Inkscape Wiki - User contributions [en]

Release notes/0.47

2008-03-31T04:38:07Z

Mental: /* User interface */

=Inkscape 0.47=
'''(not released yet)'''

=Tools=

==Node tool==

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

==Calligraphy tool ==
Added 4 preset buttons for dip, pen, brush and reed in the toolbox. Clicking one button sets the calligraphic tool with the matching presets.

=Live path effects=
==New effects==
[new: sketch, von koch, knot]

==New features==
* The '''Paste Path Effect''' command is enabled to assign the path effect of the clipboard to any number of paths, going recursively into groups if necessary.

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

* Along with the commands to open the path effects dialog and to paste path effects, the three commands were collected in a submenu under Path menu.

* Live path effects can now be assigned to the sides of a 3D box (use Ctrl+click to select individual sides).

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

==Live Path Effect for groups==

LPE can now be assigned to a group. For most LPE, the effect is applied recursively but for Bend Path the result is more powerful : the distortion applies on the whole group.

*Original path of the group can as usual be edited by double-clicking.
*It applies recursively, this means that a LPE can be assigned to groups of groups
*The Effect can be applied definitively with "Convert Object to path"

=Import/Export=
==Corel DRAW files import==

Now Inkscape can import more Corel DRAW files of following types:

* Corel DRAW Compressed Exchange files (CCX)
* Corel DRAW 7-X4 Template files (CDT)
* Corel DRAW Presentation Exchange files (CMX)

Text objects are not supported as of UniConvertor 1.1.1.

==sK1 files import==

Inkscape uses UniConvertor to import sK1 files. Text objects are not supported as of UniConvertor 1.1.1.

==CGM import==

Inkscape uses UniConvertor to import Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) files. Text objects are not supported as of UniConvertor 1.1.1.

==PDF export==

With PDF export, it is now possible to make the PDF page the size of the entire drawing, instead of the same as SVG page as before by the "Export drawing, not page" checkbox in PDF export options. Also, you can export a single object from a complex document to PDF if you specify the ID of that object in the "Limit export to the object with ID" field; the page of such PDF will be the same size as the bounding box of that object and will show only that object (all others will be hidden).

The same capabilities are available from the command line by using <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-id=ID</code> parameters with <code>--export-pdf</code> (previously, they only worked for PNG export).

=Extension effects=
==New and improved effects==

* The new '''Text > Convert to Braille''' extension recodes English (or just Latin letters) text to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille Braille] code created for visually impaired people.
* The new '''Render > Alphabet Soup''' extension is a vector rework of Matt Chrisholm's GPLed script [http://www.theory.org/artprojects/alphabetsoup/main.html]. Alphabet Soup randomly mashes glyph-elements together to make exotic looking text.

=SVG output=

==Optimized CSS properties==

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

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

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

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

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

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

fill-opacity
fill-rule

==Optimized path data==

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

This is controlled by the following attributes in <code>group id="svgoutput"</code> in your preferences.xml file:

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

=User interface=
==Filters Can be Disabled==
In order to facilitate editing documents that use lots of SVG filter effects, filter effects can now be disabled for a particular document window by selecting '''View|Display mode|No Filters''' from its menu. This provides an intermediate step between "normal" and "outline" view modes.

==Native File Dialogs for Windows==
The windows builds of inkscape now have Windows-native file dialogs to keep consistency with other windows applications.

==Clipboard enhancements==

The clipboard used by Inkscape is now system-wide instead of being confined to a single instance of the application. Copied elements are exported to the clipboard using all the available output formats. SVG data can be pasted into other applications supporting one of Inkscape's output formats, and SVG data provided by other applications can be pasted into Inkscape.

If you copy a string that can be interpreted as a hexadecimal color specification, i.e. 2f7ab4 or #014522b0, and then paste it into Inkscape, the fill of the selected objects will change to the given color. This is especially useful when working with HTML pages.

==Masks and clipping paths==

[johan]

==Enhanced Tablet Support==

===Input device tool switching===

Tablets and other input devices that report separate hardware are now recognized and current tool and/or settings can be set to switch in response to the physical tool being used.

===Extended input device configuration===

The stock Input Devices dialog has been replaced with a completely redone version that provides a more useful representation of settings. It also contains a simple area for testing different inputs of different devices.

Additionally hardware setup itself has been separated from general settings to allow for easier dynamic switching of settings appropriate to the task at hand.

==Dropper tool==

The confusing icons on buttons in the controls bar of the Dropper tool (pick/assign opacity) are replaced by text labels.

=Grids, guides, snapping=

==Guides==

There is now an option to treat groups as single objects during conversion to guides (as opposed to converting each object inside the group separately).

==Snapping==
Snapping has been implemented or improved in these areas:
* The '''node tool''' now snaps to any unselected node (cusp or smooth) within the path that's being edited, and to cusp nodes of other paths. It also snaps to the path itself, but only to the stationary segments in between two unselected nodes.
* The object snapper now also allows to snap to the '''page border'''

=Notable bug fixes=

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

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

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

SpecIccForCairo

2008-02-23T19:18:21Z

Mental: /* Profiles */

== Why ==
In order for inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with cairo, Cairo needs to support ICC. This is an intent to propose a Cairo API that would be suitable with inkscape needs.

== Profiles ==
A set of profiles will apply to the whole Cairo surface.
Cairo needs to be able to compute a transform from this set.
We can get inspiration from the lcms api [http://www.littlecms.com/LCMSAPI.TXT], in particular the cmsCreateMultiprofileTransform (more generic than cmsCreateTransform that handles only a single pair of color profiles).

So a proposal would be:

typedef enum cairo_color_intent {
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORIMETRIC,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_SATURATION,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC
} cairo_color_intent_t;

typedef struct cairo_color_profile cairo_color_profile_t;

void cairo_surface_set_color_profile_srgb(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *profile);

cairo_color_profile_t *
cairo_surface_get_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_add_profile_mapping(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *in,
cairo_color_profile_t *out);

void
cairo_surface_remove_profile_mappings(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_intent_t intent);

cairo_color_intent_t
cairo_surface_get_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_set_source_icc_color(cairo_t *cr,
cairo_color_profile_t *profile,
const double *components,
int num_components);

Color transformations would be performed when painting from a pattern
to a surface, based on the surface's profile, mappings, intent, etc.

== Open issues ==

* Should surface profile/color rendering changes be allowed once the surface is being actively used?
* How should gradients work in this regime?
* How should '''cairo_color_profile_t'''s be created/loaded?

SpecIccForCairo

2008-02-23T19:17:33Z

Mental: /* Profiles */

== Why ==
In order for inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with cairo, Cairo needs to support ICC. This is an intent to propose a Cairo API that would be suitable with inkscape needs.

== Profiles ==
A set of profiles will apply to the whole Cairo surface.
Cairo needs to be able to compute a transform from this set.
We can get inspiration from the lcms api [http://www.littlecms.com/LCMSAPI.TXT], in particular the cmsCreateMultiprofileTransform (more generic than cmsCreateTransform that handles only a single pair of color profiles).

So a proposal would be:

typedef enum cairo_color_intent {
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORIMETRIC,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_SATURATION,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC
} cairo_color_intent_t;

typedef struct cairo_color_profile cairo_color_profile_t;

void cairo_surface_set_color_profile_srgb(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *profile);

cairo_color_profile_t *
cairo_surface_get_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_add_profile_mapping(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *in,
cairo_color_profile_t *out);

void
cairo_surface_remove_profile_mappings(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_intent_t intent);

cairo_color_intent_t
cairo_surface_get_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_set_source_icc_color(cairo_color_profile_t *profile,
const double *components,
int num_components);

Color transformations would be performed when painting from a pattern
to a surface, based on the surface's profile, mappings, intent, etc.

== Open issues ==

* Should surface profile/color rendering changes be allowed once the surface is being actively used?
* How should gradients work in this regime?
* How should '''cairo_color_profile_t'''s be created/loaded?

SpecIccForCairo

2008-02-23T19:15:42Z

Mental: /* Open issues */

== Why ==
In order for inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with cairo, Cairo needs to support ICC. This is an intent to propose a Cairo API that would be suitable with inkscape needs.

== Profiles ==
A set of profiles will apply to the whole Cairo surface.
Cairo needs to be able to compute a transform from this set.
We can get inspiration from the lcms api [http://www.littlecms.com/LCMSAPI.TXT], in particular the cmsCreateMultiprofileTransform (more generic than cmsCreateTransform that handles only a single pair of color profiles).

So a proposal would be:

typedef enum cairo_color_intent {
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORIMETRIC,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_SATURATION,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC
} cairo_color_intent_t;

typedef struct cairo_color_profile cairo_color_profile_t;

void cairo_surface_set_color_profile_srgb(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *profile);

cairo_color_profile_t *
cairo_surface_get_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_add_profile_mapping(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *in,
cairo_color_profile_t *out);

void
cairo_surface_remove_profile_mappings(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_intent_t intent);

cairo_color_intent_t
cairo_surface_get_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_set_source_icc_color(cairo_color_profile_t *profile,
const double *components,
int num_components);

== Open issues ==

* Should surface profile/color rendering changes be allowed once the surface is being actively used?
* How should gradients work in this regime?
* How should '''cairo_color_profile_t'''s be created/loaded?

SpecIccForCairo

2008-02-23T19:15:18Z

Mental: /* Profiles */

== Why ==
In order for inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with cairo, Cairo needs to support ICC. This is an intent to propose a Cairo API that would be suitable with inkscape needs.

== Profiles ==
A set of profiles will apply to the whole Cairo surface.
Cairo needs to be able to compute a transform from this set.
We can get inspiration from the lcms api [http://www.littlecms.com/LCMSAPI.TXT], in particular the cmsCreateMultiprofileTransform (more generic than cmsCreateTransform that handles only a single pair of color profiles).

So a proposal would be:

typedef enum cairo_color_intent {
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORIMETRIC,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_SATURATION,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC
} cairo_color_intent_t;

typedef struct cairo_color_profile cairo_color_profile_t;

void cairo_surface_set_color_profile_srgb(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *profile);

cairo_color_profile_t *
cairo_surface_get_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_add_profile_mapping(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *in,
cairo_color_profile_t *out);

void
cairo_surface_remove_profile_mappings(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_intent_t intent);

cairo_color_intent_t
cairo_surface_get_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_set_source_icc_color(cairo_color_profile_t *profile,
const double *components,
int num_components);

== Open issues ==

* Should surface profile/color rendering changes be allowed once the surface is being actively used?
* How should gradients work in this regime?
* How should cairo_color_profile_ts be created/loaded?

SpecIccForCairo

2008-02-23T19:15:02Z

Mental: /* Profiles */

== Why ==
In order for inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with cairo, Cairo needs to support ICC. This is an intent to propose a Cairo API that would be suitable with inkscape needs.

== Profiles ==
A set of profiles will apply to the whole Cairo surface.
Cairo needs to be able to compute a transform from this set.
We can get inspiration from the lcms api [http://www.littlecms.com/LCMSAPI.TXT], in particular the cmsCreateMultiprofileTransform (more generic than cmsCreateTransform that handles only a single pair of color profiles).

So a proposal would be:

typedef enum cairo_color_intent {
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORIMETRIC,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_SATURATION,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC
} cairo_color_intent_t;

typedef struct cairo_color_profile cairo_color_profile_t;

void cairo_surface_set_color_profile_srgb(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *profile);

cairo_color_profile_t *
cairo_surface_get_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_add_profile_mapping(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *in,
cairo_color_profile_t *out);

void
cairo_surface_remove_profile_mappings(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_intent_t intent);

cairo_color_intent_t
cairo_surface_get_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_set_source_icc_color(cairo_color_profile_t *profile,
const double *components,
int num_components);

== Open issues ==

* Should surface profile/color rendering changes be allowed once the surface is being actively used?
* How should gradients work in this regime?
* How should cairo_color_profile_ts be created/loaded?

SpecIccForCairo

2008-02-23T19:14:15Z

Mental: /* Open issues */

== Why ==
In order for inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with cairo, Cairo needs to support ICC. This is an intent to propose a Cairo API that would be suitable with inkscape needs.

== Profiles ==
A set of profiles will apply to the whole Cairo surface.
Cairo needs to be able to compute a transform from this set.
We can get inspiration from the lcms api [http://www.littlecms.com/LCMSAPI.TXT], in particular the cmsCreateMultiprofileTransform (more generic than cmsCreateTransform that handles only a single pair of color profiles).

So a proposal would be:

typedef enum cairo_color_intent {
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORIMETRIC,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_SATURATION,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC
} cairo_color_intent_t;

typedef struct cairo_color_profile cairo_color_profile_t;

void
cairo_surface_set_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *profile);

cairo_color_profile_t *
cairo_surface_get_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_add_profile_mapping(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *in,
cairo_color_profile_t *out);

void
cairo_surface_remove_profile_mappings(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_intent_t intent);

cairo_color_intent_t
cairo_surface_get_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_set_source_icc_color(cairo_color_profile_t *profile,
const double *components,
int num_components);

== Open issues ==

* Should surface profile/color rendering changes be allowed once the surface is being actively used?
* How should gradients work in this regime?
* How should cairo_color_profile_ts be created/loaded?

SpecIccForCairo

2008-02-23T19:13:13Z

Mental: /* Profiles */

== Why ==
In order for inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with cairo, Cairo needs to support ICC. This is an intent to propose a Cairo API that would be suitable with inkscape needs.

== Profiles ==
A set of profiles will apply to the whole Cairo surface.
Cairo needs to be able to compute a transform from this set.
We can get inspiration from the lcms api [http://www.littlecms.com/LCMSAPI.TXT], in particular the cmsCreateMultiprofileTransform (more generic than cmsCreateTransform that handles only a single pair of color profiles).

So a proposal would be:

typedef enum cairo_color_intent {
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORIMETRIC,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_SATURATION,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC
} cairo_color_intent_t;

typedef struct cairo_color_profile cairo_color_profile_t;

void
cairo_surface_set_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *profile);

cairo_color_profile_t *
cairo_surface_get_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_add_profile_mapping(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *in,
cairo_color_profile_t *out);

void
cairo_surface_remove_profile_mappings(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_intent_t intent);

cairo_color_intent_t
cairo_surface_get_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_set_source_icc_color(cairo_color_profile_t *profile,
const double *components,
int num_components);

== Open issues ==

* Should surface profile/color rendering changes be allowed once the surface is being actively used?
* How should gradients work in this regime?

SpecIccForCairo

2008-02-23T19:12:51Z

Mental: /* Open issues */

== Why ==
In order for inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with cairo, Cairo needs to support ICC. This is an intent to propose a Cairo API that would be suitable with inkscape needs.

== Profiles ==
A set of profiles will apply to the whole Cairo surface.
Cairo needs to be able to compute a transform from this set.
We can get inspiration from the lcms api [http://www.littlecms.com/LCMSAPI.TXT], in particular the cmsCreateMultiprofileTransform (more generic than cmsCreateTransform that handles only a single pair of color profiles).

So a proposal would be:

typedef enum cairo_color_intent {
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORIMETRIC,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_SATURATION,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC
} cairo_color_intent_t;

typedef struct cairo_color_profile cairo_color_profile_t;

void
cairo_surface_set_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *profile);

cairo_color_profile_t *
cairo_surface_get_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_add_profile_mapping(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *in,
cairo_color_profile_t *out);

void
cairo_surface_remove_profile_mappings(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_intent_t intent);

cairo_color_intent_t
cairo_surface_get_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_set_source_icc_color(cairo_color_profile_t *profile,
const double *components,
int num_components);

== Open issues ==

* Should surface profile/color rendering changes be allowed once the surface is being actively used?
* How should gradients work in this regime?

SpecIccForCairo

2008-02-23T19:12:33Z

Mental: /* Profiles */

== Why ==
In order for inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with cairo, Cairo needs to support ICC. This is an intent to propose a Cairo API that would be suitable with inkscape needs.

== Profiles ==
A set of profiles will apply to the whole Cairo surface.
Cairo needs to be able to compute a transform from this set.
We can get inspiration from the lcms api [http://www.littlecms.com/LCMSAPI.TXT], in particular the cmsCreateMultiprofileTransform (more generic than cmsCreateTransform that handles only a single pair of color profiles).

So a proposal would be:

typedef enum cairo_color_intent {
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORIMETRIC,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_SATURATION,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC
} cairo_color_intent_t;

typedef struct cairo_color_profile cairo_color_profile_t;

void
cairo_surface_set_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *profile);

cairo_color_profile_t *
cairo_surface_get_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_add_profile_mapping(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *in,
cairo_color_profile_t *out);

void
cairo_surface_remove_profile_mappings(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_intent_t intent);

cairo_color_intent_t
cairo_surface_get_color_intent(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_set_source_icc_color(cairo_color_profile_t *profile,
const double *components,
int num_components);

== Open issues ==

- Should surface profile/color rendering changes be allowed once the surface is being actively used?

- How should gradients work in this regime?

SpecIccForCairo

2008-02-23T19:09:43Z

Mental: whitespace

== Why ==
In order for inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with cairo, Cairo needs to support ICC. This is an intent to propose a Cairo API that would be suitable with inkscape needs.

== Profiles ==
A set of profiles will apply to the whole Cairo surface.
Cairo needs to be able to compute a transform from this set.
We can get inspiration from the lcms api [http://www.littlecms.com/LCMSAPI.TXT], in particular the cmsCreateMultiprofileTransform (more generic than cmsCreateTransform that handles only a single pair of color profiles).

So a proposal would be:

typedef enum cairo_color_intent {
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORIMETRIC,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_SATURATION,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC
} cairo_color_intent_t;

typedef struct cairo_color_profile cairo_color_profile_t;

void
cairo_surface_set_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *profile);

cairo_color_profile_t *
cairo_surface_get_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_add_profile_mapping(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *in,
cairo_color_profile_t *out);

void
cairo_surface_remove_profile_mappings(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_rendering(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_intent_t intent);

void
cairo_set_source_icc_color(cairo_color_profile_t *profile,
const double *components,
int num_components);

SpecIccForCairo

2008-02-23T19:09:10Z

Mental: More work on matching Cairo API style

== Why ==
In order for inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with cairo, Cairo needs to support ICC. This is an intent to propose a Cairo API that would be suitable with inkscape needs.

== Profiles ==
A set of profiles will apply to the whole Cairo surface.
Cairo needs to be able to compute a transform from this set.
We can get inspiration from the lcms api [http://www.littlecms.com/LCMSAPI.TXT], in particular the cmsCreateMultiprofileTransform (more generic than cmsCreateTransform that handles only a single pair of color profiles).

So a proposal would be:

typedef enum cairo_color_intent {
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORIMETRIC,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_SATURATION,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC
} cairo_color_intent_t;

typedef struct cairo_color_profile cairo_color_profile_t;

void
cairo_surface_set_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *profile);

cairo_color_profile_t *
cairo_surface_get_color_profile(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_add_profile_mapping(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_profile_t *in,
cairo_color_profile_t *out);

void
cairo_surface_remove_profile_mappings(cairo_surface_t *surf);

void
cairo_surface_set_color_rendering(cairo_surface_t *surf,
cairo_color_intent_t intent);

void
cairo_set_source_icc_color(cairo_color_profile_t *profile,
const double *components,
int num_components);

SpecIccForCairo

2008-02-23T18:53:07Z

Mental: Try to match cairo API a little better

== Why ==
In order for inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with cairo, Cairo needs to support ICC. This is an intent to propose a Cairo API that would be suitable with inkscape needs.

== Profiles ==
A set of profiles will apply to the whole Cairo surface.
Cairo needs to be able to compute a transform from this set.
We can get inspiration from the lcms api [http://www.littlecms.com/LCMSAPI.TXT], in particular the cmsCreateMultiprofileTransform (more generic than cmsCreateTransform that handles only a pair of color profiles).

So a proposal would be:

typedef enum cairo_color_intent {
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_PERCEPTUAL,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_RELATIVE_COLORIMETRIC,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_SATURATION,
CAIRO_COLOR_INTENT_ABSOLUTE_COLORIMETRIC
} cairo_color_intent_t;

typedef struct cairo_color_profile cairo_color_profile_t;

void cairo_pattern_add_profile_pair (cairo_pattern_t *pat,
cairo_color_profile_t *in,
cairo_color_profile_t *out);

void cairo_pattern_remove_profiles (cairo_pattern_t *pat);

void cairo_pattern_set_color_intent(cairo_pattern_t *pat,
cairo_color_intent_t intent);

== Colors==
All the functions handling colors, like cairo_set_source_rgba and cairo_set_source_rgb, must be complemented (or replaced) with
void cairo_set_source_profiled_color (cairo_t *cr, void* color);
format of the color is the one defined by DWORD input_format.

Release notes/0.46

2008-01-06T21:48:27Z

Mental: /* Speed and interactivity */

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

Highlights in this release:

* Paintbucket tool

* Tweak tool

* 3D Box tool

* Live path effects

* Color management

* New SVG filters and UI

* Native PDF and AI import

* XAML import/export

* Open Clip Art Library integration (import/export)

* Stock patterns

* Bitmap editing extension effects

* Full on-canvas gradient editing

* Engraver's Toolbox in the Calligraphic tool

* Touch selection

* Dockable dialogs

* Command-line access to verbs

* Snapping made usable

* "3D" / axonometric grid

* Angled guidelines

* Significant speed and interactivity improvements

* Hundreds of smaller features and bugfixes

=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 in order from top to bottom. Now the redraw always starts '''at your mouse cursor location''' and proceed upwards and downwards from it, so that the area near the cursor is always redrawn first. This significantly improves program's responsiveness in some situations. For example, when you are node-editing part of a complex path, the entire path needs to be redrawn on each change, but now this redraw starts from the point you're working on. Moreover, the redraw is interruptible, so each mouse movement starts new redraw from the mouse cursor area. As a result, during such operations those parts that you're working on redraw often and feel snappy and responsive, while areas further away may lag behind more.

* '''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).

:'''Exporting drawings with blur''' was particularly slow in 0.45; some files could take hours to export. Now this is fixed, in part by the faster algorithm mentioned above and in part by a bugfix in the export code. Now even the quite complex files with large blurs export at high resolution in at most a few minutes.

* Minor improvements have been made to gradient rendering performance.

* '''Dragging handles and nodes''' as well as '''dragging and transforming objects''' by mouse became more responsive, so that working in complex drawings and especially editing complex paths is noticeably easier. In particular, this fixes the annoying latency issue where a node or a handle could follow mouse cursor even after you release mouse button after a drag.

* '''Moving objects, nodes, and gradient handles by cursor keys''' as well as '''scaling and rotating objects from keyboard''' and '''zooming by keys''' are much more responsive when working with complex slow-rendering objects. Now, if you press and hold a key, your selection/zoom level will quickly jump to the final position instead of going through all the intermediate steps as before.

* '''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".

:* '''Redrawing the newly exposed parts of the canvas''' after scrolling, especially diagonal scrolling, is now faster because only the exposed areas are redrawn; before, this often resulted in the entire screen being redrawn which was much slower.

:* Previously, if you started 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.)

* Better responsiveness and more visual feedback in user interface:

:*When you zoom, the '''zoom control''' on the right end of the statusbar now updates immediately, not after screen redraw as before.

:*Many potentially slow commands (Save, Simplify, Combine, Break Apart and others) now display a '''busy cursor''' and flash a message in the statusbar (e.g. "Saving document...") while they work.

:*The '''statusbar messages''' displayed while you're drawing a shape or a path in Pen tool do not lag behind the mouse movements.

* '''Combine''' and '''Convert to paths''' commands are now orders of magnitude faster when applied to a selection with hundreds or thousands of objects.

* The time it takes to '''snap to objects''' using the selector tool has been reduced dramatically, which is most noticeable for snapping to complex paths.

=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.

===How it works===

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 (or use the auto gap closing parameter, see below).

===Style===

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). As in all other tools, the '''style swatch''' on the far right of the Controls bar shows the style that will be used for the next fill object you create.

===Controls===

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

* Paint Bucket's perceptual fill can use either all visible colors or specific color channels. Using the '''Fill by''' drop-down list, you can restrict the fill algorithm to one the following channels:
** Red
** Green
** Blue
** Hue
** Saturation
** Lightness
** Alpha

* The '''Threshold''' (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%.

* Using the '''Grow/shrink by''' parameter, 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 much the same as the Outset and Inset path commands, except it's done automatically after every fill.

* With the '''Close gaps''' parameter, you can make the Paint Bucket tool ignore 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 (close gaps up to 2 pixels in size)
** Medium (4 pixels)
** Large (6 pixels)
:Note that setting this parameter to other than None may slow down noticeably the filling of large areas.

===Shortcuts===

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.

==Tweak tool==

The Tweak tool is an exciting new way to edit drawings which largely blurs the
distinction between vector and raster editing. Instead of meticulously selecting some
objects and then performing an action on the selection, you can now select ''all''
objects (or all objects you are interested in) and apply the Tweak tool's brush to
smoothly and naturally change the shape or style of only those objects (or parts
thereof) ''that the brush touches''.

The area of the tool's action - its ''brush'' - is marked by an orange-colored circular
outline that moves with your mouse cursor. However, that area actually has no sharp
boundaries; the power of the tool's action falls off gradually, following a smooth
bell-shaped profile. This makes the tool act softly and smoothly.

The tool will work on any number of selected objects; for example, you can select all
(Ctrl+A) and "smear" your entire drawing by Push mode or paint it by Color Paint
mode. You can also apply it to groups of objects; it will go into groups and act on
individual objects inside groups. If you're trying to use it without anything selected,
it will remind you by a statusbar message to select some objects.

===Width===

The width of the tool's brush, in the range from 1 to 100, can be changed by the
'''Width''' control in the tool's controls bar above the canvas. You can also change
width by '''Left''' and '''Right''' arrow keys (same as in the Calligraphy tool) at any
time (including during action) as well as '''Home''' and '''End'''. Also, as in Calligraphy
tool, the visible width of the brush is independent of zoom; simply zooming in or out is
often easier than adjusting the width if you want to cover a smaller or larger area of
the drawing.

===Force===

The next control is '''Force''' which adjusts the power of the action, also in the
range from 1 to 100. You can also change width by '''Up''' and '''Down''' arrow keys at
any time (including during action).

If you have a pressure-sensitive tablet and your "Use pressure" button on the right-hand
end of the controls bar is on, then the force will also depend on how hard you actually
press your pen into your tablet, changing in the range from zero to whatever you set in
the Force control. If all you have is a mouse, then the force will be constant but still
settable by the Force control.

===Path editing modes===

The Tweak tool has a number of '''modes''', selectable by toggle buttons in the tool's
Controls bar and by keyboard shortcuts. Some of these modes change the shapes of
paths while others affect the colors of objects. All these modes share the Width and
Force controls but otherwise are quite different. Let's look at the path editing modes
first.

Unlike the Node tool, to edit paths with the Tweak tool you don't need to worry about
where the nodes of a path are and how to manipulate them. You just apply the tool's
brush to any point, and the selected paths at that point will reshape smoothly and
naturally - as if made of soft jelly - regardless of where its nodes lie. If applied to
a shape or text object, the tool converts them to paths automatically.

While not very useful for technical drawings, tweaking paths will be indispensable for
artistic uses of Inkscape - cartoons, drawings, sketches, anime, etc. This new
functionality is somewhat similar to the tools such as "Pucker" and "Bloat" in the
latest versions of Adobe Illustrator.

There are currently six path editing modes in the Tweak tool: '''Push''', '''Shrink''',
'''Grow''', '''Attract''', '''Repel''', and '''Roughen'''.

* This default mode of the tool, '''Push''', simply displaces the part of the path under the cursor in the direction of the drag. The path behaves like soft jelly, bending and bulging smoothly and naturally. It's an easy way to produce various irregular, lifelike, handmade-looking shapes starting from something as simple as an ellipse or a calligraphic stroke. For parallel-stroke hatching (engraving) done in the Calligraphy tool, pushing is an easy way to bend, pinch, or curve the entire hatching uniformly.

* The '''Shrink''' and '''Grow''' are two opposite modes that move each point of a path in a direction perpendicular to the path's surface at the point, either inwards (Shrink) or outwards (Grow). This is similar to the Inset and Outset commands, except that the Tweak tool can act on a part of a path instead of the whole path.

:For example, the visible lightness/darkness of an engraving hatching may not exactly correspond to your artistic intention. Also, the ends of Calligraphy pen strokes are often far from ideal - they may be too blunt or have unsightly bends or blobs. This is where the Tweak tool may help. Select all the strokes in a hatching pattern and apply a light Shrink action where you want the lines to become thinner (and the hatching to become lighter), up until total disappearance. If you press hard, shrinking works as an eraser, so you can easily clean the strokes' ends to make them thin, sharp, and uniform. Conversely, applying Grow makes strokes wider (i.e. the hatching becomes darker).

:Of course, shrinking and growing are useful not only for calligraphic strokes. Same as with Push, with Shrink and Grow you can '''sculpt''' any path, spawning smooth treacle-like appendages with Inflating and carving holes with Melting. Unlike the "node sculpting" mode in the Node tool, however, this does not require adding new nodes to the shape.

* The '''Attract''' and '''Repel''' modes work by moving each affected point on a path towards (Attract) or from (Repel) the cursor point. In some cases this may look similar to Shrink and Grow, but the difference is that shrinking/growing moves paths perpendicularly to the path in each point, whereas attracting/repelling moves them to or from the cursor regardless of the path shape. These modes are similar to the Pinch effect in ; you can use them for various central-symmetric distortions in parts of your paths.

* The '''Roughen''' mode does exactly this: roughens the edge of the path without changing its overall shape. Slight roughening simply makes the edge crooked and uneven; strong roughening tears and explodes the edge into random blobs and splotches. Note that this operation, especially with high Fidelity, adds a lot of nodes which increases the size of your SVG document and may slow down Inkscape considerably. In particular, pushing/melting/inflating of a roughened path becomes much slower and more difficult, so it's recommended to finalize the overall shape of a path first and roughen it, if necessary, only as the final step.

See the screenshot at [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.46-tweak-path.png] for a few examples of using the path editing modes of the Tweak tool.

====Fidelity====

Any tweaking of a path slightly distorts the entire path, including even those parts
that you didn't touch. These distortions are similar to those that a Simplify command
produces. The '''Fidelity''' value (also in the range from 1 to 100, default is 50)
allows you to control the amount of these distortions. With a higher fidelity, the
distortions are less noticeable, but the path may end up having a lot of nodes which
inflates up the SVG size and slows down Inkscape.

The best value of Fidelity depends on the nature of your artwork. If you're sculpting an
amorphous blob, you can do with low fidelity of about 20. If, however, you are pushing
or inflating a text string (as a single path) and want the letters outside the distorted
area to remain crisp and clean, you will need to raise fidelity to 80 or more.

====Known problems====

Known problems with the path editing modes in Tweak tool:

# they don't work on open paths (an open path becomes closed if you tweak it);
# they are rather slow;
# they quickly eat memory; and
# they are sometimes buggy - thin calligraphic strokes may suddenly disappear or change their shape drastically as you're melting or inflating them.

For (4), it helps to increase Fidelity. Also, you can 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.

Also, sometimes after roughening, further tweaking of a path becomes impossible with this diagnostic:

WARNING **: Shape error in ConvertToShape: directedEulerian(a) == false

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.

===Color editing modes===

The '''Color Paint''' and '''Color Jitter''' modes, unlike the path editing modes,
change the colors of objects instead of their shapes. Yet they share enough common
features with the path editing modes to be part of the same tool: These modes also use
a circular soft-edged brush controlled by the Width and Force parameters on the Controls
bar and affected by the pen pressure (if you have a pressure-sensitive tablet).

* '''Color Paint''' applies the style of the tool to the selected objects under the brush. The style of the tool is visible in the style swatch at the rightmost end of the tool's control bar; it can be changed by clicking on the color palette or by any other style assignment command, such as Fill and Stroke dialog. ('''Note''': unlike all other tools, in Tweak tool in Color Paint mode you cannot assign style directly to selected objects; any style-setting command changes the tool's style instead.)

:The fill from the tool's style applies to the fills of the painted objects, and the stroke applies to the strokes. If the tool's style has no fill or no stroke, it won't affect fills or strokes, correspondingly. For example, if you want to color the fills of objects blue but leave their strokes untouched, assign blue fill to the tool's style (just click blue on the palette) but set its stroke to None (middle-click the Stroke swatch in the statusbar). Similarly, master opacity in the tool's style affects master opacities of the touched objects (if the O channel is on, see below).

:This mode allows you to literally paint over objects, shifting their colors towards the target style of the tool. For example, if you paint with yellow fill over a blue-filled object, the object will become greenish blue, then green, then yellowish green, and end up being exactly the yellow color you're painting with. This speed of this gradual transition depends on both Force parameter and pen pressure; also, objects touched by the periphery of the brush are less affected than those hit by the brush center. Overall, using this tool is very similar to a soft brush in a raster editor such as Gimp or Photoshop.

* '''Color Jitter''' mode does not apply any color, but instead jitters (randomizes) the colors of the objects it touches. The force of the action determines how strong is the randomization, i.e. how far the colors deviate from the original values. This mode does not use the tool's style.

Both modes work on flat fills and gradients; for gradients, the tool takes into account not only the position of the entire object with gradient, but also the position of each gradient stop relative to the brush. This means that, for example, you can change the blue color only in an object filled with blue-red gradient simply by painting over its blue end with a brush small enough to not touch the red. (Note that color tweaking does not create gradients on objects that used flat color before, but only adjusts existing gradients in the drawing.)

See the screenshot at [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.46-tweak-color.png] for a few examples of using the color editing modes of the Tweak tool.

====Channels====

Color Paint and Color Jitter honor the '''Channels''' control. This control comprises
the four buttons: '''H''', '''S''', '''L''', and '''O''', which allow you to turn on and off
the tool's action on the object's hue, saturation, lightness, and opacity,
correspondingly. For example, if you want to raise the saturation of some part of your
drawing without changing the hue, select some maximum-saturation color (e.g. pure red)
and turn off all Channels buttons except S. Similarly, you can replace the hues without
affecting saturation or lightness (only H pressed), or lighten/darken all colors without
changing their hues and saturation (only L pressed). Pressing O allows you to apply the
master opacity from the tool's style to the master opacity of objects (but not fill or
stroke opacity).

====Usage notes====

Color painting with Tweak tool is similar, but not exactly analogous to bitmap
painting. Even though the tool itself works as a soft brush, it still applies its color
to vector objects, which behave as vector objects usually do. For example, if you want
to change the tint of the face in your drawing, and if a hand in the drawing is part of
the same object as the face, that hand will change its tint too even if it's located far
from the point you are painting. (We foresee a "fracture" command in one of the next
versions of Inkscape which will help you turn a monolithic object into a mosaic of small
fragments that will be then easy to paint with Tweak tool.) Still, even with this
limitation, color painting is a novel way of dealing with vector drawings which allows
you to quickly and intuitively make adjustments which would be awkward and slow with
traditional approach.

Drawings containing patterns or scatterings of small independent objects are best suited
for color painting with Tweak tool. Examples include:

* freehand drawings with Calligraphy pen, consisting of many separate strokes;

* gradient meshes imported from Adobe Illustrator files (Inkscape renders these meshes as lattices of small polygons; while there's no direct support for gradient meshes in Inkscape yet, color painting on such lattices is almost as good);

* text converted to paths and with Break Apart command applied so that each letter is a separate path;

* patterns made with the Tile Clones command; note that you need to unset the fill and/or stroke on the original object and use the Color tab to assign some initial color to the clones - this will make them paintable with the Tweak tool without unlinking.

Moreover, color tweaking can be useful for compositions with a few objects or even for
single objects. Unlike all other color selection methods, painting with the Tweak tool
implements the ''color mixing'' metaphor which is much more familiar to traditional
artists than RGB sliders or even the color wheel. For example, start with a rectagle of
pure blue color; then, pick different colors by Color Paint and apply light touches with
minimum Force and minimum pen pressure: add a little green, a little brown, a little
yellow, etc. until you have the exact hue you need. Similarly, you can whiten or blacken
any hue by admixing white or black.

You can also use color tweaking to add a tint, darken/lighten, saturate/desaturate, or
color jitter your entire drawing. Just select all in all layers, zoom out, choose a
large brush width so it covers all of the drawing, and apply a little color tweaking
(with minimum Force) that will therefore affect all visible objects.

===Keyboard shortcuts===

* '''W''', '''Shift+F2''': switch to the Tweak tool

* '''Shift+P''': switch to the Push mode

* '''Shift+S''': switch to the Shrink mode

* '''Shift+G''': switch to the Grow mode

* '''Shift+A''': switch to the Attract mode

* '''Shift+E''': switch to the Repel mode

* '''Shift+R''': switch to the Roughen mode

* '''Shift+C''': switch to the Color Paint mode

* '''Shift+J''': switch to the Color Jitter mode

* '''Left, Right, Home, End''': change width

* '''Up, Down''': change force

* '''mouse drag''': act on selected path in the current mode

* '''Ctrl+mouse drag''': temporarily switch to Shrink (while Ctrl is down)

* '''Shift+Ctrl+mouse drag''': temporarily switch to Grow (while Shift+Ctrl is down)

==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 (use Shift+dragging without releasing the mouse button to extrude in z direction)

* adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles

* move a 3D box "in perspective" by dragging its center; without modifiers, movement occurs within the XY-plane (press Ctrl to constrain the movement to the directions of the coordinate axes or diagonals), with Shift the box moves parallel to the Z-axis

* adjust the vanishing points of a perspective by dragging them across the canvas (see below) or toggling their states; all boxes sharing this perspective are transformed accordingly

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.

When several boxes are selected, all vanishing points of their associated perspectives are shown on the canvas. If vanishing points of different perspectives coincide, they are combined in a single "dragger". Moving this dragger moves all the vanishing points simultaneously and transforms the associated boxes accordingly. Note that some non-selected boxes may also be reshaped if their perspectives share the same vanishing point. Pressing Shift while moving the dragger can be used to only transform the selected boxes, separating their perspectives from the non-selected ones'. On the other hand, when a vanishing point being dragged comes close enough to another one, both snap together and are combined in a single dragger.

===Keyboard shortcuts===

* '''X''', '''Alt+F4''': switch to the 3D box tool

* The various kinds of parentheses, namely '''[''' ''']''', '''(''' ''')''', '''{''' '''}''', can be used to rotate infinite (i.e., parallel) perspective lines in X-, Y-, and Z-direction, respectively. Closing parentheses rotate clockwise and opening parentheses rotate counterclockwise. The angle of rotation is taken from the preferences. Pressing '''Alt''' reduces the amount of rotation to 1 screen pixel.

* '''L''': toggle visibility of perspective lines

* '''A''': when perspective lines are visible, toggle between "all lines" and "only lines connected to front corners" (this can help to avoid visual clutter)

[max]

==Gradient Tool==
===Selecting multiple stops===
'''More than one gradient stop''' can be selected at a time. Shortcuts for working with multiple stop selections are generally modeled on the Node tool.
* Add a stop to the selected stops by '''Shift+click'''.
* Press '''Ctrl+A''' to select all stops in the selected objects.
* '''Shift+drag''' around stops to add them to selection.
Multiple selected stops:
*Can be moved together by '''mouse drag''' or by '''arrow keys'''. For example, creating a linear gradient, then press Ctrl+A to select all stops and use arrow keys to move the entire gradient as a whole.
*Can be deleted at the same time by pressing '''Del'''.
An always up-to-date description of the current handle selection is provided in the statusbar in the Gradient tool, including the number of selected handles (and the type of the single selected handle), as well as the total number of handles and selected objects.

===Editing intermediate stops===
'''Intermediate stops''' in gradients can be added, deleted, and edited on canvas (previously this was only possible in the Gradient Editor dialog).
*Stops can be added by '''double clicking''' or by '''Ctrl+Alt+Click''' on the gradient line. Also, you can '''drag-and-drop''' a color from the palette onto the gradient line to create a new stop with this color. Dropping a color on an existing stop changes the color of that stop.
*When two or more adjacent stops are selected, pressing '''Ins''' adds stops in the middles of all selected stop intervals.
*Intermediate stops can be '''mousedrag'''ged or moved by '''arrow keys''' along their gradient line, within the limits of the adjacent unselected stops (or end handles).
:*Dragging with '''Ctrl''' moves the selected stops snapping them to 1/10 fractions of the available range.
:*Dragging with '''Alt''' moves the selected stops depending on how close each one is to the stop being dragged, using a smooth bell-like curve similar to the node sculpting feature in Node tool. This makes it easy to approximate different gradient profiles; for example, if you have a two-stop gradient that you want to shape according to a curve profile, select both ends of the gradient, press '''Ins''' a few times to add a number of intermediate nodes, then '''Alt+drag''' a node in the middle to smoothly profile the gradient.
*Stops can also be moved by '''arrow keys''' with all the regular modifiers ('''Shift''' for 10x movement, '''Alt''' for pixel-size movement at the current zoom, '''Shift+Alt''' for 10 pixels movement at the current zoom).
*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.
*Pressing '''Ctrl+L''' with some intermediate stops selected attempts to ''simplify'' the selected portion of the gradient, removing those stops that can be removed without too much change in the way the gradient looks. In particular, new stops created by double-clicking or pressing Ins initially do not change the appearance of the gradient, so if you press Ctrl+L, all redundant stops that weren't moved or repainted since creation will be deleted.

===Style of gradient stops===
*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.
*When one or more gradient stops are selected, using the Copy command ('''Ctrl+C''') copies to the clipboard the style (color and opacity) of the selected stop or the averaged style of several selected stops, not the entire object with gradient as before. This means you can now copy/paste style between stops: select the source stop(s), copy, select the destination stop(s), paste style ('''Ctrl+Shift+V'''). With several selected stops, this also allows you to easily average their colors and opacities by copying them and pasting the style back onto them. (After that, redundant gradient stops can be removed by simplification with '''Ctrl+L''').
*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 None and bold to indicate Unset.

===Automatic duplication of gradients===
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). The Duplicate button is therefore removed.

However, to accommodate the needs of users who have relied on sharing the same gradient definition across objects, this behavior can be optionally suppressed. The '''Prevent sharing of gradient definitions''' checkbox on the Misc tab of Inkscape Preferences is by default checked; if you uncheck it, Inkscape does not automatically copy gradient definitions for new objects, which means that copy/pasting, duplicating, pasting style, and explicit assignment of a gradient to an object via the Gradient tool controls results in a shared gradient definition, so that changing the colors or mid-stop positions of the gradient on one object (but not changing the coordinates of the end handles) affects all other objects that share the same definition.

==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.

===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 way you can, for example, mirror any object around one of the edges of its box. (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.

* '''Objects to Marker''' was added to the objects menu, which converts the current selection to a marker, with the center point of the selection being set to the center of the marker.

==Node tool==

* 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]
** this is deactivated for normal paths now. only paths with LPE applied will show it. should there be a button to turn it on for normal paths aswell?

* As a long-requested feature, two entry fields are added to the toolbar which allow precise editing of the coordinates of selected nodes.

==Rectangle Tool==

* Ctrl+dragging now also allows the creation of rectangles with sides constrained to the golden ratio (approx. 1 : 1.618034), not only integer ratios.

==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]]

==Dropper Tool==

The shortcut 'D' is now used to toggle (not just switch to) the dropper tool - much like space is used to toggle the selector tool. That is, pressing 'D' a second time switches back to the tool used before.

=SVG features=

==The tref element==

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

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'''.

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'''.

==SVG 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 '''feColorMatrix''' filter primitive applies a matrix transformation to colour of each rendered pixel. This allows for effects like turning object to grayscale, modifying colour saturation and changing colour hue.

* The '''feComposite''' filter primitive composites two images using one of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter-Duff Porter-Duff blending modes] (described in paper Compositing Digital Images by T. Porter and T. Duff, published in SIGGRAPH '84 Conference Proceedings, Association for Computing Machinery, Volume 18, Number 3, July 1984) or the aritmetic mode described in SVG standard. Porter-Duff blending modes are essentially logical operations between the images. For example, xor mode shows the areas, where either one of the objects is, but not the areas where both of the objects are. Arithmetic mode lets you specify coefficients k1-k4 for blending equation (result colour) = k1 * (first input colour) * (second input colour) + k2 * (first input colour) + k3 * (second input colour) + k4.

* The '''feConvolveMatrix''' lets you specify a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolution Convolution] to be applied on the image. Common effects created using convolution matrices are blur, sharpening, embossing and edge detection. There's a fairly good explanation and some example matrices at [http://www.gamedev.net/reference/programming/features/imageproc/page2.asp www.gamedev.net/reference/programming/features/imageproc/page2.asp]. Note that while gaussian blur can be created using this filter primitive, the special gaussian blur primitive is faster and resolution-independent.

* Filter primitives '''feDiffuseLighting''' and '''feSpecularLighting''' create lighting maps for the object in input image. SVG doesn't have concept of third dimension, so these filters use alpha channel of input image as a height map: the more opaque given point in input image is, the nearer spectator it is considered to be. There exists an example for using these in Inkscape distribution, in share/examples/lighting_effects.svg or [http://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/*checkout*/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/share/examples/lighting_effects.svg?revision=15523 in SVN]

* The '''feDisplacementMap''' filter primitive displaces the pixels in the first input using the second input as a displacement map, that shows from how far the pixel should come from. Classical examples are whirl and pinch effects, that can be found in most image manipulation programs and even in some screensavers, where this kind off effect is moving around screen, twisting desktop beneath it.

* The '''feImage''' filter primitive allows using external images as part of filtering chain. For example, one could use external image as a displacement map for feDisplacementMap or as a height map for lighting effects. Note that while SVG standard allows using other parts of the SVG file in this filter primitive, the current Inkscape implementation only allows external images.

* The '''feMerge''' filter primitive composites several temporary images inside the filter primitive to a single image. It uses normal alpha compositing for this. This is equivalent to using several feBlend primitives in 'normal' mode or several feComposite primitives in 'over' -mode.

* The '''feMorphology''' filter primitive provides erode and dilate effects, that are common in image manipulation programs. With erode, darker and more transparent areas spread to lighter and more opaque areas, whereas with dilate lighter and more opaque areas spread to darker and more transparent areas. For single-colour objects, this basically means, erode makes the object thinner and dilate makes it thicker.

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

* The '''feTurbulence''' filter primitive renders [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perlin_noise Perlin noise]. This kind of noise is useful in simulating several nature phenomena like clouds, fire and smoke and in generating complex textures like marble or granite.

See also wiki page [[Filter Effects]] for more info on filters in Inkscape in general.

===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
** Right-clicking a filter for the pop-up menu allows duplicating or removing a filter.
** Double-clicking a filter will apply it to all selected objects
** A black dot is placed next to whatever filter is applied to the selected objects. If more than one filter is in use by selected objects, an unfilled dot is used instead.
* 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.
*** Single-clicking on an input triangle will unset it, returning it to the default. If it is on a Merge primitive, the input will be deleted.
*** Merge inputs have an empty input at the end. Dragging a connection from this input will add a new input to the primitive.

=Live Path Effects (LPE)=

'''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. Path effects affect the path data of an object but not its style. The original path is preserved and can be edited directly on-canvas, and the path effect applied to it will be updated live.

In this version, we include several path effects that are analogous to the corresponding extension effects (such as Path along Path effect and Pattern along Path that replaces the extension of the same name). The most important advantage of path effects is that they are, indeed, live - you can still edit the original path and the effect will update in real time (unlike the extension effects which were one-time one-way transformations). In the future, we plan to reimplement most if not all of path-changing extensions as live path effects.

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

==Details about operation==
The following schematic tries to explain how LPE work.

original style ------------> output style
original path --> LPE --> output path
^
|
parameters

The original style and path are from the path that the effect is applied on. The output is what is visible on screen. What is very important to notice is that output style equals original style.

The parameters can be paths, numbers, points, text, in principle anything.

==Applying effects==
Path effects are applied through the Path Effects dialog (opened from the Path menu, or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+7. This dialog is also used for controlling the effect's parameters and for removing effects.

When a path with a path effect applied is selected, the statusbar description mentions that, for example "'''Path''' (4 nodes, path effect)".

There is a special Paste Path Effect command (Ctrl+7) that can be used to copy effects from one path to another.

==Editing effect parameters==
When switching to the node edit tool (F2), the original path can be edited. The original path is shown as a red helper path. Normal path operations, like simplify, still work.

Some parameters of effects can be edited on-canvas. For example, path parameters can be node-edited, by pressing the "edit on-canvas" button in the Path Effects dialog. Press "7" to cycle through the different on-canvas editable parameters. This way, one can edit the parameters without opening the Path Effects dialog. The statusbar tells the name of the parameters that is currently being shown.

==Available effects==

===Path along path===
The Path along Path effect can curve a path along another path. When this effect is applied to a path, it can be bend along another path (called ''bend path''). With the node edit tool, both the original path and the bend path can be changed on-canvas and the result is updated live. This provides a direct equivalent of "vector brushes" or "skeletal strokes" features in other vector editors.

In the effect's control panel in the Path Effects dialog, you can select how many copies of the original path are put along the bend path (either '''single''' or '''repeated''') and whether it is '''stretched''' to fill the bend path. In this dialog you'll also find a button to edit the bend path on-canvas and a button to '''paste''' a new bend path from clipboard. A possible workflow is this: you select and copy the new bend path to the clipboard, then select the path you want to bend, apply the Path along path effect, and paste the bend path with the paste button next to 'bend path'.

Example file: live-path-effects-pathalongpath.svg

===Pattern along path===
The Pattern along Path effect can curve a path along another path. When this effect is applied to path A (called ''skeleton''), another path B (called ''pattern'') can then be passed as a parameter. The result is that path B is bent along path A. With the node edit tool, path A can be changed on-canvas and the result is updated live. This provides a direct equivalent of "vector brushes" or "skeletal strokes" features in other vector editors.

In the effect's control panel in the Path Effects dialog, you can select how many copies of the pattern are attached (either '''single''' or '''repeated''') and whether the pattern is '''stretched''' to fill the skeleton path. You can also choose the pattern for the selected skeleton [either directly or] by '''pasting''' it from clipboard (that is, you select and copy to the clipboard the pattern, then select the skeleton, apply the Path along path effect, and paste the pattern). The '''Scale width''' parameter allows you to change the width of the pattern applied to the path.

Example file: live-path-effects-pathalongpath.svg

===Stitch Subcurves===
The Stitch Subcurves effect connects points from two subpaths of the path with straight line or curved segments, i.e. the stitches. It looks a lot like the Effect Lines from Expression 3. The result is also referred to as "String Art". For some examples of string art, see http://members.shaw.ca/jillbritton/string_art/jbstringart.htm.

The shape of the connecting paths can controlled by the stroke path parameter. This could be used to draw 'hair-shaped' connecting paths with sharp end-tips. Other controls include the number of paths, the variation in spacing between the connecting paths (clustering) and also whether the start and end points of the stitches should like exactly on the original subcurves or can stray randomly around them. Finally the width of the stroke path can be varied.

Note that this effect can only be applied to a path with two subpaths in it, hence 'subcurve' in the name. Use Path > Combine to create such a path from two separate paths.

Example file: live-path-effects-curvestitch.svg

Example file showing cooperation between Stitch Subcurves and Path along Path: live-path-effects-curvestitch-hair.svg

===Gears===
The Gears effect is a toy effect. It generates a chain of interconnected gears from the path that has the effect applied to it. The nodes of the path define the centers of the gears. The first 3 nodes are special; the first defines the start angle of the chain, the second defines the center of the first gear and the third knot specifies the radius of the first gear. That is, to create a chain of 2 gears, you will need a path with 4 nodes; for 3 gears, 5 nodes, and so on.

Example file: live-path-effects-gears.svg

==Development of new effects==
One of the goals of the Summer of Code project was to make it easy to create new effects. There is a framework that greatly simplifies effect implementation; very little code is needed to get the effect hooked into Inkscape. This leaves valuable time for the actual effect to be implemented. See the http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/MakingLivePathEffects wiki page for an explanation of how to get started with your own effect!

[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 '''Modify Path > Edge 3D''' extension creates black, grey and white paths around a shape, then blurs and clips them for a 3D effect.

* 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 new '''Color > Randomize''' extension allows you to change the color via hue, saturation and lightness check boxes. This is useful if you want to colorize lots of shapes at the same time.

*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.

*The '''Generate Template > Perfect-Bound Cover''' extension creates templates for wraparound covers for perfect-bound books using US size and paper weight measurements. This extension will resize the document to include the width, height, spine width, and bleed measurements that are provided to the extensions, so it should be the first operation done before designing.

== XSLT effects ==

* '''XSLT''' is now supported for input, output and effect extensions. This is used to support the XAML file format (both import and export) and the Adobe Illustrator SVG import which removes Adobe's stuff from SVG.

== ImageMagick effects ==

New raster operations available through the effects drop-down menu, powered by the ImageMagick library. For any of these effects to work, you need to have an '''image object selected''' in the drawing.

* '''Adaptive Threshold''' applies adaptive thresholding to the bitmap. Average color of rectangle provided by '''width''' and '''height''' used as threshold value. Use '''offset''' to apply a different threshold than the average.

* '''Add Noise''' adds random noise of certain types to the bitmap.

* '''Blur''' blurs the bitmap, using '''radius''' as the amount of blur. Higher radius means more blur. (Note that unlike the vector Gaussian blur of objects, this bitmap blur will not extend the edges of the image, so it may appear truncated at the edges.)

* '''Channel''' extracts the specified channel from the bitmap.

* '''Charcoal''' applies a charcoal drawing style to a bitmap. Radius controls the width (or detail) of charcoal strokes. Higher '''radius''' means lower detail. '''Sigma''': the higher it is, the less defined the charcoal is.

* '''Colorize''' overlays the bitmap with a given color at a given intensity.

* '''Contrast''' lightly enhances the contrast (difference between lights and darks) of a bitmap.

* '''Cycle Colormap''' cycles the colormap of a bitmap.

* '''Despeckle''' reduce the speckle noise in a bitmap.

* '''Edge''' hilights edges in a bitmap.

* '''Emboss''' embosses a bitmap, hilighting edges with 3D effect.

* '''Enhance''' enhance a bitmap, minimizing noise.

* '''Equalize''' equalizes a bitmap. Histogram equalization.

* '''Flop''' mirrors a bitmap, reflecting each scanline in the horizontal direction.

* '''Gaussian Blur''' blurs a bitmap, more strongly than regular blur.

* '''Implode''' sucks everything towards the center of the bitmap.

* '''Level''' scales values falling between the given '''Black Point''' to '''White Point''' range to the full color range.

* '''Level Channel''' acts the same way as level but for only one channel.

* '''Median Filter''' filters a a bitmap by replacing each pixel component with the median color in a circular neighborhood

* '''Modulate''' adjusts the percent hue, saturation, and brightness of a bitmap.

* '''Negate''' takes the inverse of a bitmap.

* '''Normalize''' normalizes a bitmap, expanding color range to the full possible range of color.

* '''Oil Paint''' stylizes a bitmap so that it appears to be painted with oils.

* '''Opacity''' modifies the opacity channel of a bitmap.

* '''Raise''' alters the lightness of the edges of a bitmap to create a raised appearance, much like a frame.

* '''Reduce Noise''' reduces noise in a bitmap by using a noise peak elimination filter.

* '''Shade''' shades a bitmap by simulating a distant light source

* '''Sharpen''' sharpens a bitmap.

* '''Solarize''' solarizes a bitmap, like overexposing photographic film.

* '''Spread''' randomly spread pixels in a bitmap within the radius of '''amount'''.

* '''Swirl''' swirls the bitmap around the center point.

* '''Threshold''' thresholds a bitmap.

* '''Unsharpmask''' sharpens a bitmap using an unsharp mask algorithm.

* '''Wave''' alters a bitmap along the sine wave.

These effects are part of the Google Summer of Code 2007, coded by Christopher Brown.

== Misc ==

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

* A new parameter, '''precision''' is added to the parameter definitions in the [[MakingAnINX|inx file format]], allowing you to set the number of digits in that parameter's spinbutton in the effect UI.

= Stock patterns =

Since a few versions ago, Inkscape supports patterns in fill and stroke. However, up to now the only way to apply a pattern was by creating it in the document using the Object(s) to Pattern command, which wasn't very convenient. Now, if you switch an object's fill or stroke to pattern using the Fill&Stroke dialog, you will get a drop-down list with a number of predefined '''stock patterns''' that you can apply simply by selecting them from the list:

*A selection of plain '''stripes''' differing by the ratio of the stripe width to gap width (for example, the "Stripes 1:2" pattern has gaps twice as wide as stripes), in the range from 4:1 to 1:64. All stripes patterns are in two versions: with black stripes and with white stripes (gaps are always transparent).

*Two '''checkerboard''' patterns with black and white odd squares (even squares are transparent)

*'''Packed circles''': a hexagonal pattern of black circles with transparent gaps.

*'''Polka dots''': a scattering of dots designed to look randomly but evenly distributed so as to mask the regularity of the repeating pattern. There are three size variants of this pattern (small, medium, and large dots) and two color variants (black and white dots).

*'''Wavy''' is a pattern of wavy lines.

*'''Camouflage''' is a green-toned protective pattern such as that used by the military.

*'''Ermine''' is the traditional heraldic pattern representing stylized stoat furs with black tails.

*Three bitmap patterns: '''sand''', '''cloth''', and '''old paint''' are based on seamless photographic tiles and allow you to add some natural texture to your drawing. All of them are grayscale, so you can make objects with these textures semitransparent and overlay them over other colored objects to "texturize" them.

After applying a stock pattern, switch to Node tool to edit the location, scale, and rotation of the pattern via on-canvas handles.

All stock patterns are stored in the file <code>patterns/patterns.svg</code> in Inkscape's <code>share</code> directory (typically <code>/usr/share/inkscape</code> on Linux, <code>inkscape-dir/share</code> on Windows). You can add your own patterns to this file or replace it with any other SVG file containing the patterns you need.

=Color management=

== Calibrated SVG color including CMYK ==

Inkscape now supports color-managed color definitions that use a colorspace other than sRGB (for example Adobe RGB, or calibrated CMYK colors). In the SVG file, this is done using the
optional "icc-color(...)" paint components as described in section 11.2 "Specifying paint" of the SVG 1.1 specification
[http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/painting.html#SpecifyingPaint]. A fallback sRGB value will be used, for non color-managed workflows. This allows for the use of calibrated color spaces, including using CMYK values that are preserved across applications.

The new CMS color selector tab allows these colors to be edited.

== Display adjustment ==

In Inkscape Preferences, Color Management tab, there's are new options for enabling display adjustment; you can select any calibration profile (an ICC file) suitable for your display. Options for rendering intent can also be chosen.

=== Per-window adjustment ===
Display adjustment is enabled and disabled per each editing window. This allows for simultaneous viewing of adjusted and unadjusted views of a single document by using multiple windows. There is a toggle at the bottom-right corner of the scrollbars that allows for turning on and off display adjustment. It also will be disabled to provide visible feedback when no profile is set to be available for adjustment.

=== XICC Support ===
On X11-based systems (i.e. Unix and Mac OSX), use of [[http://www.burtonini.com/computing/x-icc-profiles-spec-latest.html ICC Profiles In X Specification]] (or XICC) can be enabled. Support for version 0.2 of this specification has been implemented. Enabling this option by choosing to retrieve profiles from the display will switch Inkscape to using profiles attached to screens at runtime. These allow display adjustment to be changed on the fly, and to be set and cleared per-monitor. This is especially helpful with more than a single monitor.

Other Open Source software such as [http://www.gimp.org/ GIMP] support XICC. This allows all aware applications to be adjusted by setting a profile only once.

=== Multi-monitor aware ===
When XICC support is enabled, windows will adjust to the proper profile as they are moved across monitors. Also, as the windows are moved onto monitors with no profile attached, the adjustment toggle will become disabled. When the windows are moved onto screens that do have profiles, the toggle will become enabled.

== Soft Proofing ==

In Inkscape Preferences, Color Management tab, there's a new option for enabling output device preview; you can select any calibration profile (an ICC file) suitable for your output device. Options for rendering intent can also be chosen, along with out of gamut warnings.

=Snapping=

* Snapping has been implemented or improved for:

:* '''Newly created shapes'''

:* '''Skewing''' of objects

:* '''Handles''' of objects, incl. '''gradients'''

:* '''Images''' and '''clones'''

:* Text boxes, which snap to '''text baselines''' again

:* Objects, for which snapping now optionally considers the '''rotation center'''

:* Objects, which now allow for '''constrained snapping'''

:* '''Guides''', which now snap while dragging them

:* '''Axonometric grids'''

:* '''Angled guide lines'''

:* '''Bounding boxes''', of which now all four corners snap

* Other snapping fixes and improvements include:

:* It is now possible to snap to '''intersections''' of e.g. gridlines with guidelines, and of line segments.

:* The '''snapping preferences dialog''' has been restyled to make it more intuitive.

:* Inkscape now has a global snapping toggle, which has been added to the view-menu and is accessible through a shortcut

:* Inkscape now allows for controlling the snapping per grid when multiple grids are being used

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

:* Snapping of objects has been made more clean, by only snapping '''bounding box corners to bounding boxes''', and '''nodes to other nodes and paths'''.

:* The time it takes to snap to objects using the selector tool has been reduced significantly.

:* 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.

:* Only nodes at '''non-smooth parts''' of a path now snap.

:* The confusing "Default transformations origin" option has been 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=
Grids have undergone some big changes under-the-hood. These are the visible changes:
* There is a new 3D/axonometric grid!
* 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
** Each grid can be enabled/disabled separately from the document properties dialog.
* One can make grids invisible by unchecking the "Visible" checkbox in the grid's tab in the document properties dialog. Snapping is still enabled even for invisible grids!
* 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 grids showing. 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, perhaps someone else can?)
* Grid information is now stored in SVG as a child of sodipodi:namedview. Old files will be converted to this new format automatically
* The rectangular grid now has an option to show dots on gridline intersections instead of solid 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!

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

=Angled guidelines=

Now, Inkscape also provides angled guidelines! Double click on a guide to set its angle.

* When dragging a guideline off the rulers close to the edge, the guideline will automatically be angled. The angle is set depending on the grid.
** For the rectangular grid, the angle is 45 degrees.
** For the axonometric grid, the angle is matched to the grid. When the Ctrl-key is pressed, the angle is perpendicular to the grid lines (useful for aligning gradients).

=Import/Export=

==PDF and AI import==

In this version, Inkscape can natively (i.e. without any additional software) import PDF files and the newer PDF-based Adobe Illustrator files (starting from AI version 9.0).

'''Implemented features''': The new import extension can import '''paths''', '''text''', '''clippaths''', '''masked or non-masked images''', and '''softmasks'''. It supports '''pattern fills''' (XStep and YStep attributes are ignored) as well as '''linear and radial gradients''' (only those using sampled or exponential functions). '''Gradient meshes''' are imported, but they get converted to groups of small tiles (flat-colored paths) that approximate the mesh; the user can adjust the precision of this approximation.

'''PDF import settings''': After opening a PDF or AI document, the PDF Import Settings dialog shows up. Here you can select:

* the '''page''' to be imported from a multipage PDF;

* the overall '''clip region''' (which can be none or set to any of the PDF boxes, e.g. the crop box, the media box, the trim box, etc.);

* the '''precision''' for the approximation of '''gradient meshes'''; note that setting this too high may result in a huge SVG file and slow performance when importing files with gradient meshes;

* a checkbox controlling whether the '''images''' should be '''embedded''' into the resulting SVG document or saved on the current path;

* a '''preview''' of the selected page (shown if poppler-cairo is present on the system or if the selected page has a thumbnail embedded into the PDF 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+<).

The native PDF/AI importer is based on the poppler library and was implemented by Miklós Erdélyi as part of the Google Summer of Code 2007.

==PDF export==

* A new cairo-based PDF exporter has been added to Inkscape (marked as "Cairo PDF" in the export format list). 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. Also, unlike the old PDF exporter, the cairo-based PDF export produces compressed PDF files that are reasonably compact. 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, but it is highly recommended to use at least '''cairo 1.5.2''' for quality PDF export.

* A new cairo-based PostScript exporter has been added (marked as "Cairo PS" in the export format list). The cairo PS backend is not as mature as the PDF backend. It rasterizes a lot of its content. Text output does not work where it works with the PDF backend.

==CDR (CorelDraw) import==

Inkscape can use [http://www.sk1project.org/modules.php?name=Products&product=uniconvertor UniConvertor] if it's installed on your system to import documents in CDR format (CorelDraw). This feature is Unix-only at this time (since UniConvertor is Unix-only) and requires that you have Python and UniConvertor installed. As of UniConvertor 1.0rc2, only versions from 7 to X3 of the CDR format are supported, and text objects are not converted.

==XAML import/export==

* Inkscape can import vector graphics portions of XAML documents, as well as export its documents to XAML.

==Adobe Illustrator SVG clean import==

* Using this new import filter, Inkscape can open an SVG document removing any elements and attributes in the namespaces that Adobe Illustrator uses for its stuff. This will clean out everything except the actual SVG content.

==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.

== Open Clip Art Library import and export ==

{rejon}

=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.

* --query-all produces a comma delimited listing of all objects in the document, with their x, y, height, and width values.

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.

=User interface=

== [dockable dialogs - gustav] ==

Inkscape now has a '''dock panel''' to the right of the canvas, on
which dialogs can be docked.

The new dockable dialog behavior exists alongside the old floating dialogs behavior. If the old behavior is preferred, one can select it under Inkscape Preferences > Windows > Dialog behavior.

Known issues:

* It doesn't work well with multiple open documents. Fixing it requires a bit of rewrite of the current dialog manager.

* Resizing in-dock dialogs can be cumbersome. More specifically, one won't be able to expand a dialog placed in the dock unless all dialogs beneath it are expanded in advance. Fixing this requires some changes in GDL, I've got it somewhat working, but decided that it's still too flaky to commit in its current state.

* Remembered positions of dockable floating dialogs is inexact.

Note that this change only applies to gtkmm:ified dialogs,
i.e. dialogs that subclass UI::Dialog. I've gtkmm:ified "Fill &
Stroke" and with this change, that version is now default. Dialogs
left to be gtkmm:ified are the "XML Editor", "Tiled Clones", "Object
Properties", "Text and Font".

[
One can now change to tabbed layout if it's preferred by setting
"options.dock[switcherstyle]" to "4".

Done, the new option is called "options.dock[cancenterdock]" (="1" by
default).

The new option is "options.dock[dockbarstyle]". Setting
it to "0" will give you icons only.
]

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

'''Main toolbar''' on the left can now optionally use '''smaller buttons'''. With the several new tools added in this version, this may help users with small screens where the toolbar otherwise may not fit vertically. The toggle is on the Misc tab of the Inkscape Preferences dialog.

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

Switched to stock GTK+ toolbars.

Extra magic secret sauce added.

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

== Swatches panel, color drag-and-drop ==

* Right-clicking a color swatch now opens a context menu which allows you to apply the color to the fill or stroke of selection.

* Dragging colors from the color palette has been fixed and improved:

:* Now the dropped color is applied to '''the object on which you drop it''', regardless of whether that object is selected or not. This means you can change the color of only one object from selection without having to select it separately. (If you want to assign color to the entire selection, just click on the color swatch on the palette, not drag it.)

:* If an object has stroke and you '''drop the color over stroke''', the color is applied to stroke and not fill. (Another way to always apply color to stroke is to '''Shift+drag''' it.)

:* When gradient handles are active (e.g. in Gradient or Node tools), you can '''drop a color onto the gradient line''' to create a new gradient mid stop with this color, or '''drop a color onto an existing stop''' to recolor that stop.

==Color gestures==

A new method for quick and precise adjustment of colors is added in this version: color gestures. It works on the selected objects by grabbing the '''fill or stroke color swatch''' in the '''selected style indicator''' (on the left of the statusbar) and dragging it in various directions as described below. Note that this only works when the swatch displays a '''flat color'''; it does not work for a swatch showing "None", "N/A", or displaying a gradient (although you can select one or more gradient stops in Gradient tool and color-adjust them by color gestures just as you would do for objects). Color gestures can work on '''fill''' or '''stroke''', depending on which swatch in the selected color indicator you drag.

Color gestures work in '''HSL''' color space. Dragging without any keyboard modifiers adjusts the '''hue''' channel, dragging with '''Shift''' adjusts '''saturation''', and dragging with '''Ctrl''' adjusts '''lightness'''.

The adjustment is done by '''"rotating"''' the color swatch away from the original direction which is assumed to be '''NE at 45 degrees''' (i.e. from
the swatch diagonally into the document window). Once you click and drag the color swatch, imagine a diagonal line going from the point where you clicked in the NE direction, across the entire Inkscape window. By dragging '''below or to the right''' of that line, you decrease the corresponding color channel, to the minimum at the lower edge of the window; by dragging it above or to the left, you increase it, to the maximum at the left edge of the window. If you hover your mouse exactly over the 45 degrees line, the change will be zero.

Note that you can easily vary the '''precision''' of your adjustment. If you drag close enough to the swatch, each small movement results in a big change of the color. If you need a finer adjustment, just drag farther away from the swatch, towards the center of the Inkscape window or even to its upper right corner, where minute movements will produce very small changes in the color. In fact, this method gives you more color precision than even the color wheel in the Fill and Stroke dialog, unless you expand that dialog to fill the entire screen which is rarely practical.

The mouse '''cursor''' changes when you're doing color gestures, reflecting the channel currently adjusted and indicating the directions for increasing and decreasing the value. Also, watch the '''statusbar''' which will indicate, as you drag, the channel you are adjusting, the original value of that channel, the new value, and the difference.

You can '''switch channels while you drag'''. That is, you don't need to
drag it again and again from the swatch if you want to adjust all three channels - you can do it all in one drag, by pressing and releasing Ctrl and Shift as necessary. Note that when you change the keyboard modifiers during drag, the position of the zero-change line is temporarily changed to go through the current mouse position; this is done so that there are no sudden changes in color if you are switching modifiers away from the original 45-degree line.

The '''Alt''' modifier is special. Pressing Alt means "do nothing"; this allows you to move the mouse, without releasing, to a more convenient place from where to continue tweaking the color after letting go of Alt. As with the other modifiers, releasing Alt temporarily redefines the zero-change axis to go through the point where Alt was released. For example, imagine you made your color darker by Ctrl+dragging towards the bottom edge of the window and you now need to make it less saturated. You cannot however Shift+drag it any lower because there's just not enough room for that. In that situation, without releasing the mouse, Alt+drag it upwards to a convenient spot and then Shift+drag downwards as needed. Also, you can start dragging from the swatch with Alt pressed to avoid changing the color while you take a more convenient position for adjustments.

For example, you can select a green rectangle and first turn it into greenish-blue by dragging away from the Fill swatch and slightly above the 45 degrees line; then, without releasing the mouse, press Ctrl and drag a bit to the right to darken the color; then press Shift, release Ctrl, and adjust saturation. You can press or release Ctrl and Shift as many times as necessary during a single drag; when you are finally satisfied with your color, release the mouse to commit the change.

Apart from precise adjustments, you can use color gestures to very quickly perform some common color transformations:

* Ctrl+drag the swatch to the right and down to paint all selected objects black.

* Ctrl+drag the swatch upwards and to the left to paint all selected objects white.

* Shift+drag the swatch to the right and down to desaturate the color of selected objects.

* Shift+drag the swatch upwards and to the left to maximize saturation of the color of selected objects.

Note that when several objects or gradient stops with different colors are selected, the selected style indicator shows their '''averaged''' color. If you adjust that color by gesturing, the changed color will be assigned back to all selected objects/stops, in effect eliminating any difference between them. If you want to adjust many different-colored objects preserving their relative differences, use the color modes of the Tweak tool or color adjustment extension effects.

This new technique requires some getting used to, but once you get the idea it is quite convenient, fast, and precise.

== 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).

== Preserving zoom/view of reverted documents ==

When reverting files to their previously saved state, the current zoom factor/panning is now retained (as opposed to reverted to the saved state, too, as it was the case before). This less interrupts the workflow when one is working on some detail in the drawing.

== New ways to scroll and zoom ==

* You can now enable Space+mouse drag to pan canvas, as it does in Adobe Illustrator. This mode is enabled by the '''Left mouse button pans when Space is pressed''' checkbox in the Scrolling tab of the Inksape Preferences dialog. By default it is off and pressing the spacebar key switches you to Selector and back, as it always did in Inkscape.

* By default, rotating the mouse wheel scrolls the canvas vertically and Ctrl+wheel zooms in and out. Now, if you turn on the '''Mouse wheel zooms by default''' checkbox in the Scrolling tab of the Inksape Preferences dialog, this behavior is reversed: mouse wheel zooms without Ctrl and scrolls with Ctrl. This new mode should be familiar for users of AutoCAD and CorelDraw.

* In the Zoom tool, right mouse button always zooms out instead of calling the context menu (which is rather useless in this tool anyway).

== Using other keys in place of Alt ==

* Many Linux users have found the use of '''Alt-drag''' and '''Alt+click''' in Inkscape problematical because this shortcut is often captured by window managers. In 0.46, instead of disabling of the window manager shortcut as suggested in [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ#How_to_make_Alt.2Bclick_and_Alt.2Bdrag_work_on_Linux.3F the FAQ], you can change a setting in your preferences.xml file called <code>mapalt</code> in the <code>options</code> group. This numerical value ranges from 1 to 5; 1 indicates no change, any other value refers to some special key on a keyboard, such as '''Alt Gr''', the '''Windows''' key, etc. The specific mapping of these values to the keys on your keyboard can be viewed and/or editied by '''xkeycaps''', available from [http://www.jwz.org/xkeycaps www.jwz.org]. The value associated with a particular key is shown in that program at the top of the screen beside the word "Modifiers" when the mouse is held over a key on the main display.

== GTK theme on OS X ==

A GTK theme is now included in Inkscape.app bundle on OS X. If the user does not have any personal customization (e.g. in a .gtkrc-2.0 file) this theme is used. It reflects the OS X settings for "Appearance" and "Highlight Color" set in System Preferences > Appearance.

=Other changes and 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.)

* On the '''Scale''' tab of the '''Transform dialog''', the numbers now show the current size of selection, not size increment as before. Correspondingly, with the % unit chosen, you see 100% displayed, and to scale it up twice, you enter 200%, not 100% as before. This is a more intuitive behavior and it's more consistent with how the W/H controls work in the Selector tool.

* 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.

* The '''Shift''' tab of the '''Tile Clones''' dialog has two new options: '''Cumulate''': when checked, each tile is shifted by the normal amount plus the cumulative shifts of all previous tiles. This is useful when placing tiles that are being scaled by a uniform amount. '''Exlude tile''': when checked, the tile width or height is not automatically included in calculating the tile's shift. This is useful when using the dialog to place clones on a circle or spiral (rather than using a shift of -100%). It is also useful when positioning tiles using the '''Exponent''' parameter.

* The '''Scale''' tab of the '''Tile Clones''' dialog has a new parameter: '''Base''' that allows placing tiles along a logarithmic spiral (as often found in nature). If the value is '''0''', the parameter is not used. Use a value less than one for a converging spiral and a value of greater than one for a diverging spiral. The actual scale is calculated as '''base''' raised to the nominal '''scale''' power.

* 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.

* Several more '''rotation snapping increments''' are available in the Steps tab of the Inkscape Preferences dialog: 36, 22.5, 18, 12, and 0.5 degrees.

* 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.

* 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'''.

* Preferences have been added for setting the default metadata and licenses, so this information can be automatically filled in with new documents.

* The built-in '''Potrace''' tracing engine is upgraded to version '''1.8''' with some minor bugs fixed.

* File dialog windows (open/save) now have an '''Enable preview''' checkbox which allows you to disable the preview pane.

* In the Calligraphic pen controls, the toggle button to enable tablet pressure sensitivity is moved to the Width control, and the button for tilt sensitivity is moved to Angle, to better reflect what parameters these toggles affect.

* In Node and Gradient tools, using '''Tab/Shift+Tab''' to select next/previous node or gradient handle scrolls the canvas if necessary to show the selection.

* The option '''Import bitmap as <image>''' is removed; it was added several versions ago to allow optionally importing images as rectangles with image pattern, to make clipping the images easier. Now that you can easily use clipping paths, as well as convert any image to rectangle with pattern with Alt+I, this option is not really necessary and removed to reduce confusion. Bitmaps are always imported into SVG as an <image> element.

* Support has been added for stock patterns, in the same way that stock markers were already supported. Adding patterns to share/patterns/patterns.svg, and giving them a inkscape-stockid attribute as found on the examples already there will make them available in all Inkscape sessions from the patterns tab of the fill & stroke dialog.

* New '''fontforge_glyph.svg''' template is added for font designers who draw glyphs in Inkscape and import them into FontFoge. It is 1000x1000px large and has a horizontal guide at 200px to mark border for descenders.

* Save dialogs have been modified to clarify that they '''Save as SVG''', so people using Inkscape to edit PDF, EPS, and other file formats will be less confused at the default behavior when saving files.

* Add some new '''UML markers''', including filled and hollow diamonds and triangles.

=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.

* A fix in the blur rendering code made '''exporting blurred objects to bitmap''' much faster and fixed the disappearing of blurred objects in exported bitmaps which happened for large objects in 0.45. The same fix got rid of the rendering artefacts that sometimes appeared on blurred objects during scrolling.

* 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).

* On Windows, '''file opening/saving dialogs''' can no longer sink under the main editor window (they now have the inkscape window set correctly as their parent window).

* '''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 the right location now.

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

* On Windows, the Inkscape uninstaller deleted all files under the install directory. This could lead to removing user-created files, or even other program files not related to inkscape if the install directory was C:\Program Files. The new uninstaller '''tracks all installed files and asks for confirmation before deleting any other files'''. However, installation and uninstallation process is now slower.

* Clones were wrongly unlinked when their original was moved to another layer; fixed.

* Previous versions had a problem on '''Windows Vista''' where selected menu item was invisible. Now our Windows builds use a newer version of GTK library which fixes this problem.

* Duplicating empty text objects that have just been created no longer crashes. Also, the XML editor crash related to empty text objects is fixed. A downside is that the SVG will become cluttered with empty text objects as they are no longer automatically removed. A better fix for the problem is planned.

* In Tile Clones dialog, the PMG symmetry group was created incorrectly, which is now fixed.

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.46

2007-08-19T19:06:44Z

Mental: /* Keyboard shortcuts */

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

Major things in this release:

* Paintbucket tool

* Tweak tool

* 3D box tool

* LPEs

* new SVG filters and UI

* native PDF and AI import

* OCAL integration

* 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).

:'''Exporting drawings with blur''' was particularly slow in 0.45; some files could take hours to export. Now this is fixed, in part by the faster algorithm mentioned above and in part by a bugfix in the export code. Now even the quite complex files with large blurs export at high resolution in at most a few minutes.

* '''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".

:* '''Redrawing the newly exposed parts of the canvas''' after scrolling, especially diagonal scrolling, is now faster because only the exposed areas are redrawn; before, this often resulted in the entire screen being redrawn which was much slower.

:* Previously, if you started 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.

==Tweak tool==

The Tweak tool is an exciting new way to edit paths. Unlike the Node tool, you don't need to worry about where the nodes of a path are and how to manipulate them to obtain the shape you want. Instead, you just act on any part of a path using the tool's "brush" in order to bend, twist, or stretch that part, and the path will respond smoothly and naturally regardless of where its nodes lie. While not very useful for technical applications such as schemes or diagrams, this tool will be indispensable for artistic uses of Inkscape - cartoons, drawings, sketches, anime, etc. This new functionality is somewhat similar to the "Pucker", "Bloat", and other similar tools in the latest versions of Adobe Illustrator, except that in Inkscape it works softer and is easier to
control.

The area of the tool's action (its "brush") is visualized as an orange-colored circular
outline centered at your mouse pointer. However, that area actually has no sharp
boundaries; the power of the tool's action falls off gradually, following a smooth
bell-shaped profile. This makes the tool act softly and smoothly, and the paths respond
as if they are made of soft jelly.

The tool will work on any number of selected objects; for example, you can select all
(Ctrl+A) and "smear" your entire drawing by Push. If applied to a shape or text, the
tool converts them to paths automatically. You can also apply it to groups of
objects. If you're trying to use it without anything selected, it will remind you to
select some objects by a statusbar message.

===Width===

The width of the tool's brush can be changed by the '''Width''' control in the tool's
controls bar above the canvas (in the range from 1 to 100). You can also change width by
'''Left''' and '''Right''' arrow keys (same as in the Calligraphy tool) at any time (including
during action). Also like in Calligraphy tool, the visible width of the brush is
independent of zoom; simply zooming in or out is often easier than adjusting the width
if you want to cover a smaller or larger area of the drawing.

===Force===

The next control is '''Force''' which adjusts the power of the action (in the range from
1 to 100). You can also change width by '''Up''' and '''Down''' arrow keys at any time
(including during action).

Think of it as the force of pressure you apply to the paths you tweak. If you have a
pressure-sensitive tablet and your "Use pressure" button on the right-hand end of the
controls bar is on, then the force will also depend on how hard you actually press your
pen into your tablet, changing in the range from zero to whatever you set in the Force
control. If all you have is a mouse, then the force will be constant but still settable
by the Force control. 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).

===Fidelity===

Any tweaking of a path slightly distorts the entire path, including even those parts
that you didn't touch. These distortions are similar to those that a Simplify command
produces. The '''Fidelity''' value (also in the range from 1 to 100, default is 50)
allows you to control the amount of these distortions. With a higher fidelity, the
distortions are less noticeable, but the path may end up having a lot of nodes which
inflates up the SVG size and slows down Inkscape.

The best value of Fidelity depends on the nature of your artwork. If you're sculpting an
amorphous blob, you can do with low fidelity of about 20. If, however, you are pushing
or inflating a text string (as a single path) and want the letters outside the distorted
area to remain crisp and clean, you will need to raise fidelity to 80 or more.

===Modes===

There are currently four modes in the Tweak tool: '''Push''', '''Melt''', '''Inflate''',
and '''Roughen'''.

* This default mode of the tool, '''Push''', simply displaces the part of the path under the cursor in the direction of the drag. The path behaves like soft jelly, bending and bulging smoothly and naturally. It's an easy way to produce various irregular, lifelike, handmade-looking shapes starting from something as simple as an ellipse or a calligraphic stroke. For parallel-stroke hatching (engraving) done in the Calligraphy tool, pushing is an easy way to bend, pinch, or curve the entire hatching uniformly.

* The '''Melt and Inflate''' are two opposite modes that move each point of a path in a direction perpendicular to the path's surface at the point, either inwards (Melt) or outwards (Inflate). This is similar to the Inset and Outset commands, except that the Tweak tool can act on a part of a path instead of the whole path.

:For example, the visible lightness/darkness of an engraving hatching may not exactly correspond to your artistic intention. Also, the ends of strokes are often far from ideal - they may be too blunt or have unsightly bends or blobs. This is where the Tweak tool may help. Select all the strokes in a hatching pattern and apply a light Melt action where you want the lines to become thinner (and the hatching to become lighter), up until total disappearance. If you press hard, melting works as an eraser, so you can easily clean the strokes' ends in a hatching to making them thin, sharp, and uniform. Conversely, applying Inflate makes strokes wider (i.e. the hatching becomes darker).

:Of course, melting and inflating are useful not only for calligraphic strokes. Same as with Push, with Melt and Inflate you can '''sculpt''' any path, spawning smooth treacle-like appendages with Inflating and carving holes with Melting. Unlike the "node sculpting" mode in the Node tool, however, this does not require adding new nodes to the shape or selecting any nodes.

* The '''Roughen''' mode does exactly this: roughens the edge of the path without changing its overall shape. Slight roughening simply makes the edge crooked and uneven; strong roughening tears and explodes the edge into random blobs and splotches. Note that this operation, especially with high Fidelity, adds a lot of nodes which increases the size of your SVG document and may slow down Inkscape considerably. In particular, pushing/melting/inflating of a roughened path becomes much slower and more difficult, so it's recommended to finalize the overall shape of a path first and roughen it, if necessary, only as the final step.

===Keyboard shortcuts===

* '''W''', '''Alt+F2''': switch to the Tweak tool

* '''Shift+P''': switch to the Push mode

* '''Shift+M''': switch to the Melt mode

* '''Shift+I''': switch to the Inflate mode

* '''Shift+R''': switch to the Roughen mode

* '''Left, Right, Home, End''': change width

* '''Up, Down''': change force

* '''mouse drag''': act on selected path in the current mode

* '''Ctrl+mouse drag''': temporarily switch to Melt (while Ctrl is down)

* '''Shift+Ctrl+mouse drag''': temporarily switch to Inflate (while Shift+Ctrl is down)

===Known problems===

Known problems with the Tweak tool:

# it is rather slow;
# it quickly eats memory; and
# it is sometimes buggy - thin calligraphic strokes may suddenly disappear or change their shape drastically as you're melting or inflating them.

For (3), it helps to increase Fidelity. Also, you can 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.

Also, sometimes after roughening, further tweaking of a path becomes impossible with this diagnostic:

WARNING **: Shape error in ConvertToShape: directedEulerian(a) == false

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.

==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 (use Shift+dragging without releasing the mouse button to extrude in z direction)

* adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles

* adjust the vanishing points of a perspective by dragging them across the canvas (see below) or toggling their states; all boxes sharing this perspective are transformed accordingly

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.

When several boxes are selected, all vanishing points of their associated perspectives are shown on the canvas. If vanishing points of different perspectives coincide, they are combined in a single "dragger". Moving this dragger moves all the vanishing points simultaneously and transforms the associated boxes accordingly. Note that some non-selected boxes may also be reshaped if their perspectives share the same vanishing point. Pressing Shift while moving the dragger can be used to only transform the selected boxes, separating their perspectives from the non-selected ones'. On the other hand, when a vanishing point being dragged comes close enough to another one, both snap together and are combined in a single dragger.

===Keyboard shortcuts===

* '''X''', '''Alt+F4''': switch to the 3D box tool

* '''L''': toggle visibility of perspective lines

* '''A''': when perspective lines are visible, toggle between "all lines" and "only lines connected to front corners" (this can help to avoid visual clutter)

[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 None and bold to indicate Unset.
* 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.

===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==

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

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'''.

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
** Right-clicking a filter for the pop-up menu allows duplicating or removing a filter.
** Double-clicking a filter will apply it to all selected objects
** A black dot is placed next to whatever filter is applied to the selected objects. If more than one filter is in use by selected objects, an unfilled dot is used instead.
* 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.
*** Single-clicking on an input triangle will unset it, returning it to the default. If it is on a Merge primitive, the input will be deleted.
*** Merge inputs have an empty input at the end. Dragging a connection from this input will add a new input to the primitive.

=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.

*[color randomize]

== ImageMagick effects ==

New raster operations available through the effects drop-down menu, powered by the ImageMagick library. For any of these effects to work, you need to have an '''image object selected''' in the drawing.

* '''Adaptive Threshold''' applies adaptive thresholding to the bitmap. Average color of rectangle provided by '''width''' and '''height''' used as threshold value. Use '''offset''' to apply a different threshold than the average.

* '''Add Noise''' adds random noise of certain types to the bitmap.

* '''Blur''' blurs the bitmap, using '''radius''' as the amount of blur. Higher radius means more blur. (Note that unlike the vector Gaussian blur of objects, this bitmap blur will not extend the edges of the image, so it may appear truncated at the edges.)

* '''Channel''' extracts the specified channel from the bitmap.

* '''Charcoal''' applies a charcoal drawing style to a bitmap. Radius controls the width (or detail) of charcoal strokes. Higher '''radius''' means lower detail. '''Sigma''': the higher it is, the less defined the charcoal is.

* '''Colorize''' overlays the bitmap with a given color at a given intensity.

* '''Contrast''' lightly enhances the contrast (difference between lights and darks) of a bitmap.

* '''Cycle Colormap''' cycles the colormap of a bitmap.

* '''Despeckle''' reduce the speckle noise in a bitmap.

* '''Edge''' hilights edges in a bitmap.

* '''Emboss''' embosses a bitmap, hilighting edges with 3D effect.

* '''Enhance''' enhance a bitmap, minimizing noise.

* '''Equalize''' equalizes a bitmap. Histogram equalization.

* '''Flop''' mirrors a bitmap, reflecting each scanline in the horizontal direction.

* '''Gaussian Blur''' blurs a bitmap, more strongly than regular blur.

* '''Implode''' sucks everything towards the center of the bitmap.

* '''Level''' scales values falling between the given '''Black Point''' to '''White Point''' range to the full color range.

* '''Level Channel''' acts the same way as level but for only one channel.

* '''Median Filter''' filters a a bitmap by replacing each pixel component with the median color in a circular neighborhood

* '''Modulate''' adjusts the percent hue, saturation, and brightness of a bitmap.

* '''Negate''' takes the inverse of a bitmap.

* '''Normalize''' normalizes a bitmap, expanding color range to the full possible range of color.

* '''Oil Paint''' stylizes a bitmap so that it appears to be painted with oils.

* '''Opacity''' modifies the opacity channel of a bitmap.

* '''Raise''' alters the lightness of the edges of a bitmap to create a raised appearance, much like a frame.

* '''Reduce Noise''' reduces noise in a bitmap by using a noise peak elimination filter.

* '''Shade''' shades a bitmap by simulating a distant light source

* '''Sharpen''' sharpens a bitmap.

* '''Solarize''' solarizes a bitmap, like overexposing photographic film.

* '''Spread''' randomly spread pixels in a bitmap within the radius of '''amount'''.

* '''Swirl''' swirls the bitmap around the center point.

* '''Threshold''' thresholds a bitmap.

* '''Unsharpmask''' sharpens a bitmap using an unsharp mask algorithm.

* '''Wave''' alters a bitmap along the sine wave.

These effects are part of the Google Summer of Code 2007, coded by Christopher Brown.

== 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/objects.

:* '''Handles''' of existing objects 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 optionally snaps with its '''rotation axis''' (which is by default in the geometric center of its bounding box, but can be arbitrarily moved and its position is remembered for every object).

:Other snapping fixes and improvements include:

:* The snapping preferences dialog has been restyled to make it more intuitive

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

:* Snapping to bounding boxes has been added

:* Snapping of objects has been made more clean, by only snapping bounding box corners to bounding boxes, and nodes to other nodes and paths.

:* 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 [all are masked at the edge?], text, clippaths and non-masked/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). Gradient meshes are imported, but they get converted to groups of small tiles (flat-colored paths) that approximate the mesh. 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).

== New ways to scroll and zoom ==

* You can now enable Space+mouse drag to pan canvas, as it does in Adobe Illustrator. This mode is enabled by the '''Left mouse button pans when Space is pressed''' checkbox in the Scrolling tab of the Inksape Preferences dialog. By default it is off and pressing the spacebar key switches you to Selector and back, as it always did in Inkscape.

* By default, rotating the mouse wheel scrolls the canvas vertically and Ctrl+wheel zooms in and out. Now, if you turn on the '''Mouse wheel zooms by default''' checkbox in the Scrolling tab of the Inksape Preferences dialog, this behavior is reversed: mouse wheel zooms without Ctrl and scrolls with Ctrl. This new mode should be familiar for users of AutoCAD and CorelDraw.

* In the Zoom tool, right mouse button always zooms out instead of calling the context menu (which is rather useless in this tool anyway).

=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.

* Several more '''rotation snapping increments''' are available in the Steps tab of the Inkscape Preferences dialog: 36, 22.5, 18, 12, and 0.5 degrees.

* 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.

* File dialog windows (open/save) now have a "Enable preview" checkbox which allows you to disable the preview pane.

=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.

* A fix in the blur rendering code made '''exporting blurred objects to bitmap''' much faster and fixed the disappearing of blurred objects in exported bitmaps which happened for large objects in 0.45. The same fix got rid of the rendering artefacts that sometimes appeared on blurred objects during scrolling.

* 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).

* On Windows, '''file opening/saving dialogs''' can no longer sink under the main editor window (they now have the inkscape window set correctly as their parent window).

* '''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 the 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

2007-08-19T19:02:13Z

Mental: /* Tweak tool */

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

Major things in this release:

* Paintbucket tool

* Tweak tool

* 3D box tool

* LPEs

* new SVG filters and UI

* native PDF and AI import

* OCAL integration

* 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).

:'''Exporting drawings with blur''' was particularly slow in 0.45; some files could take hours to export. Now this is fixed, in part by the faster algorithm mentioned above and in part by a bugfix in the export code. Now even the quite complex files with large blurs export at high resolution in at most a few minutes.

* '''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".

:* '''Redrawing the newly exposed parts of the canvas''' after scrolling, especially diagonal scrolling, is now faster because only the exposed areas are redrawn; before, this often resulted in the entire screen being redrawn which was much slower.

:* Previously, if you started 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.

==Tweak tool==

The Tweak tool is an exciting new way to edit paths. Unlike the Node tool, you don't need to worry about where the nodes of a path are and how to manipulate them to obtain the shape you want. Instead, you just act on any part of a path using the tool's "brush" in order to bend, twist, or stretch that part, and the path will respond smoothly and naturally regardless of where its nodes lie. While not very useful for technical applications such as schemes or diagrams, this tool will be indispensable for artistic uses of Inkscape - cartoons, drawings, sketches, anime, etc. This new functionality is somewhat similar to the "Pucker", "Bloat", and other similar tools in the latest versions of Adobe Illustrator, except that in Inkscape it works softer and is easier to
control.

The area of the tool's action (its "brush") is visualized as an orange-colored circular
outline centered at your mouse pointer. However, that area actually has no sharp
boundaries; the power of the tool's action falls off gradually, following a smooth
bell-shaped profile. This makes the tool act softly and smoothly, and the paths respond
as if they are made of soft jelly.

The tool will work on any number of selected objects; for example, you can select all
(Ctrl+A) and "smear" your entire drawing by Push. If applied to a shape or text, the
tool converts them to paths automatically. You can also apply it to groups of
objects. If you're trying to use it without anything selected, it will remind you to
select some objects by a statusbar message.

===Width===

The width of the tool's brush can be changed by the '''Width''' control in the tool's
controls bar above the canvas (in the range from 1 to 100). You can also change width by
'''Left''' and '''Right''' arrow keys (same as in the Calligraphy tool) at any time (including
during action). Also like in Calligraphy tool, the visible width of the brush is
independent of zoom; simply zooming in or out is often easier than adjusting the width
if you want to cover a smaller or larger area of the drawing.

===Force===

The next control is '''Force''' which adjusts the power of the action (in the range from
1 to 100). You can also change width by '''Up''' and '''Down''' arrow keys at any time
(including during action).

Think of it as the force of pressure you apply to the paths you tweak. If you have a
pressure-sensitive tablet and your "Use pressure" button on the right-hand end of the
controls bar is on, then the force will also depend on how hard you actually press your
pen into your tablet, changing in the range from zero to whatever you set in the Force
control. If all you have is a mouse, then the force will be constant but still settable
by the Force control. 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).

===Fidelity===

Any tweaking of a path slightly distorts the entire path, including even those parts
that you didn't touch. These distortions are similar to those that a Simplify command
produces. The '''Fidelity''' value (also in the range from 1 to 100, default is 50)
allows you to control the amount of these distortions. With a higher fidelity, the
distortions are less noticeable, but the path may end up having a lot of nodes which
inflates up the SVG size and slows down Inkscape.

The best value of Fidelity depends on the nature of your artwork. If you're sculpting an
amorphous blob, you can do with low fidelity of about 20. If, however, you are pushing
or inflating a text string (as a single path) and want the letters outside the distorted
area to remain crisp and clean, you will need to raise fidelity to 80 or more.

===Modes===

There are currently four modes in the Tweak tool: '''Push''', '''Melt''', '''Inflate''',
and '''Roughen'''.

* This default mode of the tool, '''Push''', simply displaces the part of the path under the cursor in the direction of the drag. The path behaves like soft jelly, bending and bulging smoothly and naturally. It's an easy way to produce various irregular, lifelike, handmade-looking shapes starting from something as simple as an ellipse or a calligraphic stroke. For parallel-stroke hatching (engraving) done in the Calligraphy tool, pushing is an easy way to bend, pinch, or curve the entire hatching uniformly.

* The '''Melt and Inflate''' are two opposite modes that move each point of a path in a direction perpendicular to the path's surface at the point, either inwards (Melt) or outwards (Inflate). This is similar to the Inset and Outset commands, except that the Tweak tool can act on a part of a path instead of the whole path.

:For example, the visible lightness/darkness of an engraving hatching may not exactly correspond to your artistic intention. Also, the ends of strokes are often far from ideal - they may be too blunt or have unsightly bends or blobs. This is where the Tweak tool may help. Select all the strokes in a hatching pattern and apply a light Melt action where you want the lines to become thinner (and the hatching to become lighter), up until total disappearance. If you press hard, melting works as an eraser, so you can easily clean the strokes' ends in a hatching to making them thin, sharp, and uniform. Conversely, applying Inflate makes strokes wider (i.e. the hatching becomes darker).

:Of course, melting and inflating are useful not only for calligraphic strokes. Same as with Push, with Melt and Inflate you can '''sculpt''' any path, spawning smooth treacle-like appendages with Inflating and carving holes with Melting. Unlike the "node sculpting" mode in the Node tool, however, this does not require adding new nodes to the shape or selecting any nodes.

* The '''Roughen''' mode does exactly this: roughens the edge of the path without changing its overall shape. Slight roughening simply makes the edge crooked and uneven; strong roughening tears and explodes the edge into random blobs and splotches. Note that this operation, especially with high Fidelity, adds a lot of nodes which increases the size of your SVG document and may slow down Inkscape considerably. In particular, pushing/melting/inflating of a roughened path becomes much slower and more difficult, so it's recommended to finalize the overall shape of a path first and roughen it, if necessary, only as the final step.

===Keyboard shortcuts===

* '''W''', '''Alt+F2''': switch to the Tweak tool

* '''Shift+P''': switch to the Push mode

* '''Shift+M''': switch to the Melt mode

* '''Shift+B''': switch to the Inflate mode

* '''Shift+R''': switch to the Roughen mode

* '''Left, Right, Home, End''': change width

* '''Up, Down''': change force

* '''mouse drag''': act on selected path in the current mode

* '''Ctrl+mouse drag''': temporarily switch to Melt (while Ctrl is down)

* '''Shift+Ctrl+mouse drag''': temporarily switch to Inflate (while Shift+Ctrl is down)

===Known problems===

Known problems with the Tweak tool:

# it is rather slow;
# it quickly eats memory; and
# it is sometimes buggy - thin calligraphic strokes may suddenly disappear or change their shape drastically as you're melting or inflating them.

For (3), it helps to increase Fidelity. Also, you can 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.

Also, sometimes after roughening, further tweaking of a path becomes impossible with this diagnostic:

WARNING **: Shape error in ConvertToShape: directedEulerian(a) == false

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.

==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 (use Shift+dragging without releasing the mouse button to extrude in z direction)

* adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles

* adjust the vanishing points of a perspective by dragging them across the canvas (see below) or toggling their states; all boxes sharing this perspective are transformed accordingly

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.

When several boxes are selected, all vanishing points of their associated perspectives are shown on the canvas. If vanishing points of different perspectives coincide, they are combined in a single "dragger". Moving this dragger moves all the vanishing points simultaneously and transforms the associated boxes accordingly. Note that some non-selected boxes may also be reshaped if their perspectives share the same vanishing point. Pressing Shift while moving the dragger can be used to only transform the selected boxes, separating their perspectives from the non-selected ones'. On the other hand, when a vanishing point being dragged comes close enough to another one, both snap together and are combined in a single dragger.

===Keyboard shortcuts===

* '''X''', '''Alt+F4''': switch to the 3D box tool

* '''L''': toggle visibility of perspective lines

* '''A''': when perspective lines are visible, toggle between "all lines" and "only lines connected to front corners" (this can help to avoid visual clutter)

[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 None and bold to indicate Unset.
* 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.

===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==

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

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'''.

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
** Right-clicking a filter for the pop-up menu allows duplicating or removing a filter.
** Double-clicking a filter will apply it to all selected objects
** A black dot is placed next to whatever filter is applied to the selected objects. If more than one filter is in use by selected objects, an unfilled dot is used instead.
* 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.
*** Single-clicking on an input triangle will unset it, returning it to the default. If it is on a Merge primitive, the input will be deleted.
*** Merge inputs have an empty input at the end. Dragging a connection from this input will add a new input to the primitive.

=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.

*[color randomize]

== ImageMagick effects ==

New raster operations available through the effects drop-down menu, powered by the ImageMagick library. For any of these effects to work, you need to have an '''image object selected''' in the drawing.

* '''Adaptive Threshold''' applies adaptive thresholding to the bitmap. Average color of rectangle provided by '''width''' and '''height''' used as threshold value. Use '''offset''' to apply a different threshold than the average.

* '''Add Noise''' adds random noise of certain types to the bitmap.

* '''Blur''' blurs the bitmap, using '''radius''' as the amount of blur. Higher radius means more blur. (Note that unlike the vector Gaussian blur of objects, this bitmap blur will not extend the edges of the image, so it may appear truncated at the edges.)

* '''Channel''' extracts the specified channel from the bitmap.

* '''Charcoal''' applies a charcoal drawing style to a bitmap. Radius controls the width (or detail) of charcoal strokes. Higher '''radius''' means lower detail. '''Sigma''': the higher it is, the less defined the charcoal is.

* '''Colorize''' overlays the bitmap with a given color at a given intensity.

* '''Contrast''' lightly enhances the contrast (difference between lights and darks) of a bitmap.

* '''Cycle Colormap''' cycles the colormap of a bitmap.

* '''Despeckle''' reduce the speckle noise in a bitmap.

* '''Edge''' hilights edges in a bitmap.

* '''Emboss''' embosses a bitmap, hilighting edges with 3D effect.

* '''Enhance''' enhance a bitmap, minimizing noise.

* '''Equalize''' equalizes a bitmap. Histogram equalization.

* '''Flop''' mirrors a bitmap, reflecting each scanline in the horizontal direction.

* '''Gaussian Blur''' blurs a bitmap, more strongly than regular blur.

* '''Implode''' sucks everything towards the center of the bitmap.

* '''Level''' scales values falling between the given '''Black Point''' to '''White Point''' range to the full color range.

* '''Level Channel''' acts the same way as level but for only one channel.

* '''Median Filter''' filters a a bitmap by replacing each pixel component with the median color in a circular neighborhood

* '''Modulate''' adjusts the percent hue, saturation, and brightness of a bitmap.

* '''Negate''' takes the inverse of a bitmap.

* '''Normalize''' normalizes a bitmap, expanding color range to the full possible range of color.

* '''Oil Paint''' stylizes a bitmap so that it appears to be painted with oils.

* '''Opacity''' modifies the opacity channel of a bitmap.

* '''Raise''' alters the lightness of the edges of a bitmap to create a raised appearance, much like a frame.

* '''Reduce Noise''' reduces noise in a bitmap by using a noise peak elimination filter.

* '''Shade''' shades a bitmap by simulating a distant light source

* '''Sharpen''' sharpens a bitmap.

* '''Solarize''' solarizes a bitmap, like overexposing photographic film.

* '''Spread''' randomly spread pixels in a bitmap within the radius of '''amount'''.

* '''Swirl''' swirls the bitmap around the center point.

* '''Threshold''' thresholds a bitmap.

* '''Unsharpmask''' sharpens a bitmap using an unsharp mask algorithm.

* '''Wave''' alters a bitmap along the sine wave.

These effects are part of the Google Summer of Code 2007, coded by Christopher Brown.

== 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/objects.

:* '''Handles''' of existing objects 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 optionally snaps with its '''rotation axis''' (which is by default in the geometric center of its bounding box, but can be arbitrarily moved and its position is remembered for every object).

:Other snapping fixes and improvements include:

:* The snapping preferences dialog has been restyled to make it more intuitive

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

:* Snapping to bounding boxes has been added

:* Snapping of objects has been made more clean, by only snapping bounding box corners to bounding boxes, and nodes to other nodes and paths.

:* 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 [all are masked at the edge?], text, clippaths and non-masked/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). Gradient meshes are imported, but they get converted to groups of small tiles (flat-colored paths) that approximate the mesh. 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).

== New ways to scroll and zoom ==

* You can now enable Space+mouse drag to pan canvas, as it does in Adobe Illustrator. This mode is enabled by the '''Left mouse button pans when Space is pressed''' checkbox in the Scrolling tab of the Inksape Preferences dialog. By default it is off and pressing the spacebar key switches you to Selector and back, as it always did in Inkscape.

* By default, rotating the mouse wheel scrolls the canvas vertically and Ctrl+wheel zooms in and out. Now, if you turn on the '''Mouse wheel zooms by default''' checkbox in the Scrolling tab of the Inksape Preferences dialog, this behavior is reversed: mouse wheel zooms without Ctrl and scrolls with Ctrl. This new mode should be familiar for users of AutoCAD and CorelDraw.

* In the Zoom tool, right mouse button always zooms out instead of calling the context menu (which is rather useless in this tool anyway).

=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.

* Several more '''rotation snapping increments''' are available in the Steps tab of the Inkscape Preferences dialog: 36, 22.5, 18, 12, and 0.5 degrees.

* 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.

* File dialog windows (open/save) now have a "Enable preview" checkbox which allows you to disable the preview pane.

=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.

* A fix in the blur rendering code made '''exporting blurred objects to bitmap''' much faster and fixed the disappearing of blurred objects in exported bitmaps which happened for large objects in 0.45. The same fix got rid of the rendering artefacts that sometimes appeared on blurred objects during scrolling.

* 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).

* On Windows, '''file opening/saving dialogs''' can no longer sink under the main editor window (they now have the inkscape window set correctly as their parent window).

* '''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 the 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/0.45

2007-01-30T18:16:28Z

Mental:

= Inkscape 0.45: overview =

This release brings the exciting new features developed by the Google Summer of Code 2006 participants, as well as tons of other improvements across the board. Here are the highlights:

* '''Gaussian blur''' is the first SVG filter supported by Inkscape. You can blur any object to any extent - yet it remains vector and fully editable. This gives a huge boost to Inkscape as a creative art tool.

* '''Display speed and interactivity''': not only does Inkscape render faster, but it can now respond to user input before it finished redrawing the screen, which greatly improves the interactivity of the program.

* '''History dialog''' makes it easy to to review your editing session and jump to any step of it, undoing and redoing multiple actions with one click.

* Several important tool features are added, notably the new selection mode in '''Node tool''' and the adjustable rounded caps in '''Calligraphic pen'''.

* '''Bitmap tracing''' works better for multi-color traces, sports a redesigned dialog and several new options.

* Many new '''extension effects''' are added, including '''Color effects''' and '''Pattern along path'''.

* The '''Outline mode''' has got many fixes and improvements, including a keyboard shortcut.

* Several new commands in '''Help''' menu open various Inkscape-related pages in your default browser, making Inkscape reference information more accessible as you work.

* Dozens of smaller '''features''' are added throughout the program, and hundreds of '''bugs''' are fixed.

= SVG filters: Gaussian blur =

Thanks to Google's Summer of Code program, Inkscape now has basic support for [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/filters.html SVG filters]. The only filter enabled so far is '''Gaussian blur'''.

With it, you can softly and naturally blur any Inkscape objects: paths, shapes, groups, text, images. Clones inherit blurring from their original, but they can also be blurred independently from the original (you can create blurred clones with Tile Clones, too). Both the fill and stroke of an object are blurred together, creating semitransparent margins that smoothly blend into the background.

Gaussian blur enables a wide range of photorealistic effects: arbitrarily shaped shades and lights, depth of field, drop shadows, glows, etc. Also, blurred objects can be used as masks for other objects to achieve the "feathered mask" effect.

* To blur selected objects, open the Fill and Stroke dialog (Ctrl+Shift+F) and use the '''Blur''' slider. The blur value is a percentage, with 100% corresponding to a blurring radius of 1/8 of the object's bounding box' perimeter (that is, for a square, a blur of 100% will have the radius equal to half a side, which turns any shape into an amorphous cloud).

* The '''Tile Clones''' dialog also supports blurring. On the '''Blur & opacity''' tab, you can set the blur percentage per row or per column of your tiling, as well as randomize blurring and make it alternate (all the same options as for Opacity).

* The quality of on-screen blur display is controlled by the '''Blur quality''' option on the new '''Filters''' tab of Inkscape Preferences (Ctrl+Shift+P). The available options range from best quality/slowest display to worst quality/fastest display, the default being in the middle of the range. Any setting except the "best quality" may introduce some rendering artifacts, especially when blurring thin strokes; on the other hand, the "best quality" setting may make Inkscape extremely slow at high zooms. These settings only affect the screen display of blurred objects; bitmap export always uses the best quality (and may therefore become quite slow for images with a lot of blur).

Here are a few tips on using blur:

* '''Masks and clipping''' are applied ''after'' blur. That is, if you clip an object and then blur it (or blur it first and then clip - it makes no difference), the clipped edges will remain crisp. Often, this is what you want. If, however, you want to blur the clipped/masked edges too (possibly with a different radius), you can use grouping: group the clipped object with some other object (which you can then delete from the group) and blur the group.

* A simple '''drop shadow''' is now very easy to do: just copy the object, paint the copy black, blur it, shift away a bit and lower it to the bottom. However, such a shadow does not update when you edit the foreground object. If your object is already black (or, more generally, if you want the shadow to be the same color as the object), you can clone instead of copy to make the shadow auto-updating. But what if your foreground object is not black but you need an auto-updating black shadow? Here's a recipe: unset the object's fill (it becomes black); create ''two'' clones of it; put one clone on top and paint any color you want; put the other clone at bottom, blur it and shift sideways. Now you can edit the unset-fill original (use Alt+click to select it) and everything will update.

* If an object has a fill that you don't want to blur (e.g. pattern, or if it's a bitmap), but you just want to '''feather the edges''', use a blurred transparency mask. For this, copy the object; paint it white; blur it as needed; scale the blurred copy down so its blur margins are entirely within the original object; select both the original and the blurred mask; do Object > Mask > Set.

* '''Transforming''' a blurred object '''transforms its blur''', too. This applies to a non-uniform scaling as well, so by squeezing a blurred object you make its blur squeezed as well. So, the easiest way to blur a path horizontally more than vertically is this: stretch it upwards without blur, then apply blur and squeeze it back into the original shape.

* You can combine '''blurring with gradients'''. For example, an ellipse with elliptic opacity gradient will look much softer and more natural when blurred. An object with a horizontal linear opacity gradient, when blurred, will look as if it's more blurred on its transparent side than on its opaque side.

* A '''clone of a blurred object''' inherits the blur of the original. Therefore, such a clone can be blurred ''more'', but you can't "unblur" it to make the clone sharper than its original (unless, of course, you unlink it). The Fill and Stroke dialog shows you the amount of the blur applied to this particular object; however, if the object is a clone of an already blurred original, the dialog does not reflect that.

* Note that '''Firefox 2.0''' does not support SVG filters, so your files will be displayed in Firefox 2.0 without blur. However, filter support has been added in the current development version and will be included in Firefox 3.0. The Opera web browser, as well as librsvg (used by Wikipedia) and Batik, support filters correctly in their current versions.

= Undo history =

* Inkscape now features a History Dialog accessible via Ctrl+Shift+H or Edit > Undo History. All changes made to the document since it was opened are recorded here.

:* In the dialog, changes are listed from the '''oldest (top)''' to the '''newest (bottom)'''.

:* The type of each change is indicated by an '''icon''' and a short '''description'''.

:* For readability, consecutive changes of the same type are placed in a '''collapsible branch''' showing a triangle marker and the number of the hidden actions in the branch.

:* By clicking on an event in the list, you can easily '''move through the undo history''', i.e. undo or redo any number of actions with one click.

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

= Rendering improvements =

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

* Screen render is faster by '''2-3%''' overall:

:* Complex drawings with '''transparency''' are faster by up to '''5%'''.

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

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

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

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

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

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

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

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

== Dropper ==

* Instead of the confusing toggle button, now the Controls bar for the Dropper tool has two checkboxes, '''Pick alpha''' and '''Set alpha''', which work as follows. Suppose you have an object selected and, using Dropper, click on an object which has red (#FF0000) fill and 0.5 opacity (half-transparent).

:* If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is off, the selected object will get the fill color #800000 (i.e. faded-out red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0 (opaque).

:* If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is on but "Set alpha" is off, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 1.0.

:* If both "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha" are on, the selected object will get the fill color #FF0000 (red) and fill opacity will be at 0.5 (half-transparent).

:If you Shift+click instead of click, the same changes will be made to stroke color and stroke opacity, correspondingly. Note that in no situation can Dropper change the ''master opacity'' of the selected object(s) (only the fill/stroke opacity), although it can pick it just as it does any other kind of opacity.

== Calligraphy ==

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

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

* As a first step towards a redesign of the tools' controls, the '''Controls bar of the Calligraphy pen''' has been upgraded. Now it no longer prevents the Inkscape window from resizing narrower than the bar. The items on the far right end of the bar which didn't fit in a narrow window are still accessible through an '''expansion menu''' which allows you to toggle switches, select commands, and set values of numeric fields. Also, each editable numeric value field has a new '''right-click menu''' with some common values which often allows you to set a desired value much faster than by scrolling the control or typing the value into it.

* The calligraphy tool responsiveness has been reduced to prevent "blobs" forming at the ends of strokes when low fixation is used.

= Outline mode =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= Keyboard profiles =

The previous release allowed sets of keybindings (keymaps) to be created for Inkscape in the style of other applications. Two more keymaps have been added:

* '''Adobe Illustrator'''
* '''Macromedia Freehand'''

Of course not every feature in these other programs has a direct match to features in Inkscape; so, if you can, please '''help us out''' by reporting any problems you may have or improvements you would like to request.

Additionally, a keymap that focuses on tablet-based illustration and drawing work has been added:

* '''right-handed-illustration.xml'''

This keymap places all commonly-used commands under the left hand, so that the user's hands rarely leave the keyboard or the tablet/stylus.

(To enable a profile, copy it into <code>default.xml</code> in the same directory, overwriting the old file. To restore the default Inkscape set, copy <code>inkscape.xml</code> into <code>default.xml</code>.)

More of Inkscape's keys are implemented as actions and are therefore available for remapping via keyboard profiles. New actions include '''EditSelectNext''' and '''EditSelectPrev''' for selecting next/previous object or node (by default, they are bound to Tab/Shift+Tab; as a result of becoming global actions, these keys now work in all tools and not only in Selector and Node tool as before).

= Extension effects =

Inkscape's extension effects, written in Python using the '''inkex''' utility class, are currently a major growth point of the project. They allow new developers to create functionality very quickly, without having to learn Inkscape's huge C/C++ codebase. However, eventually we plan to move many of these effects into the core of Inkscape, which will make them much faster and more interactive. From this viewpoint, effects can be considered a quick way to prototype and test the algorithms and UI controls of the future Inkscape features. However, this does not prevent effects from being genuinely useful in everyday work, and in this version we have several excellent additions.

== New effects ==

* '''Pattern along path''': A new powerful extension in the "Generate from path" submenu allows you to bend, repeat and/or stretch a pattern object (which can be a path or a group) along a "skeleton" path. This makes it easy to create a variety of patterned and shaped strokes. (This obsoletes the old "Kochify" extension which is removed.)

:Effect's parameters include:

:* ''Copies of the pattern'' selects one of the four modes: '''Single stretched''': one copy of the pattern is placed on the skeleton path and stretched/squeezed to match its length; '''Repeated stretched''': as many copies as would fit are placed along the skeleton path and stretched to fit exactly; '''Single''' and '''Repeated''': same but without stretching.

:* ''Deformation type'' can be one of: '''Snake''' bends the pattern flatly in the plane of the drawing, the width not depending on direction; '''Ribbon''' bends it as a vertical ribbon or like a calligraphic stroke with maximum fixation, so that width depends on direction (minimum for vertical parts of the stroke, maximum for horizontal).

:* Several parameters allow you to adjust spacing between the copies of the pattern (for Multiple modes) and their offset in two directions (along the skeleton path and perpendicular to it).

:* Normally the effect assumes that the pattern object is horizontal and bends its horizontal axis (at mid-height) along the skeleton path. There's a checkbox that allows you to use a '''vertical pattern''' instead.

:Some examples of using this effect are shown on a screenshot at [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.45-patternalongpath.png].

* '''Color effects''': A new group of extensions in the '''Color''' submenu of the Effects menu allows you to adjust all colors of a selection at once. These commands affect both fill and stroke colors, including gradients (but not bitmaps). The commands include:

:* a full set of '''HSL adjustments''' (increasing/decreasing hue, saturation, or lightness by 5%),

:* '''Brighter''' and '''Darker''' (adjust brightness up or down by 10%),

:* '''Desaturate''',

:* '''Grayscale''',

:* '''Negative''',

:* commands for removing or swapping the '''Red''', '''Green''', '''Blue''' channels,

:* a '''Custom''' command where you can set your own formulas for modifying the color channels.

:Some examples of using this effect are shown on a screenshot at [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.45-coloreffects.png].

:Note: undoing color changes on gradients exposes a bug where an object seems to "disappear"; this is only a display issue (caused by the order in which gradients and their users are restored on undo) not causing any loss of information. Also, on large documents and large selections with gradients, Python's XPath code may get quite slow. Despite these shortcomings, we decided to add this extension, because it's genuinely useful functionality which was so far missing in Inkscape.

* Recent fixes in the processing of SVG <defs /> have made it possible to implement the often requested '''Color Markers to Match Stroke''' effect. It is no longer necessary to hand-edit XML to recolor arrowheads; just change the stroke color of your path and call this effect to recolor its markers to match.

* '''Lorem ipsum''' (in "Render" submenu) is a new extension that creates the traditional Latin-like random text for design mock-ups. The number of paragraphs, the number of sentences per paragraph and the possible fluctuation of the number of sentences (for uneven paragraphs) can be adjusted. If no flowed text element is selected, a new one in a new layer is created, matching the size of the canvas.

* '''Fractalize''' (in "Modify Path" submenu) replaces each segment of the selected path by a crooked line, subdivided to the given depth, with randomly displaced nodes.

* '''g2png''': The new group-to-PNG Python extension (g2png) is an easy way to export any group or layer to individual PNG files. It was first created for use in the [http://www.le-radar.com/?mm/inkscape Inkscape User Manual] (also available in SVN in the user_manual module) but is also interesting for many other uses. If e.g. you have to draw a set of icons, you can draw them in the same document, thus making copying, duplicating, cloning etc. easier. Then just create a group for each icon, and with the extension, each group ends up in its own PNG file.

== Improved effects ==

* The '''Function Plotter''' has been extended, providing greater flexibility in x- and y-range definition.

* The '''Measure Path''' extension is improved with several new parameters added (units, scale, precision, distance from path).

* The '''Extract One Image''' extension is fixed to automatically append filename extension to the created bitmap file.

* The "Blur Edge" extension is renamed into '''Inset/Outset Halo''' to avoid confusion with the real Gaussian blur that we now support, as well as to better describe what this extension actually does: From the selected path, it creates a group of inset and outset paths that form a stepped "halo" around the object.

== Infrastructure ==

* '''3 new parameter types''' have been added to the extension effect UI: '''tabs''', '''enumerations''' and '''optiongroups''' (radio buttons). Examples are available of how to use these parameters in INX files: the new Function Plotter uses tabs; enumerations are used by the Pattern along path extension; and a small developer example is given to illustrate the use of optiongroups (identical to enumerations).

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

* In an extension's INX file, you can add <code>needs-document="no"</code> attribute to the <code><effect></code> element. This indicates that the extension does not process the current SVG document, and Inkscape will not bother saving and restoring the document from a temporary file which allows this extension to run faster and smoother. (This is used for the new open-in-default-browser Help menu commands which are technically implemented as extensions.)

= Export formats =

== AI import/export ==

* We only support AI import and export for Adobe Illustrator 8.0 and older. This has been clarified in the Open and Save As lists.

== PDF export ==

Inkscape's PDF exporter has been improved:

* '''New features:''' bitmap images can be embedded; PDF files can be exported from command line using the <code>--export-pdf</code> parameter.

* '''Changed behavior:''' the pointless text to path question is gone.

* '''Fixed bugs:''' save failure is now detected, miter limits are now >= 1, PDFs with transparent gradient are now embeddable, eccentric elliptic gradients fixed, dash style inheritance fixed, transparency inheritance fixed.

== PS/EPS export ==

There's a new option to embed the fonts used in the document in the PS or EPS exported file. As of now, this works for Type 1 fonts only, not TrueType. The option is available when performing the export from the GUI as well as from the command line via the <code>--export-embed-fonts</code> option.

== EMF export ==

Inkscape has a limited support for exporting EMF (Enhanced Meta File) format. This works only on Windows, and only exports strokes and fills with constant colors. No text, no images, no gradients, no transparency.

= SVG output =

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

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

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

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

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

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

= Bitmap tracing =

* A '''new color quantization algorithm''' for multiscan traces works faster (especially for large numbers of colors) and gives more adequate results with less colors used. This improves tracing results both for full-color photographs and for limited-color drawings.

* The Trace Bitmap dialog now provides access to three more tracing parameters:

:* '''Suppress speckles''': If set, spots or speckles larger than the given size (in pixels) are suppressed in the trace.

:* '''Smooth corners''': This parameter controls how much smoothing is applied to corners in the traced path.

:* '''Optimize paths''': If set, trace paths are optimized by joining adjacent Bezier segments with the given tolerance.

* All controls in the Trace Bitmap dialog are reorganized to be easier to find. The dialog is redesigned to use two main tabs: '''Mode''' (where you select the tracing mode, such as brightness cutoff or color multiscan) and '''Options''' (where you set various tracing options, such as corner smoothing). The preview is placed horizontally to the right of the tabs. Most labels and tooltips are rewritten for clarity. The trace preview image is made twice larger.

= Even more improvements =

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

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

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

* Several commands were added to the '''Help menu''', providing the long-missing access to basic information about Inkscape and SVG right from the program: [http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/index.php Inkscape manual], [http://inkscape.org/doc/inkscape-man.html Command line options], [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ FAQ], Release notes, [http://inkscape.org/report_bugs.php Bug report page], and the [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/ SVG 1.1 specification]. All these commands open the corresponding web pages in the user's default web browser.

* Exported PNG images have the correct '''resolution''' set in the header.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= Examples =

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

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

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

= Translations, tutorials, templates =

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

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

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

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

* New tutorial "Easter Eggs" by Steve Karg.

* Added Catalan default template and elements tutorial.

* Russian header and footer templates for tutorials are added.

= Dependency changes =

* We have changed the '''GTK+''' requirement for compilation to version 2.8. However, it is highly recommended to use at least the version '''2.10.7''' because previous versions contain at least one crash bug which may cause Inkscape to crash after typing in a value into a spinbutton.

= Notable bugfixes =

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

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

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

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

* Transforming an object and its clone no longer behaves unexpectedly when they are both within a transformed group.

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

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

* When resizing objects, scaling numbers in the statusbar are no longer overwritten by other text when pressing the modifier keys (Alt, Shift, Ctrl).

* To work around problems some users had with pressure-sensitive tablets ([http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1281512&group_id=93438&atid=604306 bug 1281512]), the pressure sensitivity can be disabled from the Misc tab of Inkscape Preferences dialog. After that, the tablet can still be used as a regular mouse.

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

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

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

* Group transformation is now correctly re-applied when ungrouping and then undoing the ungroup operation.

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

* Inkscape no longer crashes when you try to unflow an empty flowed text.

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

= Known problems =

==== Problem with "Dialogs on Top" on Windows ====

* Although the "Dialogs on Top" option is now available on Windows (File > Inkscape Preferences > Windows), it does not work exactly as it should (yet!). When the document window is minimized, the dialogs remain visible, i.e. are not minimized together with the document window. Because of this, it is not possible to get the document window back by clicking its taskbar button. A workaround to this problem is to '''right-click the Inkscape taskbar button and select "Restore".''' We expect that future releases of GTK will solve this problem.

==== Spinbuttons may crash if you have GTK+ older than 2.10.7 ====

* You may experience crashes after typing in a value into a spinbutton if you have a version of GTK+ 2.10.6 or older. Upgrade your GTK+ to fix this. (This does not affect the Windows package as it comes with GTK+ 2.10.9.)

==== Numerical Python required for Perspective effect ====

* This effect will not work until you install a python module called '''numpy''' (Numerical Python). It can be downloaded at [http://numpy.scipy.org/ numpy.scipy.org]. The Windows package already contains this module.

==== Do not use a clone of an object as its clipping path/mask ====

* In this version, you cannot use an object's clone as its clipping path or mask. Either unlink the clone first, or clip one clone of a source object (not the source itself) by another clone of the same. Properly fixing this bug requires some deep changes in the code and therefore was postponed until after 0.45 so as not to delay the release.

==== Non-Unicode symbol fonts on Windows don't work ====

* On Windows, symbol fonts without a Unicode map do not work. This is a limitation of the Pango library that we use.

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

* This bug is due to a missing symbol (_statvfs) in the system library /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib on 10.3.9. The dependency is introduced by one of the gnome-vf2 modules. It is not something we can easily fix other than by not linking with gnome-vfs2, but unfortunately this was not resolved in time for 0.45.

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

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

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

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

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

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.45

2006-09-04T20:43:03Z

Mental: /* Calligraphy */

= Inkscape 0.45: overview =

= Filters =

* [blur slider]

= Undo history =
* Inkscape now features a History Dialog accessible through [CTRL] + [SHIFT] + H or Edit→Undo History. All changes to the document since it was opened are recorded here.
** In the dialog, changes are listed from the oldest (top) to the newest (bottom).
** The type of each change is indicated by an icon and a short description.
** For readability, consecutive changes of the same type are placed in a collapsable branch showing a triangle marker and the number of the hidden actions in the branch.
** By clicking on an event event in the list, you can easily move through the undo history, i.e. undo or redo any number of actions with one click.
* The Undo and Redo commands in the Edit menu display the descriptions of the commands to be undone and redone, correspondingly.

= Speed =

* Interruptible display: Previously, Inkscape could not do anything until it finishes the current screen redraw. Now the redraw is made interruptible, so that Inkscape responds to mouse and keyboard input and can abort the current redraw and start over if you do some screen-changing operation. As a result, Inkscape now feels much snappier and more interactive.
** Most drawing and rectangular selection tools bypass the interruptible display system, maintaining the accuracy of these tools while using the new interruptible display code.

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

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

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

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

= Command line =

* The new <code>--export-pdf</code> command line parameter allows exporting an SVG image to PDF from command line.

= Keyboard profiles =

The previous release allowed sets of keybinding to be created for Inkscape in the style of other applications. Two more sets of keybindings have been added.

* Adobe Illustrator
* Macromedia Freehand

Of course not every feature in these other programs has a direct match to features in Inkscape so if you can please do help us out by reporting any problems you may have or improvements you would like to request.

Additionally, a keybinding that focuses on tablet-based illustration and drawing work has been added:

* right-handed-illustration.xml

This keybinding places all commonly-used commands under the left hand, so that the user's hands rarely leave the keyboard or the tablet/stylus.

= Even more improvements =

* [Save a copy]

* [new cursors - scislac]

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

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

* The native PDF exporter introduced in Inkscape 0.44 is improved along with the new Cairo-based PDF exporter. Changes since Inkscape 0.44 include: New features: bitmap images can be embedded, pdf files can be exported from commandline. Changed behaviour: the pointless text to path question is gone. Fixed bugs: save failure is now detected, miter limits are now >= 1, pdfs with transparent gradient are now embeddable, eccentric elliptic gradients fixed, dash style inheritance fixed, transparency inheritance fixed.

* [expand/contract selection in node tool, sculpt profiles - bbyak]

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

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

* A new extension, Render > Lorem ipsum creates the traditional Latin-like random text for design mock-ups. The number of paragraphs, the number of sentences per paragraph and the possible fluctuation of the number of sentences (for uneven paragraphs) can be adjusted. If no flowed text element is selected, a new one in a new layer is created, matching the size of the canvas.

= Bugfixes =

* When deleting a node, update neighboring smooth nodes to be cusp nodes because symmetry is broken.

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

= Tools =

== Dropper ==

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

== Calligraphy ==
* A new option adds the ability to round the ends of calligraphic strokes, which is useful when the calligraphic tool is being used with low "fixity" to simulate a rounded pen. This setting on the calligraphy toolbar ranges from 0.0 (flat) to 1.0 (an approximate half-circle).

= Translations =

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

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

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

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

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

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

==== Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it ====

* If you were using certain CVS/SVN builds from autumn of 2005, you may have the file <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux). In that case you will see many errors about verbs that cannot be found, and some commands in menus will be disabled. Make sure to delete <code>menus.xml</code> to fix this.

=== Previous releases ===

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.45

2006-09-04T20:39:29Z

Mental: /* Calligraphy */

= Inkscape 0.45: overview =

= Filters =

* [blur slider]

= Undo history =
* Inkscape now features a History Dialog accessible through [CTRL] + [SHIFT] + H or Edit→Undo History. All changes to the document since it was opened are recorded here.
** In the dialog, changes are listed from the oldest (top) to the newest (bottom).
** The type of each change is indicated by an icon and a short description.
** For readability, consecutive changes of the same type are placed in a collapsable branch showing a triangle marker and the number of the hidden actions in the branch.
** By clicking on an event event in the list, you can easily move through the undo history, i.e. undo or redo any number of actions with one click.
* The Undo and Redo commands in the Edit menu display the descriptions of the commands to be undone and redone, correspondingly.

= Speed =

* Interruptible display: Previously, Inkscape could not do anything until it finishes the current screen redraw. Now the redraw is made interruptible, so that Inkscape responds to mouse and keyboard input and can abort the current redraw and start over if you do some screen-changing operation. As a result, Inkscape now feels much snappier and more interactive.
** Most drawing and rectangular selection tools bypass the interruptible display system, maintaining the accuracy of these tools while using the new interruptible display code.

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

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

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

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

= Command line =

* The new <code>--export-pdf</code> command line parameter allows exporting an SVG image to PDF from command line.

= Keyboard profiles =

The previous release allowed sets of keybinding to be created for Inkscape in the style of other applications. Two more sets of keybindings have been added.

* Adobe Illustrator
* Macromedia Freehand

Of course not every feature in these other programs has a direct match to features in Inkscape so if you can please do help us out by reporting any problems you may have or improvements you would like to request.

Additionally, a keybinding that focuses on tablet-based illustration and drawing work has been added:

* right-handed-illustration.xml

This keybinding places all commonly-used commands under the left hand, so that the user's hands rarely leave the keyboard or the tablet/stylus.

= Even more improvements =

* [Save a copy]

* [new cursors - scislac]

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

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

* The native PDF exporter introduced in Inkscape 0.44 is improved along with the new Cairo-based PDF exporter. Changes since Inkscape 0.44 include: New features: bitmap images can be embedded, pdf files can be exported from commandline. Changed behaviour: the pointless text to path question is gone. Fixed bugs: save failure is now detected, miter limits are now >= 1, pdfs with transparent gradient are now embeddable, eccentric elliptic gradients fixed, dash style inheritance fixed, transparency inheritance fixed.

* [expand/contract selection in node tool, sculpt profiles - bbyak]

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

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

* A new extension, Render > Lorem ipsum creates the traditional Latin-like random text for design mock-ups. The number of paragraphs, the number of sentences per paragraph and the possible fluctuation of the number of sentences (for uneven paragraphs) can be adjusted. If no flowed text element is selected, a new one in a new layer is created, matching the size of the canvas.

= Bugfixes =

* When deleting a node, update neighboring smooth nodes to be cusp nodes because symmetry is broken.

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

= Tools =

== Dropper ==

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

== Calligraphy ==
* A new option adds the ability to round the ends of calligraphic strokes, which is useful when the calligraphic tool is being used with low "fixity" to simulate a round pen. This setting on the calligraphy toolbar ranges from 0.0 (flat) to 1.0 (an approximate half-circle).

= Translations =

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

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

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

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

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

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

==== Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it ====

* If you were using certain CVS/SVN builds from autumn of 2005, you may have the file <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux). In that case you will see many errors about verbs that cannot be found, and some commands in menus will be disabled. Make sure to delete <code>menus.xml</code> to fix this.

=== Previous releases ===

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.45

2006-09-04T20:38:54Z

Mental: update to reflect addition of UI for setting cap rounding

= Inkscape 0.45: overview =

= Filters =

* [blur slider]

= Undo history =
* Inkscape now features a History Dialog accessible through [CTRL] + [SHIFT] + H or Edit→Undo History. All changes to the document since it was opened are recorded here.
** In the dialog, changes are listed from the oldest (top) to the newest (bottom).
** The type of each change is indicated by an icon and a short description.
** For readability, consecutive changes of the same type are placed in a collapsable branch showing a triangle marker and the number of the hidden actions in the branch.
** By clicking on an event event in the list, you can easily move through the undo history, i.e. undo or redo any number of actions with one click.
* The Undo and Redo commands in the Edit menu display the descriptions of the commands to be undone and redone, correspondingly.

= Speed =

* Interruptible display: Previously, Inkscape could not do anything until it finishes the current screen redraw. Now the redraw is made interruptible, so that Inkscape responds to mouse and keyboard input and can abort the current redraw and start over if you do some screen-changing operation. As a result, Inkscape now feels much snappier and more interactive.
** Most drawing and rectangular selection tools bypass the interruptible display system, maintaining the accuracy of these tools while using the new interruptible display code.

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

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

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

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

= Command line =

* The new <code>--export-pdf</code> command line parameter allows exporting an SVG image to PDF from command line.

= Keyboard profiles =

The previous release allowed sets of keybinding to be created for Inkscape in the style of other applications. Two more sets of keybindings have been added.

* Adobe Illustrator
* Macromedia Freehand

Of course not every feature in these other programs has a direct match to features in Inkscape so if you can please do help us out by reporting any problems you may have or improvements you would like to request.

Additionally, a keybinding that focuses on tablet-based illustration and drawing work has been added:

* right-handed-illustration.xml

This keybinding places all commonly-used commands under the left hand, so that the user's hands rarely leave the keyboard or the tablet/stylus.

= Even more improvements =

* [Save a copy]

* [new cursors - scislac]

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

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

* The native PDF exporter introduced in Inkscape 0.44 is improved along with the new Cairo-based PDF exporter. Changes since Inkscape 0.44 include: New features: bitmap images can be embedded, pdf files can be exported from commandline. Changed behaviour: the pointless text to path question is gone. Fixed bugs: save failure is now detected, miter limits are now >= 1, pdfs with transparent gradient are now embeddable, eccentric elliptic gradients fixed, dash style inheritance fixed, transparency inheritance fixed.

* [expand/contract selection in node tool, sculpt profiles - bbyak]

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

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

* A new extension, Render > Lorem ipsum creates the traditional Latin-like random text for design mock-ups. The number of paragraphs, the number of sentences per paragraph and the possible fluctuation of the number of sentences (for uneven paragraphs) can be adjusted. If no flowed text element is selected, a new one in a new layer is created, matching the size of the canvas.

= Bugfixes =

* When deleting a node, update neighboring smooth nodes to be cusp nodes because symmetry is broken.

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

= Tools =

== Dropper ==

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

== Calligraphy ==
* new option that adds the ability to round the ends of calligraphic strokes, which is useful when the calligraphic tool is being used with low "fixity" to simulate a round pen. This setting on the calligraphy toolbar ranges from 0.0 (flat) to 1.0 (an approximate half-circle)..

= Translations =

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

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

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

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

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

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

==== Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it ====

* If you were using certain CVS/SVN builds from autumn of 2005, you may have the file <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux). In that case you will see many errors about verbs that cannot be found, and some commands in menus will be disabled. Make sure to delete <code>menus.xml</code> to fix this.

=== Previous releases ===

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.44

2006-08-15T01:43:38Z

Mental: /* Inkscape 0.44.1 changes with respect to 0.44 */

== Inkscape 0.44.1 changes with respect to 0.44 ==
* fix a crash on Windows ("python.exe can't find msvcrt71.dll") by providing that dll in the package;
* fix hang in page size widget
* on Mac OS X, removed problems with home folder path names containing spaces;
* inkscape now finds libpng include headers on some systems where it previously failed to do so
* several changes to allow compiling on glib-2.4 systems (e.g. RHEL4);
* allow compiling on systems with incomplete boost library headers; recognize if boost is too old
* inkscape now compiles with gcc-4.2.x.
* fixed a bug where stderr output from scripts was not shown
* fixed a bug affecting the recent files menu
* resolution information is now saved in exported PNG files
* fix some ODG export bugs
* fix dia import
* fix several include issues affecting [[CompilingSunSolaris|building on Solaris]] (there are still some more problems, at least under Solaris 8, and similar ones on OpenBSD)
* added missing German version of the advanced tutorial and made corrections to the calligraphy one; added missing Czech, German, and Brazil-Portuguese tutorials to tarball; added missing German keytable to tarball
* applied changes to the German and Spanish translations of Inkscape strings
* interactivity improvements at high zooms
* fix for specifying CSS colors with percentages
* re-enabled old PDF exporter alongside the new one
* minor fixes to new PDF exporter (a major overhaul is still in the works)
* fixup for invalid "s odipodi" namespace which has become widespread in Inkscape documents
* Mac OS X packaging updates
* miscellaneous build fixes

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Inkscape 0.44 is bigger and better than ever. Some highlights:

* Layers dialog

* Outline mode, many performance improvements

* Native PDF export with transparency

* Clipping and masking support

* Configurable keyboard shortcuts, including optional Xara X compatibility

* Docked color palette in the editing window

* Interactive indicator of the style of selection in the statusbar

* Innovative "node sculpting" and other improvements in Node tool

* Extensions are enabled by default and work on all major platforms

* Better SVG support: <switch> element, ICC color profiles for images

* Persistent rotation centers, Paste Size command

* New icons, redesigned preferences dialogs, rearranged menus, many cosmetic improvements

* Hundreds of bugfixes and smaller features

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

* The Path > Break Apart command is now dozens of times (up to 100x) faster for complex paths with thousands of subpaths.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

Rendering support for SVG 1.1's '''Conditional Processing Module''' has been implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Interface =

== Layers dialog ==

A Layers dialog (Ctrl+Shift+L) is implemented in this version. It works in parallel with the quick layer selector in the statusbar, so you can use whichever is more convenient for you.

* In the dialog, you can click on a layer to make it current, as well as toggle layers visible/hidden and locked/unlocked. You don't need to make a layer current to toggle its visibility or lock status.

* A hierarchical tree of layers is represented by a tree-like display in the dialog. You can expand or collapse branches of the tree to make the layer structure of a document easier to navigate.

* At the bottom of the dialog, there are buttons for adding a new layer, moving the current layer up or down (either one step or all the way to top or bottom), and deleting the current layer.

* Below the buttons, there's a slider and a spinbutton for adjusting the opacity of the current layer. A layer's opacity affects all objects in that layer in the same way as opacity of a group.

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anything.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fill/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have.

* The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Controls bar for the Text tool ==

* This version adds the beginnings of a Controls Bar for the Text tool (previously empty). Now you can select the font family, size, apply bold and italic styles, change alignment and text orientation without opening the Text and Font dialog.

* All controls are instant-apply and work on the entire text object (if nothing selected) or text selection. They can also apply to multiple text objects (though you would need to switch to Selector to select multiple text objects, then switch back to Text tool for its controls).

* The font-family drop-down contains names and previews of all fonts; unlike other programs, we didn't apply each font to its name, but added a separate preview string displayed with gray color after each font's name. This design ensures readability of font family names and provides maximum useful information in a limited space.

* We will be adding more controls (including spacing and kerning) to this bar for the next versions.

== Docked color palette ==

* Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W). Now the color swatches palette is embedded in the main UI, at the bottom of the window between the canvas and the statusbar. It is enabled by default; use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* The Wrap option (off by default) in the swatches menu converts the palette from a single row into a frame 2 or 3 rows high, for better access to colors in large palettes.

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette shows a live swatch of the color being dragged under cursor.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto the selected style indicator in the statusbar sets the fill or stroke of the selected object(s).
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill, or shift+dropped to set their stroke. This affects only the object you drop the color on, regardless of whether that object is selected or not.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

* The new Inkscape default color palette was added. It contains a range of grays, standard HTML named colors, and a full range of colors sorted by their HSL values (475 colors overall). It is generated by a Python script which is available from Inkscape SVN in share/palettes.

* Several specialized color palettes, useful in color-coordinated projects, were created or borrowed from GIMP: Grays, Reds, Greens, Blues, Gold, Royal, Khaki, Hilite, and Topographic.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge) are made smaller overall.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, with numerous bugs fixed in the rewrite.

* The old tabbed dialog is gone; the new dialog fits much better with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

* As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the page to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the page and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size a page to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into improving GNOME HIG compliance but usability it is always an ongoing process.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Configurable keyboard ==

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* In Node tool, if your node selection includes nodes from different subpaths, statusbar reports the number of subpaths with selection and the total number of subpaths, for example:

::2 of 195 nodes selected in 2 of 36 subpaths.

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar.

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

=== Node sculpting ===

An entirely new way of manipulating paths in Node tool is added in this version: Node sculpting. Normally, when you have several nodes selected and you drag one of them, all selected nodes move by the same amount. Now, if you Alt-drag one of the selected nodes, only that node is fully displaced; other selected nodes are moved less than the full amount, so that those farthest from the drag point remain stationary. This is similar to "proportional editing" or "soft selection" in 3D editors such as Blender.

So, for example, if you select several nodes on a straight line and Alt+drag the middle selected node, the path will bend into a smooth bell-like curve. Nodes' handles are also adjusted correspondingly to keep the overall shape smooth and natural. (If you don't have enough nodes on a path fragment that you want to reshape in this way, just select the end nodes of that fragment and press Ins a few times to populate it with nodes.)

Moreover, node sculpting is pressure-sensitive when you are using a tablet pen. If you press slightly, your curve will have a narrow sharp tip (i.e. the nearest neighbors of your dragged node will move only a bit); if you press hard, the curve's tip will be wide and blunt (i.e. the nearest neighbors will move almost as much as the dragged node). (Hint: to stop dragging without losing your shape, first release Alt and then lift the tip of the pen.)

There are many possible applications of the sculpting technique. To take a simple example, selecting all nodes of an ellipse-like shape and Alt+dragging one of them will smoothly and naturally stretch and skew the entire shape in any direction. Doing the same to a complex path, such as star or spiral, will twist and punch it without destroying its intricate structure - this is the way to get squashed or self-intersecting stars, eccentric spirals and other shapes not easily doable before. Selecting only part of all nodes allows you to smoothly reshape parts of the figure without disturbing the rest.

When applied to text converted to path, node sculpting is a fun and easy way to twist, bend and distort it, achieving effects similar to "perspective envelope" or "curvilinear envelope" in other programs - but in a more powerful and flexible way. For example, by selecting all or part of the text's nodes and Alt-dragging, you can not only make a wavy banner out of a paragraph of text, but also apply a "magnifying lens"-like effect to any word in the middle.

Especially useful node sculpting is for complex natural paths, such as calligraphic strokes or bitmap traces, where you often want to do large-scale pushes and bends without destroying the small-scale features. Things like making a calligraphic stroke narrower in one place and wider in another, or changing the proportions, extending the ear or flattening the nose of a head - all this is now much faster and more natural to do using sculpting. It is also a new way to create new paths, too - starting from en ellipse with added nodes, it takes just a few Alt+drags to tweak it into a silhouette of a head, or a map of Australia, or an Inkscape logo!

Some examples are shown on the screenshot: [http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png].

=== "Show handles" toggle ===

The Controls bar for the Nodes tool now includes a toggle button which controls whether Bezier handles are shown on selected nodes (on by default). Selecting and dragging nodes on node-dense paths in zoom-out (e.g. for node sculpting) may be extremely difficult without hiding the handles, as it's hard to pick a node and not a handle when handles are shown.

=== New deletion behavior ===

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

=== Preserving positions of nodes and handles ===

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

== Calligraphic pen ==

=== Tremor ===

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

=== Pen width ===

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

=== Selection ===

* A new preferences option for the Calligraphic tool, Keep selected, controls whether the newly created object remains selected after you finish drawing it. If you turn it off (by default it's on) and set the tool to using Last Set color, you can easily choose a new color by clicking on the palette without having to worry if this will change the color of the stroke you just created. (Watch the tool style indicator at the right end of the Controls bar for the style of the next stroke you will draw.)

* Esc deselects selected objects in Calligraphic, as in most other tools.

=== Style ===

* The stroke you're drawing is now shown, while you're drawing it, with the correct color and opacity that it will eventually have, instead of always black as before.

* On a new Inkscape installation, this tool now uses the last set style by default instead of the fixed black as before (this is changeable in the Inkscape Preferences for the tool).

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool - that is, arrows, with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

* By popular demand, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* There have been numerous bugfixes and several improvements to the behaviour of connectors and the connector tool:
** Connectors moved as part of a selection will now stay attached to other objects in the selection, rather than becoming detached from them.
** By default, the Connector tool will not attach connectors to text objects. There is a new checkbox in the connector preferences to control this setting.
** The margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

* Automatic Diagram Layout: A new button is available in the Align and Distribute dialog that performs automatic layout of diagrams involving a network of shapes and connectors. Layout is accomplished using force-directed graph layout based on the Kamada-Kawai algorithm. This algorithm treats edges as if they are springs such that the distance between nodes will be proportional to the path length - number of connectors - between them. Disconnected components (where not every shape is connected) will be arranged around the circumference of a circle.

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. A minimum spacing between the boundaries of objects can be specified. Together with the automatic layout tool, described above, this should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. Removing overlaps is different from the "Unclump" button in that the former is completely deterministic and guarantees removing overlaps on the first application, but is not concerned with visual perceptive distances between objects. Unclumping, on the other hand, attempts to equalize perceptive distances between objects and can be applied repeatedly for gradual effect.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

* Inkscape 0.44 has an early version of the Simple Interactive Object Extraction (SIOX) algorithm (see [http://www.siox.org siox.org]) implemented in its bitmap tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see [http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg this file]. This clever algorithm from the realm of Image Recognition allows you to select areas of similar color, with the goal of extracting a foreground area from the background. To use:
** Enable the SIOX checkbox in addition to your usual tracing options.
** Select both the bitmap and an object that covers the foreground and part of background, leaving only background areas of the image uncovered.
** Hit OK. SIOX will now analyze and attempt to pull out the foreground-colored areas you want, and trace only those parts of the image.

* The full SIOX selection mechanism (e.g. the ability to identify foreground and background areas separately) is not implemented yet, but is planned for a future release.

= Snapping =

* In addition to snapping to guides and grids, you can now snap to other objects' paths and/or nodes. As with grid and guide snapping, you can separately enable snapping of bboxes to objects and/or snapping of nodes to objects. Be aware, however, that this is experimental code - there may be surprises. It may also be slow in large documents with thousands of objects.

* In addition to the snap sensitivity sliders in Document Preferences (which set snap distances in px), there are Always snap checkboxes (separately for object, grid and guide snapping) which force snapping at any distance.

* Grid snapping now applies only to the visible grid lines. For example, if you have zoomed out so that only every 10th grid line is visible, snapping will only apply to these visible lines. In addition, default grid snap sensitivity is set to "Always snap". This will hopefully reduce the number of "snapping does not work" complaints from users who didn't zoom in close enough to see that snapping does in fact work, but only at sub-px distances to the 1px-spaced grid. At the same time, you can still snap to finely grained distances if you zoom in.

* Guidelines are made easier to pick. Now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it; instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* In Preferences (Selecting tab), options are added allowing the "Select All" command and Tab key selection to work either in the current layer only or in the current layer and its sublayers.

= Markers =

* Converting stroke to path now correctly processes dashed strokes. For paths with markers, this command now creates a group containing the stroke converted to path and all its markers as independent objects (i.e. they are not markers anymore, but instead you can easily transform them or paint them any color, as a workaround for the "markers don't take the color of the stroke" bug; to be properly fixed, this bug requires implementing some SVG 1.2 features).

* The DimensionIn and DimensionOut markers are changed so that the arrow tips exactly correspond to node positions. It is now very easy to make dimension lines that correspond to drawn objects. The dimension specifications can now easily be chained by splitting a straight line at a point and assigning DimensionIn/Out markers to the resulting smaller paths whose endpoints coincide.

* All arrow markers in the standard set are moved on the path so that their tips are as close as possible to the corresponding node of the path. Complete coincidence is not possible, because it would cause the blunt end of the stroke itself to be visible under the sharp tip of the arrow, distorting its shape. However, now the arrow tips are much closer to their nodes than before, and probably sufficiently close for many practical situations.

* A new RazorWire path marker was added. By applying it as a mid-marker you can get a good approximation of a razor wire.

= Extension effects =

* The Effects menu is now officially on and no longer an optional "experimental feature" as in past versions. The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed. Inkscape 0.44 comes with about 30 effects that perform a variety of useful tasks, such as path blending, randomization, function plotting etc.

* Python effects (which includes almost all currently available effects) work on Windows out of the box, using a copy of Python shipping with Inkscape. The only minor inconvenience is that when an effect is launched, you get an empty console window that stays on while the effect is doing its work. (Don't close that window, it will disappear by itself when the effect is finished.)

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

* The Render > L-system (formerly "Fractal (Lindenmayer)") effect is improved in this version. Now you can specify different angle values for turning left and right, which makes it possible to smoothly bend some L-systems sideways. Also, you can separately randomize the step length and the angles by a given percent for more natural look (this works especially well with plant-like branching shapes). This effect can be used to create Penrose tiling, Sierpinsky triangle, Dragon curve and other famous mathematical artefacts, as well as various meanders, friezes, patterns, and trees. Some examples can be seen on this screenshot: [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png] as well as in the new example file <code>share/examples/l-systems.svg</code>.

* The Interpolate Path, Random Tree, and L-system effects are fixed to place their result on the current layer instead of document root and in the center of the (last-saved) document view instead of 0,0 as before.

* INX files now have the ability to hold more information. This includes tooltips and descriptions of the extensions. These are all also translatable.

* Thanks to keyboard configurability, it is now possible to assign keyboard shortcuts to those effects you use most often, so you can activate them without going into the menu.

= Formats =

* Inkscape's PDF export is now native (i.e. does not require any external applications) and supports transparency, including gradients with transparency. This replaced the old export extension that required Ghostscript and worked via Postscript, losing any transparency. The new PDF export is still immature; in particular it does not handle text, so you should check "Convert text to path" on the export options dialog. Other things not yet supported include: gradients on stroke; eccentric elliptic gradients; patterns, masks, and clipping paths; embedded images.

* You can now Save as Compressed Inkscape SVG with media.This save option collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution. Although you cannot open the resulting archive directly with inkscape, the media is linked such that after unzipping you can open the SVG file immediately.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* Inkscape can open/import default files generated by the Xfig vector graphics editor. This requires that the fig2dev command (transfig) is in your PATH.

* Starting with this version, there is a limited ability to export Inkscape drawing shapes as Open Document Format drawings (.odg files). Currently the export is limited to text, shapes, and solid fill and strokes. This output will be improved in the coming months. In the meantime, however, ODG output is already useful for getting your SVG drawings into the Open Document world, in particular into an office suite such as OpenOffice.org.

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in GIMP. Requires Python, PyXML and GIMP. GIMP 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows yet.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag, in any tool, to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Inkscape Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI not only did not cause Inkscape to complain, but could also "pollute" Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace. This is now fixed, but as a result, documents with incorrect namespace URIs will no longer load. You will have to edit them in a text editor to fix the namespaces.

* With newer versions of GTK, dragging with graphics tablet pen did not work in some tools and contexts (in particular, in Node and Rectangle tools). This is fixed.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* More document memory is now freed when documents are closed.

* EPS output now correctly includes an %%EOF footer.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

* Inkscape is now significantly translated to 18 languages: Basque, Catalan, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål dialect), Polish, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovenian, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Vietnamese. Additionally, 21 more languages have some level of translation. Average translation ratio has increased from 49% to 61% in this release.

* Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors: Czech, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Russian.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

= Known problems =
=== SVG files saved using previous version don't display font correctly ===

* You may find that fonts don't correctly display when opening a file from a previous version (eg 0.43). This can be fixed by simply reapplying the font. However, bringing up the font dialog doesn't acquire the font size from the document and so the actual size may be lost. If you select the text, then check using the XML viewer what the original font and size were you can then input this via the font dialog and restore your document to it's original glory! [ pbhj ]

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

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

=== Problems with "Composite" option of X.org ===

* Some prereleases of inkscape-0.44 could crash if the "Composite" option were enabled in X.org's configuration. This is not a problem in the final release.

=== Namespaces may need fixing ===

* Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with wrong namespace URIs. This has been fixed, but such corrupted documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand. Correct namespace URLs are as follows, with typical namespace prefixes given in parenthesis:
** [http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd '''Sodipodi''']
** [http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape '''Inkscape''']
** [http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink '''XLink''']
** [http://www.w3.org/2000/svg '''SVG''']
** [http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns# '''RDF''']
** [http://web.resource.org/cc/ '''Creative Commons''']
** [http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/ '''Dublin Core Metadata''']

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

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

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

=== Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it ===

* If you were using certain CVS/SVN builds from autumn of 2005, you may have the file <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux). In that case you will see many errors about verbs that cannot be found, and some commands in menus will be disabled. Make sure to delete <code>menus.xml</code> to fix this.

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Creating Inkscape distributions

2006-08-06T19:01:29Z

Mental: dist question

== Creating Dists of Inkscape ==

Those who wish to produce packaged releases of inkscape are welcome to do so.
If it is packages changes that you've made to the official release, please select a
version name that distinguishes it from the official version, to avoid confusion. For
example, “inkscape-0.35-johndoe.tar.gz”. Please consider distributing your changes
as a patch rather than as a full distribution, as patches tend to be easier to
maintain.

Inkscape's release process works like this:

# Start of release process - Finish up work on features.
# Feature Freeze Mode - Shift focus from feature implementation to bug fixing
# Hard Freeze - Two freeze wardens are named. All development must be done as patches submitted to the freeze wardens for review and integration.
# Branch - The codebase is tagged and branched. Final release tarball is posted. The codebase is returned to regular open development.
# Packaging - Three days are allowed for creating release dists (rpm's, deb's, exe's, and autopackages).
# Release Announcement - A Release Announcement and a Press Release are written and circulated to relevant online news sites. Our Freshmeat record is updated.

=== Feature Freeze Mode ===

In the run-up to [[CreatingDists]], for a short time preceding the tagging of the release it's a good idea to hold off on adding new features or doing other major changes like architectural changes to the code that might decrease its stability. Whether a change is minor enough to be “ok” is left to the developer's judgement, and they're trusted to be conservative and careful.

The most useful activity to do during a feature freeze is to locate and/or fix bugs that produce crashes, and to do so with the smallest amount of change to the codebase possible. If a “proper” fix requires architectural changes or redesign of the code, consider writing that up as a post-release task.

-----

It might be useful to branch off a release branch a week before making the release. Hopefully most people using CVS would switch to this branch at this time. Then only bug fixes can go into that branch. --[[Ted]]

=== Branching the release candidate ===

Before release, a branch should have been be created for that release in the form RELEASE_<major>_<minor>_BRANCH. For example, 0.38 should have a branch called RELEASE_0_38_BRANCH.

Minor fixes and code review can then be performed on that branch before the final release; it also permits making future point releases easily (if necessary).

To check out the release branch into a fresh working copy, you can use:

<pre>cvs co -r RELEASE_0_38_BRANCH -d inkscape-0.38-branch inkscape</pre>

or, if you have a checked out tree handy, it is quicker to use:

<pre>
cp -a inkscape inkscape-0.38-branch
cd inkscape-0.38-branch
cvs up -PAd -r RELEASE_0_38_BRANCH
</pre>

Once the release is deemed ready a distribution tarball should be created as below.

=== Creating a distribution source tarball package ===

On the release branch (NOT ON HEAD):

* Set the version name via the file configure.ac in the AC_INIT() macro, Makefile.mingw.common, packaging/win32/inkscape.nsi, src/inkscape_version.h.mingw, and in debian/changelog
* Add the release notes into the NEWS file in the release branch [what is the standard way to do this? lynx -dump?]
* Run ./autogen.sh && ./configure (with any flags, e.g. CXXFLAGS=).
* Run “cd src && make helper/sp-marshal.h helper/sp-marshal.cpp inkscape_version.h && perl mkfiles.pl && perl mkdep.pl”, then do “cvs -q diff -du make.*|less” to check for anything strange (e.g. source files accidentally added or removed), and finally “cvs commit -m '' make.*”.
* Make sure the code passes a “make distcheck”
* This should produce inkscape-VERSION.tar.gz
* Commit the changed configure.ac and other files to the branch
* Tag the release in CVS

Release tags should be in the form RELEASE_<major>_<minor>_<point>. A non-point-release like 0.38 would get the tag RELEASE_0_38_0, 0.38.1 would get the tag RELEASE_0_38_1, and so on.

On HEAD:

* Add the release notes into the NEWS file in the release branch
* Change configure.ac and inkscape_version.h.mingw to reflect the new future version

=== GPG signing Tarballs ===

Downstream packagers are asking for and may soon demand gpg signed tarballs. For Fedora, this is not a requirement, but does ease acceptance of packages. It also shows we are doing “The Right Thing”. md5sums are not foolproof.

* To create a gpg signed tarball:

<pre>$gpg -u packager@foo.net --armor --output tarball.sig --detach-sig tarball.tar.gz</pre>

* To verify :

<pre>$gpg --verify ./tarball.asc ./tarball.tar.gz</pre>

Of course, this step doesn't mean much in practice unless people have a trust path to your key. Packagers are encouraged to attend key signing parties and take other measures to establish important trust paths to their keys (particularly with downstream packagers).

:Where are the public keys matching these sig's posted?

=== Creating a Windows Distro ===
Inkscape/sodipodi has always been
buildable on Win32. The problem with the sodipodi and original inkscape build, though,
was that the Win32 builder had to download and configure
a lot of things to make it to work. Mingw, MSYS, automake,
autoconf, pkg-config, the codepages, etc. He would spend more
time on THAT than the actual code.

What a pain for the average developer/user who merely wants
to make Inkscape do what he wants it to do. Why waste
days and days getting it to compile, when the developer
would rather be working on the program itself?

So we spent several weeks collecting libraries, building others,
installing the codepages into the source (which we can delete soon
because of Pango) and creating a set of clean makefiles
that work on Win9x, NT, XP, and the cross-compiler.
It is a bit more work for people like me, but hopefully it
attains its goal of saving a lot of work for other people.

Also, remember that on Unix/Linux, $PREFIX is commonly
/usr/local or /usr or something like that. On M$, all of
a program's files are typically located in their own directory. So all
of the files are located relative to “.”. Actually, relative to
the .exe that is currently running.

.....anyway, just wanted to explain that there is a reason
for the Win32 build to be constructed in such a manner,
and that we haven't just been arbitrary.

Once the tree is built (“make -f Makefile.mingw” and “make -f Makefile.mingw dist-strip”) into the “inkscape” directory, the [http://nsis.sourceforge.net/ NSIS] installer script “inkscape.nsi” can be run to create the self-extracting win32 installer.

The Windows download package should be named according to the following scheme:

inkscape-$RELEASE-$PKG.$WINVER.exe

Where $WINVER is the required Windows version, e.g. “win32”. For example:

inkscape-0.37-1.win32.exe

=== Creating a Debian .deb ===

The article [[CompilingDebian]] provides a makefile to download a tarball and build a debian package therefrom.

=== Creating a distribution RPM ===

Method A:
# do as above for tarball, or download the release tarball
# login as root
# rpmbuild -tb inkscape-x.x.tar.gz
# Your RPMs will be in /usr/src/rpm[[/RPMS]] (/usr/src/redhat on RH systems)
# RPMs should be GPG signed

Method B:
# do as above for tarball, or download the release tarball
# mkdir ~/rpm
# Copy the tarball to ~/rpm/SOURCES/
# Copy the inkscape.spec from the tarball to ~/rpm/SPECS/inkscape.spec
# rpmbuild -ba ~/rpm/SPECS/inkscape.spec
# Your RPMs will be in ~/rpm/RPMS and ~/rpm/SRPMS
# RPMs should be GPG signed

The rpm should be named according to the following pattern:

inkscape-$RELEASE-$PKG.$DISTRO.$ARCH.rpm

Where:

$RELEASE: the Inkscape release number, such as “0.37”, “0.36.2”, etc.
The third number should be omitted if it is 0. (I.e., 0.37 instead of 0.37.0)

$PKG: A version number for your package. Use a value of 1 for your package, and increment it if you
need to update the released package for some reason.

$DISTRO: The name and an indicator of the version number for the distro. E.g.,
rh71, rh90, mdk91, suse90, fc1, etc. No need to be too exhaustive with the distro versions;
for a given brand of distro it's probably enough to have a reasonably “modern” release
and an older one for legacy support. For instance, rh71 and rh90.

$ARCH: The architecture that the package was built on. E.g., i686, i386, athlon, ppc, etc.
Don't bother with i586 - either i386 or i686 is preferred. The i386 packages will run on Cyrix
and K-6.

Examples:

inkscape-0.37-1.mdk80.i386.rpm
inkscape-0.37-1.mdk80.i686.rpm
inkscape-0.37-1.mdk91.i386.rpm
inkscape-0.37-1.mdk91.i686.rpm

inkscape-0.37-1.fc1.i386.rpm
inkscape-0.37-1.fc1.i686.rpm
inkscape-0.37-1.fc1.athlon.rpm
inkscape-0.37-1.fc1.ppc.rpm

For creating spec files, feel free to list yourself as the packager, but please use
inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net as the contact email address, to ensure that
questions/complaints about the RPM go to the official support channel.

==== Patching RPMs ====

Occasionally, the RPM will not build without some modifications. If the problem is serious enough that it affects every packaging format, this could signal a need to do a point release, but usually you can just add a patch specifically for the RPM. This is what RPM is for, after all. :-)

Here's how to do it:

1. Create a copy of the source tree, with the modifications needed to correct the issue.
2. Generate a patch like this:

$ diff -uNr package-1.0/ package-1.0p/ > ../SOURCES/package-1.0-my.patch

3. Next add the patch to the RPM. In the specfile at %_topdir/SPECS/package.spec, add a line like this at the top of the file:

Patch0: package-1.0-my.patch

Then further down add a line after the %setup section, like this:

%prep
%setup ...
%patch0 -p1

It's a very good idea to split up changes into discrete patches, giving each a different number (they don't have to be consecutively numbered). Also, be sure to upload the patch(es) to the patch tracker so they'll get into the codebase for the next release.

Then rebuild the package like this:

rpmbuild -ba SPECS/package.spec

=== Signing your package ===

First, you need to have a public/private keypair. This can be generated with gpg using 'gpg --gen-key'.

To add a signature to an extisting package, use the command rpm --addsign /path/to/package.rpm To sign in the process of building a package, use rpmbuild -bb --sign

To check the signature on a package, use rpm --checksig.

=== Releasing Dists on the [[SourceForge]] File Release Tool ===

To release a file: (You need Release Tech permission for your Inkscape account)

* ftp upload.sf.net (anonymous/anonymous)
* cd incoming
* mput filename
* go to Admin -> File Releases
* scroll to the bottom and click [Add Release] to the inkscape item
* Enter 0.35 in the box & click “Create this Release”
* Fill in the form, checkbox the file you uploaded in (c)
* It won't give you a clear “success” message, but you can check it got in right by going to the Files list. You can then edit any of the info you entered, to make it more correct.

Also see [[CVSNamingConventions]] if you are making a release.

=== Announcing Releases ===

When you cut a release, send a copy of the release notes as an announcement to inkscape-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
If you find other mailing lists or websites that should receive the announcements, add their email address to the inkscape-announce list. This is done by a list admin such as Bryce Harrington.

'''[[AnnouncingReleases]]''' - Keep an eye out for other places we could announce such as distros or graphics-related sites (not only Linux-centric!).

=== Updating Website Collateral ===

When a new release is cut, there are several pieces of info that need to be added to the website:

* Add a news item on front page
* Review/revise FAQ
* Review/revise Roadmap
* Add or revise Screenshots (if appropriate)
* doc directory: Add the manpage for the release, update doc/keys.html file, and change the corresponding version number(s) in doc/index.php.
** From shell.sf.net, cd to the inkscape_web directory and run the command “(cd ../inkscape; cvs update;chmod g+w -R * 2>/dev/null); pod2html --cachedir=/tmp --infile=../inkscape/inkscape.pod --outfile=doc/inkscape-man.html”.

[[Category:Help Wanted]]

Release notes/0.44

2006-08-06T18:54:34Z

Mental: add recent patches

== Inkscape 0.44.1 changes with respect to 0.44 ==
* fix a crash on Windows ("python.exe can't find msvcrt71.dll") by providing that dll in the package;
* fix hang in page size widget
* on Mac OS X, removed problems with home folder path names containing spaces;
* inkscape now finds libpng include headers on some systems
* several changes to allow compiling on glib-2.4 systems (e.g. RHEL4);
* allow compiling on systems with incomplete boost library headers; recognize if boost is too old
* inkscape now compiles with gcc-4.2.x.
* fixed a bug where stderr output from scripts was not shown
* fixed a bug affecting the recent files menu
* resolution information is now saved in exported PNG files
* fix some ODG export bugs
* fix dia import
* fix several include issues affecting [[CompilingSunSolaris|building on Solaris]] (there are still some more problems, at least under Solaris 8, and similar ones on OpenBSD)
* added missing German version of the advanced tutorial and made corrections to the calligraphy one; added missing Czech, German, and Brazil-Portuguese tutorials to tarball; added missing German keytable to tarball
* applied changes to the German and Spanish translations of Inkscape strings
* interactivity improvements at high zooms
* fix for specifying CSS colors with percentages
* re-enabled old PDF exporter alongside the new one
* minor fixes to new PDF exporter (a major overhaul is still in the works)
* fixup for invalid "s odipodi" namespace which has become widespread in Inkscape documents
* Mac OS X packaging updates
* miscellaneous build fixes

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Inkscape 0.44 is bigger and better than ever. Some highlights:

* Layers dialog

* Outline mode, many performance improvements

* Native PDF export with transparency

* Clipping and masking support

* Configurable keyboard shortcuts, including optional Xara X compatibility

* Docked color palette in the editing window

* Interactive indicator of the style of selection in the statusbar

* Innovative "node sculpting" and other improvements in Node tool

* Extensions are enabled by default and work on all major platforms

* Better SVG support: <switch> element, ICC color profiles for images

* Persistent rotation centers, Paste Size command

* New icons, redesigned preferences dialogs, rearranged menus, many cosmetic improvements

* Hundreds of bugfixes and smaller features

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

* The Path > Break Apart command is now dozens of times (up to 100x) faster for complex paths with thousands of subpaths.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

Rendering support for SVG 1.1's '''Conditional Processing Module''' has been implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Interface =

== Layers dialog ==

A Layers dialog (Ctrl+Shift+L) is implemented in this version. It works in parallel with the quick layer selector in the statusbar, so you can use whichever is more convenient for you.

* In the dialog, you can click on a layer to make it current, as well as toggle layers visible/hidden and locked/unlocked. You don't need to make a layer current to toggle its visibility or lock status.

* A hierarchical tree of layers is represented by a tree-like display in the dialog. You can expand or collapse branches of the tree to make the layer structure of a document easier to navigate.

* At the bottom of the dialog, there are buttons for adding a new layer, moving the current layer up or down (either one step or all the way to top or bottom), and deleting the current layer.

* Below the buttons, there's a slider and a spinbutton for adjusting the opacity of the current layer. A layer's opacity affects all objects in that layer in the same way as opacity of a group.

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anything.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fill/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have.

* The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Controls bar for the Text tool ==

* This version adds the beginnings of a Controls Bar for the Text tool (previously empty). Now you can select the font family, size, apply bold and italic styles, change alignment and text orientation without opening the Text and Font dialog.

* All controls are instant-apply and work on the entire text object (if nothing selected) or text selection. They can also apply to multiple text objects (though you would need to switch to Selector to select multiple text objects, then switch back to Text tool for its controls).

* The font-family drop-down contains names and previews of all fonts; unlike other programs, we didn't apply each font to its name, but added a separate preview string displayed with gray color after each font's name. This design ensures readability of font family names and provides maximum useful information in a limited space.

* We will be adding more controls (including spacing and kerning) to this bar for the next versions.

== Docked color palette ==

* Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W). Now the color swatches palette is embedded in the main UI, at the bottom of the window between the canvas and the statusbar. It is enabled by default; use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* The Wrap option (off by default) in the swatches menu converts the palette from a single row into a frame 2 or 3 rows high, for better access to colors in large palettes.

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette shows a live swatch of the color being dragged under cursor.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto the selected style indicator in the statusbar sets the fill or stroke of the selected object(s).
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill, or shift+dropped to set their stroke. This affects only the object you drop the color on, regardless of whether that object is selected or not.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

* The new Inkscape default color palette was added. It contains a range of grays, standard HTML named colors, and a full range of colors sorted by their HSL values (475 colors overall). It is generated by a Python script which is available from Inkscape SVN in share/palettes.

* Several specialized color palettes, useful in color-coordinated projects, were created or borrowed from GIMP: Grays, Reds, Greens, Blues, Gold, Royal, Khaki, Hilite, and Topographic.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge) are made smaller overall.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, with numerous bugs fixed in the rewrite.

* The old tabbed dialog is gone; the new dialog fits much better with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

* As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the page to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the page and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size a page to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Configurable keyboard ==

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* In Node tool, if your node selection includes nodes from different subpaths, statusbar reports the number of subpaths with selection and the total number of subpaths, for example:

::2 of 195 nodes selected in 2 of 36 subpaths.

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar.

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

=== Node sculpting ===

An entirely new way of manipulating paths in Node tool is added in this version: Node sculpting. Normally, when you have several nodes selected and you drag one of them, all selected nodes move by the same amount. Now, if you Alt-drag one of the selected nodes, only that node is fully displaced; other selected nodes are moved less than the full amount, so that those farthest from the drag point remain stationary. This is similar to "proportional editing" or "soft selection" in 3D editors such as Blender.

So, for example, if you select several nodes on a straight line and Alt+drag the middle selected node, the path will bend into a smooth bell-like curve. Nodes' handles are also adjusted correspondingly to keep the overall shape smooth and natural. (If you don't have enough nodes on a path fragment that you want to reshape in this way, just select the end nodes of that fragment and press Ins a few times to populate it with nodes.)

Moreover, node sculpting is pressure-sensitive when you are using a tablet pen. If you press slightly, your curve will have a narrow sharp tip (i.e. the nearest neighbors of your dragged node will move only a bit); if you press hard, the curve's tip will be wide and blunt (i.e. the nearest neighbors will move almost as much as the dragged node). (Hint: to stop dragging without losing your shape, first release Alt and then lift the tip of the pen.)

There are many possible applications of the sculpting technique. To take a simple example, selecting all nodes of an ellipse-like shape and Alt+dragging one of them will smoothly and naturally stretch and skew the entire shape in any direction. Doing the same to a complex path, such as star or spiral, will twist and punch it without destroying its intricate structure - this is the way to get squashed or self-intersecting stars, eccentric spirals and other shapes not easily doable before. Selecting only part of all nodes allows you to smoothly reshape parts of the figure without disturbing the rest.

When applied to text converted to path, node sculpting is a fun and easy way to twist, bend and distort it, achieving effects similar to "perspective envelope" or "curvilinear envelope" in other programs - but in a more powerful and flexible way. For example, by selecting all or part of the text's nodes and Alt-dragging, you can not only make a wavy banner out of a paragraph of text, but also apply a "magnifying lens"-like effect to any word in the middle.

Especially useful node sculpting is for complex natural paths, such as calligraphic strokes or bitmap traces, where you often want to do large-scale pushes and bends without destroying the small-scale features. Things like making a calligraphic stroke narrower in one place and wider in another, or changing the proportions, extending the ear or flattening the nose of a head - all this is now much faster and more natural to do using sculpting. It is also a new way to create new paths, too - starting from en ellipse with added nodes, it takes just a few Alt+drags to tweak it into a silhouette of a head, or a map of Australia, or an Inkscape logo!

Some examples are shown on the screenshot: [http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png].

=== "Show handles" toggle ===

The Controls bar for the Nodes tool now includes a toggle button which controls whether Bezier handles are shown on selected nodes (on by default). Selecting and dragging nodes on node-dense paths in zoom-out (e.g. for node sculpting) may be extremely difficult without hiding the handles, as it's hard to pick a node and not a handle when handles are shown.

=== New deletion behavior ===

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

=== Preserving positions of nodes and handles ===

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

== Calligraphic pen ==

=== Tremor ===

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

=== Pen width ===

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

=== Selection ===

* A new preferences option for the Calligraphic tool, Keep selected, controls whether the newly created object remains selected after you finish drawing it. If you turn it off (by default it's on) and set the tool to using Last Set color, you can easily choose a new color by clicking on the palette without having to worry if this will change the color of the stroke you just created. (Watch the tool style indicator at the right end of the Controls bar for the style of the next stroke you will draw.)

* Esc deselects selected objects in Calligraphic, as in most other tools.

=== Style ===

* The stroke you're drawing is now shown, while you're drawing it, with the correct color and opacity that it will eventually have, instead of always black as before.

* On a new Inkscape installation, this tool now uses the last set style by default instead of the fixed black as before (this is changeable in the Inkscape Preferences for the tool).

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool - that is, arrows, with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

* By popular demand, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* There have been numerous bugfixes and several improvements to the behaviour of connectors and the connector tool:
** Connectors moved as part of a selection will now stay attached to other objects in the selection, rather than becoming detached from them.
** By default, the Connector tool will not attach connectors to text objects. There is a new checkbox in the connector preferences to control this setting.
** The margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

* Automatic Diagram Layout: A new button is available in the Align and Distribute dialog that performs automatic layout of diagrams involving a network of shapes and connectors. Layout is accomplished using force-directed graph layout based on the Kamada-Kawai algorithm. This algorithm treats edges as if they are springs such that the distance between nodes will be proportional to the path length - number of connectors - between them. Disconnected components (where not every shape is connected) will be arranged around the circumference of a circle.

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. A minimum spacing between the boundaries of objects can be specified. Together with the automatic layout tool, described above, this should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. Removing overlaps is different from the "Unclump" button in that the former is completely deterministic and guarantees removing overlaps on the first application, but is not concerned with visual perceptive distances between objects. Unclumping, on the other hand, attempts to equalize perceptive distances between objects and can be applied repeatedly for gradual effect.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

* Inkscape 0.44 has an early version of the Simple Interactive Object Extraction (SIOX) algorithm (see [http://www.siox.org siox.org]) implemented in its bitmap tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see [http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg this file]. This clever algorithm from the realm of Image Recognition allows you to select areas of similar color, with the goal of extracting a foreground area from the background. To use:
** Enable the SIOX checkbox in addition to your usual tracing options.
** Select both the bitmap and an object that covers the foreground and part of background, leaving only background areas of the image uncovered.
** Hit OK. SIOX will now analyze and attempt to pull out the foreground-colored areas you want, and trace only those parts of the image.

* The full SIOX selection mechanism (e.g. the ability to identify foreground and background areas separately) is not implemented yet, but is planned for a future release.

= Snapping =

* In addition to snapping to guides and grids, you can now snap to other objects' paths and/or nodes. As with grid and guide snapping, you can separately enable snapping of bboxes to objects and/or snapping of nodes to objects. Be aware, however, that this is experimental code - there may be surprises. It may also be slow in large documents with thousands of objects.

* In addition to the snap sensitivity sliders in Document Preferences (which set snap distances in px), there are Always snap checkboxes (separately for object, grid and guide snapping) which force snapping at any distance.

* Grid snapping now applies only to the visible grid lines. For example, if you have zoomed out so that only every 10th grid line is visible, snapping will only apply to these visible lines. In addition, default grid snap sensitivity is set to "Always snap". This will hopefully reduce the number of "snapping does not work" complaints from users who didn't zoom in close enough to see that snapping does in fact work, but only at sub-px distances to the 1px-spaced grid. At the same time, you can still snap to finely grained distances if you zoom in.

* Guidelines are made easier to pick. Now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it; instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* In Preferences (Selecting tab), options are added allowing the "Select All" command and Tab key selection to work either in the current layer only or in the current layer and its sublayers.

= Markers =

* Converting stroke to path now correctly processes dashed strokes. For paths with markers, this command now creates a group containing the stroke converted to path and all its markers as independent objects (i.e. they are not markers anymore, but instead you can easily transform them or paint them any color, as a workaround for the "markers don't take the color of the stroke" bug; to be properly fixed, this bug requires implementing some SVG 1.2 features).

* The DimensionIn and DimensionOut markers are changed so that the arrow tips exactly correspond to node positions. It is now very easy to make dimension lines that correspond to drawn objects. The dimension specifications can now easily be chained by splitting a straight line at a point and assigning DimensionIn/Out markers to the resulting smaller paths whose endpoints coincide.

* All arrow markers in the standard set are moved on the path so that their tips are as close as possible to the corresponding node of the path. Complete coincidence is not possible, because it would cause the blunt end of the stroke itself to be visible under the sharp tip of the arrow, distorting its shape. However, now the arrow tips are much closer to their nodes than before, and probably sufficiently close for many practical situations.

* A new RazorWire path marker was added. By applying it as a mid-marker you can get a good approximation of a razor wire.

= Extension effects =

* The Effects menu is now officially on and no longer an optional "experimental feature" as in past versions. The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed. Inkscape 0.44 comes with about 30 effects that perform a variety of useful tasks, such as path blending, randomization, function plotting etc.

* Python effects (which includes almost all currently available effects) work on Windows out of the box, using a copy of Python shipping with Inkscape. The only minor inconvenience is that when an effect is launched, you get an empty console window that stays on while the effect is doing its work. (Don't close that window, it will disappear by itself when the effect is finished.)

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

* The Render > L-system (formerly "Fractal (Lindenmayer)") effect is improved in this version. Now you can specify different angle values for turning left and right, which makes it possible to smoothly bend some L-systems sideways. Also, you can separately randomize the step length and the angles by a given percent for more natural look (this works especially well with plant-like branching shapes). This effect can be used to create Penrose tiling, Sierpinsky triangle, Dragon curve and other famous mathematical artefacts, as well as various meanders, friezes, patterns, and trees. Some examples can be seen on this screenshot: [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png] as well as in the new example file <code>share/examples/l-systems.svg</code>.

* The Interpolate Path, Random Tree, and L-system effects are fixed to place their result on the current layer instead of document root and in the center of the (last-saved) document view instead of 0,0 as before.

* INX files now have the ability to hold more information. This includes tooltips and descriptions of the extensions. These are all also translatable.

* Thanks to keyboard configurability, it is now possible to assign keyboard shortcuts to those effects you use most often, so you can activate them without going into the menu.

= Formats =

* Inkscape's PDF export is now native (i.e. does not require any external applications) and supports transparency, including gradients with transparency. This replaced the old export extension that required Ghostscript and worked via Postscript, losing any transparency. The new PDF export is still immature; in particular it does not handle text, so you should check "Convert text to path" on the export options dialog. Other things not yet supported include: gradients on stroke; eccentric elliptic gradients; patterns, masks, and clipping paths; embedded images.

* You can now Save as Compressed Inkscape SVG with media.This save option collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution. Although you cannot open the resulting archive directly with inkscape, the media is linked such that after unzipping you can open the SVG file immediately.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* Inkscape can open/import default files generated by the Xfig vector graphics editor. This requires that the fig2dev command (transfig) is in your PATH.

* Starting with this version, there is a limited ability to export Inkscape drawing shapes as Open Document Format drawings (.odg files). Currently the export is limited to text, shapes, and solid fill and strokes. This output will be improved in the coming months. In the meantime, however, ODG output is already useful for getting your SVG drawings into the Open Document world, in particular into an office suite such as OpenOffice.org.

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in GIMP. Requires Python, PyXML and GIMP. GIMP 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows yet.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag, in any tool, to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Inkscape Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI not only did not cause Inkscape to complain, but could also "pollute" Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace. This is now fixed, but as a result, documents with incorrect namespace URIs will no longer load. You will have to edit them in a text editor to fix the namespaces.

* With newer versions of GTK, dragging with graphics tablet pen did not work in some tools and contexts (in particular, in Node and Rectangle tools). This is fixed.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* More document memory is now freed when documents are closed.

* EPS output now correctly includes an %%EOF footer.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

* Inkscape is now significantly translated to 18 languages: Basque, Catalan, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål dialect), Polish, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovenian, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Vietnamese. Additionally, 21 more languages have some level of translation. Average translation ratio has increased from 49% to 61% in this release.

* Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors: Czech, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Russian.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

= Known problems =
=== SVG files saved using previous version don't display font correctly ===

* You may find that fonts don't correctly display when opening a file from a previous version (eg 0.43). This can be fixed by simply reapplying the font. However, bringing up the font dialog doesn't acquire the font size from the document and so the actual size may be lost. If you select the text, then check using the XML viewer what the original font and size were you can then input this via the font dialog and restore your document to it's original glory! [ pbhj ]

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

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

=== Problems with "Composite" option of X.org ===

* Some prereleases of inkscape-0.44 could crash if the "Composite" option were enabled in X.org's configuration. This is not a problem in the final release.

=== Namespaces may need fixing ===

* Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with wrong namespace URIs. This has been fixed, but such corrupted documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand. Correct namespace URLs are as follows, with typical namespace prefixes given in parenthesis:
** [http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd '''Sodipodi''']
** [http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape '''Inkscape''']
** [http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink '''XLink''']
** [http://www.w3.org/2000/svg '''SVG''']
** [http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns# '''RDF''']
** [http://web.resource.org/cc/ '''Creative Commons''']
** [http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/ '''Dublin Core Metadata''']

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

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

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

=== Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it ===

* If you were using certain CVS/SVN builds from autumn of 2005, you may have the file <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux). In that case you will see many errors about verbs that cannot be found, and some commands in menus will be disabled. Make sure to delete <code>menus.xml</code> to fix this.

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.44

2006-06-30T01:38:42Z

Mental: /* Inkscape 0.44.1 changes with respect to 0.44 */

== Inkscape 0.44.1 changes with respect to 0.44 ==
* fix a crash on Windows ("python.exe can't find msvcrt71.dll") by providing that dll in the package;
* on Mac OS X, removed problems with home folder path names containing spaces;
* added missing German version of the advanced tutorial and made corrections to the calligraphy one; added missing Czech, German, and Brazil-Portuguese tutorials to tarball;
* several changes to allow compiling on glib-2.4 systems (e.g. RHEL4);
* inkscape now compiles with gcc-4.2.x.
* fix some ODG export bugs
* fix hang in page size widget
* resolution information is now saved in exported PNG files

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Inkscape 0.44 is bigger and better than ever. Some highlights:

* Layers dialog

* Outline mode, many performance improvements

* Native PDF export with transparency

* Clipping and masking support

* Configurable keyboard shortcuts, including optional Xara X compatibility

* Docked color palette in the editing window

* Interactive indicator of the style of selection in the statusbar

* Innovative "node sculpting" and other improvements in Node tool

* Extensions are enabled by default and work on all major platforms

* Better SVG support: <switch> element, ICC color profiles for images

* Persistent rotation centers, Paste Size command

* New icons, redesigned preferences dialogs, rearranged menus, many cosmetic improvements

* Hundreds of bugfixes and smaller features

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

* The Path > Break Apart command is now dozens of times (up to 100x) faster for complex paths with thousands of subpaths.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

Rendering support for SVG 1.1's '''Conditional Processing Module''' has been implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Interface =

== Layers dialog ==

A Layers dialog (Ctrl+Shift+L) is implemented in this version. It works in parallel with the quick layer selector in the statusbar, so you can use whichever is more convenient for you.

* In the dialog, you can click on a layer to make it current, as well as toggle layers visible/hidden and locked/unlocked. You don't need to make a layer current to toggle its visibility or lock status.

* A hierarchical tree of layers is represented by a tree-like display in the dialog. You can expand or collapse branches of the tree to make the layer structure of a document easier to navigate.

* At the bottom of the dialog, there are buttons for adding a new layer, moving the current layer up or down (either one step or all the way to top or bottom), and deleting the current layer.

* Below the buttons, there's a slider and a spinbutton for adjusting the opacity of the current layer. A layer's opacity affects all objects in that layer in the same way as opacity of a group.

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anything.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fill/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have.

* The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Controls bar for the Text tool ==

* This version adds the beginnings of a Controls Bar for the Text tool (previously empty). Now you can select the font family, size, apply bold and italic styles, change alignment and text orientation without opening the Text and Font dialog.

* All controls are instant-apply and work on the entire text object (if nothing selected) or text selection. They can also apply to multiple text objects (though you would need to switch to Selector to select multiple text objects, then switch back to Text tool for its controls).

* The font-family drop-down contains names and previews of all fonts; unlike other programs, we didn't apply each font to its name, but added a separate preview string displayed with gray color after each font's name. This design ensures readability of font family names and provides maximum useful information in a limited space.

* We will be adding more controls (including spacing and kerning) to this bar for the next versions.

== Docked color palette ==

* Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W). Now the color swatches palette is embedded in the main UI, at the bottom of the window between the canvas and the statusbar. It is enabled by default; use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* The Wrap option (off by default) in the swatches menu converts the palette from a single row into a frame 2 or 3 rows high, for better access to colors in large palettes.

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette shows a live swatch of the color being dragged under cursor.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto the selected style indicator in the statusbar sets the fill or stroke of the selected object(s).
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill, or shift+dropped to set their stroke. This affects only the object you drop the color on, regardless of whether that object is selected or not.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

* The new Inkscape default color palette was added. It contains a range of grays, standard HTML named colors, and a full range of colors sorted by their HSL values (475 colors overall). It is generated by a Python script which is available from Inkscape SVN in share/palettes.

* Several specialized color palettes, useful in color-coordinated projects, were created or borrowed from GIMP: Grays, Reds, Greens, Blues, Gold, Royal, Khaki, Hilite, and Topographic.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge) are made smaller overall.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, with numerous bugs fixed in the rewrite.

* The old tabbed dialog is gone; the new dialog fits much better with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

* As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the page to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the page and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size a page to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Configurable keyboard ==

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* In Node tool, if your node selection includes nodes from different subpaths, statusbar reports the number of subpaths with selection and the total number of subpaths, for example:

::2 of 195 nodes selected in 2 of 36 subpaths.

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar.

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

=== Node sculpting ===

An entirely new way of manipulating paths in Node tool is added in this version: Node sculpting. Normally, when you have several nodes selected and you drag one of them, all selected nodes move by the same amount. Now, if you Alt-drag one of the selected nodes, only that node is fully displaced; other selected nodes are moved less than the full amount, so that those farthest from the drag point remain stationary. This is similar to "proportional editing" or "soft selection" in 3D editors such as Blender.

So, for example, if you select several nodes on a straight line and Alt+drag the middle selected node, the path will bend into a smooth bell-like curve. Nodes' handles are also adjusted correspondingly to keep the overall shape smooth and natural. (If you don't have enough nodes on a path fragment that you want to reshape in this way, just select the end nodes of that fragment and press Ins a few times to populate it with nodes.)

Moreover, node sculpting is pressure-sensitive when you are using a tablet pen. If you press slightly, your curve will have a narrow sharp tip (i.e. the nearest neighbors of your dragged node will move only a bit); if you press hard, the curve's tip will be wide and blunt (i.e. the nearest neighbors will move almost as much as the dragged node). (Hint: to stop dragging without losing your shape, first release Alt and then lift the tip of the pen.)

There are many possible applications of the sculpting technique. To take a simple example, selecting all nodes of an ellipse-like shape and Alt+dragging one of them will smoothly and naturally stretch and skew the entire shape in any direction. Doing the same to a complex path, such as star or spiral, will twist and punch it without destroying its intricate structure - this is the way to get squashed or self-intersecting stars, eccentric spirals and other shapes not easily doable before. Selecting only part of all nodes allows you to smoothly reshape parts of the figure without disturbing the rest.

When applied to text converted to path, node sculpting is a fun and easy way to twist, bend and distort it, achieving effects similar to "perspective envelope" or "curvilinear envelope" in other programs - but in a more powerful and flexible way. For example, by selecting all or part of the text's nodes and Alt-dragging, you can not only make a wavy banner out of a paragraph of text, but also apply a "magnifying lens"-like effect to any word in the middle.

Especially useful node sculpting is for complex natural paths, such as calligraphic strokes or bitmap traces, where you often want to do large-scale pushes and bends without destroying the small-scale features. Things like making a calligraphic stroke narrower in one place and wider in another, or changing the proportions, extending the ear or flattening the nose of a head - all this is now much faster and more natural to do using sculpting. It is also a new way to create new paths, too - starting from en ellipse with added nodes, it takes just a few Alt+drags to tweak it into a silhouette of a head, or a map of Australia, or an Inkscape logo!

Some examples are shown on the screenshot: [[http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png]].

=== "Show handles" toggle ===

The Controls bar for the Nodes tool now includes a toggle button which controls whether Bezier handles are shown on selected nodes (on by default). Selecting and dragging nodes on node-dense paths in zoom-out (e.g. for node sculpting) may be extremely difficult without hiding the handles, as it's hard to pick a node and not a handle when handles are shown.

=== New deletion behavior ===

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

=== Preserving positions of nodes and handles ===

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

== Calligraphic pen ==

=== Tremor ===

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

=== Pen width ===

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

=== Selection ===

* A new preferences option for the Calligraphic tool, Keep selected, controls whether the newly created object remains selected after you finish drawing it. If you turn it off (by default it's on) and set the tool to using Last Set color, you can easily choose a new color by clicking on the palette without having to worry if this will change the color of the stroke you just created. (Watch the tool style indicator at the right end of the Controls bar for the style of the next stroke you will draw.)

* Esc deselects selected objects in Calligraphic, as in most other tools.

=== Style ===

* The stroke you're drawing is now shown, while you're drawing it, with the correct color and opacity that it will eventually have, instead of always black as before.

* On a new Inkscape installation, this tool now uses the last set style by default instead of the fixed black as before (this is changeable in the Inkscape Preferences for the tool).

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool - that is, arrows, with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

* By popular demand, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* There have been numerous bugfixes and several improvements to the behaviour of connectors and the connector tool:
** Connectors moved as part of a selection will now stay attached to other objects in the selection, rather than becoming detached from them.
** By default, the Connector tool will not attach connectors to text objects. There is a new checkbox in the connector preferences to control this setting.
** The margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

* Automatic Diagram Layout: A new button is available in the Align and Distribute dialog that performs automatic layout of diagrams involving a network of shapes and connectors. Layout is accomplished using force-directed graph layout based on the Kamada-Kawai algorithm. This algorithm treats edges as if they are springs such that the distance between nodes will be proportional to the path length - number of connectors - between them. Disconnected components (where not every shape is connected) will be arranged around the circumference of a circle.

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. A minimum spacing between the boundaries of objects can be specified. Together with the automatic layout tool, described above, this should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. Removing overlaps is different from the "Unclump" button in that the former is completely deterministic and guarantees removing overlaps on the first application, but is not concerned with visual perceptive distances between objects. Unclumping, on the other hand, attempts to equalize perceptive distances between objects and can be applied repeatedly for gradual effect.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

* Inkscape 0.44 has an early version of the Simple Interactive Object Extraction (SIOX) algorithm (see [http://www.siox.org siox.org]) implemented in its bitmap tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see [http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg this file]. This clever algorithm from the realm of Image Recognition allows you to select areas of similar color, with the goal of extracting a foreground area from the background. To use:
** Enable the SIOX checkbox in addition to your usual tracing options.
** Select both the bitmap and an object that covers the foreground and part of background, leaving only background areas of the image uncovered.
** Hit OK. SIOX will now analyze and attempt to pull out the foreground-colored areas you want, and trace only those parts of the image.

* The full SIOX selection mechanism (e.g. the ability to identify foreground and background areas separately) is not implemented yet, but is planned for a future release.

= Snapping =

* In addition to snapping to guides and grids, you can now snap to other objects' paths and/or nodes. As with grid and guide snapping, you can separately enable snapping of bboxes to objects and/or snapping of nodes to objects. Be aware, however, that this is experimental code - there may be surprises. It may also be slow in large documents with thousands of objects.

* In addition to the snap sensitivity sliders in Document Preferences (which set snap distances in px), there are Always snap checkboxes (separately for object, grid and guide snapping) which force snapping at any distance.

* Grid snapping now applies only to the visible grid lines. For example, if you have zoomed out so that only every 10th grid line is visible, snapping will only apply to these visible lines. In addition, default grid snap sensitivity is set to "Always snap". This will hopefully reduce the number of "snapping does not work" complaints from users who didn't zoom in close enough to see that snapping does in fact work, but only at sub-px distances to the 1px-spaced grid. At the same time, you can still snap to finely grained distances if you zoom in.

* Guidelines are made easier to pick. Now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it; instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* In Preferences (Selecting tab), options are added allowing the "Select All" command and Tab key selection to work either in the current layer only or in the current layer and its sublayers.

= Markers =

* Converting stroke to path now correctly processes dashed strokes. For paths with markers, this command now creates a group containing the stroke converted to path and all its markers as independent objects (i.e. they are not markers anymore, but instead you can easily transform them or paint them any color, as a workaround for the "markers don't take the color of the stroke" bug; to be properly fixed, this bug requires implementing some SVG 1.2 features).

* The DimensionIn and DimensionOut markers are changed so that the arrow tips exactly correspond to node positions. It is now very easy to make dimension lines that correspond to drawn objects. The dimension specifications can now easily be chained by splitting a straight line at a point and assigning DimensionIn/Out markers to the resulting smaller paths whose endpoints coincide.

* All arrow markers in the standard set are moved on the path so that their tips are as close as possible to the corresponding node of the path. Complete coincidence is not possible, because it would cause the blunt end of the stroke itself to be visible under the sharp tip of the arrow, distorting its shape. However, now the arrow tips are much closer to their nodes than before, and probably sufficiently close for many practical situations.

* A new RazorWire path marker was added. By applying it as a mid-marker you can get a good approximation of a razor wire.

= Extension effects =

* The Effects menu is now officially on and no longer an optional "experimental feature" as in past versions. The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed. Inkscape 0.44 comes with about 30 effects that perform a variety of useful tasks, such as path blending, randomization, function plotting etc.

* Python effects (which includes almost all currently available effects) work on Windows out of the box, using a copy of Python shipping with Inkscape. The only minor inconvenience is that when an effect is launched, you get an empty console window that stays on while the effect is doing its work. (Don't close that window, it will disappear by itself when the effect is finished.)

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

* The Render > L-system (formerly "Fractal (Lindenmayer)") effect is improved in this version. Now you can specify different angle values for turning left and right, which makes it possible to smoothly bend some L-systems sideways. Also, you can separately randomize the step length and the angles by a given percent for more natural look (this works especially well with plant-like branching shapes). This effect can be used to create Penrose tiling, Sierpinsky triangle, Dragon curve and other famous mathematical artefacts, as well as various meanders, friezes, patterns, and trees. Some examples can be seen on this screenshot: [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png] as well as in the new example file <code>share/examples/l-systems.svg</code>.

* The Interpolate Path, Random Tree, and L-system effects are fixed to place their result on the current layer instead of document root and in the center of the (last-saved) document view instead of 0,0 as before.

* INX files now have the ability to hold more information. This includes tooltips and descriptions of the extensions. These are all also translatable.

* Thanks to keyboard configurability, it is now possible to assign keyboard shortcuts to those effects you use most often, so you can activate them without going into the menu.

= Formats =

* Inkscape's PDF export is now native (i.e. does not require any external applications) and supports transparency, including gradients with transparency. This replaced the old export extension that required Ghostscript and worked via Postscript, losing any transparency. The new PDF export is still immature; in particular it does not handle text, so you should check "Convert text to path" on the export options dialog. Other things not yet supported include: gradients on stroke; eccentric elliptic gradients; patterns, masks, and clipping paths; embedded images.

* You can now Save as Compressed Inkscape SVG with media.This save option collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution. Although you cannot open the resulting archive directly with inkscape, the media is linked such that after unzipping you can open the SVG file immediately.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* Inkscape can open/import default files generated by the Xfig vector graphics editor. This requires that the fig2dev command (transfig) is in your PATH.

* Starting with this version, there is a limited ability to export Inkscape drawing shapes as Open Document Format drawings (.odg files). Currently the export is limited to text, shapes, and solid fill and strokes. This output will be improved in the coming months. In the meantime, however, ODG output is already useful for getting your SVG drawings into the Open Document world, in particular into an office suite such as OpenOffice.org.

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in GIMP. Requires Python, PyXML and GIMP. GIMP 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows yet.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag, in any tool, to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Inkscape Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI not only did not cause Inkscape to complain, but could also "pollute" Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace. This is now fixed, but as a result, documents with incorrect namespace URIs will no longer load. You will have to edit them in a text editor to fix the namespaces.

* With newer versions of GTK, dragging with graphics tablet pen did not work in some tools and contexts (in particular, in Node and Rectangle tools). This is fixed.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* More document memory is now freed when documents are closed.

* EPS output now correctly includes an %%EOF footer.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

* Inkscape is now significantly translated to 18 languages: Basque, Catalan, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål dialect), Polish, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovenian, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Vietnamese. Additionally, 21 more languages have some level of translation. Average translation ratio has increased from 49% to 61% in this release.

* Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors: Czech, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Russian.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

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

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

=== Problems with "Composite" option of X.org ===

* Some prereleases of inkscape-0.44 could crash if the "Composite" option were enabled in X.org's configuration. This is not a problem in the final release.

=== Namespaces may need fixing ===

* Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with wrong namespace URIs. This has been fixed, but such corrupted documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand. Correct namespace URLs are as follows, with typical namespace prefixes given in parenthesis:
** '''Sodipodi''' (''sodipodi''): http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd
** '''Inkscape''' (''inkscape''): http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape
** '''XLink''' (''xlink''): http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink
** '''SVG''' (''svg'' or none): http://www.w3.org/2000/svg
** '''RDF''' (''rdf''): http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
** '''Creative Commons''' (''cc''): http://web.resource.org/cc/
** '''Dublin Core Metadata''' (''dc''): http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/

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

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

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

=== Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it ===

* If you were using certain CVS/SVN builds from autumn of 2005, you may have the file <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux). In that case you will see many errors about verbs that cannot be found, and some commands in menus will be disabled. Make sure to delete <code>menus.xml</code> to fix this.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.44

2006-06-18T19:24:22Z

Mental: /* Node sculpting */

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Inkscape 0.44 is bigger and better than ever. Some highlights:

* Layers dialog

* Outline mode, many performance improvements

* Native PDF export with transparency

* Clipping and masking support

* Configurable keyboard shortcuts, including optional Xara X compatibility

* Docked color palette in the editing window

* Interactive indicator of the style of selection in the statusbar

* Innovative "node sculpting" and other improvements in Node tool

* Extensions are enabled by default and work on all major platforms

* Better SVG support: <switch> element, ICC color profiles for images

* Persistent rotation centers, Paste Size command

* New icons, redesigned preferences dialogs, rearranged menus, many cosmetic improvements

* Hundreds of bugfixes and smaller features

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

* The Path > Break Apart command is now dozens of times (up to 100x) faster for complex paths with thousands of subpaths.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

Rendering support for SVG 1.1's '''Conditional Processing Module''' has been implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Interface =

== Layers dialog ==

A Layers dialog (Ctrl+Shift+L) is implemented in this version. It works in parallel with the quick layer selector in the statusbar, so you can use whichever is more convenient for you.

* In the dialog, you can click on a layer to make it current, as well as toggle layers visible/hidden and locked/unlocked. You don't need to make a layer current to toggle it visibility or lock status.

* A hierarchical tree of layers is represented by a tree-like display in the dialog. You can expand or collapse branches of the tree to make the layer structure of a document easier to navigate.

* At the bottom of the dialog, there are buttons for adding a new layer, moving the current layer up or down (either one step or all the way to top or bottom), and deleting the current layer.

* Below the buttons, there's a slider and a spinbutton for adjusting the opacity of the current layer. A layer's opacity affects all objects in that layer in the same way as opacity of a group.

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anything.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fill/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have.

* The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Controls bar for the Text tool ==

* This version adds the beginnings of a Controls Bar for the Text tool (previously empty). Now you can select the font family, size, apply bold and italic styles, change alignment and text orientation without opening the Text and Font dialog.

* All controls are instant-apply and work on the entire text object (if nothing selected) or text selection. They can also apply to multiple text objects (though you would need to switch to Selector to select multiple text objects, then switch back to Text tool for its controls).

* The font-family drop-down contains names and previews of all fonts; unlike other programs, we didn't apply each font to its name, but added a separate preview string displayed with gray color after each font's name. This design ensures readability of font family names and provides maximum useful information in a limited space.

* We will be adding more controls (including spacing and kerning) to this bar for the next versions.

== Docked color palette ==

* Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W). Now the color swatches palette is embedded in the main UI, at the bottom of the window between the canvas and the statusbar. It is enabled by default; use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* The Wrap option (off by default) in the swatches menu converts the palette from a single row into a frame 2 or 3 rows high, for better access to colors in large palettes.

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette shows a live swatch of the color being dragged under cursor.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto the selected style indicator in the statusbar sets the fill or stroke of the selected object(s).
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill, or shift+dropped to set their stroke. This affects only the object you drop the color on, regardless of whether that object is selected or not.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

* The new Inkscape default color palette was added. It contains a range of grays, standard HTML named colors, and a full range of colors sorted by their HSL values (475 colors overall). It is generated by a Python script which is available from Inkscape SVN in share/palettes.

* Several specialized color palettes, useful in color-coordinated projects, were created or borrowed from GIMP: Grays, Reds, Greens, Blues, Gold, Royal, Khaki, Hilite, and Topographic.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge) are made smaller overall.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, with numerous bugs fixed in the rewrite.

* The old tabbed dialog is gone; the new dialog fits much betters with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

* As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Configurable keyboard ==

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* In Node tool, if your node selection includes nodes from different subpaths, statusbar reports the number of subpaths with selection and the total number of subpaths, for example:

::2 of 195 nodes selected in 2 of 36 subpaths.

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar.

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

=== Node sculpting ===

An entirely new way of manipulating paths in Node tool is added in this version: Node sculpting. Normally, when you have several nodes selected and you drag one of them, all selected nodes move by the same amount. Now, if you Alt-drag one of the selected nodes, only that node is fully displaced; other selected nodes are moved less than the full amount, so that those farthest from the drag point remain stationary. This is similar to "proportional editing" or "soft selection" in 3D editors such as Blender.

So, for example, if you select several nodes on a straight line and Alt+drag the middle selected node, the path will bend into a smooth bell-like curve. Nodes' handles are also adjusted correspondingly to keep the overall shape smooth and natural. (If you don't have enough nodes on a path fragment that you want to reshape in this way, just select the end nodes of that fragment and press Ins a few times to populate it with nodes.)

Moreover, node sculpting is pressure-sensitive when you are using a tablet pen. If you press slightly, your curve will have a narrow sharp tip (i.e. the nearest neighbors of your dragged node will move only a bit); if you press hard, the curve's tip will be wide and blunt (i.e. the nearest neighbors will move almost as much as the dragged node). (Hint: to stop dragging without losing your shape, first release Alt and then lift the tip of the pen.)

There are many possible applications of the sculpting technique. To take a simple example, selecting all nodes of an ellipse-like shape and Alt+dragging one of them will smoothly and naturally stretch and skew the entire shape in any direction. Doing the same to a complex path, such as star or spiral, will twist and punch it without destroying its intricate structure - this is the way to get squashed or self-intersecting stars, eccentric spirals and other shapes not easily doable before. Selecting only part of all nodes allows you to smoothly reshape parts of the figure without disturbing the rest.

When applied to text converted to path, node sculpting is a fun and easy way to twist, bend and distort it, achieving effects similar to "perspective envelope" or "curvilinear envelope" in other programs - but in a more powerful and flexible way. For example, by selecting all or part of the text's nodes and Alt-dragging, you can not only make a wavy banner out of a paragraph of text, but also apply a "magnifying lens"-like effect to any word in the middle.

Especially useful node sculpting is for complex natural paths, such as calligraphic strokes or bitmap traces, where you often want to do large-scale pushes and bends without destroying the small-scale features. Things like making a calligraphic stroke narrower in one place and wider in another, or changing the proportions, extending the ear or flattening the nose of a head - all this is now much faster and more natural to do using sculpting. It is also a new way to create new paths, too - starting from en ellipse with added nodes, it takes just a few Alt+drags to tweak it into a silhouette of a head, or a map of Australia, or an Inkscape logo!

Some examples are shown on the screenshot: [[http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png]].

=== "Show handles" toggle ===

The Controls bar for the Nodes tool now includes a toggle button which controls whether Bezier handles are shown on selected nodes (on by default). Selecting and dragging nodes on node-dense paths in zoom-out (e.g. for node sculpting) may be extremely difficult without hiding the handles, as it's hard to pick a node and not a handle when handles are shown.

=== New deletion behavior ===

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

=== Preserving positions of nodes and handles ===

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

== Calligraphic pen ==

=== Tremor ===

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

=== Pen width ===

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

=== Selection ===

* A new preferences option for the Calligraphic tool, Keep selected, controls whether the newly created object remains selected after you finish drawing it. If you turn it off (by default it's on) and set the tool to using Last Set color, you can easily choose a new color by clicking on the palette without having to worry if this will change the color of the stroke you just created. (Watch the tool style indicator at the right end of the Controls bar for the style of the next stroke you will draw.)

* Esc deselects selected objects in Calligraphic, as in most other tools.

=== Style ===

* The stroke you're drawing is now shown, while you're drawing it, with the correct color and opacity that it will eventually have, instead of always black as before.

* On a new Inkscape installation, this tool now uses the last set style by default instead of the fixed black as before (this is changeable in the Inkscape Preferences for the tool).

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool - that is, arrows, with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

* By popular demand, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* There have been numerous bugfixes and several improvements to the behaviour of connectors and the connector tool:
** Connectors moved as part of a selection will now stay attached to other objects in the selection, rather than becoming detached from them.
** By default, the Connector tool will not attach connectors to text objects. There is a new checkbox in the connector preferences to control this setting.
** The margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

* Automatic Diagram Layout: A new button is available in the Align and Distribute dialog that performs automatic layout of diagrams involving a network of shapes and connectors. Layout is accomplished using force-directed graph layout based on the Kamada-Kawai algorithm. This algorithm treats edges as if they are springs such that the distance between nodes will be proportional to the path length - number of connectors - between them. Disconnected components (where not every shape is connected) will be arranged around the circumference of a circle.

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. A minimum spacing between the boundaries of objects can be specified. Together with the automatic layout tool, described above, this should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. Removing overlaps is different from the "Unclump" button in that the former is completely deterministic and guarantees removing overlaps on the first application, but is not concerned with visual perceptive distances between objects. Unclumping, on the other hand, attempts to equalize perceptive distances between objects and can be applied repeatedly for gradual effect.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

* Inkscape 0.44 has an early version of the Simple Interactive Object Extraction (SIOX) algorithm (see [http://www.siox.org siox.org]) implemented in its bitmap tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see [http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg this file]. This clever algorithm from the realm of Image Recognition allows you to select areas of similar color, with the goal of extracting a foreground area from the background. To use:
** Enable the SIOX checkbox in addition to your usual tracing options.
** Select both the bitmap and an object that covers the foreground and part of background, leaving only background areas of the image uncovered.
** Hit OK. SIOX will now analyze and attempt to pull out the foreground-colored areas you want, and trace only those parts of the image.

* The full SIOX selection mechanism (e.g. the ability to identify foreground and background areas separately) is not implemented yet, but is planned for a future release.

= Snapping =

* In addition to snapping to guides and grids, you can now snap to other objects' paths and/or nodes. As with grid and guide snapping, you can separately enable snapping of bboxes to objects and/or snapping of nodes to objects. Be aware, however, that this is experimental code - there may be surprises. It may also be slow in large documents with thousands of objects.

* In addition to the snap sensitivity sliders in Document Preferences (which set snap distances in px), there are Always snap checkboxes (separately for object, grid and guide snapping) which force snapping at any distance.

* Grid snapping now applies only to the visible grid lines. For example, if you have zoomed out so that only every 10th grid line is visible, snapping will only apply to these visible lines. In addition, default grid snap sensitivity is set to "Always snap". This will hopefully reduce the number of "snapping does not work" complaints from users who didn't zoom in close enough to see that snapping does in fact work, but only at sub-px distances to the 1px-spaced grid. At the same time, you can still snap to finely grained distances if you zoom in.

* Guidelines are made easier to pick. Now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it; instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* In Preferences (Selecting tab), options are added allowing the "Select All" command and Tab key selection to work either in the current layer only or in the current layer and its sublayers.

= Markers =

* Converting stroke to path now correctly processes dashed strokes. For paths with markers, this command now creates a group containing the stroke converted to path and all its markers as independent objects (i.e. they are not markers anymore, but instead you can easily transform them or paint them any color, as a workaround for the "markers don't take the color of the stroke" bug; to be properly fixed, this bug requires implementing some SVG 1.2 features).

* The DimensionIn and DimensionOut markers are changed so that the arrow tips exactly correspond to node positions. It is now very easy to make dimension lines that correspond to drawn objects. The dimension specifications can now easily be chained by splitting a straight line at a point and assigning DimensionIn/Out markers to the resulting smaller paths whose endpoints coincide.

* All arrow markers in the standard set are moved on the path so that their tips are as close as possible to the corresponding node of the path. Complete coincidence is not possible, because it would cause the blunt end of the stroke itself to be visible under the sharp tip of the arrow, distorting its shape. However, now the arrow tips are much closer to their nodes than before, and probably sufficiently close for many practical situations.

* A new RazorWire path marker was added. By applying it as a mid-marker you can get a good approximation of a razor wire.

= Extension effects =

* The Effects menu is now officially on and no longer an optional "experimental feature" as in past versions. The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed. Inkscape 0.44 comes with about 30 effects that perform a variety of useful tasks, such as path blending, randomization, function plotting etc.

* Python effects (which includes almost all currently available effects) work on Windows out of the box, using a copy of Python shipping with Inkscape. The only minor inconvenience is that when an effect is launched, you get an empty console window that stays on while the effect is doing its work. (Don't close that window, it will disappear by itself when the effect is finished.)

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

* The Render > L-system (formerly "Fractal (Lindenmayer)") effect is improved in this version. Now you can specify different angle values for turning left and right, which makes it possible to smoothly bend some L-systems sideways. Also, you can separately randomize the step length and the angles by a given percent for more natural look (this works especially well with plant-like branching shapes). This effect can be used to create Penrose tiling, Sierpinsky triangle, Dragon curve and other famous mathematical artefacts, as well as various meanders, friezes, patterns, and trees. Some examples can be seen on this screenshot: [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png] as well as in the new example file <code>share/examples/l-systems.svg</code>.

* The Interpolate Path, Random Tree, and L-system effects are fixed to place their result on the current layer instead of document root and in the center of the (last-saved) document view instead of 0,0 as before.

* INX files now have the ability to hold more information. This includes tooltips and descriptions of the extensions. These are all also translatable.

* Thanks to keyboard configurability, it is now possible to assign keyboard shortcuts to those effects you use most often, so you can activate them without going into the menu.

= Formats =

* Inkscape's PDF export is now native (i.e. does not require any external applications) and supports transparency, including gradients with transparency. This replaced the old export extension that required Ghostscript and worked via Postscript, losing any transparency. The new PDF export is still immature; in particular it does not handle text, so you should check "Convert text to path" on the export options dialog. Other things not yet supported include: gradients on stroke; eccentric elliptic gradients; patterns, masks, and clipping paths; embedded images.

* You can now Save as Compressed Inkscape SVG with media.This save option collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution. Although you cannot open the resulting archive directly with inkscape, the media is linked such that after unzipping you can open the SVG file immediately.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* Inkscape can open/import default files generated by the Xfig vector graphics editor. This requires that the fig2dev command (transfig) is in your PATH.

* Starting with this version, there is a limited ability to export Inkscape drawing shapes as Open Document Format drawings (.odg files). Currently the export is limited to text, shapes, and solid fill and strokes. This output will be improved in the coming months. In the meantime, however, ODG output is already useful for getting your SVG drawings into the Open Document world, in particular into an office suite such as OpenOffice.org.

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in GIMP. Requires Python, PyXML and GIMP. GIMP 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows yet.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag, in any tool, to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI not only did not cause Inkscape to complain, but could also "pollute" Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace. This is now fixed, but as a result, documents with incorrect namespace URIs will no longer load. You will have to edit them in a text editor to fix the namespaces.

* With newer versions of GTK, dragging with graphics tablet pen did not work in some tools and contexts (in particular, in Node and Rectangle tools). This is fixed.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* More document memory is now freed when documents are closed.

* EPS output now correctly includes an %%EOF footer.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

* Inkscape is now significantly translated to 17 languages: Basque, Catalan, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (bokmål dialect), Polish, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovenian, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Traditional Chinese. Additionally, 21 more languages have some level of translation. Average translation ratio has increased from 49% to 59% in this release.

* Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors: Czech, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Russian.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

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

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

=== Problems with "Composite" option of X.org ===

* Some prereleases of inkscape-0.44 could crash if the "Composite" option were enabled in X.org's configuration. This is not a problem in the final release.

=== Namespaces may need fixing ===

* Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with wrong namespace URIs. This has been fixed, but such corrupted documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand. Correct namespace URLs are as follows, with typical namespace prefixes given in parenthesis:
** '''Sodipodi''' (''sodipodi''): http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd
** '''Inkscape''' (''inkscape''): http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape
** '''XLink''' (''xlink''): http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink
** '''SVG''' (''svg'' or none): http://www.w3.org/2000/svg
** '''RDF''' (''rdf''): http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
** '''Creative Commons''' (''cc''): http://web.resource.org/cc/
** '''Dublin Core Metadata''' (''dc''): http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/

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

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem. Update: this bug appears to be fixed in newer versions of gtk-engines. However, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of any further problem.
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

=== Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it ===

* If you were using certain CVS/SVN builds from autumn of 2005, you may have the file <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux). In that case you will see many errors about verbs that cannot be found, and some commands in menus will be disabled. Make sure to delete <code>menus.xml</code> to fix this.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-06-18T19:20:56Z

Mental: include correct namespaces to save the user some research

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Inkscape 0.44 is bigger and better than ever. Some highlights:

* Layers dialog

* Outline mode, many performance improvements

* Native PDF export with transparency

* Clipping and masking support

* Configurable keyboard shortcuts, including optional Xara X compatibility

* Docked color palette in the editing window

* Interactive indicator of the style of selection in the statusbar

* Innovative "node sculpting" and other improvements in Node tool

* Extensions are enabled by default and work on all major platforms

* Better SVG support: <switch> element, ICC color profiles for images

* Persistent rotation centers, Paste Size command

* New icons, redesigned preferences dialogs, rearranged menus, many cosmetic improvements

* Hundreds of bugfixes and smaller features

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

* The Path > Break Apart command is now dozens of times (up to 100x) faster for complex paths with thousands of subpaths.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

Rendering support for SVG 1.1's '''Conditional Processing Module''' has been implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Interface =

== Layers dialog ==

A Layers dialog (Ctrl+Shift+L) is implemented in this version. It works in parallel with the quick layer selector in the statusbar, so you can use whichever is more convenient for you.

* In the dialog, you can click on a layer to make it current, as well as toggle layers visible/hidden and locked/unlocked. You don't need to make a layer current to toggle it visibility or lock status.

* A hierarchical tree of layers is represented by a tree-like display in the dialog. You can expand or collapse branches of the tree to make the layer structure of a document easier to navigate.

* At the bottom of the dialog, there are buttons for adding a new layer, moving the current layer up or down (either one step or all the way to top or bottom), and deleting the current layer.

* Below the buttons, there's a slider and a spinbutton for adjusting the opacity of the current layer. A layer's opacity affects all objects in that layer in the same way as opacity of a group.

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anything.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fill/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have.

* The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Controls bar for the Text tool ==

* This version adds the beginnings of a Controls Bar for the Text tool (previously empty). Now you can select the font family, size, apply bold and italic styles, change alignment and text orientation without opening the Text and Font dialog.

* All controls are instant-apply and work on the entire text object (if nothing selected) or text selection. They can also apply to multiple text objects (though you would need to switch to Selector to select multiple text objects, then switch back to Text tool for its controls).

* The font-family drop-down contains names and previews of all fonts; unlike other programs, we didn't apply each font to its name, but added a separate preview string displayed with gray color after each font's name. This design ensures readability of font family names and provides maximum useful information in a limited space.

* We will be adding more controls (including spacing and kerning) to this bar for the next versions.

== Docked color palette ==

* Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W). Now the color swatches palette is embedded in the main UI, at the bottom of the window between the canvas and the statusbar. It is enabled by default; use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* The Wrap option (off by default) in the swatches menu converts the palette from a single row into a frame 2 or 3 rows high, for better access to colors in large palettes.

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette shows a live swatch of the color being dragged under cursor.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto the selected style indicator in the statusbar sets the fill or stroke of the selected object(s).
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill, or shift+dropped to set their stroke. This affects only the object you drop the color on, regardless of whether that object is selected or not.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

* The new Inkscape default color palette was added. It contains a range of grays, standard HTML named colors, and a full range of colors sorted by their HSL values (475 colors overall). It is generated by a Python script which is available from Inkscape SVN in share/palettes.

* Several specialized color palettes, useful in color-coordinated projects, were created or borrowed from GIMP: Grays, Reds, Greens, Blues, Gold, Royal, Khaki, Hilite, and Topographic.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge) are made smaller overall.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, with numerous bugs fixed in the rewrite.

* The old tabbed dialog is gone; the new dialog fits much betters with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

* As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Configurable keyboard ==

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* In Node tool, if your node selection includes nodes from different subpaths, statusbar reports the number of subpaths with selection and the total number of subpaths, for example:

::2 of 195 nodes selected in 2 of 36 subpaths.

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar.

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

=== Node sculpting ===

An entirely new way of manipulating paths in Node tool is added in this version: Node sculpting. Normally, when you have several nodes selected and you drag one of them, all selected nodes move by the same amount. Now, if you Alt-drag one of the selected nodes, only that node is fully displaced; other selected nodes are moved less than the full amount, so that those farthest from the drag point remain stationary. This is similar to "proportional editing" or "soft selection" in 3D editors such as Blender.

So, for example, if you select several nodes on a straight line and Alt+drag the middle selected node, the path will bend into a smooth bell-like curve. Nodes' handles are also adjusted correspondingly to keep the overall shape smooth and natural. (If you don't have enough nodes on a path fragment that you want to reshape in this way, just select the end nodes of that fragment and press Ins a few times to populate it with nodes.)

Moreover, node sculpting is sensitive to pressure of your tablet pen. If you press slightly, your curve will have a narrow sharp tip (i.e. the nearest neighbors of your dragged node will move only a bit); if you press hard, the curve's tip will be wide and blunt (i.e. the nearest neighbors will move almost as much as the dragged node). (Hint: to stop dragging without losing your shape, first release Alt and then lift the tip of the pen.)

There are many possible applications of the sculpting technique. To take a simple example, selecting all nodes of an ellipse-like shape and Alt+dragging one of them will smoothly and naturally stretch and skew the entire shape in any direction. Doing the same to a complex path, such as star or spiral, will twist and punch it without destroying its intricate structure - this is the way to get squashed or self-intersecting stars, eccentric spirals and other shapes not easily doable before. Selecting only part of all nodes allows you to smoothly reshape parts of the figure without disturbing the rest.

When applied to text converted to path, node sculpting is a fun and easy way to twist, bend and distort it, achieving effects similar to "perspective envelope" or "curvilinear envelope" in other programs - but in a more powerful and flexible way. For example, by selecting all or part of the text's nodes and Alt-dragging, you can not only make a wavy banner out of a paragraph of text, but also apply a "magnifying lens"-like effect to any word in the middle.

Especially useful node sculpting is for complex natural paths, such as calligraphic strokes or bitmap traces, where you often want to do large-scale pushes and bends without destroying the small-scale features. Things like making a calligraphic stroke narrower in one place and wider in another, or changing the proportions, extending the ear or flattening the nose of a head - all this is now much faster and more natural to do using sculpting. It is also a new way to create new paths, too - starting from en ellipse with added nodes, it takes just a few Alt+drags to tweak it into a silhouette of a head, or a map of Australia, or an Inkscape logo!

Some examples are shown on the screenshot: [[http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png]].

=== "Show handles" toggle ===

The Controls bar for the Nodes tool now includes a toggle button which controls whether Bezier handles are shown on selected nodes (on by default). Selecting and dragging nodes on node-dense paths in zoom-out (e.g. for node sculpting) may be extremely difficult without hiding the handles, as it's hard to pick a node and not a handle when handles are shown.

=== New deletion behavior ===

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

=== Preserving positions of nodes and handles ===

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

== Calligraphic pen ==

=== Tremor ===

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

=== Pen width ===

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

=== Selection ===

* A new preferences option for the Calligraphic tool, Keep selected, controls whether the newly created object remains selected after you finish drawing it. If you turn it off (by default it's on) and set the tool to using Last Set color, you can easily choose a new color by clicking on the palette without having to worry if this will change the color of the stroke you just created. (Watch the tool style indicator at the right end of the Controls bar for the style of the next stroke you will draw.)

* Esc deselects selected objects in Calligraphic, as in most other tools.

=== Style ===

* The stroke you're drawing is now shown, while you're drawing it, with the correct color and opacity that it will eventually have, instead of always black as before.

* On a new Inkscape installation, this tool now uses the last set style by default instead of the fixed black as before (this is changeable in the Inkscape Preferences for the tool).

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool - that is, arrows, with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

* By popular demand, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* There have been numerous bugfixes and several improvements to the behaviour of connectors and the connector tool:
** Connectors moved as part of a selection will now stay attached to other objects in the selection, rather than becoming detached from them.
** By default, the Connector tool will not attach connectors to text objects. There is a new checkbox in the connector preferences to control this setting.
** The margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

* Automatic Diagram Layout: A new button is available in the Align and Distribute dialog that performs automatic layout of diagrams involving a network of shapes and connectors. Layout is accomplished using force-directed graph layout based on the Kamada-Kawai algorithm. This algorithm treats edges as if they are springs such that the distance between nodes will be proportional to the path length - number of connectors - between them. Disconnected components (where not every shape is connected) will be arranged around the circumference of a circle.

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. A minimum spacing between the boundaries of objects can be specified. Together with the automatic layout tool, described above, this should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. Removing overlaps is different from the "Unclump" button in that the former is completely deterministic and guarantees removing overlaps on the first application, but is not concerned with visual perceptive distances between objects. Unclumping, on the other hand, attempts to equalize perceptive distances between objects and can be applied repeatedly for gradual effect.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

* Inkscape 0.44 has an early version of the Simple Interactive Object Extraction (SIOX) algorithm (see [http://www.siox.org siox.org]) implemented in its bitmap tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see [http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg this file]. This clever algorithm from the realm of Image Recognition allows you to select areas of similar color, with the goal of extracting a foreground area from the background. To use:
** Enable the SIOX checkbox in addition to your usual tracing options.
** Select both the bitmap and an object that covers the foreground and part of background, leaving only background areas of the image uncovered.
** Hit OK. SIOX will now analyze and attempt to pull out the foreground-colored areas you want, and trace only those parts of the image.

* The full SIOX selection mechanism (e.g. the ability to identify foreground and background areas separately) is not implemented yet, but is planned for a future release.

= Snapping =

* In addition to snapping to guides and grids, you can now snap to other objects' paths and/or nodes. As with grid and guide snapping, you can separately enable snapping of bboxes to objects and/or snapping of nodes to objects. Be aware, however, that this is experimental code - there may be surprises. It may also be slow in large documents with thousands of objects.

* In addition to the snap sensitivity sliders in Document Preferences (which set snap distances in px), there are Always snap checkboxes (separately for object, grid and guide snapping) which force snapping at any distance.

* Grid snapping now applies only to the visible grid lines. For example, if you have zoomed out so that only every 10th grid line is visible, snapping will only apply to these visible lines. In addition, default grid snap sensitivity is set to "Always snap". This will hopefully reduce the number of "snapping does not work" complaints from users who didn't zoom in close enough to see that snapping does in fact work, but only at sub-px distances to the 1px-spaced grid. At the same time, you can still snap to finely grained distances if you zoom in.

* Guidelines are made easier to pick. Now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it; instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* In Preferences (Selecting tab), options are added allowing the "Select All" command and Tab key selection to work either in the current layer only or in the current layer and its sublayers.

= Markers =

* Converting stroke to path now correctly processes dashed strokes. For paths with markers, this command now creates a group containing the stroke converted to path and all its markers as independent objects (i.e. they are not markers anymore, but instead you can easily transform them or paint them any color, as a workaround for the "markers don't take the color of the stroke" bug; to be properly fixed, this bug requires implementing some SVG 1.2 features).

* The DimensionIn and DimensionOut markers are changed so that the arrow tips exactly correspond to node positions. It is now very easy to make dimension lines that correspond to drawn objects. The dimension specifications can now easily be chained by splitting a straight line at a point and assigning DimensionIn/Out markers to the resulting smaller paths whose endpoints coincide.

* All arrow markers in the standard set are moved on the path so that their tips are as close as possible to the corresponding node of the path. Complete coincidence is not possible, because it would cause the blunt end of the stroke itself to be visible under the sharp tip of the arrow, distorting its shape. However, now the arrow tips are much closer to their nodes than before, and probably sufficiently close for many practical situations.

* A new RazorWire path marker was added. By applying it as a mid-marker you can get a good approximation of a razor wire.

= Extension effects =

* The Effects menu is now officially on and no longer an optional "experimental feature" as in past versions. The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed. Inkscape 0.44 comes with about 30 effects that perform a variety of useful tasks, such as path blending, randomization, function plotting etc.

* Python effects (which includes almost all currently available effects) work on Windows out of the box, using a copy of Python shipping with Inkscape. The only minor inconvenience is that when an effect is launched, you get an empty console window that stays on while the effect is doing its work. (Don't close that window, it will disappear by itself when the effect is finished.)

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

* The Render > L-system (formerly "Fractal (Lindenmayer)") effect is improved in this version. Now you can specify different angle values for turning left and right, which makes it possible to smoothly bend some L-systems sideways. Also, you can separately randomize the step length and the angles by a given percent for more natural look (this works especially well with plant-like branching shapes). This effect can be used to create Penrose tiling, Sierpinsky triangle, Dragon curve and other famous mathematical artefacts, as well as various meanders, friezes, patterns, and trees. Some examples can be seen on this screenshot: [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png] as well as in the new example file <code>share/examples/l-systems.svg</code>.

* The Interpolate Path, Random Tree, and L-system effects are fixed to place their result on the current layer instead of document root and in the center of the (last-saved) document view instead of 0,0 as before.

* INX files now have the ability to hold more information. This includes tooltips and descriptions of the extensions. These are all also translatable.

* Thanks to keyboard configurability, it is now possible to assign keyboard shortcuts to those effects you use most often, so you can activate them without going into the menu.

= Formats =

* Inkscape's PDF export is now native (i.e. does not require any external applications) and supports transparency, including gradients with transparency. This replaced the old export extension that required Ghostscript and worked via Postscript, losing any transparency. The new PDF export is still immature; in particular it does not handle text, so you should check "Convert text to path" on the export options dialog. Other things not yet supported include: gradients on stroke; eccentric elliptic gradients; patterns, masks, and clipping paths; embedded images.

* You can now Save as Compressed Inkscape SVG with media.This save option collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution. Although you cannot open the resulting archive directly with inkscape, the media is linked such that after unzipping you can open the SVG file immediately.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* Inkscape can open/import default files generated by the Xfig vector graphics editor. This requires that the fig2dev command (transfig) is in your PATH.

* Starting with this version, there is a limited ability to export Inkscape drawing shapes as Open Document Format drawings (.odg files). Currently the export is limited to text, shapes, and solid fill and strokes. This output will be improved in the coming months. In the meantime, however, ODG output is already useful for getting your SVG drawings into the Open Document world, in particular into an office suite such as OpenOffice.org.

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in GIMP. Requires Python, PyXML and GIMP. GIMP 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows yet.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag, in any tool, to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI not only did not cause Inkscape to complain, but could also "pollute" Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace. This is now fixed, but as a result, documents with incorrect namespace URIs will no longer load. You will have to edit them in a text editor to fix the namespaces.

* With newer versions of GTK, dragging with graphics tablet pen did not work in some tools and contexts (in particular, in Node and Rectangle tools). This is fixed.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* More document memory is now freed when documents are closed.

* EPS output now correctly includes an %%EOF footer.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

* Inkscape is now significantly translated to 17 languages: Basque, Catalan, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (bokmål dialect), Polish, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovenian, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Traditional Chinese. Additionally, 21 more languages have some level of translation. Average translation ratio has increased from 49% to 59% in this release.

* Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors: Czech, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Russian.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

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

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

=== Problems with "Composite" option of X.org ===

* Some prereleases of inkscape-0.44 could crash if the "Composite" option were enabled in X.org's configuration. This is not a problem in the final release.

=== Namespaces may need fixing ===

* Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with wrong namespace URIs. This has been fixed, but such corrupted documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand. Correct namespace URLs are as follows, with typical namespace prefixes given in parenthesis:
** '''Sodipodi''' (''sodipodi''): http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd
** '''Inkscape''' (''inkscape''): http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape
** '''XLink''' (''xlink''): http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink
** '''SVG''' (''svg'' or none): http://www.w3.org/2000/svg
** '''RDF''' (''rdf''): http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
** '''Creative Commons''' (''cc''): http://web.resource.org/cc/
** '''Dublin Core Metadata''' (''dc''): http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/

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

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem. Update: this bug appears to be fixed in newer versions of gtk-engines. However, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of any further problem.
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

=== Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it ===

* If you were using certain CVS/SVN builds from autumn of 2005, you may have the file <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux). In that case you will see many errors about verbs that cannot be found, and some commands in menus will be disabled. Make sure to delete <code>menus.xml</code> to fix this.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-06-18T19:12:31Z

Mental: give specific package version

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Inkscape 0.44 is bigger and better than ever. Some highlights:

* Layers dialog

* Outline mode, many performance improvements

* Native PDF export with transparency

* Clipping and masking support

* Configurable keyboard shortcuts, including optional Xara X compatibility

* Docked color palette in the editing window

* Interactive indicator of the style of selection in the statusbar

* Innovative "node sculpting" and other improvements in Node tool

* Extensions are enabled by default and work on all major platforms

* Better SVG support: <switch> element, ICC color profiles for images

* Persistent rotation centers, Paste Size command

* New icons, redesigned preferences dialogs, rearranged menus, many cosmetic improvements

* Hundreds of bugfixes and smaller features

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

* The Path > Break Apart command is now dozens of times (up to 100x) faster for complex paths with thousands of subpaths.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

Rendering support for SVG 1.1's '''Conditional Processing Module''' has been implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Interface =

== Layers dialog ==

A Layers dialog (Ctrl+Shift+L) is implemented in this version. It works in parallel with the quick layer selector in the statusbar, so you can use whichever is more convenient for you.

* In the dialog, you can click on a layer to make it current, as well as toggle layers visible/hidden and locked/unlocked. You don't need to make a layer current to toggle it visibility or lock status.

* A hierarchical tree of layers is represented by a tree-like display in the dialog. You can expand or collapse branches of the tree to make the layer structure of a document easier to navigate.

* At the bottom of the dialog, there are buttons for adding a new layer, moving the current layer up or down (either one step or all the way to top or bottom), and deleting the current layer.

* Below the buttons, there's a slider and a spinbutton for adjusting the opacity of the current layer. A layer's opacity affects all objects in that layer in the same way as opacity of a group.

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anything.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fill/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have.

* The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Controls bar for the Text tool ==

* This version adds the beginnings of a Controls Bar for the Text tool (previously empty). Now you can select the font family, size, apply bold and italic styles, change alignment and text orientation without opening the Text and Font dialog.

* All controls are instant-apply and work on the entire text object (if nothing selected) or text selection. They can also apply to multiple text objects (though you would need to switch to Selector to select multiple text objects, then switch back to Text tool for its controls).

* The font-family drop-down contains names and previews of all fonts; unlike other programs, we didn't apply each font to its name, but added a separate preview string displayed with gray color after each font's name. This design ensures readability of font family names and provides maximum useful information in a limited space.

* We will be adding more controls (including spacing and kerning) to this bar for the next versions.

== Docked color palette ==

* Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W). Now the color swatches palette is embedded in the main UI, at the bottom of the window between the canvas and the statusbar. It is enabled by default; use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* The Wrap option (off by default) in the swatches menu converts the palette from a single row into a frame 2 or 3 rows high, for better access to colors in large palettes.

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette shows a live swatch of the color being dragged under cursor.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto the selected style indicator in the statusbar sets the fill or stroke of the selected object(s).
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill, or shift+dropped to set their stroke. This affects only the object you drop the color on, regardless of whether that object is selected or not.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

* The new Inkscape default color palette was added. It contains a range of grays, standard HTML named colors, and a full range of colors sorted by their HSL values (475 colors overall). It is generated by a Python script which is available from Inkscape SVN in share/palettes.

* Several specialized color palettes, useful in color-coordinated projects, were created or borrowed from GIMP: Grays, Reds, Greens, Blues, Gold, Royal, Khaki, Hilite, and Topographic.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge) are made smaller overall.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, with numerous bugs fixed in the rewrite.

* The old tabbed dialog is gone; the new dialog fits much betters with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

* As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Configurable keyboard ==

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* In Node tool, if your node selection includes nodes from different subpaths, statusbar reports the number of subpaths with selection and the total number of subpaths, for example:

::2 of 195 nodes selected in 2 of 36 subpaths.

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar.

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

=== Node sculpting ===

An entirely new way of manipulating paths in Node tool is added in this version: Node sculpting. Normally, when you have several nodes selected and you drag one of them, all selected nodes move by the same amount. Now, if you Alt-drag one of the selected nodes, only that node is fully displaced; other selected nodes are moved less than the full amount, so that those farthest from the drag point remain stationary. This is similar to "proportional editing" or "soft selection" in 3D editors such as Blender.

So, for example, if you select several nodes on a straight line and Alt+drag the middle selected node, the path will bend into a smooth bell-like curve. Nodes' handles are also adjusted correspondingly to keep the overall shape smooth and natural. (If you don't have enough nodes on a path fragment that you want to reshape in this way, just select the end nodes of that fragment and press Ins a few times to populate it with nodes.)

Moreover, node sculpting is sensitive to pressure of your tablet pen. If you press slightly, your curve will have a narrow sharp tip (i.e. the nearest neighbors of your dragged node will move only a bit); if you press hard, the curve's tip will be wide and blunt (i.e. the nearest neighbors will move almost as much as the dragged node). (Hint: to stop dragging without losing your shape, first release Alt and then lift the tip of the pen.)

There are many possible applications of the sculpting technique. To take a simple example, selecting all nodes of an ellipse-like shape and Alt+dragging one of them will smoothly and naturally stretch and skew the entire shape in any direction. Doing the same to a complex path, such as star or spiral, will twist and punch it without destroying its intricate structure - this is the way to get squashed or self-intersecting stars, eccentric spirals and other shapes not easily doable before. Selecting only part of all nodes allows you to smoothly reshape parts of the figure without disturbing the rest.

When applied to text converted to path, node sculpting is a fun and easy way to twist, bend and distort it, achieving effects similar to "perspective envelope" or "curvilinear envelope" in other programs - but in a more powerful and flexible way. For example, by selecting all or part of the text's nodes and Alt-dragging, you can not only make a wavy banner out of a paragraph of text, but also apply a "magnifying lens"-like effect to any word in the middle.

Especially useful node sculpting is for complex natural paths, such as calligraphic strokes or bitmap traces, where you often want to do large-scale pushes and bends without destroying the small-scale features. Things like making a calligraphic stroke narrower in one place and wider in another, or changing the proportions, extending the ear or flattening the nose of a head - all this is now much faster and more natural to do using sculpting. It is also a new way to create new paths, too - starting from en ellipse with added nodes, it takes just a few Alt+drags to tweak it into a silhouette of a head, or a map of Australia, or an Inkscape logo!

Some examples are shown on the screenshot: [[http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png]].

=== "Show handles" toggle ===

The Controls bar for the Nodes tool now includes a toggle button which controls whether Bezier handles are shown on selected nodes (on by default). Selecting and dragging nodes on node-dense paths in zoom-out (e.g. for node sculpting) may be extremely difficult without hiding the handles, as it's hard to pick a node and not a handle when handles are shown.

=== New deletion behavior ===

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

=== Preserving positions of nodes and handles ===

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

== Calligraphic pen ==

=== Tremor ===

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

=== Pen width ===

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

=== Selection ===

* A new preferences option for the Calligraphic tool, Keep selected, controls whether the newly created object remains selected after you finish drawing it. If you turn it off (by default it's on) and set the tool to using Last Set color, you can easily choose a new color by clicking on the palette without having to worry if this will change the color of the stroke you just created. (Watch the tool style indicator at the right end of the Controls bar for the style of the next stroke you will draw.)

* Esc deselects selected objects in Calligraphic, as in most other tools.

=== Style ===

* The stroke you're drawing is now shown, while you're drawing it, with the correct color and opacity that it will eventually have, instead of always black as before.

* On a new Inkscape installation, this tool now uses the last set style by default instead of the fixed black as before (this is changeable in the Inkscape Preferences for the tool).

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool - that is, arrows, with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

* By popular demand, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* There have been numerous bugfixes and several improvements to the behaviour of connectors and the connector tool:
** Connectors moved as part of a selection will now stay attached to other objects in the selection, rather than becoming detached from them.
** By default, the Connector tool will not attach connectors to text objects. There is a new checkbox in the connector preferences to control this setting.
** The margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

* Automatic Diagram Layout: A new button is available in the Align and Distribute dialog that performs automatic layout of diagrams involving a network of shapes and connectors. Layout is accomplished using force-directed graph layout based on the Kamada-Kawai algorithm. This algorithm treats edges as if they are springs such that the distance between nodes will be proportional to the path length - number of connectors - between them. Disconnected components (where not every shape is connected) will be arranged around the circumference of a circle.

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. A minimum spacing between the boundaries of objects can be specified. Together with the automatic layout tool, described above, this should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. Removing overlaps is different from the "Unclump" button in that the former is completely deterministic and guarantees removing overlaps on the first application, but is not concerned with visual perceptive distances between objects. Unclumping, on the other hand, attempts to equalize perceptive distances between objects and can be applied repeatedly for gradual effect.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

* Inkscape 0.44 has an early version of the Simple Interactive Object Extraction (SIOX) algorithm (see [http://www.siox.org siox.org]) implemented in its bitmap tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see [http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg this file]. This clever algorithm from the realm of Image Recognition allows you to select areas of similar color, with the goal of extracting a foreground area from the background. To use:
** Enable the SIOX checkbox in addition to your usual tracing options.
** Select both the bitmap and an object that covers the foreground and part of background, leaving only background areas of the image uncovered.
** Hit OK. SIOX will now analyze and attempt to pull out the foreground-colored areas you want, and trace only those parts of the image.

* The full SIOX selection mechanism (e.g. the ability to identify foreground and background areas separately) is not implemented yet, but is planned for a future release.

= Snapping =

* In addition to snapping to guides and grids, you can now snap to other objects' paths and/or nodes. As with grid and guide snapping, you can separately enable snapping of bboxes to objects and/or snapping of nodes to objects. Be aware, however, that this is experimental code - there may be surprises. It may also be slow in large documents with thousands of objects.

* In addition to the snap sensitivity sliders in Document Preferences (which set snap distances in px), there are Always snap checkboxes (separately for object, grid and guide snapping) which force snapping at any distance.

* Grid snapping now applies only to the visible grid lines. For example, if you have zoomed out so that only every 10th grid line is visible, snapping will only apply to these visible lines. In addition, default grid snap sensitivity is set to "Always snap". This will hopefully reduce the number of "snapping does not work" complaints from users who didn't zoom in close enough to see that snapping does in fact work, but only at sub-px distances to the 1px-spaced grid. At the same time, you can still snap to finely grained distances if you zoom in.

* Guidelines are made easier to pick. Now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it; instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* In Preferences (Selecting tab), options are added allowing the "Select All" command and Tab key selection to work either in the current layer only or in the current layer and its sublayers.

= Markers =

* Converting stroke to path now correctly processes dashed strokes. For paths with markers, this command now creates a group containing the stroke converted to path and all its markers as independent objects (i.e. they are not markers anymore, but instead you can easily transform them or paint them any color, as a workaround for the "markers don't take the color of the stroke" bug; to be properly fixed, this bug requires implementing some SVG 1.2 features).

* The DimensionIn and DimensionOut markers are changed so that the arrow tips exactly correspond to node positions. It is now very easy to make dimension lines that correspond to drawn objects. The dimension specifications can now easily be chained by splitting a straight line at a point and assigning DimensionIn/Out markers to the resulting smaller paths whose endpoints coincide.

* All arrow markers in the standard set are moved on the path so that their tips are as close as possible to the corresponding node of the path. Complete coincidence is not possible, because it would cause the blunt end of the stroke itself to be visible under the sharp tip of the arrow, distorting its shape. However, now the arrow tips are much closer to their nodes than before, and probably sufficiently close for many practical situations.

* A new RazorWire path marker was added. By applying it as a mid-marker you can get a good approximation of a razor wire.

= Extension effects =

* The Effects menu is now officially on and no longer an optional "experimental feature" as in past versions. The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed. Inkscape 0.44 comes with about 30 effects that perform a variety of useful tasks, such as path blending, randomization, function plotting etc.

* Python effects (which includes almost all currently available effects) work on Windows out of the box, using a copy of Python shipping with Inkscape. The only minor inconvenience is that when an effect is launched, you get an empty console window that stays on while the effect is doing its work. (Don't close that window, it will disappear by itself when the effect is finished.)

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

* The Render > L-system (formerly "Fractal (Lindenmayer)") effect is improved in this version. Now you can specify different angle values for turning left and right, which makes it possible to smoothly bend some L-systems sideways. Also, you can separately randomize the step length and the angles by a given percent for more natural look (this works especially well with plant-like branching shapes). This effect can be used to create Penrose tiling, Sierpinsky triangle, Dragon curve and other famous mathematical artefacts, as well as various meanders, friezes, patterns, and trees. Some examples can be seen on this screenshot: [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png] as well as in the new example file <code>share/examples/l-systems.svg</code>.

* The Interpolate Path, Random Tree, and L-system effects are fixed to place their result on the current layer instead of document root and in the center of the (last-saved) document view instead of 0,0 as before.

* INX files now have the ability to hold more information. This includes tooltips and descriptions of the extensions. These are all also translatable.

* Thanks to keyboard configurability, it is now possible to assign keyboard shortcuts to those effects you use most often, so you can activate them without going into the menu.

= Formats =

* Inkscape's PDF export is now native (i.e. does not require any external applications) and supports transparency, including gradients with transparency. This replaced the old export extension that required Ghostscript and worked via Postscript, losing any transparency. The new PDF export is still immature; in particular it does not handle text, so you should check "Convert text to path" on the export options dialog. Other things not yet supported include: gradients on stroke; eccentric elliptic gradients; patterns, masks, and clipping paths; embedded images.

* You can now Save as Compressed Inkscape SVG with media.This save option collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution. Although you cannot open the resulting archive directly with inkscape, the media is linked such that after unzipping you can open the SVG file immediately.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* Inkscape can open/import default files generated by the Xfig vector graphics editor. This requires that the fig2dev command (transfig) is in your PATH.

* Starting with this version, there is a limited ability to export Inkscape drawing shapes as Open Document Format drawings (.odg files). Currently the export is limited to text, shapes, and solid fill and strokes. This output will be improved in the coming months. In the meantime, however, ODG output is already useful for getting your SVG drawings into the Open Document world, in particular into an office suite such as OpenOffice.org.

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in GIMP. Requires Python, PyXML and GIMP. GIMP 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows yet.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag, in any tool, to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI not only did not cause Inkscape to complain, but could also "pollute" Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace. This is now fixed, but as a result, documents with incorrect namespace URIs will no longer load. You will have to edit them in a text editor to fix the namespaces.

* With newer versions of GTK, dragging with graphics tablet pen did not work in some tools and contexts (in particular, in Node and Rectangle tools). This is fixed.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* More document memory is now freed when documents are closed.

* EPS output now correctly includes an %%EOF footer.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

* Inkscape is now significantly translated to 17 languages: Basque, Catalan, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (bokmål dialect), Polish, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovenian, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Traditional Chinese. Additionally, 21 more languages have some level of translation. Average translation ratio has increased from 49% to 59% in this release.

* Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors: Czech, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Russian.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

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

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

=== Problems with "Composite" option of X.org ===

* Some prereleases of inkscape-0.44 could crash if the "Composite" option were enabled in X.org's configuration. This is not a problem in the final release.

=== Namespaces may need fixing ===

* Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with wrong namespace URIs. This has been fixed, but such corrupted documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand.

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

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem. Update: this bug appears to be fixed in newer versions of gtk-engines. However, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of any further problem.
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

=== Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it ===

* If you were using certain CVS/SVN builds from autumn of 2005, you may have the file <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux). In that case you will see many errors about verbs that cannot be found, and some commands in menus will be disabled. Make sure to delete <code>menus.xml</code> to fix this.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-06-18T18:59:54Z

Mental: composite crash was fixed

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Inkscape 0.44 is bigger and better than ever. Some highlights:

* Layers dialog

* Outline mode, many performance improvements

* Native PDF export with transparency

* Clipping and masking support

* Configurable keyboard shortcuts, including optional Xara X compatibility

* Docked color palette in the editing window

* Interactive indicator of the style of selection in the statusbar

* Innovative "node sculpting" and other improvements in Node tool

* Extensions are enabled by default and work on all major platforms

* Better SVG support: <switch> element, ICC color profiles for images

* Persistent rotation centers, Paste Size command

* New icons, redesigned preferences dialogs, rearranged menus, many cosmetic improvements

* Hundreds of bugfixes and smaller features

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

* The Path > Break Apart command is now dozens of times (up to 100x) faster for complex paths with thousands of subpaths.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

Rendering support for SVG 1.1's '''Conditional Processing Module''' has been implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Interface =

== Layers dialog ==

A Layers dialog (Ctrl+Shift+L) is implemented in this version. It works in parallel with the quick layer selector in the statusbar, so you can use whichever is more convenient for you.

* In the dialog, you can click on a layer to make it current, as well as toggle layers visible/hidden and locked/unlocked. You don't need to make a layer current to toggle it visibility or lock status.

* A hierarchical tree of layers is represented by a tree-like display in the dialog. You can expand or collapse branches of the tree to make the layer structure of a document easier to navigate.

* At the bottom of the dialog, there are buttons for adding a new layer, moving the current layer up or down (either one step or all the way to top or bottom), and deleting the current layer.

* Below the buttons, there's a slider and a spinbutton for adjusting the opacity of the current layer. A layer's opacity affects all objects in that layer in the same way as opacity of a group.

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anything.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fill/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have.

* The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Controls bar for the Text tool ==

* This version adds the beginnings of a Controls Bar for the Text tool (previously empty). Now you can select the font family, size, apply bold and italic styles, change alignment and text orientation without opening the Text and Font dialog.

* All controls are instant-apply and work on the entire text object (if nothing selected) or text selection. They can also apply to multiple text objects (though you would need to switch to Selector to select multiple text objects, then switch back to Text tool for its controls).

* The font-family drop-down contains names and previews of all fonts; unlike other programs, we didn't apply each font to its name, but added a separate preview string displayed with gray color after each font's name. This design ensures readability of font family names and provides maximum useful information in a limited space.

* We will be adding more controls (including spacing and kerning) to this bar for the next versions.

== Docked color palette ==

* Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W). Now the color swatches palette is embedded in the main UI, at the bottom of the window between the canvas and the statusbar. It is enabled by default; use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* The Wrap option (off by default) in the swatches menu converts the palette from a single row into a frame 2 or 3 rows high, for better access to colors in large palettes.

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette shows a live swatch of the color being dragged under cursor.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto the selected style indicator in the statusbar sets the fill or stroke of the selected object(s).
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill, or shift+dropped to set their stroke. This affects only the object you drop the color on, regardless of whether that object is selected or not.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

* The new Inkscape default color palette was added. It contains a range of grays, standard HTML named colors, and a full range of colors sorted by their HSL values (475 colors overall). It is generated by a Python script which is available from Inkscape SVN in share/palettes.

* Several specialized color palettes, useful in color-coordinated projects, were created or borrowed from GIMP: Grays, Reds, Greens, Blues, Gold, Royal, Khaki, Hilite, and Topographic.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge) are made smaller overall.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, with numerous bugs fixed in the rewrite.

* The old tabbed dialog is gone; the new dialog fits much betters with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

* As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Configurable keyboard ==

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* In Node tool, if your node selection includes nodes from different subpaths, statusbar reports the number of subpaths with selection and the total number of subpaths, for example:

::2 of 195 nodes selected in 2 of 36 subpaths.

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar.

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

=== Node sculpting ===

An entirely new way of manipulating paths in Node tool is added in this version: Node sculpting. Normally, when you have several nodes selected and you drag one of them, all selected nodes move by the same amount. Now, if you Alt-drag one of the selected nodes, only that node is fully displaced; other selected nodes are moved less than the full amount, so that those farthest from the drag point remain stationary. This is similar to "proportional editing" or "soft selection" in 3D editors such as Blender.

So, for example, if you select several nodes on a straight line and Alt+drag the middle selected node, the path will bend into a smooth bell-like curve. Nodes' handles are also adjusted correspondingly to keep the overall shape smooth and natural. (If you don't have enough nodes on a path fragment that you want to reshape in this way, just select the end nodes of that fragment and press Ins a few times to populate it with nodes.)

Moreover, node sculpting is sensitive to pressure of your tablet pen. If you press slightly, your curve will have a narrow sharp tip (i.e. the nearest neighbors of your dragged node will move only a bit); if you press hard, the curve's tip will be wide and blunt (i.e. the nearest neighbors will move almost as much as the dragged node). (Hint: to stop dragging without losing your shape, first release Alt and then lift the tip of the pen.)

There are many possible applications of the sculpting technique. To take a simple example, selecting all nodes of an ellipse-like shape and Alt+dragging one of them will smoothly and naturally stretch and skew the entire shape in any direction. Doing the same to a complex path, such as star or spiral, will twist and punch it without destroying its intricate structure - this is the way to get squashed or self-intersecting stars, eccentric spirals and other shapes not easily doable before. Selecting only part of all nodes allows you to smoothly reshape parts of the figure without disturbing the rest.

When applied to text converted to path, node sculpting is a fun and easy way to twist, bend and distort it, achieving effects similar to "perspective envelope" or "curvilinear envelope" in other programs - but in a more powerful and flexible way. For example, by selecting all or part of the text's nodes and Alt-dragging, you can not only make a wavy banner out of a paragraph of text, but also apply a "magnifying lens"-like effect to any word in the middle.

Especially useful node sculpting is for complex natural paths, such as calligraphic strokes or bitmap traces, where you often want to do large-scale pushes and bends without destroying the small-scale features. Things like making a calligraphic stroke narrower in one place and wider in another, or changing the proportions, extending the ear or flattening the nose of a head - all this is now much faster and more natural to do using sculpting. It is also a new way to create new paths, too - starting from en ellipse with added nodes, it takes just a few Alt+drags to tweak it into a silhouette of a head, or a map of Australia, or an Inkscape logo!

Some examples are shown on the screenshot: [[http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png]].

=== "Show handles" toggle ===

The Controls bar for the Nodes tool now includes a toggle button which controls whether Bezier handles are shown on selected nodes (on by default). Selecting and dragging nodes on node-dense paths in zoom-out (e.g. for node sculpting) may be extremely difficult without hiding the handles, as it's hard to pick a node and not a handle when handles are shown.

=== New deletion behavior ===

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

=== Preserving positions of nodes and handles ===

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

== Calligraphic pen ==

=== Tremor ===

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

=== Pen width ===

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

=== Selection ===

* A new preferences option for the Calligraphic tool, Keep selected, controls whether the newly created object remains selected after you finish drawing it. If you turn it off (by default it's on) and set the tool to using Last Set color, you can easily choose a new color by clicking on the palette without having to worry if this will change the color of the stroke you just created. (Watch the tool style indicator at the right end of the Controls bar for the style of the next stroke you will draw.)

* Esc deselects selected objects in Calligraphic, as in most other tools.

=== Style ===

* The stroke you're drawing is now shown, while you're drawing it, with the correct color and opacity that it will eventually have, instead of always black as before.

* On a new Inkscape installation, this tool now uses the last set style by default instead of the fixed black as before (this is changeable in the Inkscape Preferences for the tool).

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool - that is, arrows, with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

* By popular demand, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* There have been numerous bugfixes and several improvements to the behaviour of connectors and the connector tool:
** Connectors moved as part of a selection will now stay attached to other objects in the selection, rather than becoming detached from them.
** By default, the Connector tool will not attach connectors to text objects. There is a new checkbox in the connector preferences to control this setting.
** The margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

* Automatic Diagram Layout: A new button is available in the Align and Distribute dialog that performs automatic layout of diagrams involving a network of shapes and connectors. Layout is accomplished using force-directed graph layout based on the Kamada-Kawai algorithm. This algorithm treats edges as if they are springs such that the distance between nodes will be proportional to the path length - number of connectors - between them. Disconnected components (where not every shape is connected) will be arranged around the circumference of a circle.

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. A minimum spacing between the boundaries of objects can be specified. Together with the automatic layout tool, described above, this should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. Removing overlaps is different from the "Unclump" button in that the former is completely deterministic and guarantees removing overlaps on the first application, but is not concerned with visual perceptive distances between objects. Unclumping, on the other hand, attempts to equalize perceptive distances between objects and can be applied repeatedly for gradual effect.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

* Inkscape 0.44 has an early version of the Simple Interactive Object Extraction (SIOX) algorithm (see [http://www.siox.org siox.org]) implemented in its bitmap tracing code. For a quick reference on how this is used, please see [http://inkscape.org/win32/siox/howto.svg this file]. This clever algorithm from the realm of Image Recognition allows you to select areas of similar color, with the goal of extracting a foreground area from the background. To use:
** Enable the SIOX checkbox in addition to your usual tracing options.
** Select both the bitmap and an object that covers the foreground and part of background, leaving only background areas of the image uncovered.
** Hit OK. SIOX will now analyze and attempt to pull out the foreground-colored areas you want, and trace only those parts of the image.

* The full SIOX selection mechanism (e.g. the ability to identify foreground and background areas separately) is not implemented yet, but is planned for a future release.

= Snapping =

* In addition to snapping to guides and grids, you can now snap to other objects' paths and/or nodes. As with grid and guide snapping, you can separately enable snapping of bboxes to objects and/or snapping of nodes to objects. Be aware, however, that this is experimental code - there may be surprises. It may also be slow in large documents with thousands of objects.

* In addition to the snap sensitivity sliders in Document Preferences (which set snap distances in px), there are Always snap checkboxes (separately for object, grid and guide snapping) which force snapping at any distance.

* Grid snapping now applies only to the visible grid lines. For example, if you have zoomed out so that only every 10th grid line is visible, snapping will only apply to these visible lines. In addition, default grid snap sensitivity is set to "Always snap". This will hopefully reduce the number of "snapping does not work" complaints from users who didn't zoom in close enough to see that snapping does in fact work, but only at sub-px distances to the 1px-spaced grid. At the same time, you can still snap to finely grained distances if you zoom in.

* Guidelines are made easier to pick. Now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it; instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* In Preferences (Selecting tab), options are added allowing the "Select All" command and Tab key selection to work either in the current layer only or in the current layer and its sublayers.

= Markers =

* Converting stroke to path now correctly processes dashed strokes. For paths with markers, this command now creates a group containing the stroke converted to path and all its markers as independent objects (i.e. they are not markers anymore, but instead you can easily transform them or paint them any color, as a workaround for the "markers don't take the color of the stroke" bug; to be properly fixed, this bug requires implementing some SVG 1.2 features).

* The DimensionIn and DimensionOut markers are changed so that the arrow tips exactly correspond to node positions. It is now very easy to make dimension lines that correspond to drawn objects. The dimension specifications can now easily be chained by splitting a straight line at a point and assigning DimensionIn/Out markers to the resulting smaller paths whose endpoints coincide.

* All arrow markers in the standard set are moved on the path so that their tips are as close as possible to the corresponding node of the path. Complete coincidence is not possible, because it would cause the blunt end of the stroke itself to be visible under the sharp tip of the arrow, distorting its shape. However, now the arrow tips are much closer to their nodes than before, and probably sufficiently close for many practical situations.

* A new RazorWire path marker was added. By applying it as a mid-marker you can get a good approximation of a razor wire.

= Extension effects =

* The Effects menu is now officially on and no longer an optional "experimental feature" as in past versions. The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed. Inkscape 0.44 comes with about 30 effects that perform a variety of useful tasks, such as path blending, randomization, function plotting etc.

* Python effects (which includes almost all currently available effects) work on Windows out of the box, using a copy of Python shipping with Inkscape. The only minor inconvenience is that when an effect is launched, you get an empty console window that stays on while the effect is doing its work. (Don't close that window, it will disappear by itself when the effect is finished.)

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

* The Render > L-system (formerly "Fractal (Lindenmayer)") effect is improved in this version. Now you can specify different angle values for turning left and right, which makes it possible to smoothly bend some L-systems sideways. Also, you can separately randomize the step length and the angles by a given percent for more natural look (this works especially well with plant-like branching shapes). This effect can be used to create Penrose tiling, Sierpinsky triangle, Dragon curve and other famous mathematical artefacts, as well as various meanders, friezes, patterns, and trees. Some examples can be seen on this screenshot: [http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-lindenmayer.png] as well as in the new example file <code>share/examples/l-systems.svg</code>.

* The Interpolate Path, Random Tree, and L-system effects are fixed to place their result on the current layer instead of document root and in the center of the (last-saved) document view instead of 0,0 as before.

* INX files now have the ability to hold more information. This includes tooltips and descriptions of the extensions. These are all also translatable.

* Thanks to keyboard configurability, it is now possible to assign keyboard shortcuts to those effects you use most often, so you can activate them without going into the menu.

= Formats =

* Inkscape's PDF export is now native (i.e. does not require any external applications) and supports transparency, including gradients with transparency. This replaced the old export extension that required Ghostscript and worked via Postscript, losing any transparency. The new PDF export is still immature; in particular it does not handle text, so you should check "Convert text to path" on the export options dialog. Other things not yet supported include: gradients on stroke; eccentric elliptic gradients; patterns, masks, and clipping paths; embedded images.

* You can now Save as Compressed Inkscape SVG with media.This save option collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution. Although you cannot open the resulting archive directly with inkscape, the media is linked such that after unzipping you can open the SVG file immediately.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* Inkscape can open/import default files generated by the Xfig vector graphics editor. This requires that the fig2dev command (transfig) is in your PATH.

* Starting with this version, there is a limited ability to export Inkscape drawing shapes as Open Document Format drawings (.odg files). Currently the export is limited to text, shapes, and solid fill and strokes. This output will be improved in the coming months. In the meantime, however, ODG output is already useful for getting your SVG drawings into the Open Document world, in particular into an office suite such as OpenOffice.org.

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in GIMP. Requires Python, PyXML and GIMP. GIMP 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows yet.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag, in any tool, to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI not only did not cause Inkscape to complain, but could also "pollute" Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace. This is now fixed, but as a result, documents with incorrect namespace URIs will no longer load. You will have to edit them in a text editor to fix the namespaces.

* With newer versions of GTK, dragging with graphics tablet pen did not work in some tools and contexts (in particular, in Node and Rectangle tools). This is fixed.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* More document memory is now freed when documents are closed.

* EPS output now correctly includes an %%EOF footer.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

* Inkscape is now significantly translated to 17 languages: Basque, Catalan, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (bokmål dialect), Polish, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Simplified Chinese, Slovenian, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Traditional Chinese. Additionally, 21 more languages have some level of translation. Average translation ratio has increased from 49% to 59% in this release.

* Some new translations of tutorials have been brought by contributors: Czech, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Russian.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

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

* Inkscape will hang or crash when linked with the first Debian packaged version of the Boehm garbage collection library. This problem was fixed in the next package release. Therefore, make sure you use the newest libgc-6.7 package from Debian that is available online.

=== Problems with "Composite" option of X.org ===

* Some prereleases of inkscape-0.44 could crash if the "Composite" option were enabled in X.org's configuration. This is not a problem in the final release.

=== Namespaces may need fixing ===

* Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with wrong namespace URIs. This has been fixed, but such corrupted documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand.

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

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem. Update: this bug appears to be fixed in newer versions of gtk-engines. However, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of any further problem.
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

=== Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it ===

* If you were using certain CVS/SVN builds from autumn of 2005, you may have the file <code>menus.xml</code> hanging around in your profile directory (e.g. <code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux). In that case you will see many errors about verbs that cannot be found, and some commands in menus will be disabled. Make sure to delete <code>menus.xml</code> to fix this.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-05-22T00:50:32Z

Mental: /* Miscellaneous bugfixes */

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Inkscape 0.44 is bigger and better than ever. Some highlights:

* Layers dialog

* Outline mode, many performance improvements

* Native PDF export with transparency

* Clipping and masking support

* Configurable keyboard shortcuts, including Xara X emulation

* Docked color palette in the editing window

* Interactive indicator of the style of selection in the statusbar

* Innovative "node sculpting" and other improvements in Node tool

* Extensions are enabled by default and work on both Linux and Windows

* Better SVG support: <switch> element, ICC color profiles for images

* Persistent rotation centers, Paste Size command

* Redesigned preferences dialogs, new icons, rearranged menus, many cosmetic improvements

* Hundreds of bugfixes and smaller features

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

= Interface =

== Layers dialog ==

* Ctrl+Shift+L [joncruz, mental]

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anythig.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have. The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Docked color palette ==

Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W).

* The color swatches palette can be viewed embedded in the main UI (between the canvas and the statusbar). Use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large) are made smaller overall,

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette now includes UI feedback of the color being dragged.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto the fill/stroke indicator in the statusbar sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill.
** Colors can be shift+dropped on to objects on canvas to set their stroke.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, it is now also fully GNOME-HIG compliant. Numerous bugs were taken care of with the rewrite. As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* In Node tool, if your node selection includes nodes from different subpaths, statusbar reports the number of subpaths with selection and the total number of subpaths, for example:

::2 of 195 nodes selected in 2 of 36 subpaths.

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar. [TODO: need to strip markup from the tooltips.]

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

* [new mouse cursors are coloured and antialiased - scislac]

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

Rendering support for SVG 1.1's '''Conditional Processing Module''' has been implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

[TODO:
- make it work smartly for groups: if a group has center not set, return the center of the first object inside group with the center set

- a separate tab in the Transform dialog, with 9 buttons in the square grid (for setting it to object's corners, sides, and center) as well as x/y fields for setting center to any position

- make center snap to grid/guides/objects and to other centers

- make objects snap with their center to grid/guides/objects]

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

=== Node sculpting ===

An entirely new way of manipulating paths in Node tool is added in this version: Node sculpting. Normally, when you have several nodes selected and you drag one of them, all selected nodes move by the same amount. Now, if you Alt-drag one of the selected nodes, only that node is fully displaced; other selected nodes are moved less than the full amount, so that those farthest from the drag point remain stationary. This is similar to "proportional editing" or "soft selection" in 3D editors such as Blender.

So, for example, if you select several nodes on a straight line and Alt+drag the middle selected node, the path will bend into a smooth bell-like curve. Nodes' handles are also adjusted correspondingly to keep the overall shape smooth and natural. (If you don't have enough nodes on a path fragment that you want to reshape in this way, just select the end nodes of that fragment and press Ins a few times to populate it with nodes.)

Moreover, node sculpting is sensitive to pressure of your tablet pen. If you press slightly, your curve will have a narrow sharp tip (i.e. the nearest neighbors of your dragged node will move only a bit); if you press hard, the curve's tip will be wide and blunt (i.e. the nearest neighbors will move almost as much as the dragged node). (Hint: to stop dragging without losing your shape, first release Alt and then lift the tip of the pen.)

There are many possible applications of the sculpting technique. To take a simple example, selecting all nodes of an ellipse-like shape and Alt+dragging one of them will smoothly and naturally stretch and skew the entire shape in any direction. Doing the same to a complex path, such as star or spiral, will twist and punch it without destroying its intricate structure - this is the way to get squashed or self-intersecting stars, eccentric spirals and other shapes not easily doable before. Selecting only part of all nodes allows you to smoothly reshape parts of the figure without disturbing the rest.

When applied to text converted to path, node sculpting is a fun and easy way to twist, bend and distort it, achieving effects similar to "perspective envelope" or "curvilinear envelope" in other programs - but in a more powerful and flexible way. For example, by selecting all or part of the text's nodes and Alt-dragging, you can not only make a wavy banner out of a paragraph of text, but also apply a "magnifying lens"-like effect to any word in the middle.

Especially useful node sculpting is for complex natural paths, such as calligraphic strokes or bitmap traces, where you often want to do large-scale pushes and bends without destroying the small-scale features. Things like making a calligraphic stroke narrower in one place and wider in another, or changing the proportions, extending the ear or flattening the nose of a head - all this is now much faster and more natural to do using sculpting. It is also a new way to create new paths, too - starting from en ellipse with added nodes, it takes just a few Alt+drags to tweak it into a silhouette of a head, or a map of Australia, or an Inkscape logo!

Some examples are shown on the screenshot: [[http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png]].

=== "Show handles" toggle ===

The Controls bar for the Nodes tool now includes a toggle button which controls whether Bezier handles are shown on selected nodes (on by default). Selecting and dragging nodes on node-dense paths in zoom-out (e.g. for node sculpting) may be extremely difficult without hiding the handles, as it's hard to pick a node and not a handle when handles are shown.

=== New deletion behavior ===

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

=== Preserving positions of nodes and handles ===

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

== Calligraphic pen ==

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

* A new preferences option for the Calligraphic tool, Keep selected, controls whether the newly created object remains selected after you finish drawing it. If you turn it off (by default it's on) and set the tool to using Last Set color, you can easily choose a new color by clicking on the palette without having to worry if this will change the color of the stroke you just created. (Watch the tool style indicator at the right end of the Controls bar for the style of the next stroke you will draw.)

* Esc deselects selected objects in Calligraphic, as in most other tools.

* The stroke you're drawing is now shown, while you're drawing it, with the correct color and opacity that it will eventually have, instead of always black as before.

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool - that is, arrows, with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

* By popular demand, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* There have been numerous bugfixes and several improvements to the behaviour of connectors and the connector tool:
** Connectors moved as part of a selection will now stay attached to other objects in the selection, rather than becoming detached from them.
** By default, the Connector tool will not attach connectors to text objects. There is a new checkbox in the connector preferences to control this setting.
** The margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

* Automatic Diagram Layout - A new button is available in the alignment and distribution dialogue that performs automatic layout of diagrams involving a network of shapes and connectors. Layout is accomplished using force-directed graph layout based on the Kamada-Kawai algorithm. This algorithm treats edges as if they are springs such that the distance between nodes will be proportional to the path length---number of connectors---between them. Disconnected components (where not every shape is connected) will be arranged around the circumference of a circle.

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. A minimum spacing between the boundaries of objects can be specifiedTogether with the automatic layout tool, described above, this should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. [Consider expanding this, comparing with existing Unclump and Distribute edge-to-edge buttons. - pjrm]

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

[ishmal]

= Path effects =

[acspike]

= Snapping =

* [object snap - carl]

* [highlight - mtou]

* [only to visible gridlines - mtou]

* Guidelines are made easier to pick: now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it, instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* Extended "Select All" option - now there is an option for "Select All" and TAB browsing to work in current layer with it's sublayers.

= Extensions =

* The Effects menu is now always on, it's no longer an "experimental feature". The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed.

* Python extensions (which includes almost all currently available extensions) work on Windows out of the box, using a copy of Python shipping with Inkscape. The only minor inconvenience is that when an effect is launched, you get an empty console window that stays on while the effect is doing its work (don't close that window, it will disappear by itself when the effect is finished).

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

* INX files now have the ability to hold more information. This includes tooltips and descriptions of the extensions. These are all also translatable.

= Formats =

* Inkscape's PDF export is now native (i.e. does not require any external applications) and supports transparency, including gradients with transparency. This replaced the old export extension that required Ghostscript and worked via Postscript, losing any transparency. The new PDF export is still immature; in particular it does not handle text, so you should check "Convert text to path" on the export options dialog. Other things not yet supported include: gradients on stroke; eccentric elliptic gradients; patterns, masks, and clipping paths; embedded images.

* [save zip with images - mipmip] collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* [xfig]

* [odg - ishmal]

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in the Gimp. Requires Python, PyXML and Gimp. Gimp 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows.

= Configurable keyboard =

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

At this time, not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, are already configurable, and we're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag, in any tool, to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* [new cursors - scislac]

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

* A new RazorWire path marker was added. By applying it as a mid-marker you can get a good approximation of a razor wire.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* EPS output now correctly includes an %%EOF footer

* More document memory is now freed when documents are closed.

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI could pollute Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

= Known problems =

* Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with the wrong namespaces. This has been fixed, but such corrupted documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand.

=== Beware: defective themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem, however, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of the problem. See especially http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312115 (thanks to Thomas Wood)
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-05-22T00:47:43Z

Mental: better wording

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Inkscape 0.44 is bigger and better than ever. Some highlights:

* Layers dialog

* Outline mode, many performance improvements

* Native PDF export with transparency

* Clipping and masking support

* Configurable keyboard shortcuts, including Xara X emulation

* Docked color palette in the editing window

* Interactive indicator of the style of selection in the statusbar

* Innovative "node sculpting" and other improvements in Node tool

* Extensions are enabled by default and work on both Linux and Windows

* Better SVG support: <switch> element, ICC color profiles for images

* Persistent rotation centers, Paste Size command

* Redesigned preferences dialogs, new icons, rearranged menus, many cosmetic improvements

* Hundreds of bugfixes and smaller features

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

= Interface =

== Layers dialog ==

* Ctrl+Shift+L [joncruz, mental]

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anythig.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have. The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Docked color palette ==

Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W).

* The color swatches palette can be viewed embedded in the main UI (between the canvas and the statusbar). Use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large) are made smaller overall,

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette now includes UI feedback of the color being dragged.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto the fill/stroke indicator in the statusbar sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill.
** Colors can be shift+dropped on to objects on canvas to set their stroke.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, it is now also fully GNOME-HIG compliant. Numerous bugs were taken care of with the rewrite. As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* In Node tool, if your node selection includes nodes from different subpaths, statusbar reports the number of subpaths with selection and the total number of subpaths, for example:

::2 of 195 nodes selected in 2 of 36 subpaths.

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar. [TODO: need to strip markup from the tooltips.]

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

* [new mouse cursors are coloured and antialiased - scislac]

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

Rendering support for SVG 1.1's '''Conditional Processing Module''' has been implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

[TODO:
- make it work smartly for groups: if a group has center not set, return the center of the first object inside group with the center set

- a separate tab in the Transform dialog, with 9 buttons in the square grid (for setting it to object's corners, sides, and center) as well as x/y fields for setting center to any position

- make center snap to grid/guides/objects and to other centers

- make objects snap with their center to grid/guides/objects]

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

=== Node sculpting ===

An entirely new way of manipulating paths in Node tool is added in this version: Node sculpting. Normally, when you have several nodes selected and you drag one of them, all selected nodes move by the same amount. Now, if you Alt-drag one of the selected nodes, only that node is fully displaced; other selected nodes are moved less than the full amount, so that those farthest from the drag point remain stationary. This is similar to "proportional editing" or "soft selection" in 3D editors such as Blender.

So, for example, if you select several nodes on a straight line and Alt+drag the middle selected node, the path will bend into a smooth bell-like curve. Nodes' handles are also adjusted correspondingly to keep the overall shape smooth and natural. (If you don't have enough nodes on a path fragment that you want to reshape in this way, just select the end nodes of that fragment and press Ins a few times to populate it with nodes.)

Moreover, node sculpting is sensitive to pressure of your tablet pen. If you press slightly, your curve will have a narrow sharp tip (i.e. the nearest neighbors of your dragged node will move only a bit); if you press hard, the curve's tip will be wide and blunt (i.e. the nearest neighbors will move almost as much as the dragged node). (Hint: to stop dragging without losing your shape, first release Alt and then lift the tip of the pen.)

There are many possible applications of the sculpting technique. To take a simple example, selecting all nodes of an ellipse-like shape and Alt+dragging one of them will smoothly and naturally stretch and skew the entire shape in any direction. Doing the same to a complex path, such as star or spiral, will twist and punch it without destroying its intricate structure - this is the way to get squashed or self-intersecting stars, eccentric spirals and other shapes not easily doable before. Selecting only part of all nodes allows you to smoothly reshape parts of the figure without disturbing the rest.

When applied to text converted to path, node sculpting is a fun and easy way to twist, bend and distort it, achieving effects similar to "perspective envelope" or "curvilinear envelope" in other programs - but in a more powerful and flexible way. For example, by selecting all or part of the text's nodes and Alt-dragging, you can not only make a wavy banner out of a paragraph of text, but also apply a "magnifying lens"-like effect to any word in the middle.

Especially useful node sculpting is for complex natural paths, such as calligraphic strokes or bitmap traces, where you often want to do large-scale pushes and bends without destroying the small-scale features. Things like making a calligraphic stroke narrower in one place and wider in another, or changing the proportions, extending the ear or flattening the nose of a head - all this is now much faster and more natural to do using sculpting. It is also a new way to create new paths, too - starting from en ellipse with added nodes, it takes just a few Alt+drags to tweak it into a silhouette of a head, or a map of Australia, or an Inkscape logo!

Some examples are shown on the screenshot: [[http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png]].

=== "Show handles" toggle ===

The Controls bar for the Nodes tool now includes a toggle button which controls whether Bezier handles are shown on selected nodes (on by default). Selecting and dragging nodes on node-dense paths in zoom-out (e.g. for node sculpting) may be extremely difficult without hiding the handles, as it's hard to pick a node and not a handle when handles are shown.

=== New deletion behavior ===

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

=== Preserving positions of nodes and handles ===

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

=== Miscellaneous ===

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

== Calligraphic pen ==

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

* A new preferences option for the Calligraphic tool, Keep selected, controls whether the newly created object remains selected after you finish drawing it. If you turn it off (by default it's on) and set the tool to using Last Set color, you can easily choose a new color by clicking on the palette without having to worry if this will change the color of the stroke you just created. (Watch the tool style indicator at the right end of the Controls bar for the style of the next stroke you will draw.)

* Esc deselects selected objects in Calligraphic, as in most other tools.

* The stroke you're drawing is now shown, while you're drawing it, with the correct color and opacity that it will eventually have, instead of always black as before.

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool - that is, arrows, with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

* By popular demand, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* There have been numerous bugfixes and several improvements to the behaviour of connectors and the connector tool:
** Connectors moved as part of a selection will now stay attached to other objects in the selection, rather than becoming detached from them.
** By default, the Connector tool will not attach connectors to text objects. There is a new checkbox in the connector preferences to control this setting.
** The margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

* Automatic Diagram Layout - A new button is available in the alignment and distribution dialogue that performs automatic layout of diagrams involving a network of shapes and connectors. Layout is accomplished using force-directed graph layout based on the Kamada-Kawai algorithm. This algorithm treats edges as if they are springs such that the distance between nodes will be proportional to the path length---number of connectors---between them. Disconnected components (where not every shape is connected) will be arranged around the circumference of a circle.

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. A minimum spacing between the boundaries of objects can be specifiedTogether with the automatic layout tool, described above, this should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. [Consider expanding this, comparing with existing Unclump and Distribute edge-to-edge buttons. - pjrm]

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

[ishmal]

= Path effects =

[acspike]

= Snapping =

* [object snap - carl]

* [highlight - mtou]

* [only to visible gridlines - mtou]

* Guidelines are made easier to pick: now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it, instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* Extended "Select All" option - now there is an option for "Select All" and TAB browsing to work in current layer with it's sublayers.

= Extensions =

* The Effects menu is now always on, it's no longer an "experimental feature". The preference setting to enable the menu has been removed.

* Python extensions (which includes almost all currently available extensions) work on Windows out of the box, using a copy of Python shipping with Inkscape. The only minor inconvenience is that when an effect is launched, you get an empty console window that stays on while the effect is doing its work (don't close that window, it will disappear by itself when the effect is finished).

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

* INX files now have the ability to hold more information. This includes tooltips and descriptions of the extensions. These are all also translatable.

= Formats =

* Inkscape's PDF export is now native (i.e. does not require any external applications) and supports transparency, including gradients with transparency. This replaced the old export extension that required Ghostscript and worked via Postscript, losing any transparency. The new PDF export is still immature; in particular it does not handle text, so you should check "Convert text to path" on the export options dialog. Other things not yet supported include: gradients on stroke; eccentric elliptic gradients; patterns, masks, and clipping paths; embedded images.

* [save zip with images - mipmip] collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* [xfig]

* [odg - ishmal]

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in the Gimp. Requires Python, PyXML and Gimp. Gimp 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows.

= Configurable keyboard =

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

At this time, not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, are already configurable, and we're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag, in any tool, to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* [new cursors - scislac]

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

* A new RazorWire path marker was added. By applying it as a mid-marker you can get a good approximation of a razor wire.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* More document memory is now freed when documents are closed.

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI could pollute Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

= Known problems =

* Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with the wrong namespaces. This has been fixed, but such corrupted documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand.

=== Beware: defective themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem, however, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of the problem. See especially http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312115 (thanks to Thomas Wood)
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-05-08T17:10:03Z

Mental: /* Miscellaneous bugfixes */

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Bigger and better.

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

= Interface =

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anythig.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have. The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Docked color palette ==

Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W).

* The color swatches palette can be viewed embedded in the main UI (between the canvas and the statusbar). Use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large) are made smaller overall,

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette now includes UI feedback of the color being dragged.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill.
** Colors can be shift+dropped on to objects on canvas to set their stroke.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, it is now also fully GNOME-HIG compliant. Numerous bugs were taken care of with the rewrite. As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar. [TODO: need to strip markup from the tooltips.]

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

* [new mouse cursors are coloured and antialiased - scislac]

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

SVG 1.1 '''Conditional Processing Module''' rendering support is implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

[TODO:
- make it work smartly for groups: if a group has center not set, return the center of the first object inside group with the center set

- a separate tab in the Transform dialog, with 9 buttons in the square grid (for setting it to object's corners, sides, and center) as well as x/y fields for setting center to any position

- make center snap to grid/guides/objects and to other centers

- make objects snap with their center to grid/guides/objects]

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

== Calligraphic pen ==

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool: arrows with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* [automatic diagram layout - ?]

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. This should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. [Consider expanding this, comparing with existing Unclump and Distribute edge-to-edge buttons. - pjrm]

* In Connector tool, the margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

[ishmal]

= Path effects =

[acspike]

= Snapping =

* [object snap - carl]

* [highlight - mtou]

* [only to visible gridlines - mtou]

* Guidelines are made easier to pick: now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it, instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* Extended "Select All" option - now there is an option for "Select All" and TAB browsing to work in current layer with it's sublayers.

= Extensions =

* [enabled by default?]

* [python extensions to work out of the box on windows? - ishmal]

* [extension manager - gouldtj]

* [xslt effects - gouldtj]

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

= Formats =

* [save zip with images - mipmip] collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* [xfig]

* [odg - ishmal]

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in the Gimp. Requires Python, PyXML and Gimp. Gimp 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows.

= Configurable keyboard =

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

At this time, not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, are already configurable, and we're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag in any tool to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* By popular demand, in Pen tool, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

* In Calligraphic tool, Esc deselects as in most other tools.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

* [pen tool keys - bb]

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* [new cursors - scislac]

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* More document memory is now freed when documents are closed.

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI could pollute Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

= Known problems =

* Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with the wrong namespaces. This has been fixed, but such corrupted documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand.

=== Beware: defective themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem, however, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of the problem. See especially http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312115 (thanks to Thomas Wood)
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-05-08T17:04:08Z

Mental: /* Miscellaneous bugfixes */

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Bigger and better.

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

= Interface =

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anythig.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have. The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Docked color palette ==

Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W).

* The color swatches palette can be viewed embedded in the main UI (between the canvas and the statusbar). Use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large) are made smaller overall,

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette now includes UI feedback of the color being dragged.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill.
** Colors can be shift+dropped on to objects on canvas to set their stroke.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, it is now also fully GNOME-HIG compliant. Numerous bugs were taken care of with the rewrite. As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar. [TODO: need to strip markup from the tooltips.]

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

* [new mouse cursors are coloured and antialiased - scislac]

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

SVG 1.1 '''Conditional Processing Module''' rendering support is implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

[TODO:
- make it work smartly for groups: if a group has center not set, return the center of the first object inside group with the center set

- a separate tab in the Transform dialog, with 9 buttons in the square grid (for setting it to object's corners, sides, and center) as well as x/y fields for setting center to any position

- make center snap to grid/guides/objects and to other centers

- make objects snap with their center to grid/guides/objects]

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

== Calligraphic pen ==

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool: arrows with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* [automatic diagram layout - ?]

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. This should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. [Consider expanding this, comparing with existing Unclump and Distribute edge-to-edge buttons. - pjrm]

* In Connector tool, the margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

[ishmal]

= Path effects =

[acspike]

= Snapping =

* [object snap - carl]

* [highlight - mtou]

* [only to visible gridlines - mtou]

* Guidelines are made easier to pick: now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it, instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* Extended "Select All" option - now there is an option for "Select All" and TAB browsing to work in current layer with it's sublayers.

= Extensions =

* [enabled by default?]

* [python extensions to work out of the box on windows? - ishmal]

* [extension manager - gouldtj]

* [xslt effects - gouldtj]

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

= Formats =

* [save zip with images - mipmip] collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* [xfig]

* [odg - ishmal]

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in the Gimp. Requires Python, PyXML and Gimp. Gimp 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows.

= Configurable keyboard =

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

At this time, not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, are already configurable, and we're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag in any tool to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* By popular demand, in Pen tool, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

* In Calligraphic tool, Esc deselects as in most other tools.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

* [pen tool keys - bb]

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* [new cursors - scislac]

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Documents are now properly freed when their windows are closed.

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI could pollute Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

= Known problems =

* Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with the wrong namespaces. This has been fixed, but such corrupted documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand.

=== Beware: defective themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem, however, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of the problem. See especially http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312115 (thanks to Thomas Wood)
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-05-08T16:57:19Z

Mental: namespace stuff

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Bigger and better.

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

= Interface =

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anythig.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have. The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Docked color palette ==

Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W).

* The color swatches palette can be viewed embedded in the main UI (between the canvas and the statusbar). Use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large) are made smaller overall,

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette now includes UI feedback of the color being dragged.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill.
** Colors can be shift+dropped on to objects on canvas to set their stroke.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, it is now also fully GNOME-HIG compliant. Numerous bugs were taken care of with the rewrite. As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar. [TODO: need to strip markup from the tooltips.]

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

* [new mouse cursors are coloured and antialiased - scislac]

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

SVG 1.1 '''Conditional Processing Module''' rendering support is implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

[TODO:
- make it work smartly for groups: if a group has center not set, return the center of the first object inside group with the center set

- a separate tab in the Transform dialog, with 9 buttons in the square grid (for setting it to object's corners, sides, and center) as well as x/y fields for setting center to any position

- make center snap to grid/guides/objects and to other centers

- make objects snap with their center to grid/guides/objects]

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

== Calligraphic pen ==

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool: arrows with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* [automatic diagram layout - ?]

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. This should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. [Consider expanding this, comparing with existing Unclump and Distribute edge-to-edge buttons. - pjrm]

* In Connector tool, the margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

[ishmal]

= Path effects =

[acspike]

= Snapping =

* [object snap - carl]

* [highlight - mtou]

* [only to visible gridlines - mtou]

* Guidelines are made easier to pick: now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it, instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* Extended "Select All" option - now there is an option for "Select All" and TAB browsing to work in current layer with it's sublayers.

= Extensions =

* [enabled by default?]

* [python extensions to work out of the box on windows? - ishmal]

* [extension manager - gouldtj]

* [xslt effects - gouldtj]

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

= Formats =

* [save zip with images - mipmip] collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* [xfig]

* [odg - ishmal]

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in the Gimp. Requires Python, PyXML and Gimp. Gimp 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows.

= Configurable keyboard =

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

At this time, not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, are already configurable, and we're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag in any tool to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* By popular demand, in Pen tool, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

* In Calligraphic tool, Esc deselects as in most other tools.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

* [pen tool keys - bb]

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* [new cursors - scislac]

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI could pollute Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

= Known problems =

* Previous versions of inkscape sometimes silently saved documents with the wrong namespaces. This has been fixed, but such corrupted documents will no longer load successfully. Such documents may require their namespace declarations to be fixed by hand.

=== Beware: defective themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem, however, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of the problem. See especially http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312115 (thanks to Thomas Wood)
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-05-08T16:54:38Z

Mental: /* Beware: defect themes on Linux */

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Bigger and better.

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

= Interface =

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anythig.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have. The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Docked color palette ==

Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W).

* The color swatches palette can be viewed embedded in the main UI (between the canvas and the statusbar). Use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large) are made smaller overall,

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette now includes UI feedback of the color being dragged.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill.
** Colors can be shift+dropped on to objects on canvas to set their stroke.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, it is now also fully GNOME-HIG compliant. Numerous bugs were taken care of with the rewrite. As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar. [TODO: need to strip markup from the tooltips.]

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

* [new mouse cursors are coloured and antialiased - scislac]

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

SVG 1.1 '''Conditional Processing Module''' rendering support is implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

[TODO:
- make it work smartly for groups: if a group has center not set, return the center of the first object inside group with the center set

- a separate tab in the Transform dialog, with 9 buttons in the square grid (for setting it to object's corners, sides, and center) as well as x/y fields for setting center to any position

- make center snap to grid/guides/objects and to other centers

- make objects snap with their center to grid/guides/objects]

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

== Calligraphic pen ==

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool: arrows with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* [automatic diagram layout - ?]

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. This should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. [Consider expanding this, comparing with existing Unclump and Distribute edge-to-edge buttons. - pjrm]

* In Connector tool, the margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

[ishmal]

= Path effects =

[acspike]

= Snapping =

* [object snap - carl]

* [highlight - mtou]

* [only to visible gridlines - mtou]

* Guidelines are made easier to pick: now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it, instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* Extended "Select All" option - now there is an option for "Select All" and TAB browsing to work in current layer with it's sublayers.

= Extensions =

* [enabled by default?]

* [python extensions to work out of the box on windows? - ishmal]

* [extension manager - gouldtj]

* [xslt effects - gouldtj]

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

= Formats =

* [save zip with images - mipmip] collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* [xfig]

* [odg - ishmal]

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in the Gimp. Requires Python, PyXML and Gimp. Gimp 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows.

= Configurable keyboard =

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

At this time, not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, are already configurable, and we're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag in any tool to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* By popular demand, in Pen tool, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

* In Calligraphic tool, Esc deselects as in most other tools.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

* [pen tool keys - bb]

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* [new cursors - scislac]

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI could pollute Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

= Known problems =

=== Beware: defective themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem, however, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of the problem. See especially http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312115 (thanks to Thomas Wood)
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-05-08T16:53:36Z

Mental: namespace bug

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Bigger and better.

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

= Interface =

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anythig.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have. The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Docked color palette ==

Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W).

* The color swatches palette can be viewed embedded in the main UI (between the canvas and the statusbar). Use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large) are made smaller overall,

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette now includes UI feedback of the color being dragged.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill.
** Colors can be shift+dropped on to objects on canvas to set their stroke.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, it is now also fully GNOME-HIG compliant. Numerous bugs were taken care of with the rewrite. As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar. [TODO: need to strip markup from the tooltips.]

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

* [new mouse cursors are coloured and antialiased - scislac]

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

SVG 1.1 '''Conditional Processing Module''' rendering support is implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

[TODO:
- make it work smartly for groups: if a group has center not set, return the center of the first object inside group with the center set

- a separate tab in the Transform dialog, with 9 buttons in the square grid (for setting it to object's corners, sides, and center) as well as x/y fields for setting center to any position

- make center snap to grid/guides/objects and to other centers

- make objects snap with their center to grid/guides/objects]

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

== Calligraphic pen ==

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool: arrows with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* [automatic diagram layout - ?]

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. This should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. [Consider expanding this, comparing with existing Unclump and Distribute edge-to-edge buttons. - pjrm]

* In Connector tool, the margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

[ishmal]

= Path effects =

[acspike]

= Snapping =

* [object snap - carl]

* [highlight - mtou]

* [only to visible gridlines - mtou]

* Guidelines are made easier to pick: now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it, instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* Extended "Select All" option - now there is an option for "Select All" and TAB browsing to work in current layer with it's sublayers.

= Extensions =

* [enabled by default?]

* [python extensions to work out of the box on windows? - ishmal]

* [extension manager - gouldtj]

* [xslt effects - gouldtj]

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

= Formats =

* [save zip with images - mipmip] collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* [xfig]

* [odg - ishmal]

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in the Gimp. Requires Python, PyXML and Gimp. Gimp 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows.

= Configurable keyboard =

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

At this time, not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, are already configurable, and we're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag in any tool to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* By popular demand, in Pen tool, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

* In Calligraphic tool, Esc deselects as in most other tools.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

* [pen tool keys - bb]

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* [new cursors - scislac]

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Reading a document with an incorrect namespace URI could pollute Inkscape's internal namespace table, resulting in an "infection" of subsequently saved documents by the incorrect namespace.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

= Known problems =

=== Beware: defect themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem, however, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of the problem. See especially http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312115 (thanks to Thomas Wood)
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-05-08T16:47:07Z

Mental: cosmetic tweaks

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Bigger and better.

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

= Interface =

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anythig.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have. The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Docked color palette ==

Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W).

* The color swatches palette can be viewed embedded in the main UI (between the canvas and the statusbar). Use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large) are made smaller overall,

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette now includes UI feedback of the color being dragged.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill.
** Colors can be shift+dropped on to objects on canvas to set their stroke.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, it is now also fully GNOME-HIG compliant. Numerous bugs were taken care of with the rewrite. As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar. [TODO: need to strip markup from the tooltips.]

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

* [new mouse cursors are coloured and antialiased - scislac]

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

SVG 1.1 '''Conditional Processing Module''' rendering support is implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

[TODO:
- make it work smartly for groups: if a group has center not set, return the center of the first object inside group with the center set

- a separate tab in the Transform dialog, with 9 buttons in the square grid (for setting it to object's corners, sides, and center) as well as x/y fields for setting center to any position

- make center snap to grid/guides/objects and to other centers

- make objects snap with their center to grid/guides/objects]

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

== Calligraphic pen ==

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool: arrows with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* [automatic diagram layout - ?]

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. This should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. [Consider expanding this, comparing with existing Unclump and Distribute edge-to-edge buttons. - pjrm]

* In Connector tool, the margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

[ishmal]

= Path effects =

[acspike]

= Snapping =

* [object snap - carl]

* [highlight - mtou]

* [only to visible gridlines - mtou]

* Guidelines are made easier to pick: now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it, instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* Extended "Select All" option - now there is an option for "Select All" and TAB browsing to work in current layer with it's sublayers.

= Extensions =

* [enabled by default?]

* [python extensions to work out of the box on windows? - ishmal]

* [extension manager - gouldtj]

* [xslt effects - gouldtj]

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

= Formats =

* [save zip with images - mipmip] collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* [xfig]

* [odg - ishmal]

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in the Gimp. Requires Python, PyXML and Gimp. Gimp 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows.

= Configurable keyboard =

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

At this time, not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, are already configurable, and we're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag in any tool to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* By popular demand, in Pen tool, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

* In Calligraphic tool, Esc deselects as in most other tools.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

* [pen tool keys - bb]

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* [new cursors - scislac]

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke now works for objects that didn't specify stroke-width; before, they always ended up with the default 1px stroke.

* The bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width. This has been fixed.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defective inx file for extensions.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

= Known problems =

=== Beware: defect themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem, however, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of the problem. See especially http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312115 (thanks to Thomas Wood)
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-05-08T16:44:47Z

Mental: about dialog improvements

== Inkscape 0.44: overview ==

Bigger and better.

* Not directly related to Inkscape, but important nevertheless: since our last release, [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Firefox 1.5] was released with SVG support enabled by default. This means that you can now view any Inkscape document right in your Firefox window without any format conversions or installing any plugins!

= Performance =

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Speed ==

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

* Interface icons are now rendered in the background (from SVG source in <code>share/icons/icons.svg</code>) when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up. This eliminates the annoying delay when opening menus for the first time.

* Previously, zooming in to view a small portion of a path (especially big and complex path), there was a very noticeable slowdown and memory use increased dramatically. We optimized the renderer to only process the visible part of a path, and as a result the rendering speed is now almost the same at any zoom up to the maximum, providing up to 10-40 times speedup compared to the previous version (the closer is the zoom, the greater is the gain).

= Interface =

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anythig.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Tool style indicators ==

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have. The indicator correctly displays whichever style the tool is set to use - the global "last set" style or that tool's fixed style. For example, clicking on a palette swatch (even with nothing selected) changes the "last set" color and, if your tool is set to use the last set color, its indicator is updated, giving you an idea of your "brush" before you start to draw.

== Docked color palette ==

Previously, color swatches could only be used from a floating palette (Ctrl+Shift+W).

* The color swatches palette can be viewed embedded in the main UI (between the canvas and the statusbar). Use View > Show/Hide > Palette to enable or disable it. The docked palette has the same functionality as the floating one; use a button in the top right corner to access the swatches menu.

* All standard sizes of the swatches (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large) are made smaller overall,

* Drag and Drop of colors has been enabled.
** Dragging colors from a palette now includes UI feedback of the color being dragged.
** Drag and Drop of colors onto a fil/stroke indicator sets the fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly.
** Colors can be dropped directly on to objects on canvas to set their fill.
** Colors can be shift+dropped on to objects on canvas to set their stroke.
** Colors can be dragged to and from other applications.

== Inkscape Preferences dialog ==

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, it is now also fully GNOME-HIG compliant. Numerous bugs were taken care of with the rewrite. As a new feature, the Simplify threshold can now be set with more precision.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* A button was added to fit the canvas to the current selection or, if there's no selection, to the entire drawing. The button resizes the canvas and, if necessary, moves the drawing into place. It is now very easy to size the canvas to an illustration after it is ready.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

* Updated Creative Commons Licenses: Updated CC licenses to the latest 2.5 versions by default in the license tab of the metadata dialog.

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar. [TODO: need to strip markup from the tooltips.]

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

* [new mouse cursors are coloured and antialiased - scislac]

= Clipping and masking =

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

= SVG conformance =

== Color profile support ==

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run <code>configure</code> with <code>--enable-lcms</code> switch), Inkscape passes the [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-color-prof-01-f.html ICC color profile test] by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

== <switch> support ==

SVG 1.1 '''Conditional Processing Module''' rendering support is implemented, including ''switch'' element, ''requiredFeatures'', ''requiredExtensions'', ''systemLanguage'' attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ([http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-01-t.html] and [http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/20030813/htmlframe/full-struct-cond-02-t.html]) by W3C.

== SVG output ==

* In Inkscape's SVG documents, colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

* The numeric values in <code>transform</code> attributes are written without insignificant trailing zeros, and anything less than that 1e-8 by absolute value (usually caused by rounding errors) is written as 0 to reduce clutter.

= Transformations =

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and restored when you select those objects again (even after saving and reopening the document). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same unless you move it explicitly.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their common bounding box (as before).

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the rotation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Rotate tab in the Transform dialog, work around the selected object's rotation center (for multi-object selection, the rotation center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preserved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), grouping/ungrouping, and converting to path.

[TODO:
- make it work smartly for groups: if a group has center not set, return the center of the first object inside group with the center set

- a separate tab in the Transform dialog, with 9 buttons in the square grid (for setting it to object's corners, sides, and center) as well as x/y fields for setting center to any position

- make center snap to grid/guides/objects and to other centers

- make objects snap with their center to grid/guides/objects]

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the overall size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width/Paste Height scale the whole selection horizontally/vertically so that it matches the width/height of the clipboard object(s). These commands honor the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the other dimension of the selected object is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the other dimension is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately, Paste Width Separately and Paste Height Separately work similarly to the above described commands, except that they scale each selected object separately to make it match the size/width/height of the clipboard object(s).

= Tools =

== Node tool ==

* In Node tool, deleting node(s) by Del/Backspace keys or by Ctrl+Alt+clicking a node now tries to preserve, as much as possible, the current shape of the path. This means that the nodes adjacent to those being deleted have their handles adjusted to approximate the form that the path had before deletion. For example, if you Ctrl+Alt+click a path twice, once to add a new node and then to delete it, the path will not change at all (or change very slightly). The old deletion behavior without adjusting handles is still available via Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Backspace.

* When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* Similarly, when you join endnodes by pressing Shift+J, you can preserve the position of one of the two nodes by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other node is moved.

* The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

== Calligraphic pen ==

* Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

* In all previous versions, pen width depended on zoom in such a way that the strokes appeared the same visible width at any zoom, but were in fact narrower at zoom-in and wider at zoom-out. This behavior makes sense if you want to keep the same "feel" of the pen regardless of zoom; for example, if you zoomed in to make a small fix to your drawing, it's natural that your pen becomes physically smaller but feels the same to you. So, this behavior is kept as the default, but now we also added an alternative mode where your pen width is constant in absolute units regardless of zoom. To switch to this mode, use the checkbox on the tool's Preferences page (you can open it by double-clicking the tool button).

* The Width field in the tool's controls bar now changes from 1 to 100, which corresponds to the range from 0.01 to 1.0 in the previous version. If the "width in absolute units" mode is turned on, the value in this fields gives the width of the stroke in px units. In the default mode, the value of 100 gives 100px wide strokes only at 100% zoom, and strokes are correspondingly narrower or wider at other zoom levels.

== Pen tool ==

* While drawing a path, you can now move the last node you created by the same keys as in Node tool: arrows with Shift (for 10x displacement) or Alt (screen pixel displacement) modifiers.

* Also, you can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line (Shift+L) or back to curve (Shift+U), again the same shortcuts as in the Node tool.

= Connectors and automatic layout =

* [automatic diagram layout - ?]

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. This should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. [Consider expanding this, comparing with existing Unclump and Distribute edge-to-edge buttons. - pjrm]

* In Connector tool, the margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

= Selective tracing with SIOX =

[ishmal]

= Path effects =

[acspike]

= Snapping =

* [object snap - carl]

* [highlight - mtou]

* [only to visible gridlines - mtou]

* Guidelines are made easier to pick: now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it, instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

= Sublayers =

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* Extended "Select All" option - now there is an option for "Select All" and TAB browsing to work in current layer with it's sublayers.

= Extensions =

* [enabled by default?]

* [python extensions to work out of the box on windows? - ishmal]

* [extension manager - gouldtj]

* [xslt effects - gouldtj]

* A new Python effect, Render > LaTeX formula, allows you to type in any LaTeX formula and get a vector object with the TeX rendition of this formula inserted into your document. You need to have latex, dvips, and pstoedit installed and in PATH for this to work.

* A new Python effect, Flatten Path, flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose segments meet the specified criteria for flatness.

* A new Python effect, Measure Path, attaches a text label to each path in the selection giving the length of that path (in px units).

* The Radius Randomize effect has a new parameter which enables normal distribution of random displacements instead of uniform as before, which gives a more natural feel to the randomized path.

= Formats =

* [save zip with images - mipmip] collects the svg file and all linked images into a zip archive for distribution.

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* [xfig]

* [odg - ishmal]

* The new XCF output extension exports all top-level elements (i.e. layers and objects directly under root) as PNGs and assembles them into an XCF for procesing in the Gimp. Requires Python, PyXML and Gimp. Gimp 2.2.x or above must be in the path and be named <code>gimp</code>. A version of Inkscape 0.44 or above must be accessible from the path. Does not function in Windows.

= Configurable keyboard =

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

At this time, not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, are already configurable, and we're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from <code>share/keys/default.xml</code>. That file is a copy of <code>inkscape.xml</code> in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

*<code>xara.xml</code>: Xara X/Xara Xtreme/Xara LX keys

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we will appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in <code>inkscape.xml</code>.

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main <code>default.xml</code>. If your profile directory (<code>~/.inkscape</code> on Linux) contains a <code>keys</code> subdirectory with a <code>default.xml</code> file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own <code>default.xml</code> is the same as that of the main <code>default.xml</code>.

= Miscellaneous shortcuts =

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag in any tool to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* By popular demand, in Pen tool, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

* In Calligraphic tool, Esc deselects as in most other tools.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

* [pen tool keys - bb]

= Miscellaneous improvements =

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* The dpi value in the Export dialog has had its range extended; now possible values are from 0.01 to 100000.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* The separate "license" and "contributors" dialogs have been merged into tabs on the About dialog. The about dialog now correctly sizes itself to fit the size of the splash SVG (while remaining resizable), and the rendering area is now cropped to the correct aspect ratio when the dialog is resized. The dialog also now displays the build information in the upper right corner.

* [new cursors - scislac]

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* The Browse button on Export dialog now opens the new file chooser, same as those used by Open and Save.

= Miscellaneous bugfixes =

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Scaling of stroke didn't work for objects that didn't specify stroke-width and thus had the default 1px stroke.

* Bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* The unfinished path in Pen tool is now cancelled, not finalized, when you switch away from the Pen tool. Apart from being more intuitively correct, this also fixes a crash when you quit Inkscape with the unfinished path in Pen tool.

* Fonts on Win32 now use the native font mapper, meaning that Inkscape's font list is the same as other Windows programs, and the (potentially) very long delay experienced when using fonts for the first time in each session is gone.

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defect inx file for extensions.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause session invitations to not appear on the invitee's screen. This was the result of a mistake in handling GDK modifier flags, and has been fixed.

= Translations =

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

= Internal =

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

= Known problems =

=== Beware: defect themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem, however, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of the problem. See especially http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312115 (thanks to Thomas Wood)
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

= Previous releases =

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-04-06T04:29:49Z

Mental: /* Keyboard profiles */

= Inkscape 0.44 =

== In brief ==

Bigger and better.

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anythig.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Clipping and masking ==

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

== Color profile support ==

[joncruz]

== Docked color palette ==

[options; use; dragndrop; linked colors - joncruz]

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and is restored when you select those objects again (even after save and reload). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation focus of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the center of their common bounding box.

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the transformation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Transform dialog, now rotate around the selected object's center (for multiple selections, the center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preseved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), and converting to path.

[TODO:
- make it work smartly for groups: if a group has center not set, return the center of the first object inside group with the center set

- a separate tab in the Transform dialog, with 9 buttons in the square grid (for setting it to object's corners, sides, and center) as well as x/y fields for setting center to any position

- make center snap to grid/guides/objects and to other centers

- make objects snap with their center to grid/guides/objects]

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width scales the whole selection horizontally so that it matches the width of the clipboard object(s). This obeys the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the height is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the height is unchanged.

* Paste Height scales the whole selection vertically so that it matches the height of the clipboard object(s). This obeys the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the width is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the width is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately scales each selected object separately so that it matches the size of the clipboard object(s).

== Connectors and automatic layout ==

* [automatic diagram layout - ?]

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. This should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. [Consider expanding this, comparing with existing Unclump and Distribute edge-to-edge buttons. - pjrm]

* In Connector tool, the margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

== Selective tracing with SIOX ==

[ishmal]

== Calligraphic tremor ==

Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

== Keyboard profiles ==

* '''Configurable keymaps''': Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable! Default key mappings are defined in share/keys/default.xml. If a keys/default.xml is present in your Inkscape settings directory, its settings will overlay the default settings.

== Path effects ==

[acspike]

== Snapping ==

* [object snap - carl]

* [highlight - mtou]

* [only to visible gridlines - mtou]

* Guidelines are made easier to pick: now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it, instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

== Sublayers ==

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* Extended "Select All" option - now there is an option for "Select All" and TAB browsing to work in current layer with it's sublayers.

== SVG Output ==

* Colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

== New formats ==

* [save zip with images - acspike?]

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* [xfig]

* [odg - ishmal]

* [xcf - acspike]

== Speed ==

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

== Mouse and keyboard ==

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag in any tool to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* By popular demand, in Pen tool, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

* In Node tool, the ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

* In Node tool, when you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric (by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y), you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

* In Calligraphic tool, Esc deselects as in most other tools.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

* [pen tool keys - bb]

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar. [TODO: need to strip markup from the tooltips.]

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

* [new mouse cursors are coloured and antialiased - scislac]

== Miscellaneous improvements ==

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* The Simplify threshold in Inkscape Preferences can now be set with more precision.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* [about dialog redesign - mental]

* SVG icons are now rendered in the background when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up.

* [extensions on windows - ishmal]

* [python extensions to work out of the box on windows? - ishmal]

* Added a new Python effect Flatten Path that flattens paths in the current selection, approximates them with a polyline by breaking them into segments that meet the specified criteria for flattness.

* [new cursors - scislac]

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* [extension manager - gouldtj]

== Miscellaneous bugfixes ==

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* [win32 font backend, device fonts - cyreve]

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Scaling of stroke didn't work for objects that didn't specify stroke-width and thus had the default 1px stroke.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defect inx file for extensions.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

== Translations ==

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

== Internal ==

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

== Known problems ==

=== Beware: defect themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem, however, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of the problem. See especially http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312115 (thanks to Thomas Wood)
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

== Previous releases ==

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Release notes/0.44

2006-04-06T04:18:43Z

Mental: icon prerendering

= Inkscape 0.44 =

== In brief ==

Bigger and better.

== Outline mode ==

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

* all paths and shapes are rendered as inverse (black on light background and vice versa) outlines of constant width (1 screen pixel regardless of zoom), without fill;

* text is painted by inverse fill, without stroke;

* bitmaps are shown as is;

* any opacity and gradients are ignored.

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

== Selected style indicator ==

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects. When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

* The two indicators, labelled F: (top) and S: (bottom), display fill and stroke of the selected object(s) correspondingly. (For gradient handles, they always display the same style.)

* Each fill/stroke indicator can display either a color+opacity swatch (the opacity shown here is the fill opacity or stroke opacity, not the master opacity) or a text label specifying N/A (nothing selected), None (no fill/stroke), Unset (unset fill/stroke), L Gradient, R Gradient, Pattern (corresponding fill/stroke types), or Different (selected objects have different fill/stroke types).

* Additionally, each indicator may be accompanied by one of two flags, m ("multiple", meaning there are two or more objects all with the same fill/stroke) or a ("averaged", meaning there are two or more objects with different flat colors in fill/stroke, and the indicator shows the average of these colors).

* Left-click on an indicator opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab (Fill or Stroke) active.

* Right-click on an indicator opens a popup menu with the following items:
** Edit fill/stroke...: Opens or activates the Fill&Stroke dialog with the corresponding tab selected. (Same as left-click.)
** Last set color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last applied to anythig.
** Last selected color: Applies to the selected objects the fill/stroke color that was last displayed in this indicator. (Allows you to easily copy fill/stroke color between objects: select source, select destination, apply "last selected color".)
** Invert: Sets the fill or stroke to the inverse of the current color (does not affect opacity).
** White, Black: Sets the fill or stroke to the corresponding color (fully opaque).
** Copy color, Paste color: Copies or pastes the fill or stroke color (when it's color) to/from the system clipboard, as text in the <code>#rrggbb</code> hex format.
** Swap fill and stroke: Exchanges fill and stroke (both their types and colors, if any).
** Make fill/stroke opaque: Removes fill or stroke transparency (not master transparency!).
** Unset fill/stroke: Unsets fill or stroke from selected objects.
** Remove fill/stroke: Removes fill or stroke from the selected objects.

* Middle-click on a fill/stroke indicator removes fill/stroke from selected objects; if it is already removed (i.e. if the indicator displays "None"), it does the same as the "Last set color" command from the popup menu.

* The Stroke indicator also displays the stroke width of selection (averaged if there are multiple objects selected with different stroke widths), located to the right of the stroke color/transparency swatch. Left-clicking on it opens the Fill&Stroke dialog with the Stroke Style tab selected. Right-clicking on it opens a popup menu which allows you to choose the units for displaying the stroke width, as well as choose one of the presets to assign to selection.

* To the right of the fill/stroke indicators, the Opacity numeric field (labelled "O:") shows and allows you to change the master opacity of the selected object (or the averaged opacity of several selected objects). Right-clicking the numeric field opens a popup menu with preset opacity levels. Middle-clicking on the "O:" label cycles the opacity through the values of 0 (transparent), 0.5, and 1 (opaque).

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

== Clipping and masking ==

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks.

* Any object can be non-destructively intersected with a path (called a clipping path) so that only the intersected portion of the object is visible.
** To apply clipping, select the objects to be clipped and the clipping path object, make sure the clipping path is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Clip > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the clipped objects as usual. The clipping remains applied and transforms together with each clipped object.
** To remove the clipping, do Object > Clip > Release. The clipping path is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unclipped object in z-order.

* Any object can be non-destructively masked by another object (called mask) so that: the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
** To apply a mask, select the objects to be masked and the mask object, make sure the mask is above the other objects in z-order, and do Object > Mask > Set.
** You can transform, edit, or style the masked objects as usual. The mask remains applied and transforms together with each masked object.
** To remove the masking, do Object > Mask > Release. The mask is returned to the drawing as a regular object; it is inserted on top of the unmasked object in z-order.

* Objects with clippath show their bounding box intersected with the bounding box of the clippath, instead of the original unclipped bbox as before. (However, this does not apply to objects without clippath of their own which are clipped by being inside a clipped group.)

* Clipped or masked objects display "clipped" or "masked", correspondingly, in their statusbar descriptions.

* Although Inkscape had render-only support for clipping paths and masks for quite some time, in this release we fixed a number of bugs which may affect the display of your documents using clippaths or masks.
** Clippaths and masks with objectBoundingBox units are now shown correctly upon loading of the document.
** Clippaths without fill didn't work, this is now fixed.
** Objects with clippaths or masks are correctly copied/pasted between documents.

== Color profile support ==

[joncruz]

== Docked color palette ==

[options; use; dragndrop; linked colors - joncruz]

== Transform dialog ==

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

* The Apply to each object separately checkbox is added, allowing you to scale/rotate/skew each selected object by the same amount, around that object's center. When off (by default), the selection is transformed as a whole. The status of this checkbox is remembered across sessions. (It has no effect on Move and Matrix tabs).

* The Clear button resets the values on the current tab to defaults.

* The Scale tab now allows you to specify horizontal or vertical size increments in percentage or absolute units. Also, there's a Scale proportionally checkbox which ensures that scaling preserves the width/height ratio. (If you are scaling several objects proportionally with "Apply to each object separately", you can only use the % unit to specify the scaling; otherwise each object's scale increments will have the width/height ratio of the entire selection, not of that specific object.)

* The Skew tab can now specify the skew as an absolute displacement (e.g. for horizontal skewing of a rectangle, that means the shift of the top rectangle side relative to the bottom), as percentage displacement (e.g. a 1% horizontal skew of a rectangle means shifting the top side by 1% of the rectangle height), or as an angle (e.g. horizontal skew by 15 degrees results in the sides of a rectangle being rotated to that angle, while the top and bottom remain horizontal).

* The Matrix tab (previously called "Transform") can either edit the current <code>transform=</code> matrix of an object, or post-multiply the <code>transform=</code> with the matrix you specify, depending on the Edit current matrix checkbox. (As it is now redundant, the transformation matrix in the Object Properties dialog is removed.)

* The dialog now correctly watches selection changes in the active document window and updates its values accordingly.

* The layout of the dialog is simplified, tooltips and mnemonics added for better usability.

* Many bugs are fixed, especially in value conversions between units.

== Persistent rotation centers ==

* The position of the center (axis) of rotation and skewing used by Selector is now remembered for all objects and is restored when you select those objects again (even after save and reload). When you move or scale an object, its rotation center is moved or scaled too, so its position relative to the object always remains the same.

* When you have several objects selected, they use the rotation focus of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a default central position), then several objects will rotate around the center of their common bounding box.

* Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.

* Consequently, dragging the transformation center is now an undoable action; you can press Ctrl+Z to undo the drag.

* Keyboard rotation by [, ] keys with various modifiers, as well as the Transform dialog, now rotate around the selected object's center (for multiple selections, the center of the first selected object).

* Rotation centers are preseved when duplicating, cloning (including clone tiler), and converting to path.

[TODO:
- make it work smartly for groups: if a group has center not set, return the center of the first object inside group with the center set

- a separate tab in the Transform dialog, with 9 buttons in the square grid (for setting it to object's corners, sides, and center) as well as x/y fields for setting center to any position

- make center snap to grid/guides/objects and to other centers

- make objects snap with their center to grid/guides/objects]

== Pasting size ==

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

* Paste Size scales the whole selection to match the size of the clipboard object(s).

* Paste Width scales the whole selection horizontally so that it matches the width of the clipboard object(s). This obeys the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the height is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the height is unchanged.

* Paste Height scales the whole selection vertically so that it matches the height of the clipboard object(s). This obeys the scale ratio lock on the Selector controls bar (between W and H fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the width is scaled in the same proportion; otherwise the width is unchanged.

* Paste Size Separately scales each selected object separately so that it matches the size of the clipboard object(s).

== Connectors and automatic layout ==

* [automatic diagram layout - ?]

* There is a new Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap each other. This should be a significant addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. [Consider expanding this, comparing with existing Unclump and Distribute edge-to-edge buttons. - pjrm]

* In Connector tool, the margins around avoided shapes (used for autorouting connectors) can now be adjusted via the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.

== Selective tracing with SIOX ==

[ishmal]

== Calligraphic tremor ==

Even when using a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity, the Calligraphy pen's strokes often look too smooth and artificial. To enable a more natural look, the new Tremor parameter is added to the Calligraphy tool in this version. Adjustable in the Controls bar from 0.0 to 1.0, it will affect your strokes producing anything from slight unevenness to wild blotches and splotches. This significantly expands the creative range of the tool.

== Document Properties / Metadata dialogs ==

* The Document Preferences dialog is now named Document Properties, and it was split in two: metadata were extracted into the Document Metadata dialog; metadata widgets are now also spread over two pages.

* New controls: the new object snapping features required their own property widgets, and you can set the snapping sensitivity with a slider, or let it snap regardless of distance (grid only).

* Rearrangements within Document Properties: everything snapping-related was collected on one page; Grid and Guide widgets are on their own, the same page. For better HIG compliance, all widgets were categorized; especially the widgets on the Page page were completely rearranged in the General/Format/Border categories.

* Bug fixes: grayed out license URI had too low contrast, so it's no longer grayed out; the proprietary license didn't clean the license URI; spinbuttons had no tooltips, and minor grid quirks were removed; data was not updated when a new file replaced another in the same window.

* HIG compliance: much work went into that, and now only a few details are missing from full Gnome-HIG compliance.

== Keyboard profiles ==

[mental]

== Path effects ==

[acspike]

== Snapping ==

* [object snap - carl]

* [highlight - mtou]

* [only to visible gridlines - mtou]

* Guidelines are made easier to pick: now you don't need to position mouse exactly over a guideline to activate it, instead there's a small position tolerance (1 screen pixel on each side of the guideline).

== Sublayers ==

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

* The Add layer dialog allows you to place the new layer above, below, or inside the current layer.

* Extended "Select All" option - now there is an option for "Select All" and TAB browsing to work in current layer with it's sublayers.

== SVG Output ==

* Colors are now expressed by name (‘white’) or three-digit form (‘<tt>#f3c</tt>’) when possible.

== New formats ==

* [save zip with images - acspike?]

* An output format for desktop cutting plotters, such as the Wishblade and Craftrobo, was added. This format is a very minimalist DXF file with appropriate scaling and translation applied. This output format should not be expected to operate as a generalized DXF output.

* [xfig]

* [odg - ishmal]

* [xcf - acspike]

== Speed ==

* Thanks to optimizations in the renderer, Inkscape's screen redraw is faster by at least 10%, and in some cases (such as complex stroked/dashed paths at high zooms) up to three times faster.

* Optimizations in the Node tool resulted in noticeable speed gains for node editing. Thus, switching to and from the Node tool (with a path selected), as well as selecting nodes in that tool, are now at least ten times faster than before. Other operations, including curve and node dragging and move/scale/rotate operations on multiple selected nodes, are much faster as well. This is especially important when working with complex paths; with these optimizations, paths containing several thousand nodes, though still slow, are much more usable.

* An optimization in the attribute setting method made operations such as moving multiple objects with arrow keys at least 30% faster compared to 0.43. This is especially noticeable when you are moving clones selected together with their original (e.g. a clone tiling), in which case Inkscape now works three to four times faster.

== Mouse and keyboard ==

* Now you can use Shift+middle button drag in any tool to zoom into an area. This works the same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in) and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts available in any tool or context.

* In Gradient tool, Shift+R reverses the gradient definition (i.e. mirrors the stop positions) without moving the gradient handles. For example, an elliptic gradient with blue center and red periphery becomes red in the center and blue in the periphery. This works on the gradient(s) of the currently selected gradient handle or, if no handle is selected, on all selected objects' gradients. (Compare with the Node tool where Shift+R reverses the direction of the selected path.) This is especially convenient for elliptic gradients which, unlike linear, you cannot simply rotate by 180 degrees for the same result.

* By popular demand, in Pen tool, if a new path is being drawn but not yet finished, Ctrl+Z cancels that unfinished path (i.e. does the same as Esc), instead of undoing the previous action.

* In Pen tool, Del works the same as Backspace to delete the last created point on the unfinished path.

* In Node tool, the ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node); Alt+! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)

* In Node tool, when you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric (by pressing Shift+S/Shift+Y), you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.

* The keyboard shortcut for "Make selected segments curves" in Node tool is changed from Shift+K to Shift+U for better mnemonics.

* In Calligraphic tool, Esc deselects as in most other tools.

* In Selector, Ctrl+Enter enters the selected group (making it a temporary layer). Ctrl+Backspace leaves the current layer and goes one layer up in the hierarchy (but not to root).

* [pen tool keys - bb]

== Menus ==

* Zoom commands in the View menu are moved to a submenu; the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands are added to that submenu.

* Clone commands are moved into a submenu in Edit menu and given more descriptive names and tips.

* Pattern commands (Objects to Pattern and Pattern to Objects) are moved into a submenu in Object menu, under the new Clip and Mask submenus.

* The contents of the Effects menu are categorized into submenus, and several effects are renamed to use more intuitive names.

== Statusbar ==

* In Selector, for multiple selected objects, the statusbar now reports their types. For example, if 5 groups are selected, it displays

::5 objects of type Group in layer LayerName.

:instead of just "5 objects selected" as before. If there are up to 3 types in the selection, they will be listed, for example:

::5 objects of types Group, Path, Rectangle in layer LayerName.

:The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example:

::5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName.

* In Selector, objects selected in groups are now identified as such, and the group ID is given, for example:

::Rectangle in group g212 (layer content)

:If selected objects have different parents within one layer (for example, if one is selected in a group and another outside it), the number of parents is reported:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 parents (layer content)

:If objects are in different layers, only the number of layers is reported since this also implies different parents:

::2 objects of types Rectangle, Path in 2 layers

* The contents of the statusbar message are now duplicated as a tooltip that is shown when you hover the mouse over the statusbar. [TODO: need to strip markup from the tooltips.]

* The statusbar text is now no longer just cut off if there is insufficient room, but an ellipsis (...) is inserted at the end to show there's more (only with Gtk 2.6 and newer).

== Theme ==

* Inkscape has a new default icon set titled "Crispy" provided by Andre Sousa. The new icons are intended to add a more professional and cohesive look to our application, as well as to make the functions the icons represent more self-evident.

* [new mouse cursors are coloured and antialiased - scislac]

== Miscellaneous improvements ==

* Document templates (listed in File > New) are now first searched in the <code>templates</code> subdirectory of the user's profile directory (on Linux it's <code>~/.inkscape/templates</code>), then in the system-wide Inkscape templates directory. This allows you to add your own templates on top of the list of standard templates, as well as override the default template with your own one (the <code>default.svg</code> in the profile directory has priority over the system-wide one).

* When toggling one of the "transform with object" buttons (for stroke width, rounded rectangle corners, gradients, or patterns), a message is displayed in the statusbar explaining what has changed in the program's behavior. Hopefully this will reduce the number of complaints from users who had accidentally toggled one of these and were surprised by the result.

* Whole thousands above 2000 in the rulers are now displayed as 2k, 3k, 4k etc.

* In the Document Preferences dialog, the new object style for each tool is now shown as a style swatch (displaying fill/stroke colors and opacity, stroke width, and master opacity), similar in design to the selected style indicator in the statusbar.

* The Simplify threshold in Inkscape Preferences can now be set with more precision.

* In the Grid Arrange dialog, row/column spacing can now be negative.

* The installation default is now to scale the rounded rectangle corners with the rectangles themselves (the previous default mode, still available as an option, was to keep rounding radii unchanged when scaling rectangles).

* Added a new <code>--export-area-canvas</code> command line parameter that causes the exported PNG to contain the full canvas. This option as well as <code>--export-area-drawing</code> and <code>--export-area</code> can now be used along with <code>--export-id</code> and <code>--export-id-only</code> for greater flexibility.

* The <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters now return the true SVG bounding box of the object instead of the Inkscape coordinate system bbox (with inverted Y axis). The new behavior makes more sense for scripting use of Inkscape.

* Individual <tspan>s within text objects (including line tspans) can now be selected via the XML editor to view their bounding boxes (though per SVG, you cannot transform them). Also, you can use the <code>--query-*</code> command line parameters to find out the bounding boxes of tspans from a script. (Individual strings within or between tspans are still not selectable, and they cannot have an ID for querying anyway.)

* The placeholder image which is shown when a bitmap file was no longer accessible reads now "Linked image not found" instead of the confusing "Broken image".

* Cloning multiple selected objects now works as expected (i.e. each selected object is cloned separately, similar to the Duplicate command). Previously you could only clone a single selected object.

* [about dialog redesign - mental]

* SVG icons are now rendered in the background when Inkscape is idle, rather than waiting for all the icons in a menu to render the first time you pull it up.

* [extensions on windows - ishmal]

* [python extensions to work out of the box on windows? - ishmal]

* Added a new Python effect Flatten Path that flattens paths in the current selection, approximates them with a polyline by breaking them into segments that meet the specified criteria for flattness.

* [new cursors - scislac]

* In the Transform dialog / Rotate tab, the icon was flipped horizontally to be in line with the direction of positive rotation; the change was applied to the default (now crispy) and legacy icon sets.

* The scale ratio lock button on the Selector controls bar shows a closed lock when pressed and open lock otherwise (same as the layer lock in the statusbar).

* [extension manager - gouldtj]

== Miscellaneous bugfixes ==

* Inkscape couldn't be compiled with libxml versions <= 2.6.9, and we now bumped the requirements from 2.6.0 up to libxml >= 2.6.11, which is the earliest you can get officially, anyway.

* Scaling of objects with stroke in Selector used to cause undesired shifts of the scaled object, as well as scaling it in the dimension which was intended to remain untouched (e.g. slight change in width when you scale only height). All these problems are now fixed, both for interactive scaling by mouse and for numeric scaling via the Controls bar, and for both values of the "Scale stroke with objects" option. Among other things, this means that stroked objects no longer lose snapping on scale, and that the "Default scale origin" option in the Selector tool preferences finally works as designed. Caveat: There may still be problems if you scale a selection that contains objects with different stroke widths.

* Bounding box for text and flowed text objects did not include stroke width.

* Stroke miterlimit on text objects was misinterpreted in absolute units instead of multiplies of stroke width (resulting in miter joins rendered as bevel).

* [win32 font backend, device fonts - cyreve]

* Setting dash pattern was broken for transformed objects, and copy/paste of style with dash pattern did not apply correctly to objects with transforms.

* An error caused a complete extra screen redraw after each zoom operation. That is, after you press "+" in a complex drawing, Inkscape redraws, but for some time after that it remains still unresponsive because it does that second redraw (invisibly for you, i.e. nothing changes on the screen). This is fixed.

* Gradient rendering was off by one pixel, which often resulted in visibly wrong gradient rendering for small objects or in zoom-out.

* The SVG path parser could not handle fractional numbers with the initial dot.

* Several pattern rendering bugs are fixed, discovered by working with SVG files exported from Adobe Illustrator.

* Inkscape on Mac OS X will now notice fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts directory, in addition to the other standard places.

* Scaling of stroke didn't work for objects that didn't specify stroke-width and thus had the default 1px stroke.

* Inkscape no longer crashes when presented with a defect inx file for extensions.

* There was a regression in 0.43 that caused several minor, though annoying bugs; knots and handles remained highlighted after the mouse was released, and the rubberband selection rectangle stayed visible if the selection was ended over a node while in the node tool. This regression has been fixed.

* The connector routing code would previously sometimes confuse objects between multiple documents resulting in strange routing behaviour. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that allowed a malicious outsider to very easily disrupt an Inkboard session. This has been fixed.

* There existed a bug in 0.43's Inkboard code that would cause deadlocks in the case that two users attempted to invite each other at the same time (see bug #[https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=604306&aid=1352522&group_id=93438 1352522] for further details). This should be fixed, although the fix has not been widely tested.

== Translations ==

* INX files (containing the UI of the external effects) now allow the user visible strings to be translated. This means that effect dialogs, file type selections, and extension names can all be translated by translators.

== Internal ==

* The Document Properties Dialog code was completely gtkmmified, which lead to dramatic reduction of code size due to usage of widget objects. The used widget objects should be reusable by other dialogs, too, and the code is much more readable.

* Work on optimizing includes in all cpp files started, using the purgeincludes tool specifically written for that purpose, and ended with 40% of include lines removed!

== Known problems ==

=== Beware: defect themes on Linux ===

* Inkscape and other Gtk programs can crash on any Linux, when the gtk2-engines-smooth / libsmooth package is installed. We have filed a bug against libsmooth which is now in gtk-engine and part of gnome. Removing the package resolves the problem, however, but it would be nice if you as affected user would inform the gtk-engines maintainers of the problem. See especially http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312115 (thanks to Thomas Wood)
* A similar crash happens if the KDE Baghira theme or the package gtk_qt_engine are installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine package from your system. Both problems also affect older versions of Inkscape.

== Previous releases ==

* ReleaseNotes043 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes043)
* ReleaseNotes042 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes042)
* ReleaseNotes041 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes041)
* ReleaseNotes040 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes040)
* ReleaseNotes039 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes039)
* ReleaseNotes038 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes038)
* ReleaseNotes037 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes037)
* ReleaseNotes036 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes036)
* ReleaseNotes035 (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes035)

Inkscape-specific XML attributes

2006-03-21T20:05:46Z

Mental: add namespace header

This listing includes both Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific attributes.

See [[ExtensionElements]] for Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific elements.

== Sodipodi ==

=== Namespace ===

'''Namespace URL''': http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd

'''Canonical prefix''': sodipodi

=== Local names ===

* absref - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to a resource (valid on svg:image)
* arg1
* arg2
* argument
* cx
* cy
* docbase - the absolute native (UTF-8) directory containing the document
* docname - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to the document
* end
* expansion
* insensitive - when set to "1", make an object unselectable via the mouse (valid on any renderable SVG element)
* linespacing
* modified - INTERNAL USE ONLY; never serialized; set to "1" when an element has been modified since the file was last saved (valid on svg:svg)
* nodetypes
* nonprintable
* open
* original
* r1
* r2
* radius
* revolution
* role
* rx
* ry
* sides - the number of convex vertices in a polygon/star
* spiral
* star
* start
* t0
* type - if present, an opaque string used to identify the SPObject subclass to use instead of the default subclass for this element type (valid on any element)
* version - the version of Sodipodi which saved this document (valid on svg:svg)

== Inkscape ==

=== Namespace ===

'''Namespace URL''': http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape

'''Canonical prefix''': inkscape

=== Local names ===

* collect
* connection-end
* connection-start
* connector-avoid
* connector-spacing
* connector-type
* current-layer
* cx
* cy
* dataloss
* document-units
* dstBox
* dstColumn
* dstPath
* dstShape
* excludeShape
* export-filename
* export-xdpi
* export-ydpi
* flatsided
* grid-bbox
* grid-points
* groupmode
* guide-bbox
* guide-points
* has_abs_tolerance
* href
* label
* layoutOptions
* marker
* object-bbox
* object-nodes
* object-paths
* object-points
* offset
* original
* output_extension
* pageopacity
* pageshadow
* radius
* randomized
* rounded
* showpageshadow
* srcNoMarkup
* srcPango
* stockid
* tile-cx
* tile-cy
* tiled-clone-of
* tile-h
* tile-w
* transform-center-x
* transform-center-y
* unset - used for unsetting a property via an SPCSSAttr. INTERNAL USE ONLY, never to be seen in saved SVG.
* version
* window-height
* window-width
* window-x
* window-y
* zoom

Inkscape-specific XML attributes

2006-03-21T20:00:40Z

Mental: add namespace heading

This listing includes both Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific attributes.

See [[ExtensionElements]] for Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific elements.

== Sodipodi ==

=== Namespace ===

'''Namespace URL''': http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd

'''Canonical prefix''': sodipodi

=== Local names ===

* absref - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to a resource (valid on svg:image)
* arg1
* arg2
* argument
* cx
* cy
* docbase - the absolute native (UTF-8) directory containing the document
* docname - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to the document
* end
* expansion
* insensitive - when set to "1", make an object unselectable via the mouse (valid on any renderable SVG element)
* linespacing
* modified - INTERNAL USE ONLY; never serialized; set to "1" when an element has been modified since the file was last saved (valid on svg:svg)
* nodetypes
* nonprintable
* open
* original
* r1
* r2
* radius
* revolution
* role
* rx
* ry
* sides - the number of convex vertices in a polygon/star
* spiral
* star
* start
* t0
* type - if present, an opaque string used to identify the SPObject subclass to use instead of the default subclass for this element type (valid on any element)
* version - the version of Sodipodi which saved this document (valid on svg:svg)

== Inkscape ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape

'''Canonical prefix''': inkscape

=== Local names ===

* collect
* connection-end
* connection-start
* connector-avoid
* connector-spacing
* connector-type
* current-layer
* cx
* cy
* dataloss
* document-units
* dstBox
* dstColumn
* dstPath
* dstShape
* excludeShape
* export-filename
* export-xdpi
* export-ydpi
* flatsided
* grid-bbox
* grid-points
* groupmode
* guide-bbox
* guide-points
* has_abs_tolerance
* href
* label
* layoutOptions
* marker
* object-bbox
* object-nodes
* object-paths
* object-points
* offset
* original
* output_extension
* pageopacity
* pageshadow
* radius
* randomized
* rounded
* showpageshadow
* srcNoMarkup
* srcPango
* stockid
* tile-cx
* tile-cy
* tiled-clone-of
* tile-h
* tile-w
* transform-center-x
* transform-center-y
* unset - used for unsetting a property via an SPCSSAttr. INTERNAL USE ONLY, never to be seen in saved SVG.
* version
* window-height
* window-width
* window-x
* window-y
* zoom

Inkscape-specific XML attributes

2006-03-21T19:59:27Z

Mental: case tweak

This listing includes both Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific attributes.

See [[ExtensionElements]] for Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific elements.

== Sodipodi ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd

'''Canonical prefix''': sodipodi

=== Local names ===

* absref - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to a resource (valid on svg:image)
* arg1
* arg2
* argument
* cx
* cy
* docbase - the absolute native (UTF-8) directory containing the document
* docname - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to the document
* end
* expansion
* insensitive - when set to "1", make an object unselectable via the mouse (valid on any renderable SVG element)
* linespacing
* modified - INTERNAL USE ONLY; never serialized; set to "1" when an element has been modified since the file was last saved (valid on svg:svg)
* nodetypes
* nonprintable
* open
* original
* r1
* r2
* radius
* revolution
* role
* rx
* ry
* sides - the number of convex vertices in a polygon/star
* spiral
* star
* start
* t0
* type - if present, an opaque string used to identify the SPObject subclass to use instead of the default subclass for this element type (valid on any element)
* version - the version of Sodipodi which saved this document (valid on svg:svg)

== Inkscape ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape

'''Canonical prefix''': inkscape

=== Local names ===

* collect
* connection-end
* connection-start
* connector-avoid
* connector-spacing
* connector-type
* current-layer
* cx
* cy
* dataloss
* document-units
* dstBox
* dstColumn
* dstPath
* dstShape
* excludeShape
* export-filename
* export-xdpi
* export-ydpi
* flatsided
* grid-bbox
* grid-points
* groupmode
* guide-bbox
* guide-points
* has_abs_tolerance
* href
* label
* layoutOptions
* marker
* object-bbox
* object-nodes
* object-paths
* object-points
* offset
* original
* output_extension
* pageopacity
* pageshadow
* radius
* randomized
* rounded
* showpageshadow
* srcNoMarkup
* srcPango
* stockid
* tile-cx
* tile-cy
* tiled-clone-of
* tile-h
* tile-w
* transform-center-x
* transform-center-y
* unset - used for unsetting a property via an SPCSSAttr. INTERNAL USE ONLY, never to be seen in saved SVG.
* version
* window-height
* window-width
* window-x
* window-y
* zoom

Inkscape-specific XML attributes

2006-03-21T19:58:47Z

Mental: case tweak

This listing includes both Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific attributes.

See [[ExtensionElements]] for Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific elements.

== Sodipodi ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd

'''Canonical prefix''': sodipodi

=== Local names ===

* absref - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to a resource (valid on svg:image)
* arg1
* arg2
* argument
* cx
* cy
* docbase - the absolute native (UTF-8) directory containing the document
* docname - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to the document
* end
* expansion
* insensitive - when set to "1", make an object unselectable via the mouse (valid on any renderable SVG element)
* linespacing
* modified - INTERNAL USE ONLY; never serialized; set to "1" when an element has been modified since the file was last saved (valid on svg:svg)
* nodetypes
* nonprintable
* open
* original
* r1
* r2
* radius
* revolution
* role
* rx
* ry
* sides - the number of convex vertices in a polygon/star
* spiral
* star
* start
* t0
* type - if present, an opaque string used to identify the SPObject subclass to use instead of the default subclass for this element type (valid on any element)
* version - the version of Sodipodi which saved this document (valid on svg:svg)

== Inkscape ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape

'''Canonical Prefix''': inkscape

=== Local names ===

* collect
* connection-end
* connection-start
* connector-avoid
* connector-spacing
* connector-type
* current-layer
* cx
* cy
* dataloss
* document-units
* dstBox
* dstColumn
* dstPath
* dstShape
* excludeShape
* export-filename
* export-xdpi
* export-ydpi
* flatsided
* grid-bbox
* grid-points
* groupmode
* guide-bbox
* guide-points
* has_abs_tolerance
* href
* label
* layoutOptions
* marker
* object-bbox
* object-nodes
* object-paths
* object-points
* offset
* original
* output_extension
* pageopacity
* pageshadow
* radius
* randomized
* rounded
* showpageshadow
* srcNoMarkup
* srcPango
* stockid
* tile-cx
* tile-cy
* tiled-clone-of
* tile-h
* tile-w
* transform-center-x
* transform-center-y
* unset - used for unsetting a property via an SPCSSAttr. INTERNAL USE ONLY, never to be seen in saved SVG.
* version
* window-height
* window-width
* window-x
* window-y
* zoom

Inkscape-specific XML attributes

2006-03-21T19:57:51Z

Mental: add canonical prefix

This listing includes both Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific attributes.

See [[ExtensionElements]] for Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific elements.

== Sodipodi ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd

'''Canonical Prefix''': sodipodi

=== Local Names ===

* absref - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to a resource (valid on svg:image)
* arg1
* arg2
* argument
* cx
* cy
* docbase - the absolute native (UTF-8) directory containing the document
* docname - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to the document
* end
* expansion
* insensitive - when set to "1", make an object unselectable via the mouse (valid on any renderable SVG element)
* linespacing
* modified - INTERNAL USE ONLY; never serialized; set to "1" when an element has been modified since the file was last saved (valid on svg:svg)
* nodetypes
* nonprintable
* open
* original
* r1
* r2
* radius
* revolution
* role
* rx
* ry
* sides - the number of convex vertices in a polygon/star
* spiral
* star
* start
* t0
* type - if present, an opaque string used to identify the SPObject subclass to use instead of the default subclass for this element type (valid on any element)
* version - the version of Sodipodi which saved this document (valid on svg:svg)

== Inkscape ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape

'''Canonical Prefix''': inkscape

=== Local names ===

* collect
* connection-end
* connection-start
* connector-avoid
* connector-spacing
* connector-type
* current-layer
* cx
* cy
* dataloss
* document-units
* dstBox
* dstColumn
* dstPath
* dstShape
* excludeShape
* export-filename
* export-xdpi
* export-ydpi
* flatsided
* grid-bbox
* grid-points
* groupmode
* guide-bbox
* guide-points
* has_abs_tolerance
* href
* label
* layoutOptions
* marker
* object-bbox
* object-nodes
* object-paths
* object-points
* offset
* original
* output_extension
* pageopacity
* pageshadow
* radius
* randomized
* rounded
* showpageshadow
* srcNoMarkup
* srcPango
* stockid
* tile-cx
* tile-cy
* tiled-clone-of
* tile-h
* tile-w
* transform-center-x
* transform-center-y
* unset - used for unsetting a property via an SPCSSAttr. INTERNAL USE ONLY, never to be seen in saved SVG.
* version
* window-height
* window-width
* window-x
* window-y
* zoom

Inkscape-specific XML attributes

2006-03-21T19:57:10Z

Mental: /* Sodipodi */

This listing includes both Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific attributes.

See [[ExtensionElements]] for Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific elements.

== Sodipodi ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd

'''Canonical Prefix''': sodipodi

=== Local Names ===

* absref - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to a resource (valid on svg:image)
* arg1
* arg2
* argument
* cx
* cy
* docbase - the absolute native (UTF-8) directory containing the document
* docname - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to the document
* end
* expansion
* insensitive - when set to "1", make an object unselectable via the mouse (valid on any renderable SVG element)
* linespacing
* modified - INTERNAL USE ONLY; never serialized; set to "1" when an element has been modified since the file was last saved (valid on svg:svg)
* nodetypes
* nonprintable
* open
* original
* r1
* r2
* radius
* revolution
* role
* rx
* ry
* sides - the number of convex vertices in a polygon/star
* spiral
* star
* start
* t0
* type - if present, an opaque string used to identify the SPObject subclass to use instead of the default subclass for this element type (valid on any element)
* version - the version of Sodipodi which saved this document (valid on svg:svg)

== Inkscape ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape

=== Local names ===

* collect
* connection-end
* connection-start
* connector-avoid
* connector-spacing
* connector-type
* current-layer
* cx
* cy
* dataloss
* document-units
* dstBox
* dstColumn
* dstPath
* dstShape
* excludeShape
* export-filename
* export-xdpi
* export-ydpi
* flatsided
* grid-bbox
* grid-points
* groupmode
* guide-bbox
* guide-points
* has_abs_tolerance
* href
* label
* layoutOptions
* marker
* object-bbox
* object-nodes
* object-paths
* object-points
* offset
* original
* output_extension
* pageopacity
* pageshadow
* radius
* randomized
* rounded
* showpageshadow
* srcNoMarkup
* srcPango
* stockid
* tile-cx
* tile-cy
* tiled-clone-of
* tile-h
* tile-w
* transform-center-x
* transform-center-y
* unset - used for unsetting a property via an SPCSSAttr. INTERNAL USE ONLY, never to be seen in saved SVG.
* version
* window-height
* window-width
* window-x
* window-y
* zoom

Inkscape-specific XML attributes

2006-03-21T19:56:33Z

Mental: /* Sodipodi */

This listing includes both Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific attributes.

See [[ExtensionElements]] for Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific elements.

== Sodipodi ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd
'''Canonical Prefix''': sodipodi

=== Local Names ===

* absref - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to a resource (valid on svg:image)
* arg1
* arg2
* argument
* cx
* cy
* docbase - the absolute native (UTF-8) directory containing the document
* docname - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to the document
* end
* expansion
* insensitive - when set to "1", make an object unselectable via the mouse (valid on any renderable SVG element)
* linespacing
* modified - INTERNAL USE ONLY; never serialized; set to "1" when an element has been modified since the file was last saved (valid on svg:svg)
* nodetypes
* nonprintable
* open
* original
* r1
* r2
* radius
* revolution
* role
* rx
* ry
* sides - the number of convex vertices in a polygon/star
* spiral
* star
* start
* t0
* type - if present, an opaque string used to identify the SPObject subclass to use instead of the default subclass for this element type (valid on any element)
* version - the version of Sodipodi which saved this document (valid on svg:svg)

== Inkscape ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape

=== Local names ===

* collect
* connection-end
* connection-start
* connector-avoid
* connector-spacing
* connector-type
* current-layer
* cx
* cy
* dataloss
* document-units
* dstBox
* dstColumn
* dstPath
* dstShape
* excludeShape
* export-filename
* export-xdpi
* export-ydpi
* flatsided
* grid-bbox
* grid-points
* groupmode
* guide-bbox
* guide-points
* has_abs_tolerance
* href
* label
* layoutOptions
* marker
* object-bbox
* object-nodes
* object-paths
* object-points
* offset
* original
* output_extension
* pageopacity
* pageshadow
* radius
* randomized
* rounded
* showpageshadow
* srcNoMarkup
* srcPango
* stockid
* tile-cx
* tile-cy
* tiled-clone-of
* tile-h
* tile-w
* transform-center-x
* transform-center-y
* unset - used for unsetting a property via an SPCSSAttr. INTERNAL USE ONLY, never to be seen in saved SVG.
* version
* window-height
* window-width
* window-x
* window-y
* zoom

Inkscape-specific XML attributes

2006-03-21T19:55:27Z

Mental: /* Local names */

This listing includes both Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific attributes.

See [[ExtensionElements]] for Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific elements.

== Sodipodi ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd

=== Local Names ===

* absref - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to a resource (valid on svg:image)
* arg1
* arg2
* argument
* cx
* cy
* docbase - the absolute native (UTF-8) directory containing the document
* docname - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to the document
* end
* expansion
* insensitive - when set to "1", make an object unselectable via the mouse (valid on any renderable SVG element)
* linespacing
* modified - INTERNAL USE ONLY; never serialized; set to "1" when an element has been modified since the file was last saved (valid on svg:svg)
* nodetypes
* nonprintable
* open
* original
* r1
* r2
* radius
* revolution
* role
* rx
* ry
* sides - the number of convex vertices in a polygon/star
* spiral
* star
* start
* t0
* type - if present, an opaque string used to identify the SPObject subclass to use instead of the default subclass for this element type (valid on any element)
* version - the version of Sodipodi which saved this document (valid on svg:svg)

== Inkscape ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape

=== Local names ===

* collect
* connection-end
* connection-start
* connector-avoid
* connector-spacing
* connector-type
* current-layer
* cx
* cy
* dataloss
* document-units
* dstBox
* dstColumn
* dstPath
* dstShape
* excludeShape
* export-filename
* export-xdpi
* export-ydpi
* flatsided
* grid-bbox
* grid-points
* groupmode
* guide-bbox
* guide-points
* has_abs_tolerance
* href
* label
* layoutOptions
* marker
* object-bbox
* object-nodes
* object-paths
* object-points
* offset
* original
* output_extension
* pageopacity
* pageshadow
* radius
* randomized
* rounded
* showpageshadow
* srcNoMarkup
* srcPango
* stockid
* tile-cx
* tile-cy
* tiled-clone-of
* tile-h
* tile-w
* transform-center-x
* transform-center-y
* unset - used for unsetting a property via an SPCSSAttr. INTERNAL USE ONLY, never to be seen in saved SVG.
* version
* window-height
* window-width
* window-x
* window-y
* zoom

Inkscape-specific XML attributes

2006-03-21T19:54:06Z

Mental: /* QNames */

This listing includes both Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific attributes.

See [[ExtensionElements]] for Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific elements.

== Sodipodi ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd

=== Local Names ===

* absref - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to a resource (valid on svg:image)
* arg1
* arg2
* argument
* cx
* cy
* docbase - the absolute native (UTF-8) directory containing the document
* docname - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to the document
* end
* expansion
* insensitive - when set to "1", make an object unselectable via the mouse (valid on any renderable SVG element)
* linespacing
* modified - INTERNAL USE ONLY; never serialized; set to "1" when an element has been modified since the file was last saved (valid on svg:svg)
* nodetypes
* nonprintable
* open
* original
* r1
* r2
* radius
* revolution
* role
* rx
* ry
* sides - the number of convex vertices in a polygon/star
* spiral
* star
* start
* t0
* type - if present, an opaque string used to identify the SPObject subclass to use instead of the default subclass for this element type (valid on any element)
* version - the version of Sodipodi which saved this document (valid on svg:svg)

== Inkscape ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape

=== Local names ===

* inkscape:collect
* inkscape:connection-end
* inkscape:connection-start
* inkscape:connector-avoid
* inkscape:connector-spacing
* inkscape:connector-type
* inkscape:current-layer
* inkscape:cx
* inkscape:cy
* inkscape:dataloss
* inkscape:document-units
* inkscape:dstBox
* inkscape:dstColumn
* inkscape:dstPath
* inkscape:dstShape
* inkscape:excludeShape
* inkscape:export-filename
* inkscape:export-xdpi
* inkscape:export-ydpi
* inkscape:flatsided
* inkscape:grid-bbox
* inkscape:grid-points
* inkscape:groupmode
* inkscape:guide-bbox
* inkscape:guide-points
* inkscape:has_abs_tolerance
* inkscape:href
* inkscape:label
* inkscape:layoutOptions
* inkscape:marker
* inkscape:object-bbox
* inkscape:object-nodes
* inkscape:object-paths
* inkscape:object-points
* inkscape:offset
* inkscape:original
* inkscape:output_extension
* inkscape:pageopacity
* inkscape:pageshadow
* inkscape:radius
* inkscape:randomized
* inkscape:rounded
* inkscape:showpageshadow
* inkscape:srcNoMarkup
* inkscape:srcPango
* inkscape:stockid
* inkscape:tile-cx
* inkscape:tile-cy
* inkscape:tiled-clone-of
* inkscape:tile-h
* inkscape:tile-w
* inkscape:transform-center-x
* inkscape:transform-center-y
* inkscape:unset - used for unsetting a property via an SPCSSAttr. INTERNAL USE ONLY, never to be seen in saved SVG.
* inkscape:version
* inkscape:window-height
* inkscape:window-width
* inkscape:window-x
* inkscape:window-y
* inkscape:zoom

Inkscape-specific XML attributes

2006-03-21T19:52:11Z

Mental: /* Local names */

This listing includes both Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific attributes.

See [[ExtensionElements]] for Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific elements.

== Sodipodi ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd

=== QNames ===

* sodipodi:absref - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to a resource (valid on svg:image)
* sodipodi:arg1
* sodipodi:arg2
* sodipodi:argument
* sodipodi:cx
* sodipodi:cy
* sodipodi:docbase - the absolute native (UTF-8) directory containing the document
* sodipodi:docname - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to the document
* sodipodi:end
* sodipodi:expansion
* sodipodi:insensitive - when set to "1", make an object unselectable via the mouse (valid on any renderable SVG element)
* sodipodi:linespacing
* sodipodi:modified - INTERNAL USE ONLY; never serialized; set to "1" when an element has been modified since the file was last saved (valid on svg:svg)
* sodipodi:nodetypes
* sodipodi:nonprintable
* sodipodi:open
* sodipodi:original
* sodipodi:r1
* sodipodi:r2
* sodipodi:radius
* sodipodi:revolution
* sodipodi:role
* sodipodi:rx
* sodipodi:ry
* sodipodi:sides - the number of convex vertices in a polygon/star
* sodipodi:spiral
* sodipodi:star
* sodipodi:start
* sodipodi:t0
* sodipodi:type - if present, an opaque string used to identify the SPObject subclass to use instead of the default subclass for this element type (valid on any element)
* sodipodi:version - the version of Sodipodi which saved this document (valid on svg:svg)

== Inkscape ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape

=== Local names ===

* inkscape:collect
* inkscape:connection-end
* inkscape:connection-start
* inkscape:connector-avoid
* inkscape:connector-spacing
* inkscape:connector-type
* inkscape:current-layer
* inkscape:cx
* inkscape:cy
* inkscape:dataloss
* inkscape:document-units
* inkscape:dstBox
* inkscape:dstColumn
* inkscape:dstPath
* inkscape:dstShape
* inkscape:excludeShape
* inkscape:export-filename
* inkscape:export-xdpi
* inkscape:export-ydpi
* inkscape:flatsided
* inkscape:grid-bbox
* inkscape:grid-points
* inkscape:groupmode
* inkscape:guide-bbox
* inkscape:guide-points
* inkscape:has_abs_tolerance
* inkscape:href
* inkscape:label
* inkscape:layoutOptions
* inkscape:marker
* inkscape:object-bbox
* inkscape:object-nodes
* inkscape:object-paths
* inkscape:object-points
* inkscape:offset
* inkscape:original
* inkscape:output_extension
* inkscape:pageopacity
* inkscape:pageshadow
* inkscape:radius
* inkscape:randomized
* inkscape:rounded
* inkscape:showpageshadow
* inkscape:srcNoMarkup
* inkscape:srcPango
* inkscape:stockid
* inkscape:tile-cx
* inkscape:tile-cy
* inkscape:tiled-clone-of
* inkscape:tile-h
* inkscape:tile-w
* inkscape:transform-center-x
* inkscape:transform-center-y
* inkscape:unset - used for unsetting a property via an SPCSSAttr. INTERNAL USE ONLY, never to be seen in saved SVG.
* inkscape:version
* inkscape:window-height
* inkscape:window-width
* inkscape:window-x
* inkscape:window-y
* inkscape:zoom

Inkscape-specific XML attributes

2006-03-21T19:47:40Z

Mental: tweak sodipodi:modified and docment various ref attributes

This listing includes both Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific attributes.

See [[ExtensionElements]] for Inkscape-specific and Sodipodi-specific elements.

== Sodipodi ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd

=== Local names ===

* sodipodi:absref - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to a resource (valid on svg:image)
* sodipodi:arg1
* sodipodi:arg2
* sodipodi:argument
* sodipodi:cx
* sodipodi:cy
* sodipodi:docbase - the absolute native (UTF-8) directory containing the document
* sodipodi:docname - the absolute native (UTF-8) path to the document
* sodipodi:end
* sodipodi:expansion
* sodipodi:insensitive - when set to "1", make an object unselectable via the mouse (valid on any renderable SVG element)
* sodipodi:linespacing
* sodipodi:modified - INTERNAL USE ONLY; never serialized; set to "1" when an element has been modified since the file was last saved (valid on svg:svg)
* sodipodi:nodetypes
* sodipodi:nonprintable
* sodipodi:open
* sodipodi:original
* sodipodi:r1
* sodipodi:r2
* sodipodi:radius
* sodipodi:revolution
* sodipodi:role
* sodipodi:rx
* sodipodi:ry
* sodipodi:sides - the number of convex vertices in a polygon/star
* sodipodi:spiral
* sodipodi:star
* sodipodi:start
* sodipodi:t0
* sodipodi:type - if present, an opaque string used to identify the SPObject subclass to use instead of the default subclass for this element type (valid on any element)
* sodipodi:version - the version of Sodipodi which saved this document (valid on svg:svg)

== Inkscape ==

'''Namespace URL''': http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape

=== Local names ===

* inkscape:collect
* inkscape:connection-end
* inkscape:connection-start
* inkscape:connector-avoid
* inkscape:connector-spacing
* inkscape:connector-type
* inkscape:current-layer
* inkscape:cx
* inkscape:cy
* inkscape:dataloss
* inkscape:document-units
* inkscape:dstBox
* inkscape:dstColumn
* inkscape:dstPath
* inkscape:dstShape
* inkscape:excludeShape
* inkscape:export-filename
* inkscape:export-xdpi
* inkscape:export-ydpi
* inkscape:flatsided
* inkscape:grid-bbox
* inkscape:grid-points
* inkscape:groupmode
* inkscape:guide-bbox
* inkscape:guide-points
* inkscape:has_abs_tolerance
* inkscape:href
* inkscape:label
* inkscape:layoutOptions
* inkscape:marker
* inkscape:object-bbox
* inkscape:object-nodes
* inkscape:object-paths
* inkscape:object-points
* inkscape:offset
* inkscape:original
* inkscape:output_extension
* inkscape:pageopacity
* inkscape:pageshadow
* inkscape:radius
* inkscape:randomized
* inkscape:rounded
* inkscape:showpageshadow
* inkscape:srcNoMarkup
* inkscape:srcPango
* inkscape:stockid
* inkscape:tile-cx
* inkscape:tile-cy
* inkscape:tiled-clone-of
* inkscape:tile-h
* inkscape:tile-w
* inkscape:transform-center-x
* inkscape:transform-center-y
* inkscape:unset - used for unsetting a property via an SPCSSAttr. INTERNAL USE ONLY, never to be seen in saved SVG.
* inkscape:version
* inkscape:window-height
* inkscape:window-width
* inkscape:window-x
* inkscape:window-y
* inkscape:zoom