Z undoes last action). (This is the same behavior as in the Pen tool where it was introduced in a previous version.)

* A set of new verbs has been added to allow the user to easily '''unlock all locked objects''' or '''unhide all hidden objects'''. There are two variants one that operates on the current layer and its children and one that operates globally. While searching for hidden or locked object descendants of locked layers are ignored.

* The list of folder shortcuts in the '''Open''' dialog includes the folder with Inkscape's SVG '''examples''' for easy access. Similarly, the '''Save''' dialog has a shortcut for the user's own '''templates''' dialog making it easy to save the current document as a template (if saved as <code>default.svg</code>, it will be loaded every time you run Inkscape or create new document with Ctrl+N; with any other name, it will be added to the File > New submenu).

* For time-intensive operations such as Paint Bucket and Simplify, the system's busy wait cursor is displayed to indicate to the user that Inkscape is actively working, and not frozen.

* [statusbar updates: save, ...]

* Several improvements in '''inkview''': busy cursor is shown while loading file, the button window stays on top and responds to keyboard shortcuts; several memleaks stopped and bugs fixed. The "slideshow mode" of the main inkscape application (-s or --slideshow command line option) is removed; use inkview instead.

* In Document Metadata dialog, updated Creative Commons Licenses to version 3.0.

* In addition to Shift+click, right clicking on a colour swatch now also sets the stroke colour.

=Notable bugfixes=

These are bugfixes compared to 0.45.1; for a list of fixes in 0.45.1 compared to 0.45, see [[ReleaseNotes045|0.45.1 release notes]]

* The '''sodipodi:docbase''' attribute is no longer added to the root <svg> element. This attribute used to keep the latest directory that the document was saved to, and thus represented a mild privacy violation (i.e., by sharing your Inkscape SVG files you allowed others to have a peek into your directory structure). Note, however, that Inkscape does not remove this attribute from old documents it opens; if you want you can remove it yourself. Inkscape just no longer creates this attribute in new documents.

* Inkscape now properly quotes <code>font-family</code> values and therefore can use fonts with various nonalphanumeric characters in their names, which previously failed.

* If you have saved documents with a previous version of Inkscape which used '''right-to-left text''' (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew) then the paragraph alignment of non-flowed text has been reversed in this release. This is due to a bug in previous versions - the new behaviour is compliant with the SVG specification and compatible with other editors and viewers. To correct your images, simply reverse the paragraph alignment by selecting the text and clicking the appropriate button on the toolbar.

* A large family of bugs was exterminated where an object's style could only refer other objects (such as gradients, patterns, and filters) that come after it in the document. Now any objects can be referenced from a style regardless of their place in the document. This fixed the disappearance of gradients/patterns/filters after you undo an effect, as well as lots of assorted crashes and misrenderings (mostly on non-Inkscape SVG files).

* '''Stock markers''' now appear in the "recently used markers" section of the marker selector dropdowns in the Fill & Stroke dialog. Before, any markers with stock id's (including markers modified by the user) were hidden, making it difficult to work with modified stock markers.

* A regression in 0.45 caused crashes when undo or redo was attempted before the previous action could complete (e.g. pressing ctrl+z while you are still drawing a rectangle). This is now fixed.

* Previously, if there was a single invalid property in a <code>style</code> attribute, the entire attribute was discarded, i.e. the object lost all styling. Now Inkscape's behavior is more compliant to the CSS specification: it ignores only the invalid property but reads in all the rest.

* Several bugs are fixed in searching for linked images. Now moving SVG documents with their associated images to a different place or a different machine should work more reliably.

* Master opacity did not apply to stroke markers as it should; fixed.

* Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration URI points to right location now.

* Text objects didn't display the pattern editing handles; fixed.

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Debugging Inkscape

2007-06-20T19:29:12Z

Gbanaszk: Tips for debugging on Windows

* If you're hunting down a GTK warning, you can set a breakpoint in gdb for "g_logv" so you can capture a backtrace. ("br g_logv", "run", "bt")

* Bug list
- w32 version asks for (that crappy) Verdana typeface (which is not the most usual w32 typeface, also some users have deleted it to save disk space)

== Debugging Tips for Windows ==

First, have a look at the [[Using Eclipse]] page for how to use that program on Windows to debug Inkscape.

Second, make use of the '''View > Messages...''' dialog from within the program. Capturing the log here will show you messages printed with g_message(), g_warning(), and g_error()..

Finally, look into [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ#I.27m_on_Windows.2C_and_command_line_parameters_don.27t_seem_to_work.21 how to compile Eclipse as a command line app] so you can capture debug messages at the prompt, more like you would do in Linux.

[[Category:Developer Documentation]]

Using Eclipse

2007-05-31T21:40:45Z

Gbanaszk: a

Eclipse is a popular development tool used primarily with Java; however, with the CDT plugin, C/C++ development can also be done. This page will help you set up Eclipse for coding, building, and debugging Inkscape.

= Eclipse on Windows =

Running Eclipse provides a relatively easy and familiar way to work with Inkscape code on Windows. This section will explain how to make it happen.

'''Note:''' Some of these instructions may be applicable to development on Mac or Linux. Feel free to refactor them if you are adding information for those platforms.

== Initial Setup ==

First, if you don't have Eclipse, [http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ get it]. Check out the [http://help.eclipse.org/help32/index.jsp online help] if needed.

Next, you need to set up the necessary add-ons. Most important is the [http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/downloads.php CDT plug-in] which facilitates C/C++ development. You may also wish to add [http://subclipse.tigris.org/install.html Subclipse] for SVN access within Eclipse. Alternatively, many Windows users prefer to use [http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads TortoiseSVN], which works with Windows Explorer.

Finally, follow the instructions on the [[Win32Port]] page under the heading '''Inkscape under Windows'''.

== Creating a Project ==

=== Subclipse ===

The next step is to get the source code ready for use in Eclipse. Check [[WorkingWithSVN | here]] for general instructions for working with SVN; in this section, the aim is to show how to check out the code using Subclipse.

In Eclipse, we want the SVN perspective to be open. Click '''Window > Open Perspective > Other'''. Choose '''SVN Repository Exploring''' and click ok.

[[Image:Eclipse-01.png]]

In the '''SVN Repository''' tab, right click and choose '''New > Repository Location...'''.

[[Image:Eclipse-02.png]]

In the '''Location Url:''' box, paste the link https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk and click finish. This location will now show in the '''SVN Repository''' tab. You can expand the tree to see what is on the server.

Now right click the location name (which is really just the link given above), and click '''Checkout...'''. Choose '''Check out as a project configured using the New Project Wizard''' and the revision you want (probably Head), and click '''Finish'''.

In the New Project window that appears, choose '''Standard Make C++ Project''' and click '''Next'''.

[[Image:Eclipse-03.png]]

Give your project a name such as InkscapeSVN. Uncheck the '''Use default location''' box so you can provide a better project location outside of your workspace, such as C:\InkscapeSVN. Click '''Finish'''. The source code will now be checked out - this may take a while. You will also now have a project in the '''C/C++ Perspective''' with whatever name you provided earlier.

=== TortoiseSVN ===

To use TortoiseSVN instead of Subclipse to check out your project, open a Windows Explorer instance. Right click anywhere outside of an existing SVN tree and choose '''SVN Checkout...'''. Specify the link given above and the destination directory.

To get a project in Eclipse, go to the '''C/C++ Perspective'''. Right click in the '''C/C++ Projects''' tab, and choose '''New > Project...''' and in the window choose '''Standard Make C++ Project.''' Give the project a name, and uncheck the '''Use default location''' box. You must give the location that you checked the code out into here.

At this point, you will be able to use TortoiseSVN or Subclipse within Eclipse to control the source.

== Building ==

Be sure you have the btool built and ready to go, as outlined on the [[Win32Port]] page. You can build Inkscape from the command line or initiate it from within Eclipse, which will capture the output for you.

To set up Eclipse to do this, make sure you are in the '''C/C++ Perspective''' and that your project is open. Right click on the project name and click '''Properties'''. Click on '''Builders'''. Uncheck any builders that are there since we will be using the custom btool. Click '''New...''' and select '''Program'''.

[[Image:Eclipse-04.png]]

In the '''Main''' tab, browse the workspace for the location of the btool.exe file. Browse the workspace again to set the working directory to the main project directory.

[[Image:Eclipse-05.png]]

Now go to the '''Environment Tab''' and add a new variable called path. Add the same thing that appears in your mingenv.bat file here.

[[Image:Eclipse-06.png]]

[[Image:Eclipse-07.png]]

Click on '''C/C++ Project Paths''' and then the tab '''Path Containers'''. Click '''Add...''', choose '''Discovered scanner configuration container''', '''Next''', '''Discovered Paths''', and '''Finish'''.

Now go to '''C/C++ Include Paths and Symbols'''. Click '''Add Contributed''' and choose the '''Discovered scanner configuration container''', then '''Discovered Paths'''. Then click '''Add External Include Path''' and add the path to your GTK folder (probably something like c:\gtk210).

[[Image:Eclipse-08.png]]

You should now be able to use the '''Project > Build All''' command, capturing the output onto Eclipse's console.

== Debugging ==

You need to make a couple of changes to the build.xml file and do a clean rebuild. First, add -g to the flags section:

<flags>
-Wall -O3
-mms-bitfields
'''-g'''
</flags>

Then avoid stripping symbol information from the exe by changing this line
strip="'''true'''" symfile="${build}/inkscape.dbg"
with this one
strip="'''false'''" symfile="${build}/inkscape.dbg"

Now you need to create a debugging instance in Eclipse. Click '''Run > Debug...'''. Click on '''C/C++ Local Application''' and then click the new button. Give the launch configuration a logical name such as Inkscape Debug.

These screenshots show you the values you have to change in each tab. Nothing else needs to change.

[[Image:Eclipse-09.png]]

[[Image:Eclipse-10.png]]

Now you can launch this new configuration and debug away!

(Don't worry about funny warnings about files or folders not existing - it doesn't seem to affect the use of the debugger. However, if you know how to fix it, please replace this comment with instructions.)

File:Eclipse-10.png

2007-05-31T21:37:28Z

Gbanaszk:

File:Eclipse-09.png

2007-05-31T21:37:18Z

Gbanaszk:

File:Eclipse-08.png

2007-05-31T21:37:06Z

Gbanaszk:

File:Eclipse-07.png

2007-05-31T21:36:55Z

Gbanaszk:

File:Eclipse-06.png

2007-05-31T21:36:43Z

Gbanaszk:

File:Eclipse-05.png

2007-05-31T21:36:31Z

Gbanaszk:

File:Eclipse-04.png

2007-05-31T21:36:20Z

Gbanaszk:

File:Eclipse-03.png

2007-05-31T21:36:08Z

Gbanaszk:

File:Eclipse-02.png

2007-05-31T21:35:56Z

Gbanaszk:

File:Eclipse-01.png

2007-05-31T21:35:37Z

Gbanaszk:

Using Eclipse

2007-05-31T21:31:40Z

Gbanaszk: Debugging text, still no images

Eclipse is a popular development tool used primarily with Java; however, with the CDT plugin, C/C++ development can also be done. This page will help you set up Eclipse for coding, building, and debugging Inkscape.

= Eclipse on Windows =

Running Eclipse provides a relatively easy and familiar way to work with Inkscape code on Windows. This section will explain how to make it happen.

'''Note:''' Some of these instructions may be applicable to development on Mac or Linux. Feel free to refactor them if you are adding information for those platforms.

== Initial Setup ==

First, if you don't have Eclipse, [http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ get it]. Check out the [http://help.eclipse.org/help32/index.jsp online help] if needed.

Next, you need to set up the necessary add-ons. Most important is the [http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/downloads.php CDT plug-in] which facilitates C/C++ development. You may also wish to add [http://subclipse.tigris.org/install.html Subclipse] for SVN access within Eclipse. Alternatively, many Windows users prefer to use [http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads TortoiseSVN], which works with Windows Explorer.

Finally, follow the instructions on the [[Win32Port]] page under the heading '''Inkscape under Windows'''.

== Creating a Project ==

=== Subclipse ===

The next step is to get the source code ready for use in Eclipse. Check [[WorkingWithSVN | here]] for general instructions for working with SVN; in this section, the aim is to show how to check out the code using Subclipse.

In Eclipse, we want the SVN perspective to be open. Click '''Window > Open Perspective > Other'''. Choose '''SVN Repository Exploring''' and click ok.

-> screenshot-01.png

In the '''SVN Repository''' tab, right click and choose '''New > Repository Location...'''.

-> screenshot-02.png

In the '''Location Url:''' box, paste the link https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk and click finish. This location will now show in the '''SVN Repository''' tab. You can expand the tree to see what is on the server.

Now right click the location name (which is really just the link given above), and click '''Checkout...'''. Choose '''Check out as a project configured using the New Project Wizard''' and the revision you want (probably Head), and click '''Finish'''.

In the New Project window that appears, choose '''Standard Make C++ Project''' and click '''Next'''.

-> screenshot-03.png

Give your project a name such as InkscapeSVN. Uncheck the '''Use default location''' box so you can provide a better project location outside of your workspace, such as C:\InkscapeSVN. Click '''Finish'''. The source code will now be checked out - this may take a while. You will also now have a project in the '''C/C++ Perspective''' with whatever name you provided earlier.

=== TortoiseSVN ===

To use TortoiseSVN instead of Subclipse to check out your project, open a Windows Explorer instance. Right click anywhere outside of an existing SVN tree and choose '''SVN Checkout...'''. Specify the link given above and the destination directory.

To get a project in Eclipse, go to the '''C/C++ Perspective'''. Right click in the '''C/C++ Projects''' tab, and choose '''New > Project...''' and in the window choose '''Standard Make C++ Project.''' Give the project a name, and uncheck the '''Use default location''' box. You must give the location that you checked the code out into here.

At this point, you will be able to use TortoiseSVN or Subclipse within Eclipse to control the source.

== Building ==

Be sure you have the btool built and ready to go, as outlined on the [[Win32Port]] page. You can build Inkscape from the command line or initiate it from within Eclipse, which will capture the output for you.

To set up Eclipse to do this, make sure you are in the '''C/C++ Perspective''' and that your project is open. Right click on the project name and click '''Properties'''. Click on '''Builders'''. Uncheck any builders that are there since we will be using the custom btool. Click '''New...''' and select '''Program'''.

-> screenshot-04.png

In the '''Main''' tab, browse the workspace for the location of the btool.exe file. Browse the workspace again to set the working directory to the main project directory.

-> screenshot-05.png

Now go to the '''Environment Tab''' and add a new variable called path. Add the same thing that appears in your mingenv.bat file here.

-> screenshot-06.png

-> screenshot-07.png

Click on '''C/C++ Project Paths''' and then the tab '''Path Containers'''. Click '''Add...''', choose '''Discovered scanner configuration container''', '''Next''', '''Discovered Paths''', and '''Finish'''.

Now go to '''C/C++ Include Paths and Symbols'''. Click '''Add Contributed''' and choose the '''Discovered scanner configuration container''', then '''Discovered Paths'''. Then click '''Add External Include Path''' and add the path to your GTK folder (probably something like c:\gtk210).

-> screenshot-08.png

You should now be able to use the '''Project > Build All''' command, capturing the output onto Eclipse's console.

== Debugging ==

You need to make a couple of changes to the build.xml file and do a clean rebuild. First, add -g to the flags section:

<flags>
-Wall -O3
-mms-bitfields
'''-g'''
</flags>

Then avoid stripping symbol information from the exe by changing this line
strip="'''true'''" symfile="${build}/inkscape.dbg"
with this one
strip="'''false'''" symfile="${build}/inkscape.dbg"

Now you need to create a debugging instance in Eclipse. Click '''Run > Debug...'''. Click on '''C/C++ Local Application''' and then click the new button. Give the launch configuration a logical name such as Inkscape Debug.

These screenshots show you the values you have to change in each tab. Nothing else needs to change.

-> screenshot-09.png

-> screenshot-10.png

Now you can launch this new configuration and debug away!

(Don't worry about funny warnings about files or folders not existing - it doesn't seem to affect the use of the debugger. However, if you know how to fix it, please replace this comment with instructions.)

Using Eclipse

2007-05-31T19:10:17Z

Gbanaszk: Added the building section, without images yet

Eclipse is a popular development tool used primarily with Java; however, with the CDT plugin, C/C++ development can also be done. This page will help you set up Eclipse for coding, building, and debugging Inkscape.

= Eclipse on Windows =

Running Eclipse provides a relatively easy and familiar way to work with Inkscape code on Windows. This section will explain how to make it happen.

'''Note:''' Some of these instructions may be applicable to development on Mac or Linux. Feel free to refactor them if you are adding information for those platforms.

== Initial Setup ==

First, if you don't have Eclipse, [http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ get it]. Check out the [http://help.eclipse.org/help32/index.jsp online help] if needed.

Next, you need to set up the necessary add-ons. Most important is the [http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/downloads.php CDT plug-in] which facilitates C/C++ development. You may also wish to add [http://subclipse.tigris.org/install.html Subclipse] for SVN access within Eclipse. Alternatively, many Windows users prefer to use [http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads TortoiseSVN], which works with Windows Explorer.

Finally, follow the instructions on the [[Win32Port]] page under the heading '''Inkscape under Windows'''.

== Creating a Project ==

=== Subclipse ===

The next step is to get the source code ready for use in Eclipse. Check [[WorkingWithSVN | here]] for general instructions for working with SVN; in this section, the aim is to show how to check out the code using Subclipse.

In Eclipse, we want the SVN perspective to be open. Click '''Window > Open Perspective > Other'''. Choose '''SVN Repository Exploring''' and click ok.

-> screenshot-01.png

In the '''SVN Repository''' tab, right click and choose '''New > Repository Location...'''.

-> screenshot-02.png

In the '''Location Url:''' box, paste the link https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk and click finish. This location will now show in the '''SVN Repository''' tab. You can expand the tree to see what is on the server.

Now right click the location name (which is really just the link given above), and click '''Checkout...'''. Choose '''Check out as a project configured using the New Project Wizard''' and the revision you want (probably Head), and click '''Finish'''.

In the New Project window that appears, choose '''Standard Make C++ Project''' and click '''Next'''.

-> screenshot-03.png

Give your project a name such as InkscapeSVN. Uncheck the '''Use default location''' box so you can provide a better project location outside of your workspace, such as C:\InkscapeSVN. Click '''Finish'''. The source code will now be checked out - this may take a while. You will also now have a project in the '''C/C++ Perspective''' with whatever name you provided earlier.

=== TortoiseSVN ===

To use TortoiseSVN instead of Subclipse to check out your project, open a Windows Explorer instance. Right click anywhere outside of an existing SVN tree and choose '''SVN Checkout...'''. Specify the link given above and the destination directory.

To get a project in Eclipse, go to the '''C/C++ Perspective'''. Right click in the '''C/C++ Projects''' tab, and choose '''New > Project...''' and in the window choose '''Standard Make C++ Project.''' Give the project a name, and uncheck the '''Use default location''' box. You must give the location that you checked the code out into here.

At this point, you will be able to use TortoiseSVN or Subclipse within Eclipse to control the source.

== Building ==

Be sure you have the btool built and ready to go, as outlined on the [[Win32Port]] page. You can build Inkscape from the command line or initiate it from within Eclipse, which will capture the output for you.

To set up Eclipse to do this, make sure you are in the '''C/C++ Perspective''' and that your project is open. Right click on the project name and click '''Properties'''. Click on '''Builders'''. Uncheck any builders that are there since we will be using the custom btool. Click '''New...''' and select '''Program'''.

-> screenshot-04.png

In the '''Main''' tab, browse the workspace for the location of the btool.exe file. Browse the workspace again to set the working directory to the main project directory.

-> screenshot-05.png

Now go to the '''Environment Tab''' and add a new variable called path. Add the same thing that appears in your mingenv.bat file here.

-> screenshot-06.png

-> screenshot-07.png

Click on '''C/C++ Project Paths''' and then the tab '''Path Containers'''. Click '''Add...''', choose '''Discovered scanner configuration container''', '''Next''', '''Discovered Paths''', and '''Finish'''.

Now go to '''C/C++ Include Paths and Symbols'''. Click '''Add Contributed''' and choose the '''Discovered scanner configuration container''', then '''Discovered Paths'''. Then click '''Add External Include Path''' and add the path to your GTK folder (probably something like c:\gtk210).

-> screenshot-08.png

You should now be able to use the '''Project > Build All''' command, capturing the output onto Eclipse's console.

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2007-05-31T18:07:44Z

Gbanaszk: /* Inkscape under Windows */

See the [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=847856&group_id=93438&atid=604308 Win32 Build ticket] for some info.

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Ishmal provides a complete set of compiler and libraries on hie website. You can get all packages from http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/ . Writing this chapter (February 7th 2007) those are:
* the mingw compiler version 4.1 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw411-060525.zip
* the gtk libraries version 2.10 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/gtk210-070125.7z
The configuration files expect the packages in specific directories:
* the compiler C:\MinGW
* the libraries C:\gtk210

Now you step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape
set up the environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat
build the magic make replacement:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool
start the build proccess:
...\> btool
Now you should have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape\Inkscape directory.

We will update this page soon with information on how to build Inkscape on the Win32 platform. In the meantime,
there are some fairly complete notes on how to build the current package with either Mingw on Windows, or a
cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html
(note: http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/ seems to have more complete and up-to-date library packages).

There is also a [[Win32 installer]]

=== Create the Setup package for Win32 ===

To create the setup package you need the NSIS installer on your PC. Get that from http://nsis.sf.net .
You have successfully built Inkscape and everything is in the ...\Inkscape\Inkscape\ directory.
Open the ...\Inkscape\packaging\win32\inkscape.nsi using the NSIS program and compile the package. Sooo easy :-)

==== A Note from Jon about UNICODE on Win32 ====

Actually, Microsoft themselves never use _UNICODE, nor it's 'evil' friends TCHAR and _T.
If it is used, it results in a binary that can not be run on Windows 95/98[[/ME]]. It is more of a "Windows NT only" define.

Microsoft applications like MS Office have been pure 16-bit Unicode internally for years now. Also remember that BSTRs in Win32 are required to have 16-bit Unicode data. So for any COM access on a Win32 box running Win9x[[/ME]] 'multibyte' or '8-bit' COM calls convert all ANSI data to Unicode once you pass things in. To avoid this, Microsoft just keeps data 16-bit Unicode and then translates to local ANSI codepage only when data needs to be passed directly to a Win32 call.

To help developers, Microsoft finally made public their API they had been using. It's [http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/handson/dev/mslu_announce.mspx "The Microsoft Layer for Unicode"].

Although that simplifies things, it's not required. I've done Win32 programs that are 16-bit Unicode and run on Windows 95/98[[/ME]] with no problems years before they released that.

Soo.... _UNICODE can't be used as it makes your binary unusable on Win9x[[/ME]]. Then it turns out that TCHAR and _T can't be used either. (Oh, and MS can't really use them, since Office does run on Win9x[[/ME]]). So just explicitly use some 16-bit datatype for chars. Microsoft is misleading in their documentation when they state that wchar_t is 16-bit. Most other platforms (including Mac OS, Linux, Solaris, BSD, etc) follow the language standard's recommendation and make it 32-bit. So it is best to avoid wchar_t for any real cross-platform code.

So, some general guidelines are:
* Never define _UNICODE
* Don't use _T
* Don't use TCHAR
* Don't use wchar_t
* Use some explicit 16-bit type for characters/strings
** [http://icu.sourceforge.net/ IBM's ICU] does this

So then it's a simple matter of converting data from the standard UTF-8 GTK+ data to UTF-16 data before passing to Win32-land.

The result? A single binary that executes properly on both [[Win9X/ME]] and [[WinNT/2K/XP]], including full and proper font and filename support.

And, as I've mentioned before, I've actually achieved this for a few different shipping products and projects.

-- [[[JonCruz]] Jon C]

=== SVN and Windows ===

If you want to access Inkscapes' subversion repository on SourceForge from Windows, I'd heartily recommend [[TortoiseSVN]].
It has the SSH stuff built into it so you don't have to mess about with putty, and
it integrates right into Explorer, so SVN becomes just an extension of the right-click file commands.
get it from http://tortoisesvn.net/

John

Using Eclipse

2007-05-31T17:03:58Z

Gbanaszk: Initial text, no images yet

Google Summer of Code 2007

2007-04-13T18:24:54Z

Gbanaszk: /* Accepted by Google */

This year Inkscape is going to participate, yet again, in Google's Summer of Code (SoC) 2007. Help us come up with some solid places to innovate and push forward.

= Student Applications =

* Google program information
** Summer of Code Application form
* Inkscape-specific information
** [[SOC Application Template]]
** [[Roadmap | Inkscape Roadmap]] - to see our overall objectives
** [[SOC Writing Project Proposals]] - some guidelines for proposals
** [[SOC Selection Criteria]] - how we rate applications

= Project Ideas =

== General ==

=== 3D Tool ===

Inkscape is a 2D drawing tool. However, very often it is used to draw 3D objects. It would be very cool to have more support from the program for doing that, instead of just drawing everything manually. Nothing too fancy - we're not going to compete with Blender; but even simple things can go a long way. What's listed below is just basic ideas; feel free to develop upon them or offer something entirely different in your proposal.

A '''3D box tool''' would be able to:

*draw a 3D box;

*adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles and numerically;

*freely move the perspective vanishing point for each dimension;

*switch any dimension from a vanishing point to direction (point in infinity, lines are parallel) and back;

*subdivide or multiply the box to create perspective grids;

*when more than one 3D box is selected and their perspective is compatible, drag their common vanishing points/directions updating all selected boxes;

*3D-rotate the entire selected 3D box (or several selected 3D boxes if they have a compatible perspective), thus moving all 3 directions/vanishing points in a natural way;

*remember the last-set directions/vanishing points and create new objects in the same perspective, so you can quickly and easily draw an entire 3D scene with many boxes;

In SVG, a 3D box will be represented as a group (svg:g) with a special extension attribute (in inkscape namespace); the group would normally contain the 6 quadrilateral paths representing the sides of the box. Only the 3D box tool would treat this object as a whole; for all other tools it will be just a group, so you can select any of the paths, apply any style to it, delete it, etc. You can of course transform the group or any face in it using Selector or Node tools. At the same time, the 3D tool would still be able to 3D-rotate and 3D-tweak the box while preserving any changed style (but not necessarily preserving transforms or node edits of individual sides) and not restoring deleted sides (e.g. if you don't want to see the hidden sides, simply delete them as objects from the group). The tool must also be able to create "degenerate" boxes - planes and lines represented as boxes with one or two dimensions equal to zero.

In the UI, drawing with this tool creates a box with 4 handles on the box (3 for changing its dimensions and one in the center for dragging it in 3D) and 3 more perspective handles. If some dimension has a vanishing point, its perspective handle is (for example) diamond; if that dimension has infinity vanishing point, the corresponding handle is round (and can adjust only direction from the center). Dragging box handles without Shift moves them in X/Y plane, with Shift in Z. If multiple boxes selected and their perspectives are compatible, the corresponding handles snap together and dragging them affects everything selected.

'''3D guides''' can be a helpful addition to the 3D box tool. You would be able to create a new set of 3D guides from any 3D box and then use these guides for drawing with any tool that can snap to guides (e.g. the Pen tool). The guides would use different colors for the three dimensions. Ideally the guides should remember which object they were created from and update when that object's perspective (the set of 3 vanishing points or directions) is edited in the 3D tool.

'''Mini FAQ:'''

*'''Why not improve integration with Blender instead?''' Because even if Inkscape/Blender integration were much more seamless than now, and even if Blender's UI were much more like Inkscape's, (neither of which is true), it would still suck to have a separate program for such a basic aspect of your drawing as (essentially) objects' shapes.

:Besides, Blender has a different approach to 3D than what I want for Inkscape. In Blender, you shape your objects, position them in a 3D space, and position your point of view in the same space to get some picture. That's fine if what you are interested in is the 3D world. But traditional artists do not work like that. They don't need a 3D world; they need a 2D drawing that gives an impression of 3D. From the times of Leonardo, this means starting with placing your perspective vanishing points/directions and then drawing objects to conform to these. That's the most natural approach for a 2D artist. I don't know if Blender allows you to freely drag the vanishing points at all (and even if it does, it's hardly the default editing mode in it). In Inkscape, that will be the main mode of interaction, very similar to the way all other shapes are edited by dragging their control handles.

*'''Isn't it the same as Extrude or Perspective tools (e.g. in Corel Draw)?''' Not quite. Perspective distortion of an arbitrary path is something we very definitely need; extrude is also nice, especially for text headings. But they are both effects that, most often, just add a 3D eyecandy to existing objects. What I envision is a tool for a draftsman, a technical illustrator; something that lets you draw entire scenes in one common perspective easily. The main point of my proposal is, let's do the fundamentals right, before we do any eyecandy. And in the world of 3D, a basic '''3D box''' is as fundamental as you can get. '''Everything else stems from it or can be defined by it;''' this tool can be used as a generic "definer" of the perspective. For example, you can:

:* take one 3D box, copy its perspective, and paste on other boxes;

:* project a path onto a side of the box ("perspective envelope");

:* apply the box's perspective and bounds to any object to extrude it;

:*tell it to inscribe other 3D primitives (cylinder, cone, pyramid) into a box;

:* do "perspective clone tiling": cloning an object to each cell of a 3D grid defined by a box;

:* even enable ellipse and other drawing tools to draw in one plane of the currently selected box's perspective.

This is a big and infinitely expandable area. We do not expect any single student to cover all of this in a single summer. You can propose a reasonably useful subset of this functionality as your 2007 GSoC project.

<b>Mentor:</b> Bulia Byak

=== Live Path Effects ===

As explained on [[LivePathEffects|this wiki page]], Live Path Effects allow arbitrary path-changing effects to be applied to any path object. Inkscape will remember the original path before the transformation was applied, so you will be able to remove the effect, chain several effects on the same path, adjust their parameters, etc. All the effects metadata will be stored in Inkscape-only attributes. At the same time, the resulting visible path (with the effects applied) is saved using pure SVG elements and attributes and thus visible to all SVG renderers, thus upholding Inkscape's basic principle of operation: drawings must look exactly the same in Inkscape as in any SVG-compliant renderer.

This approach will allow us to make many of the effects currently implemeted as extensions (in the Effects menu) live and interactive. Path randomization, putting pattern along path, blends, envelopes, various distortions - all these can and should be live path effects, not the clunky, slow, and inconvenient Python scripts. Fortunately, Inkscape architecture makes creating live path effects relatively easy.

To complete this project, a student must implement at least several simple effects, propose and create a basic user interface for applying them to paths (Path Effects tool?). Some of the effects that you could start with are:

* '''Patterned or "skeletal" strokes''': Similar to the "Pattern along path" extension in 0.45, but fully interactive and auto-updating. You can edit the "skeleton" path and the pattern applied to it at any time.

* '''Filleting''' (corner rounding) is common in technical drawing. While this is a fairly basic drafting task, it's currently not particularly easy to do in Inkscape except for certain cases such as round cornered rectangles. This effect would apply rounding with a given radius to all or some sharp corners of a path. It should also permit creation of '''chamfers''' which are flattened edges at suitable angles.

* '''Fractalize''' is currently a Python effect but would make a great live path effect. It can be useful in <b>mapmaking</b>; maps involve lots of irregular shapes - coastlines, forest boundaries, rivers, etc. that could use fractalization with adjustable level. (As an added bonus, this could be implemented so that the level of fractalization depends on zoom, but preserving this behavior outside of Inkscape would require some smart scripting as explained in this paper: [http://www.svgopen.org/2004/papers/AdaptiveLoD/ Adaptive Level of Detail in SVG].)

<b>Mentor:</b> Aaron Spike

=== Inkboard Portability ===

Last year we had a successful project to integrate the SVG online whiteboard capability, called Inkboard, into Inkscape. Unfortunately, it does not work on Windows, so many users are missing out on this capability.

This work may involve [http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/inkscape/inkscape/branches/INKBOARD_PEDRO/src/jabber_whiteboard/protocol/ formalizing and extending the Inkboard communication protocol] and [http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/inkscape/inkscape/branches/INKBOARD_PEDRO/src/jabber_whiteboard/ working on the INKBOARD_PEDRO branch])

<b>Mentor:</b> Ted

=== New Grids ===

Inkscape currently has square grids that can be snapped to. Extend this to allow other kinds of grids: Perspective, hex, iso, etc.

This will involve modifying the grid code to support the ability to have multiple kinds of grids, implementing at least 3 new grids, and adding the UI elements to allow users to make use of them.

Requests in tracker:
*[http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1591386&group_id=93438&atid=604309 Perspective Grid: 2 and 3 point with sample Perl script.]
*[http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1005753&group_id=93438&atid=604309 Perspective Grid: 1, 2, and 3 point.]
*[http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1418249&group_id=93438&atid=604309 Hex Grid.]
*[http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1365504&group_id=93438&atid=604309 Isometric Grid.]
*[http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=900270&group_id=93438&atid=604309 Isometric Grid.]

<b>Mentor:</b> TBD

=== Text Tool Improvements ===

Inkscape's text tool is handy, but still lacks many of the niceties that users would like. This project would seek to address this by implementing various improvements that users have requested.

Some ideas for improvements:
* When flowing a text which already contains line breaks, provide a way for the line breaks to be conserved
* When the style selected in the the Text and Font dialog is applied it erases any other style applied to some part of the text (like italics on some words, bold on others…), it would also be better to keep them where appropriate.
* Support [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/text.html#TextDecorationProperties text-decoration] (underline, overline, line-through)
* Better respect different faces of fonts (Light, Book, Normal, Black etc.)
* Support justified text - might be some subset of those proposed at http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-text/; see also http://bowman.csse.monash.edu.au/~pmoulder/text-in-shape.tar.gz as a possible starting point.
* Paragraph styling - space before & after paragraphs, indent left & right.
* Spellchecking. Inkscape includes limited spellchecking support based on aspell but it is not enabled by default. Spellchecking based on enchant could use a much wider range of spellchecking engines and be made more widely available and be good enough to show prominently and enable by default.
* Search through the Inkscape Request for Enhancement (RFE) list for other text and font improvement ideas.

See also: http://valessio.ul-jb.org/projetos/inkscape/inkscribus.htm

<b>Mentor:</b> TBD

=== Color Adjustment Dialog ===

Currently, it is possible to select, say, 12 objects in the drawing and set them to the same color/gradient/pattern. This project would go a step further, allowing multiple objects of differing color to have aspects of their color (such as brightness/contrast, HSL, etc.) altered, and to operate on vector objects with different fill styles (flat, gradient, or pattern fills), and to bitmaps.

Note: in 0.45, we have a set of extension effects that do this. But they are clumsy and slow. We need this to be in the core of the program with a good interactive user interface.

<b>Mentor:</b> Bulia Byak

== Import/export ==

=== Native Import of Encapsulated Poscript (EPS) or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) ===

While SVG is becoming a common format for exchanging data between graphics programs, EPS and PDF are still much more common. Inkscape's current EPS import is brittle, not as well maitained as we might like, and not available for all target platforms as it depends on 3rd party software. The goal is to give Inkscape native EPS or PDF import capability.

Where the code can be borrowed from:

*For EPS: Scribus' EPS Import Library

*For PDF: Poppler library http://poppler.freedesktop.org/

*For both: Ghostscript (though it may be too heavy for us)

The student needs to evaluate these (or other) possibilities, lay out a plan, and implement a native importer in Inkscape, either using an external lib to link to, or just importing the necessary code directly into Inkscape tree (as we did for Potrace). The end result will be Inkscape being able to correctly import a reasonable majority of EPS or PDF files in the wild (we can agree on a more formal conformance test if this idea interests anyone).

<b>Mentor:</b> ???

=== Native Import/Export of Corel Draw (CDR) files ===

Corel Draw was and still is a very popular drawing application and many files exist in the Corel Draw format. The user interface of Corel Draw is more similar in many ways to Inkscape than other graphics software making Inkscape more attractive to Corel Draw artists. We are getting a lot of requests from users to support this format.

While CDR is not an open format, several open source implementations exist, from which you can borrow code:

* Open source [http://xaralx.org/ Xara LX] can import and export CDR files.

* [http://sk1.sourceforge.net sK1] is a Corel Draw lookalike vector editor, at early stages of development but claiming to be able to read CDR files.

* CDR files use [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIFF RIFF metaformat], which means you can easily find an open source library for reading the top layer of the format (try any open source app that can read WAV or AVI, which are also RIFF-based). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.cdr

A student for this project will need to plan the scope of the feature (we do not need to do all the fancy features, but basics need to be covered) and assemble, with the help of the mentor, a library of sample CDR files for testing.

'''Mentor:''' Bulia Byak

=== ccHost Import/Export ===

Allow exporting to, or importing from, a remote ccHost instance.

In particular, export to the [[OpenClipArtLibrary]], and import from said library (with some search terms, tag words, and perhaps even browsing.)

[[LionKimbro]] can help someone spec out the capabilities, interfaces (both programmatic and GUI), and so on. He's written a little on [[OpenClipArtLibraryIntegration]] already. cell: 206.427.2545.

== SVG features ==

=== SVG Font support ===

We need SVG Font support in order to be able to claim SVG Tiny support. While the occurrence of SVG fonts in the wild seems to be pretty low, we will benefit from this by being able to embed fonts and thus ensure rendering of text without converting it to paths.

<b>Mentor:</b> ???

=== External Cascading Stylesheet (CSS) Support ===

Inkscape currently has good support for inline CSS, and limited read-only support for an internal stylesheet in a <style> element, and no support for external stylesheets. Support for editing non-inline CSS would allow better expressiveness and adaptation, and smaller SVG files, and better support for SVG generated by other programs that use non-inline CSS.

<b>Mentor:</b> Peter Moulder

=== Multi-page Support ===

An often requested feature is for Inkscape to support multi-page editing.
Currently, an Inkscape document is set to correspond to 1 printed page. However, the next version of SVG specification (1.2) includes support for [http://jan.kollhof.net/projects/svg/motjuvie/present.xhtml multi-page documents], and lots of people would like to have this capability in Inkscape as well.

This project would involve several steps: 1) Add internal support for reading and writing SVG 1.2 <pageSet> and <page> elements. 2) When editing a pageSet, create the visual page frames for each <page>. 3) When exporting to Postscript, have it export each <page> as a separate page in the Postscript file.

(Another frequent request is support for a tabbed interface. To be clear a tabbed interface is quite a different request from this one and any such Tabbed interface would need to accomodate the requirement of single documents with multiple pages like those proposed in SVG and already existing in PDF, OpenDocument Draw, and many others.)

=== User Interface for SVG Filters ===

Filters are a very important [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/filters.html SVG capability].

Inkscape has basic support for filters in general thanks to a couple GSoC students' work last year, and more or less complete support for Gaussian Blur. What is needed: (1) adding support for more filters and making sure they work well in combination; (2) designing a UI that will be able to create, view, and modify arbitrarily complex filter stacks.

<b>Mentor:</b> Bulia Byak

== Raster Graphics ==

=== Inkscape / GIMP raster graphics Editing Integration ===

Currently, you can embed raster/bitmap images into Inkscape drawings, but editing them is a bit of a hassle because Inkscape isn't really "aware" of external bitmap editing tools.

This project would seek to correct this by modifying inkscape's image embedding code to interoperate more directly with external bitmap programs. For instance, there would be an "open external editor" command that could be used when one or more bitmap images are selected. Another idea would be to include some common bitmap modification commands from the external program, that can be run entirely within Inkscape. A third idea is drag and drop of selections from the bitmap editor to Inkscape, and SVG selections from Inkscape to the bitmap tool.

As a proof of concept, the result should demonstrate this interoperability with GIMP and/or [http://www.gegl.org/ GeGL]. Note that the code should be developed such that in theory it should work with any bitmap editor, but we would only require demonstration of working with GIMP.

Also see: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=862655&group_id=93438&atid=604309

<b>Mentor:</b> TBD

=== Adding raster capabilities to Inkscape ===

While the purpose of Inkscape is to be a vector editor, design in the real world requires dealing with bitmaps too. Inkscape can import the bitmaps, and have them as full canvas objects, but there is no significant bitmap operations in Inkscape. While there is no reason for Inkscape to replicate the functionality of The GIMP, it would be desirable to have a few simple operations available from Inkscape.

This project will use the Inkscape extensions system to add a series of bitmap effects. The majority of the effects will be achieved through the integration of the ImageMagick bitmap handling libraries. GIMP may be another source. These effects can then be run on bitmap graphics within Inkscape.

The work should be encapsulated in such a way that in theory, other vector graphics applications (such as Xara), could also use the work. However, for the scope of this project we only require demonstration of the capabilities in Inkscape.

There are various requests in the tracker on this topic but they are difficult to identify since a mix of terminology is used, such as bitmap, raster, pixel and other graphics terms. Ask the developers on the mailing lists if in doubt.

<b>Project Timeline:</b>

* Implement first effect. This involves building Inkscape, linking in ImageMagick and getting one effect written (6 weeks)
* Implement remaining effects within ImageMagick (3 weeks)
* Build a test suite for operations and complete all Doxygen documentation of code (3 weeks)

<b>Mentor:</b> Ted Gould

== Your own original ideas ==

Original ideas are also welcome but students stand a better chance of getting selected by choosing from the suggested projects and where a mentor is available to supervise the work. If in doubt contact the developers on the mailing lists.

= Accepted by Google =

*[http://www.scs.carleton.ca/~gbanaszk/code/soc07/index.htm Text Improvements]
** by Gail Banaszkiewicz, mentored by Richard Hughes

* Native PDF import capability based on libpoppler
**by Miklos Erdelyi, mentored by Jon Cruz

* [[GSOC2007 Live path effects in Inkscape|Live path effects in Inkscape]]
** by Johan Engelen, mentored by Aaron Spike

* 3D box tool for Inkscape
** by Maximilian Albert, mentored by bulia byak

* UI for SVG Filter Effects
** by Nicholas Bishop, mentored by MenTaLguY

* Raster Functionality in Inkscape
** by Christopher Brown, mentored by Theodore J. Gould

* Importing from, and Exporting to, a remote ccHost instance
**by Bruno Lu Gon-alves Dilly, mentored by Bryce Harrington

= Past Years =

* [[Googles Summer of Code 2006]]
* Googles Summer of Code 2005
** [[SOC Accepted Proposals]]
** [[SOC Writing Project Proposals]]
** [[SOC Selection Criteria]]
** [[SOC Original Project Prompts]]