Inkscape Wiki - User contributions [en]

Release notes/0.47

2012-01-11T02:50:17Z

Rygle: /* PostScript and EPS import */ Added explanation of how to do this on Windows 7

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Refactoring effort==

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

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

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

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

==Tools==

===Node tool===

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Tweak tool===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Calligraphy tool===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Pen and Pencil===

====New modes====

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

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

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

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

====Stroke shapes====

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

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

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

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

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

====Pencil smoothing====

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

====Pencil sketch mode====

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

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

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

===Text tool===

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

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

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

===Connector tool===

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

==Path effects==

===Path Effects stacking===

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

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

===Path Effects for groups===

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

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

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

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

===Misc new features===

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

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

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

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

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

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

===New effects===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



===Notable effect bugfixes and changes===

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

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

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

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

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

On Windows 7, this is done as follows.

1. Right click on '''Computer''' and select '''Properties'''. On the top left, click on '''Advanced system settings''', then '''Environment Variables'''. Under '''System Variables''' find '''PATH''' (or make it using '''New...'''), and click on it, then click '''Edit...'''.

2. In the edit dialogue, you must links for both the '''bin''' and '''lib''' directories for Ghostscript. They must be separated from the previous entry and each other by a colon, for example '''[previous entry];C:\Program Files\gs\gs8.70\lib;C:\Program Files\gs\gs8.70\bin'''

===PDF import===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Text objects are not supported as of UniConvertor 1.1.4.

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

===HPGL export===

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

===JavaFX export===

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

===DXF import and export===

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

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

===PNG export===

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

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

===OCAL (Open Clip Art Library) Export===
* Export to the [http://www.openclipart.org/ Open Clip Art Library (OCAL)] has been disabled for 0.47 as it had become non-functional and needs to be re-written.

==Autosave==

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

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

* the time interval between backups, in minutes;

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

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

==Extensions==

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

===New and improved extensions===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Extension API changes===

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

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

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

==Filters==

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

===Preset filters===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Filter quality setting===

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

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

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

==SVG support==

===Optimized CSS properties===

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

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

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

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

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

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

fill-opacity
fill-rule

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

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

===Optimized path data===

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

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

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



===Horizontal and vertical path segments===

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

===<script> tag preserved===

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

===Initial SVG Fonts support===

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

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

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

Here's an example of a font design workflow:

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

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

===SVG Test Suite Compliance===

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



==Editing Aids==

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

===Guides===

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

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

===Snapping===

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

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

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

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

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

==Other features==

===Spell checker===

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

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

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

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

===Desktop integration improvements===

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

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

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

===Shell mode===

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

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

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

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

===Tool switching by input device===

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

===Layers===

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

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

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

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

* Several layer handling inconsistencies have been fixed.

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

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

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

===Command for relinking clones===

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

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

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

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

===Pattern editing===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Combine works on groups===

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

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

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

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

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

==User interface==

===Inkscape Preferences dialog===

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

===Bitmap Copy resolution===

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

===Zoom correction factor===

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

===Interface language choice===

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

===Toolbars===

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

===Clone/original visualization===

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

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

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

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

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

==Notable bug fixes==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* No more garbage lines in Outline mode.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



=Known issues=

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

=Previous releases=

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2009-02-28T23:21:45Z

Rygle: /* Download the Inkscape Source Code */

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to set things up before you can build your own binary, as follows;

1. You should install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching (if you know how to do this without Tortoise, feel free)

2. You need to download the Inkscape source code

3. You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler and development libraries (devlibs) used by Inkscape

4. You will possibly want to patch the source code if testing bug fixes

5. You are then able to build the Inkscape Binary

6. You may have to deal with some errors, but hopefully not...

7. If you're keen, you can also generate an installation package for Windows

==== Install The TortoiseSVN Program ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.

==== Download the Inkscape Source Code ====
'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want. It can be on a different partition if you wish - it doesn't matter.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
*** Someone has reported that to get this to work with the libraries above, they had to edit build-dw2.xml and build.xml and replace the instances (1 per file) of libpoppler-2.dll with libpoppler-3.dll. It compiles without the changes, but won't run. (Compiling/Running on Vista). This may have been corrected by now, so don't do this unless you have problems...
** For the 0.47 (or later) development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.
* To keep the source files up to date in future, simply right click on your working folder and select ''SVN update''.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Download The MinGW Compiler & Dev Libraries ====

Thanks to Ishmal, it is extremely easy to set up your system to compile Inkscape. He has made a complete set of compiler and library files available from his website - http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the latest versions. As of '''Feb 26 2009''' those are:
* The mingw compiler version 4.2.1 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* The latest library SVN snapshot is http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-svn-0811161728.7z - this is currently just less than 120Mb
(you can optionally get the files completely using svn, located at https://svn.modevia.com/inkscape/devlibs - although this will be a significantly bigger download as the files are not compressed)

The configuration files expect the compiler and the development library files (devlibs) in specific directories:
* Unzip the compiler (mingw-{version}.7z) to C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* Unzip the other libraries (devlibs-{version}.7z) to C:\DEVLIBS (must be this directory unless you want to edit the file build.xml used by buildtool)
* Once you have unzipped devlibs to C:\DEVLIBS make sure it is up to date with the latest svn version by running svn update. If you have TortoiseSVN installed this can be done by right-clicking on the devlibs folder and clicking ''SVN update''.

==== Patch The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;

1. Find your patch. Windows Patches to the main SVN are now being kept in a folder under your main working directory called ''packaging\win32\patches''. If you download or make a subsequent patch, put it in this directory to keep things orderly. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff

2. Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''. Because the Windows patches are kept a little tucked away, Tortoise will probably give a message; '''The path {working directory}\packaging\win32\patches seems not to match the paths in the patchfile. But Tortoise found the path {working directory} matches it better. Do you want to use the suggested path instead?''' Click ''Yes'' to proceed.

3. Now comes the actual patching process. See the Tortoise website for an explanation of how to use the merge tool - http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view (see also the following pages)

4. Once patched, you will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick, as do its parent folders. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version, and helps you find altered files really quickly.

5. If you want to go back to the SVN version you originally ''checked out'', simply right click on an individual file or a whole folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. This will bring up a list of files that can be reverted. If you only selected one file, only that will be available to revert. If you selected a folder, all the modified files in that folder will be available to revert. Tick only those you wish to revert to the SVN version last checked out.

'''''Notes:'''''
* When applying several patches at once, you will possibly find that some patches update the same code modules. This is normal, and Tortoise can help you compare files and resolve conflicts. See the [http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view link mentioned above] to learn more.
* Sometimes conflicts are not able to be resolved using Tortoise, and you will need to edit the files by hand. Don't worry, you can always ''revert'' the files if you make a mistake. A good text editor to help is Notepad 2 - http://www.flos-freeware.ch/
* If you edit the source files yourself, Tortoise will register that the files are changed with an exclamation mark. To create your own patch from a changed file, right click on the ''src'' directory folder that contains your changed file, then select ''Tortoise SVN -> Create Patch''. Now tick only the file/s you edited and save the patch file. This can be posted to a bug report as a test, and possibly committed to SVN if your patch works.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch the hard way using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works independently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patch file must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Build The Inkscape Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous security software, screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

'''''Doing A New Build'''''

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat
You can usually just type mingwenv (enter) and Windows will execute the batch file.

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

'''''Re-building after modifying source modules'''''

If you've already built the source once and done a few changes to source code files, you can do a quick rebuild using many of the files already compiled in the ''build'' directory. Only those that need to be rebuilt will be, and the ''btool'' program automatically figures that out. It will then 'link' the relevant files together and copy them into the ''inkscape'' directory.

To do a quick rebuild, simply go to the directory that contains the source and do the following;

* Delete or rename the ''inkscape'' directory, which contains the previous fully built and linked version of Inkscape
* Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool
* Ishmal's build tool should now rebuild the individual files that have changed, along with any extra 'dependencies' these might require. If you've only applied one new patch, it can be done in less than 5 minutes!

'''''Note:''''' It is best not to do a quick rebuild if you have changed the version of libraries in C:\DEVLIBS. This can cause problems, as the files in the ''build'' directory incorporate functions from these libraries, which can change significantly between library versions. You will need to rebuild from scratch (see below).

'''''Rebuilding From Scratch'''''

To rebuild from scratch, you need to clean out any build files. First of all, if you want to keep the previously built version, rename the ''inkscape'' directory. Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool clean
...> btool

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? For instance if one particular file has gone wrong, or I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - To find the right command for building any particular file in Inkscape, just look in the compile.lst after you have used btool once. Search for the name of the particular file (eg: print.cpp) and you will find the command used to compile it. You'll need to paste this into a text file, remove any carriage reurns and then paste that onto the command line.

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

=== Create An Installation Package For Win32 ===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, some general guidelines are:
* Never define _UNICODE
* Don't use _T
* Don't use TCHAR
* Don't use wchar_t
* Use some explicit 16-bit type for characters/strings
** [http://www.icu-project.org/ International Components for Unicode (ICU)] does this

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2009-02-26T07:42:58Z

Rygle:

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to set things up before you can build your own binary, as follows;

1. You should install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching (if you know how to do this without Tortoise, feel free)

2. You need to download the Inkscape source code

3. You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler and development libraries (devlibs) used by Inkscape

4. You will possibly want to patch the source code if testing bug fixes

5. You are then able to build the Inkscape Binary

6. You may have to deal with some errors, but hopefully not...

7. If you're keen, you can also generate an installation package for Windows

==== Install The TortoiseSVN Program ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.

==== Download the Inkscape Source Code ====
'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want. It can be on a different partition if you wish - it doesn't matter.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
*** Someone has reported that to get this to work with the libraries above, they had to edit build-dw2.xml and build.xml and replace the instances (1 per file) of libpoppler-2.dll with libpoppler-3.dll. It compiles without the changes, but won't run. (Compiling/Running on Vista). This may have been corrected by now, so don't do this unless you have problems...
** For the 0.47 (or later) development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Download The MinGW Compiler & Dev Libraries ====

Thanks to Ishmal, it is extremely easy to set up your system to compile Inkscape. He has made a complete set of compiler and library files available from his website - http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the latest versions. As of '''Feb 26 2009''' those are:
* The mingw compiler version 4.2.1 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* The latest library SVN snapshot is http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-svn-0811161728.7z - this is currently just less than 120Mb
(you can optionally get the files completely using svn, located at https://svn.modevia.com/inkscape/devlibs - although this will be a significantly bigger download as the files are not compressed)

The configuration files expect the compiler and the development library files (devlibs) in specific directories:
* Unzip the compiler (mingw-{version}.7z) to C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* Unzip the other libraries (devlibs-{version}.7z) to C:\DEVLIBS (must be this directory unless you want to edit the file build.xml used by buildtool)
* Once you have unzipped devlibs to C:\DEVLIBS make sure it is up to date with the latest svn version by running svn update. If you have TortoiseSVN installed this can be done by right-clicking on the devlibs folder and clicking ''SVN update''.

==== Patch The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;

1. Find your patch. Windows Patches to the main SVN are now being kept in a folder under your main working directory called ''packaging\win32\patches''. If you download or make a subsequent patch, put it in this directory to keep things orderly. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff

2. Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''. Because the Windows patches are kept a little tucked away, Tortoise will probably give a message; '''The path {working directory}\packaging\win32\patches seems not to match the paths in the patchfile. But Tortoise found the path {working directory} matches it better. Do you want to use the suggested path instead?''' Click ''Yes'' to proceed.

3. Now comes the actual patching process. See the Tortoise website for an explanation of how to use the merge tool - http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view (see also the following pages)

4. Once patched, you will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick, as do its parent folders. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version, and helps you find altered files really quickly.

5. If you want to go back to the SVN version you originally ''checked out'', simply right click on an individual file or a whole folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. This will bring up a list of files that can be reverted. If you only selected one file, only that will be available to revert. If you selected a folder, all the modified files in that folder will be available to revert. Tick only those you wish to revert to the SVN version last checked out.

'''''Notes:'''''
* When applying several patches at once, you will possibly find that some patches update the same code modules. This is normal, and Tortoise can help you compare files and resolve conflicts. See the [http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view link mentioned above] to learn more.
* Sometimes conflicts are not able to be resolved using Tortoise, and you will need to edit the files by hand. Don't worry, you can always ''revert'' the files if you make a mistake. A good text editor to help is Notepad 2 - http://www.flos-freeware.ch/
* If you edit the source files yourself, Tortoise will register that the files are changed with an exclamation mark. To create your own patch from a changed file, right click on the ''src'' directory folder that contains your changed file, then select ''Tortoise SVN -> Create Patch''. Now tick only the file/s you edited and save the patch file. This can be posted to a bug report as a test, and possibly committed to SVN if your patch works.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch the hard way using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works independently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patch file must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Build The Inkscape Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous security software, screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

'''''Doing A New Build'''''

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat
You can usually just type mingwenv (enter) and Windows will execute the batch file.

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

'''''Re-building after modifying source modules'''''

If you've already built the source once and done a few changes to source code files, you can do a quick rebuild using many of the files already compiled in the ''build'' directory. Only those that need to be rebuilt will be, and the ''btool'' program automatically figures that out. It will then 'link' the relevant files together and copy them into the ''inkscape'' directory.

To do a quick rebuild, simply go to the directory that contains the source and do the following;

* Delete or rename the ''inkscape'' directory, which contains the previous fully built and linked version of Inkscape
* Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool
* Ishmal's build tool should now rebuild the individual files that have changed, along with any extra 'dependencies' these might require. If you've only applied one new patch, it can be done in less than 5 minutes!

'''''Note:''''' It is best not to do a quick rebuild if you have changed the version of libraries in C:\DEVLIBS. This can cause problems, as the files in the ''build'' directory incorporate functions from these libraries, which can change significantly between library versions. You will need to rebuild from scratch (see below).

'''''Rebuilding From Scratch'''''

To rebuild from scratch, you need to clean out any build files. First of all, if you want to keep the previously built version, rename the ''inkscape'' directory. Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool clean
...> btool

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? For instance if one particular file has gone wrong, or I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - To find the right command for building any particular file in Inkscape, just look in the compile.lst after you have used btool once. Search for the name of the particular file (eg: print.cpp) and you will find the command used to compile it. You'll need to paste this into a text file, remove any carriage reurns and then paste that onto the command line.

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

=== Create An Installation Package For Win32 ===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, some general guidelines are:
* Never define _UNICODE
* Don't use _T
* Don't use TCHAR
* Don't use wchar_t
* Use some explicit 16-bit type for characters/strings
** [http://www.icu-project.org/ International Components for Unicode (ICU)] does this

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2009-02-26T06:46:58Z

Rygle: Added info about updating the devlibs from SVN

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to set things up before you can build your own binary, as follows;

1. You should install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching (if you know how to do this without Tortoise, feel free)

2. You need to download the source code

3. You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler and supporting development libraries (devlibs) used by Inkscape

4. You will possibly want to apply patches if bug testing

5. You are then able to build (we'll get to that later!)

6. You may have to deal with some errors, but hopefully not...

7. If you're keen, you can also generate an installer for Windows

==== 1. Getting The TortoiseSVN Program ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.

==== 2. Getting the Inkscape Source ====
'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want. It can be on a different partition if you wish - it doesn't matter.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
*** Someone has reported that to get this to work with the libraries above, they had to edit build-dw2.xml and build.xml and replace the instances (1 per file) of libpoppler-2.dll with libpoppler-3.dll. It compiles without the changes, but won't run. (Compiling/Running on Vista). This may have been corrected by now, so don't do this unless you have problems...
** For the 0.47 (or later) development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== 3. Getting The Compiler & Dev Libraries ====

Thanks to Ishmal, it is extremely easy to set up your system to compile Inkscape. He has made a complete set of compiler and library files available from his website - http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the latest versions. As of '''Feb 26 2009''' those are:
* The mingw compiler version 4.2.1 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* The latest library SVN snapshot is http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-svn-0811161728.7z
(you can optionally get the files using svn, located at https://svn.modevia.com/inkscape/devlibs)

The configuration files expect the compiler and the development library files (devlibs) in specific directories:
* Unzip the compiler (mingw-{version}.7z) to C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* Unzip the other libraries (devlibs-{version}.7z) to C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)
* Once you have unzipped devlibs to C:\DEVLIBS make sure it is synchronised with the latest svn version by running svn update. If you have TortoiseSVN installed this can be done by right-clicking on the devlibs folder and clicking ''SVN update''.

==== 4. Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;

1. Find your patch. Windows Patches to the main SVN are now being kept in a folder under your main working directory called ''packaging\win32\patches''. If you download or make a subsequent patch, put it in this directory to keep things orderly. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff

2. Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''. Because the Windows patches are kept a little tucked away, Tortoise will probably give a message; '''The path {working directory}\packaging\win32\patches seems not to match the paths in the patchfile. But Tortoise found the path {working directory} matches it better. Do you want to use the suggested path instead?''' Click ''Yes'' to proceed.

3. Now comes the actual patching process. See the Tortoise website for an explanation of how to use the merge tool - http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view (see also the following pages)

4. Once patched, you will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick, as do its parent folders. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version, and helps you find altered files really quickly.

5. If you want to go back to the SVN version you originally ''checked out'', simply right click on an individual file or a whole folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. This will bring up a list of files that can be reverted. If you only selected one file, only that will be available to revert. If you selected a folder, all the modified files in that folder will be available to revert. Tick only those you wish to revert to the SVN version last checked out.

'''''Notes:'''''
* When applying several patches at once, you will possibly find that some patches update the same code modules. This is normal, and Tortoise can help you compare files and resolve conflicts. See the [http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view link mentioned above] to learn more.
* Sometimes conflicts are not able to be resolved using Tortoise, and you will need to edit the files by hand. Don't worry, you can always ''revert'' the files if you make a mistake. A good text editor to help is Notepad 2 - http://www.flos-freeware.ch/
* If you edit the source files yourself, Tortoise will register that the files are changed with an exclamation mark. To create your own patch from a changed file, right click on the ''src'' directory folder that contains your changed file, then select ''Tortoise SVN -> Create Patch''. Now tick only the file/s you edited and save the patch file. This can be posted to a bug report as a test, and possibly committed to SVN if your patch works.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch the hard way using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works independently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patch file must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== 5. Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous security software, screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

'''''Doing A New Build'''''

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat
You can usually just type mingwenv (enter) and Windows will execute the batch file.

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

'''''Re-building after modifying source modules'''''

If you've already built the source once and done a few changes to source code files, you can do a quick rebuild using many of the files already compiled in the ''build'' directory. Only those that need to be rebuilt will be, and the ''btool'' program automatically figures that out. It will then 'link' the relevant files together and copy them into the ''inkscape'' directory.

To do a quick rebuild, simply go to the directory that contains the source and do the following;

* Delete or rename the ''inkscape'' directory, which contains the previous fully built and linked version of Inkscape
* Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool
* Ishmal's build tool should now rebuild the individual files that have changed, along with any extra 'dependencies' these might require. If you've only applied one new patch, it can be done in less than 5 minutes!

'''''Note:''''' It is best not to do a quick rebuild if you have changed the version of libraries in C:\DEVLIBS. This can cause problems, as the files in the ''build'' directory incorporate functions from these libraries, which can change significantly between library versions. You will need to rebuild from scratch (see below).

'''''Rebuilding From Scratch'''''

To rebuild from scratch, you need to clean out any build files. First of all, if you want to keep the previously built version, rename the ''inkscape'' directory. Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool clean
...> btool

==== 6. Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? For instance if one particular file has gone wrong, or I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - To find the right command for building any particular file in Inkscape, just look in the compile.lst after you have used btool once. Search for the name of the particular file (eg: print.cpp) and you will find the command used to compile it. You'll need to paste this into a text file, remove any carriage reurns and then paste that onto the command line.

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

=== 7. Create the Setup package for Win32 ===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, some general guidelines are:
* Never define _UNICODE
* Don't use _T
* Don't use TCHAR
* Don't use wchar_t
* Use some explicit 16-bit type for characters/strings
** [http://www.icu-project.org/ International Components for Unicode (ICU)] does this

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Installing Inkscape

2008-05-12T12:36:23Z

Rygle: /* Installing on a Mac */ Moved some material from the FAQ into InstallHelp - Mac

== Installing on a Mac ==

There are two steps needed to install on a Mac.

'''1. Getting The Right Inkscape Installer:'''

You need to download the right installation file from [http://www.inkscape.org/download/ here]. Note that this page has a separate version for Panther (10.3.9 only), and Tiger (10.4.x) and above. The Panther version is PPC only, while the Tiger version is ''Universal Binary'', meaning it installs on either older PPC or newer Intel Macs. The Tiger version will also work on Leopard (10.5.x)

Once you have the Inkscape installation package, double click on it and it will open a windows with an Inkscape icon on one side, and a shortcut to the Applications folder on the other side. You need to drag the Inkscape icon across and drop in on the Applications folder. This will copy the file to the Application folder.

To make a shortcut on your Dock, open the Applications folder, and drag the Inkscape icon to the place you want it on the dock.

'''2. Getting The Right X11 Installer:'''

To run Inkscape, you will also need to install X11. This is an environment that provides Unix like X-Window support for applications, including Inkscape (For more about X11 see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X11 here]). A native Mac OSX version that doesn't need X11 will be available sometime in the future (see [http://www.nabble.com/attachment/14733036/1/Inkscape%20OSX%20PL.gif here] or [http://jo.irisson.free.fr/?p=34 here] or [http://jo.irisson.free.fr/?p=62 here] for a sneak peek). But for now you need to do one of the following, depending on your OSX version.

'''''For Panther (10.3.x):'''''

You can download a suitable version of X11 from [http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/x11formacosx.html Apple] or mirrored [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Panther.dmg here].

'''''For Tiger (10.4.x):'''''

You can install X11 from your original Install Disc 1. Scroll down the Finder window which opens when the DVD is inserted; double clic "Optional Installs"; go through the license agreement and destination selection; on the "Custom install" page select Applications -> X11 and deselect everything else; hit Install. To see what this looks like, go [http://overstimulate.com/articles/2005/11/04/installing-x11-on-os-x-10-4-tiger here]).

Alternately, you can download a version for PPC [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Tiger_PPC.dmg here], or Intel [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Tiger_Intel.dmg here]. These files are able to be freely re-distributed because X11 is open source.

'''Notes:'''
*Once installed, you should also update your X11 to version 1.1.2 [http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/x11update2006113.html here]. This requires the earlier version, so you cannot just install the update.
*A heavily improved version of X11 called [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/ XQuartz] is expected to be available for Tiger some time in 2008. This will bring X11 on Tiger (10.4.x) into line with Leopard (10.5.x). See [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/roadmap here] for a roadmap of that project.

'''''For Leopard (10.5.x):'''''

Leopard officially ships with a version of X11 called [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/ XQuartz] pre-installed, however the preinstalled version has some problems. Starting from January 2008, the XQuartz community released several updates to the XQuartz package in Mac OS X 10.5.x on [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz Mac OS Forge]. These releases significantly improve X11 on the version of XQuartz found in the original Leopard release.

On February 11 2008, Apple released an official XQuartz update in the [http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1052comboupdate.html Mac OS X 10.5.2 update]. This update addresses [http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307430 two security issues], although it is still somewhat behind the current XQuartz releases, upon which the official update is based. The [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz XQuartz site] notes that "''10.5.2's version of X11 is somewhere between the 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 packages released through this site''". It also warns that "''Installing versions prior to X11 2.1.2 onto OS-X 10.5.2 may work but is not supported.''"

XQuartz 2.2.1 was released on May 1 2008. This version requires OS X 10.5.0, however if you install the 10.5.2 update (or other updates) after XQuartz, you will probably need to reinstall XQuartz.

For optimal performance and security, it is always best to install the latest Mac OS X updates, and then install the latest XQuartz over the top. This is what XQuartz is designed to do.

'''Notes:'''
*Because of changes to launchd, you will need to logout and re-login after installing XQuartz.
*For the keen, pre-release candidates and recent deprecated versions of XQuartz are available [http://xquartz.macosforge.org/downloads/ here]. Information on a given release or release candidate is normally available at http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/wiki/X112.2.x (change x to suit)
*The XQuartz release roadmap is available [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/roadmap here].
*For more technical information about X11 on Mac, a good place to go is http://homepage.mac.com/sao1/X11/index.html

'''Problems After Installation'''

''''' On Leopard (10.5) with XQuartz 2.2.1:'''''

Some users report problems loading Inkscape 0.46-2 with XQuartz 2.2.1. - [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/226355 see here]. This problem occurs because XQuartz 2.2.1 has changed fontconfig.

There are two possible fixes;

1. Michael Whybrow, the packager of Inkscape for Mac suggests this;

a. Open Terminal.app (in Applications -> Utilities) and type the following
mkdir ~/.fontconfig
b. Rerun Inkscape.app

2. Another solution originally posted [https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/28776 here] suggests editing an Inkscape configuration file;

a. Open Terminal.app (in Applications -> Utilities) and type
nano /Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/script
b. Press CTRL+V (scrolls down a page)

c. Change the code (use the arrows keys to get to the right part) from:

"""
else
# Leopard onwards...

# Warn the user about time-consuming generation of fontconfig caches.
test -d ${HOME}/.fontconfig || exit 12
"""

to:

"""
else
# Leopard onwards...

# Warn the user about time-consuming generation of fontconfig caches.
test -d ${HOME}/.fontconfig
"""
d. Save changes by pressing CTRL+O and then ENTER to confirm

e. Run Inkscape and wait for first-time caching

'''''I've installed X11 on OS X but Inkscape keeps asking for it'''''

On Panther (10.3), you may need to uninstall/reinstall or upgrade X11. Use [http://www.osxgnu.org/software/pkgdetail.html?project_id=244 OSXPM] to uninstall X11 - Install OSXPM and select the Uninstall tab, scroll down to X11User, select it and hit Uninstall. Then you can install X11 properly.

== Installing on Unix like systems ==

=== Using Precompiled Packages (For Normal Users) ===

==== Ubuntu Linux ====
Probably the easiest way to install on Ubuntu is to use the apt command.

Open a terminal and type;
sudo apt-get update (enter)
sudo apt-get install inkscape (enter)

==== Ubuntu Linux Development Versions ====

A few people have made builds of the development version of Inkscape 0.46 as it approaches release.

Bryce Harrington has made available some i386 builds of the early January 2008 version for ''Gutsy'' (7.10) and ''Hardy'' (8.04 - currently in development). See the relevant post on the [http://www.nabble.com/Inkscape-0.46%7Esvn-Ubuntu-.deb-snapshot-td14645864.html Inksape-user email list]. This seems to be a one-off snapshot.

NJH is offering nightly i386 and AMD64 builds for Gutsy and Edgy, along with supporting libraries like libcairo and libpixman. You can go to
[http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/ http://ubuntu.cafuego.net] and select the link for the particular version of Ubuntu you're using. On the next page, select Inkscape, or Cairo etc, then follow the instructions on the following page.

'''Note:''' Development versions offer some nice new features, but can be somewhat unstable, so save often. Inexperienced users will also quite possibly have problems installing them.

==== Slackware Linux ====
Pbhj says:

I used the [http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93438&package_id=99112&release_id=426990 precompiled rpm] provided by Inkscape for the 0.44 release as my gcc wouldn't compile it. All you need to then do is run rpm2tgz at the command line on the package, eg " rpm2tgz inkscape-0.44-0.i686.rpm" and then install with "installpkg inkscape-0.44-0.i686.tgz".

--[[User:Pbhj|Pbhj]] 13:29, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

=== Compiling Your Own (For The Techies) ===

NOTE: this isn't finished. I currently have two screwed up systems from fooling with bleeding edge GTK+ stuff, I don't know how that happened. !! :) I'll get to the end over the next few days tho. Setting up a more stable home network atm.
--
Tsingi

This was written building an InkScape snapshot on a new RedHat Linux installation. If you find that it doesn't answer your needs exactly, please update this file when you solve your particular problem.

'''Installing libraries'''

If you are running a debian based system, and have something like synaptic that lists recent enough versions of the libraries below, use that. If you want the latest libs, which you may need, especially if you are installing a snapshot or building from svn, you will want to download sources. Generally you will get a ''foo.tar.bz2'' or ''foo.tar.gz'' or ''foo.tgz'' file that you will need to unpack and build.

''bz2'' files are the smallest. Uncompress them first by typing ''bunzip2 foo.tar.gz'' then unpack the remaining tar file by typing ''tar -xvf foo.tar''

''foo.tar.gz'' files and ''foo.tgz'' files can be extracted in one operation by typing ''tar -xvzf foo.tar.gz''

Change to the directory that you just created ''foo''. type ''./configure'' then ''make'' then, as root, ''make install''

Sometimes that is all you will need to do.

Sometimes you will run into dependancy errors because you need a library you haven't installed yet. If you try installing inkscape without some of these dependancies, you will get a list of what you need. hopefully the instructions below will help you solve these dependancies.

'''Running ldconfig'''

after installing libs, (as root) you need to run ''ldconfig'' so that the linker can find the libraries that you have just installed. If you aren't logged in as root (i.e. if you became root by typing su) you may not have the /sbin/ directory in your path. so if ''ldconfig'' isn't working for you try typing ''/sbin/ldconfig''

'''pkg-config'''

''pkg-config'' is a utility that lists dependancies for libraries that sets up flags and paths for compiling. When it's working right it's wonderful. Getting it to work right is a pain in the ass if you don't know how. It's amazing how silent an IRC channel will get when you mention it.

''pkg-config'' references pc files that applications install to give information about them. These are called metadata files, metadata means data about data. For a list of libraries that pkg-config sees, type ''pkg-config --list-all'' Having done that and looking at a list of pc files on my system (using ''find /usr -name "*.pc" > find.pc'', then browsing find.pc) I see that I also have a directory called ''/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/'' I might as well get that in there while I'm at it since none of those libs show up in a listing either and that's where most of them are.

Depending on what shell you use, there are different ways of doing this. I'm adding a couple lines to my /etc/profile file:

''PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib/pkgconfig/:/usr/share/pkgconfig/:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/''

''export PKG_CONFIG_PATH''

Note that I have a new 64 bit system, which is why I'm going through all this. You probably won't have a ''/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/'' unless you do too, so don't just copy what I did. Also note that on a Windows system PATH type environment variables use semi-colons ";" for delimiters as opposed to colons ":"

Using bash, to immediately source the file in the shell you are using, type ''. /etc/profile'. This won't test to see if the path gets put into your environment when open a shell though, so maybe a better thing to do is close your terminals and open new ones to see that it is actually set automagically.

Ahh, I can now configure glibmm. The hair on the back of my neck is laying flat again, I think I'll have a coffee. :)

'''libgc'''

download and install the latest version of libgc[[http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/gc_source/]]

libgc installs in /usr/local/lib by default. If you have installed it and it is still not linking, you may not have that in your library path. There is a LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, or alternatively you can make sure that /usr/local/lib is listed in the file /etc/ls.so.conf

'''libsig++'''

download and install libsig++ [http://libsigc.sourceforge.net/stable.shtml]

this should be fairly straightforward.

'''glibmm'''

This is where, if you haven't wrestled with pkg-config on your system you start scratching your head. Because when you run configure on glibmm you may an error like this

''checking for GLIBMM... configure: error: Package requirements (sigc++-2.0 >= 2.0.0 glib-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gobject-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gmodule-2.0 >= 2.8.0) were not met. Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
installed software in a non-standard prefix.''

''Alternatively you may set the GLIBMM_CFLAGS and GLIBMM_LIBS environment variables to avoid the need to call pkg-config. See the pkg-config man page for
more details.''

It seems that most packages install in a non standard prefix, in direct defiance of everything we have been led to believe regarding the concept of standard, so you may have to deal with this. See the note on ''pkg-config'' above.

''gtkmm'' [http://www.gtkmm.org/]

----
(Ben) Tsingi, you are writing in the 'User Documentation' section. Most of this material is only appropriate for Developers and some would be better on the Mailing List. You will probably find that when you have finished, this page will be edited and pruned back. FWIW, I was expecting to find information about 'apt-get' (Debian) 'emerge' (Gentoo) and AutoPackage (the others).

[[Category:User Documentation]]

Installing Inkscape

2008-05-10T10:45:01Z

Rygle: /* Installing on a Mac */ Fixed formatting.

== Installing on a Mac ==

There are two steps needed to install on a Mac.

'''1. Getting The Right Inkscape Installer:'''

You need to download the right installation file from [http://www.inkscape.org/download/ here]. Note that this page has a separate version for Panther (10.3.9 only), and Tiger (10.4.x) and above. The Panther version is PPC only, while the Tiger version is ''Universal Binary'', meaning it installs on either older PPC or newer Intel Macs. The Tiger version will also work on Leopard (10.5.x)

Once you have the Inkscape installation package, double click on it and it will open a windows with an Inkscape icon on one side, and a shortcut to the Applications folder on the other side. You need to drag the Inkscape icon across and drop in on the Applications folder. This will copy the file to the Application folder.

To make a shortcut on your Dock, open the Applications folder, and drag the Inkscape icon to the place you want it on the dock.

'''2. Getting The Right X11 Installer:'''

To run Inkscape, you will also need to install X11. This is an environment that provides Unix like X-Window support for applications, including Inkscape (For more about X11 see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X11 here]). A native Mac OSX version that doesn't need X11 will be available sometime in the future (see [http://www.nabble.com/attachment/14733036/1/Inkscape%20OSX%20PL.gif here] or [http://jo.irisson.free.fr/?p=34 here] or [http://jo.irisson.free.fr/?p=62 here] for a sneak peek). But for now you need to do one of the following, depending on your OSX version.

'''''For Panther (10.3.x):'''''

You can download a suitable X11 from [http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/x11formacosx.html Apple] or mirrored [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Panther.dmg here].

'''''For Tiger (10.4.x):'''''

You can install X11 from your original install DVD (for help see [http://overstimulate.com/articles/2005/11/04/installing-x11-on-os-x-10-4-tiger here]). Alternately, you can download a version for PPC [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Tiger_PPC.dmg here], or Intel [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Tiger_Intel.dmg here]. These files are able to be freely re-distributed as X11 is open source.

'''Notes:'''
*Once installed, you should also update your X11 to version 1.1.2 [http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/x11update2006113.html here]. This requires the earlier version, so you cannot just install the update.
*A heavily improved version of X11 called [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/ XQuartz] is expected to be available for Tiger some time in 2008. This will bring X11 on Tiger (10.4.x) into line with Leopard (10.5.x). See [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/roadmap here] for a roadmap of that project.

'''''For Leopard (10.5.x):'''''

Leopard officially ships with a version of X11 called [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/ XQuartz] pre-installed, however the preinstalled version has some problems. Starting from January 2008, the XQuartz community released several updates to the XQuartz package in Mac OS X 10.5.x on [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz Mac OS Forge]. These releases significantly improve X11 on the version of XQuartz found in the original Leopard release.

On February 11 2008, Apple released an official XQuartz update in the [http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1052comboupdate.html Mac OS X 10.5.2 update]. This update addresses [http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307430 two security issues], although it is still somewhat behind the current XQuartz releases, upon which the official update is based. The [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz XQuartz site] notes that "''10.5.2's version of X11 is somewhere between the 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 packages released through this site''". It also warns that "''Installing versions prior to X11 2.1.2 onto OS-X 10.5.2 may work but is not supported.''"

XQuartz 2.2.1 was released on May 1 2008. This version requires OS X 10.5.0, however if you install the 10.5.2 update (or other updates) after XQuartz, you will probably need to reinstall XQuartz.

For optimal performance and security, it is always best to install the latest Mac OS X updates, and then install the latest XQuartz over the top. This is what XQuartz is designed to do.

'''Notes:'''
*Because of changes to launchd, you will need to logout and re-login after installing XQuartz.
*For the keen, pre-release candidates and recent deprecated versions of XQuartz are available [http://xquartz.macosforge.org/downloads/ here]. Information on a given release or release candidate is normally available at http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/wiki/X112.2.x (change x to suit)
*The XQuartz release roadmap is available [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/roadmap here].
*For more technical information about X11 on Mac, a good place to go is http://homepage.mac.com/sao1/X11/index.html

'''''Problems with XQuartz 2.2.1:'''''

Some users report problems loading Inkscape 0.46-2 with Xquartz 2.2.1. - [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/226355 see here]. This problem occurs because XQuartz 2.2.1 has changed fontconfig.

There are two possible fixes;

1. Michael Whybrow, the packager of Inkscape for Mac suggests this;

a. Open Terminal.app (in Applications -> Utilities) and type the following
mkdir ~/.fontconfig
b. Rerun Inkscape.app

2. Another solution originally posted [https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/28776 here] suggests editing an Inkscape configuration file;

a. Open Terminal.app (in Applications -> Utilities) and type
nano /Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/script
b. Press CTRL+V (scrolls down a page)

c. Change the code (use the arrows keys to get to the right part) from:

"""
else
# Leopard onwards...

# Warn the user about time-consuming generation of fontconfig caches.
test -d ${HOME}/.fontconfig || exit 12
"""

to:

"""
else
# Leopard onwards...

# Warn the user about time-consuming generation of fontconfig caches.
test -d ${HOME}/.fontconfig
"""
d. Save changes by pressing CTRL+O and then ENTER to confirm

e. Run Inkscape and wait for first-time caching

== Installing on Unix like systems ==

=== Using Precompiled Packages (For Normal Users) ===

==== Ubuntu Linux ====
Probably the easiest way to install on Ubuntu is to use the apt command.

Open a terminal and type;
sudo apt-get update (enter)
sudo apt-get install inkscape (enter)

==== Ubuntu Linux Development Versions ====

A few people have made builds of the development version of Inkscape 0.46 as it approaches release.

Bryce Harrington has made available some i386 builds of the early January 2008 version for ''Gutsy'' (7.10) and ''Hardy'' (8.04 - currently in development). See the relevant post on the [http://www.nabble.com/Inkscape-0.46%7Esvn-Ubuntu-.deb-snapshot-td14645864.html Inksape-user email list]. This seems to be a one-off snapshot.

NJH is offering nightly i386 and AMD64 builds for Gutsy and Edgy, along with supporting libraries like libcairo and libpixman. You can go to
[http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/ http://ubuntu.cafuego.net] and select the link for the particular version of Ubuntu you're using. On the next page, select Inkscape, or Cairo etc, then follow the instructions on the following page.

'''Note:''' Development versions offer some nice new features, but can be somewhat unstable, so save often. Inexperienced users will also quite possibly have problems installing them.

==== Slackware Linux ====
Pbhj says:

I used the [http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93438&package_id=99112&release_id=426990 precompiled rpm] provided by Inkscape for the 0.44 release as my gcc wouldn't compile it. All you need to then do is run rpm2tgz at the command line on the package, eg " rpm2tgz inkscape-0.44-0.i686.rpm" and then install with "installpkg inkscape-0.44-0.i686.tgz".

--[[User:Pbhj|Pbhj]] 13:29, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

=== Compiling Your Own (For The Techies) ===

NOTE: this isn't finished. I currently have two screwed up systems from fooling with bleeding edge GTK+ stuff, I don't know how that happened. !! :) I'll get to the end over the next few days tho. Setting up a more stable home network atm.
--
Tsingi

This was written building an InkScape snapshot on a new RedHat Linux installation. If you find that it doesn't answer your needs exactly, please update this file when you solve your particular problem.

'''Installing libraries'''

If you are running a debian based system, and have something like synaptic that lists recent enough versions of the libraries below, use that. If you want the latest libs, which you may need, especially if you are installing a snapshot or building from svn, you will want to download sources. Generally you will get a ''foo.tar.bz2'' or ''foo.tar.gz'' or ''foo.tgz'' file that you will need to unpack and build.

''bz2'' files are the smallest. Uncompress them first by typing ''bunzip2 foo.tar.gz'' then unpack the remaining tar file by typing ''tar -xvf foo.tar''

''foo.tar.gz'' files and ''foo.tgz'' files can be extracted in one operation by typing ''tar -xvzf foo.tar.gz''

Change to the directory that you just created ''foo''. type ''./configure'' then ''make'' then, as root, ''make install''

Sometimes that is all you will need to do.

Sometimes you will run into dependancy errors because you need a library you haven't installed yet. If you try installing inkscape without some of these dependancies, you will get a list of what you need. hopefully the instructions below will help you solve these dependancies.

'''Running ldconfig'''

after installing libs, (as root) you need to run ''ldconfig'' so that the linker can find the libraries that you have just installed. If you aren't logged in as root (i.e. if you became root by typing su) you may not have the /sbin/ directory in your path. so if ''ldconfig'' isn't working for you try typing ''/sbin/ldconfig''

'''pkg-config'''

''pkg-config'' is a utility that lists dependancies for libraries that sets up flags and paths for compiling. When it's working right it's wonderful. Getting it to work right is a pain in the ass if you don't know how. It's amazing how silent an IRC channel will get when you mention it.

''pkg-config'' references pc files that applications install to give information about them. These are called metadata files, metadata means data about data. For a list of libraries that pkg-config sees, type ''pkg-config --list-all'' Having done that and looking at a list of pc files on my system (using ''find /usr -name "*.pc" > find.pc'', then browsing find.pc) I see that I also have a directory called ''/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/'' I might as well get that in there while I'm at it since none of those libs show up in a listing either and that's where most of them are.

Depending on what shell you use, there are different ways of doing this. I'm adding a couple lines to my /etc/profile file:

''PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib/pkgconfig/:/usr/share/pkgconfig/:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/''

''export PKG_CONFIG_PATH''

Note that I have a new 64 bit system, which is why I'm going through all this. You probably won't have a ''/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/'' unless you do too, so don't just copy what I did. Also note that on a Windows system PATH type environment variables use semi-colons ";" for delimiters as opposed to colons ":"

Using bash, to immediately source the file in the shell you are using, type ''. /etc/profile'. This won't test to see if the path gets put into your environment when open a shell though, so maybe a better thing to do is close your terminals and open new ones to see that it is actually set automagically.

Ahh, I can now configure glibmm. The hair on the back of my neck is laying flat again, I think I'll have a coffee. :)

'''libgc'''

download and install the latest version of libgc[[http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/gc_source/]]

libgc installs in /usr/local/lib by default. If you have installed it and it is still not linking, you may not have that in your library path. There is a LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, or alternatively you can make sure that /usr/local/lib is listed in the file /etc/ls.so.conf

'''libsig++'''

download and install libsig++ [http://libsigc.sourceforge.net/stable.shtml]

this should be fairly straightforward.

'''glibmm'''

This is where, if you haven't wrestled with pkg-config on your system you start scratching your head. Because when you run configure on glibmm you may an error like this

''checking for GLIBMM... configure: error: Package requirements (sigc++-2.0 >= 2.0.0 glib-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gobject-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gmodule-2.0 >= 2.8.0) were not met. Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
installed software in a non-standard prefix.''

''Alternatively you may set the GLIBMM_CFLAGS and GLIBMM_LIBS environment variables to avoid the need to call pkg-config. See the pkg-config man page for
more details.''

It seems that most packages install in a non standard prefix, in direct defiance of everything we have been led to believe regarding the concept of standard, so you may have to deal with this. See the note on ''pkg-config'' above.

''gtkmm'' [http://www.gtkmm.org/]

----
(Ben) Tsingi, you are writing in the 'User Documentation' section. Most of this material is only appropriate for Developers and some would be better on the Mailing List. You will probably find that when you have finished, this page will be edited and pruned back. FWIW, I was expecting to find information about 'apt-get' (Debian) 'emerge' (Gentoo) and AutoPackage (the others).

[[Category:User Documentation]]

Installing Inkscape

2008-05-10T07:46:28Z

Rygle: /* Installing on a Mac */ Updated solutions to XQuartz 2.2.1 problem

== Installing on a Mac ==

There are two steps needed to install on a Mac.

'''1. Getting The Right Inkscape Installer:'''

You need to download the right installation file from [http://www.inkscape.org/download/ here]. Note that this page has a separate version for Panther (10.3.9 only), and Tiger (10.4.x) and above. The Panther version is PPC only, while the Tiger version is ''Universal Binary'', meaning it installs on either older PPC or newer Intel Macs. The Tiger version will also work on Leopard (10.5.x)

Once you have the Inkscape installation package, double click on it and it will open a windows with an Inkscape icon on one side, and a shortcut to the Applications folder on the other side. You need to drag the Inkscape icon across and drop in on the Applications folder. This will copy the file to the Application folder.

To make a shortcut on your Dock, open the Applications folder, and drag the Inkscape icon to the place you want it on the dock.

'''2. Getting The Right X11 Installer:'''

To run Inkscape, you will also need to install X11. This is an environment that provides Unix like X-Window support for applications, including Inkscape (For more about X11 see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X11 here]). A native Mac OSX version that doesn't need X11 will be available sometime in the future (see [http://www.nabble.com/attachment/14733036/1/Inkscape%20OSX%20PL.gif here] or [http://jo.irisson.free.fr/?p=34 here] or [http://jo.irisson.free.fr/?p=62 here] for a sneak peek). But for now you need to do one of the following, depending on your OSX version.

'''''For Panther (10.3.x):'''''

You can download a suitable X11 from [http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/x11formacosx.html Apple] or mirrored [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Panther.dmg here].

'''''For Tiger (10.4.x):'''''

You can install X11 from your original install DVD (for help see [http://overstimulate.com/articles/2005/11/04/installing-x11-on-os-x-10-4-tiger here]). Alternately, you can download a version for PPC [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Tiger_PPC.dmg here], or Intel [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Tiger_Intel.dmg here]. These files are able to be freely re-distributed as X11 is open source.

'''Notes:'''
*Once installed, you should also update your X11 to version 1.1.2 [http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/x11update2006113.html here]. This requires the earlier version, so you cannot just install the update.
*A heavily improved version of X11 called [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/ XQuartz] is expected to be available for Tiger some time in 2008. This will bring X11 on Tiger (10.4.x) into line with Leopard (10.5.x). See [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/roadmap here] for a roadmap of that project.

'''''For Leopard (10.5.x):'''''

Leopard officially ships with a version of X11 called [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/ XQuartz] pre-installed, however the preinstalled version has some problems. Starting from January 2008, the XQuartz community released several updates to the XQuartz package in Mac OS X 10.5.x on [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz Mac OS Forge]. These releases significantly improve X11 on the version of XQuartz found in the original Leopard release.

On February 11 2008, Apple released an official XQuartz update in the [http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1052comboupdate.html Mac OS X 10.5.2 update]. This update addresses [http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307430 two security issues], although it is still somewhat behind the current XQuartz releases, upon which the official update is based. The [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz XQuartz site] notes that "''10.5.2's version of X11 is somewhere between the 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 packages released through this site''". It also warns that "''Installing versions prior to X11 2.1.2 onto OS-X 10.5.2 may work but is not supported.''"

XQuartz 2.2.1 was released on May 1 2008. This version requires OS X 10.5.0, however if you install the 10.5.2 update (or other updates) after XQuartz, you will probably need to reinstall XQuartz.

For optimal performance and security, it is always best to install the latest Mac OS X updates, and then install the latest XQuartz over the top. This is what XQuartz is designed to do.

'''Notes:'''
*Because of changes to launchd, you will need to logout and re-login after installing XQuartz.
*For the keen, pre-release candidates and recent deprecated versions of XQuartz are available [http://xquartz.macosforge.org/downloads/ here]. Information on a given release or release candidate is normally available at http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/wiki/X112.2.x (change x to suit)
*The XQuartz release roadmap is available [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/roadmap here].
*For more technical information about X11 on Mac, a good place to go is http://homepage.mac.com/sao1/X11/index.html

'''''Problems with XQuartz 2.2.1:'''''

Some users report problems loading Inkscape 0.46-2 with Xquartz 2.2.1. - [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/226355 see here]. This problem occurs because XQuartz 2.2.1 has changed fontconfig.

There are two possible fixes;

1. Michael Whybrow, the packager of Inkscape for Mac suggests this - Open Terminal.app (in Applications -> Utilities) and type the following and then rerun Inkscape.app
mkdir ~/.fontconfig

2. Another solution originally posted [https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/28776 here] suggests editing a file

a. Open Terminal.app (in Applications -> Utilities) and type
nano /Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/script
b. Press CTRL+V (scrolls down a page)
c. Change the code (use the arrows keys to get to the right part) from:

"""
else
# Leopard onwards...

# Warn the user about time-consuming generation of fontconfig caches.
test -d ${HOME}/.fontconfig || exit 12
"""

to:

"""
else
# Leopard onwards...

# Warn the user about time-consuming generation of fontconfig caches.
test -d ${HOME}/.fontconfig
"""
d. Save changes by pressing CTRL+O and then ENTER to confirm
e. Run Inkscape and wait for first-time caching

== Installing on Unix like systems ==

=== Using Precompiled Packages (For Normal Users) ===

==== Ubuntu Linux ====
Probably the easiest way to install on Ubuntu is to use the apt command.

Open a terminal and type;
sudo apt-get update (enter)
sudo apt-get install inkscape (enter)

==== Ubuntu Linux Development Versions ====

A few people have made builds of the development version of Inkscape 0.46 as it approaches release.

Bryce Harrington has made available some i386 builds of the early January 2008 version for ''Gutsy'' (7.10) and ''Hardy'' (8.04 - currently in development). See the relevant post on the [http://www.nabble.com/Inkscape-0.46%7Esvn-Ubuntu-.deb-snapshot-td14645864.html Inksape-user email list]. This seems to be a one-off snapshot.

NJH is offering nightly i386 and AMD64 builds for Gutsy and Edgy, along with supporting libraries like libcairo and libpixman. You can go to
[http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/ http://ubuntu.cafuego.net] and select the link for the particular version of Ubuntu you're using. On the next page, select Inkscape, or Cairo etc, then follow the instructions on the following page.

'''Note:''' Development versions offer some nice new features, but can be somewhat unstable, so save often. Inexperienced users will also quite possibly have problems installing them.

==== Slackware Linux ====
Pbhj says:

I used the [http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93438&package_id=99112&release_id=426990 precompiled rpm] provided by Inkscape for the 0.44 release as my gcc wouldn't compile it. All you need to then do is run rpm2tgz at the command line on the package, eg " rpm2tgz inkscape-0.44-0.i686.rpm" and then install with "installpkg inkscape-0.44-0.i686.tgz".

--[[User:Pbhj|Pbhj]] 13:29, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

=== Compiling Your Own (For The Techies) ===

NOTE: this isn't finished. I currently have two screwed up systems from fooling with bleeding edge GTK+ stuff, I don't know how that happened. !! :) I'll get to the end over the next few days tho. Setting up a more stable home network atm.
--
Tsingi

This was written building an InkScape snapshot on a new RedHat Linux installation. If you find that it doesn't answer your needs exactly, please update this file when you solve your particular problem.

'''Installing libraries'''

If you are running a debian based system, and have something like synaptic that lists recent enough versions of the libraries below, use that. If you want the latest libs, which you may need, especially if you are installing a snapshot or building from svn, you will want to download sources. Generally you will get a ''foo.tar.bz2'' or ''foo.tar.gz'' or ''foo.tgz'' file that you will need to unpack and build.

''bz2'' files are the smallest. Uncompress them first by typing ''bunzip2 foo.tar.gz'' then unpack the remaining tar file by typing ''tar -xvf foo.tar''

''foo.tar.gz'' files and ''foo.tgz'' files can be extracted in one operation by typing ''tar -xvzf foo.tar.gz''

Change to the directory that you just created ''foo''. type ''./configure'' then ''make'' then, as root, ''make install''

Sometimes that is all you will need to do.

Sometimes you will run into dependancy errors because you need a library you haven't installed yet. If you try installing inkscape without some of these dependancies, you will get a list of what you need. hopefully the instructions below will help you solve these dependancies.

'''Running ldconfig'''

after installing libs, (as root) you need to run ''ldconfig'' so that the linker can find the libraries that you have just installed. If you aren't logged in as root (i.e. if you became root by typing su) you may not have the /sbin/ directory in your path. so if ''ldconfig'' isn't working for you try typing ''/sbin/ldconfig''

'''pkg-config'''

''pkg-config'' is a utility that lists dependancies for libraries that sets up flags and paths for compiling. When it's working right it's wonderful. Getting it to work right is a pain in the ass if you don't know how. It's amazing how silent an IRC channel will get when you mention it.

''pkg-config'' references pc files that applications install to give information about them. These are called metadata files, metadata means data about data. For a list of libraries that pkg-config sees, type ''pkg-config --list-all'' Having done that and looking at a list of pc files on my system (using ''find /usr -name "*.pc" > find.pc'', then browsing find.pc) I see that I also have a directory called ''/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/'' I might as well get that in there while I'm at it since none of those libs show up in a listing either and that's where most of them are.

Depending on what shell you use, there are different ways of doing this. I'm adding a couple lines to my /etc/profile file:

''PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib/pkgconfig/:/usr/share/pkgconfig/:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/''

''export PKG_CONFIG_PATH''

Note that I have a new 64 bit system, which is why I'm going through all this. You probably won't have a ''/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/'' unless you do too, so don't just copy what I did. Also note that on a Windows system PATH type environment variables use semi-colons ";" for delimiters as opposed to colons ":"

Using bash, to immediately source the file in the shell you are using, type ''. /etc/profile'. This won't test to see if the path gets put into your environment when open a shell though, so maybe a better thing to do is close your terminals and open new ones to see that it is actually set automagically.

Ahh, I can now configure glibmm. The hair on the back of my neck is laying flat again, I think I'll have a coffee. :)

'''libgc'''

download and install the latest version of libgc[[http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/gc_source/]]

libgc installs in /usr/local/lib by default. If you have installed it and it is still not linking, you may not have that in your library path. There is a LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, or alternatively you can make sure that /usr/local/lib is listed in the file /etc/ls.so.conf

'''libsig++'''

download and install libsig++ [http://libsigc.sourceforge.net/stable.shtml]

this should be fairly straightforward.

'''glibmm'''

This is where, if you haven't wrestled with pkg-config on your system you start scratching your head. Because when you run configure on glibmm you may an error like this

''checking for GLIBMM... configure: error: Package requirements (sigc++-2.0 >= 2.0.0 glib-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gobject-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gmodule-2.0 >= 2.8.0) were not met. Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
installed software in a non-standard prefix.''

''Alternatively you may set the GLIBMM_CFLAGS and GLIBMM_LIBS environment variables to avoid the need to call pkg-config. See the pkg-config man page for
more details.''

It seems that most packages install in a non standard prefix, in direct defiance of everything we have been led to believe regarding the concept of standard, so you may have to deal with this. See the note on ''pkg-config'' above.

''gtkmm'' [http://www.gtkmm.org/]

----
(Ben) Tsingi, you are writing in the 'User Documentation' section. Most of this material is only appropriate for Developers and some would be better on the Mailing List. You will probably find that when you have finished, this page will be edited and pruned back. FWIW, I was expecting to find information about 'apt-get' (Debian) 'emerge' (Gentoo) and AutoPackage (the others).

[[Category:User Documentation]]

Release notes/0.47

2008-05-01T14:55:05Z

Rygle: /* New and improved effects */ Added three extensions and sorted alphabetically

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

=Refactoring effort=
[mention the 'main' goal of 0.47 and list which things have been refactored and the benefits/new features/different workflow? --johan]

=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)
* When dragging a node '''handle with Ctrl''', it now snaps not only to the 15 degree increments starting from 0 and to the original handle direction, but also to the direction of the '''opposite handle''' (if it exists) or of the '''opposite line segment''' (if it is a straight line).
* The behavior of the buttons/shortucts that make a node smooth or cusp has been improved:
:* If a node is already cusp (diamond shaped), pressing Shift+C again on it will retract both its handles. As this works for any number of selected nodes, you can always retract all handles in all nodes by selecting all nodes and pressing Shift+C twice.
:* If a non-smooth node is next to a straight line segment, pressing Shift+S once makes it ''half-smooth'': it now has one handle aligned with that line segment. Another press of Shift+S will expand the second handle as well turning it into a full smooth node. If a node is between two curve segments, Shift+S will expand both handles as before.

==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.

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

==Eraser Tool==
A new eraser tool has been added. It has two main modes:
* Delete-mode where any shape touched by the tool is deleted completely. This operation is in line with "vector" editing.
* Cut mode where erasing acts similar to erasing in a standard bitmap editor.
Erasing is also limited to the currently selected objects if there are any selected.

=Live path effects=
== Notable bug fixes and effect changes==
We try to refrain from changing the behavior of LPE's, because it will change appearance in old files when opened in Inkscape¹. But when an effect is really broken, we have to fix it.

[¹ fixme: Shouldn't the above say "it will change editing behaviour in old files" ? If it changes the appearance, then that's a bug: inkscape should always save SVG that represents the appearance, and should display according to the SVG rather than any inkscape:blah annotations. --pjrm 
What is meant is the following. Files with LPEs opened in a random viewer will always look the same, regardless of Inkscape version. However, when viewed in Inkscape, the LPE is recalculated. When LPE behavior changes, the appearance will change. --johan]

* The Pattern Along Path effect used to stretch the pattern across discontinuities. This has been fixed; now it treats a discontinuous path as a group of continuous paths and applied the effect separately to each.

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

* Perspective paths: Draw an arbitrary path as if viewed in perspective. This is work in progress. Known limitations (among others): It can only use the first perspective that exists in the document defs, and the perspective cannot be adapted interactively yet (the effect must be removed and reapplied after modifying the perspective).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==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.

* Path type parameters can now link to existing shapes and text, like clones do. Now it is possible to use text as input for the Pattern Along Path effect for example!

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

==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 '''Arrange > Restack''' extension restacks the Z-order of selected objects, from left to right, top to bottom (or vice versa), with radial outward or inward or by an arbitrary angle, specifying the base point for comparison (top, left, middle, etc.).
* The improved '''Modify Path > Add Nodes''' extension now also allows segments to be divided into a given number of subsegments.
* 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.
* The new '''Render > Cartesian Grid''' extension plots Cartesian (square) grids that do not fill the page, but offer three levels of division, logarithmic scales (with clutter-reduction and arbitrary base) and customisable line width. All like elements (eg x-axis subminor divisions) are put into subgroups together. A proper border is also drawn, with an independent line thickness.
* The new '''Render > Polar Grid''' extension plots a polar co-ordinate grid, with options for arbitrary-base logarithmic subdivisions, clutter-reduction around the origin, circumferential labels and custom line widths.
* 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.

==API changes==

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

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

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

=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.

The Toggle view command in the Display mode submenu (Ctrl+keypad 5) toggles between the outline view and either regular or no-filters view, depending on which was used most recent.

==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==

[editable in node tool - johan]

==Stroke width changeable by dragging==

[bbyak]

==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.

==Swatches==

Hovering over a swatch now shows the name of the swatch in the status bar. This makes it easier for tablet users to identify a swatch by name, as holding a stylus still enough to show a tool tip is difficult.

==Toolbars==

The toolbar icon sizes for the three main toolbars are now separately configurable and to a few different sizes. This allows users to get a smaller UI on certain systems, including Ubuntu.

=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'''

==Snap indicator==
[mention that it exist, and the different snaps that are indicated]

=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 of the export area; this means that you can now export a blurred object to bitmap without any clipping of the blur.

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

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-04-28T15:31:49Z

Rygle: /* Patching The Source Code */

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* A recommended step is to download and install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching
* You need to download the source code and possibly apply patches if bug testing

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Thanks to Ishmal, it is extremely easy to set up your system to compile Inkscape. He has made a complete set of compiler and library files available from his website - http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the latest versions. As of '''April 17 2008''' those are:
* The mingw compiler version 4.2.1 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* Other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080417.7z

The configuration files expect these packages in specific directories:
* Unzip the compiler (mingw-{version}.7z) to C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* Unzip the other libraries (devlibs-{version}.7z) to C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
** For the 0.47 development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;

1. Find your patch. Windows Patches to the main SVN are now being kept in a folder under your main working directory called ''packaging\win32\patches''. If you download or make a subsequent patch, put it in this directory to keep things orderly. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff

2. Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''. Because the Windows patches are kept a little tucked away, Tortoise will probably give a message; '''The path {working directory}\packaging\win32\patches seems not to match the paths in the patchfile. But Tortoise found the path {working directory} matches it better. Do you want to use the suggested path instead?''' Click ''Yes'' to proceed.

3. Now comes the actual patching process. See the Tortoise website for an explanation of how to use the merge tool - http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view (see also the following pages)

4. Once patched, you will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick, as do its parent folders. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version, and helps you find altered files really quickly.

5. If you want to go back to the SVN version you originally ''checked out'', simply right click on an individual file or a whole folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. This will bring up a list of files that can be reverted. If you only selected one file, only that will be available to revert. If you selected a folder, all the modified files in that folder will be available to revert. Tick only those you wish to revert to the SVN version last checked out.

'''''Notes:'''''
* When applying several patches at once, you will possibly find that some patches update the same code modules. This is normal, and Tortoise can help you compare files and resolve conflicts. See the [http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view link mentioned above] to learn more.
* Sometimes conflicts are not able to be resolved using Tortoise, and you will need to edit the files by hand. Don't worry, you can always ''revert'' the files if you make a mistake. A good text editor to help is Notepad 2 - http://www.flos-freeware.ch/
* If you edit the source files yourself, Tortoise will register that the files are changed with an exclamation mark. To create your own patch from a changed file, right click on the ''src'' directory folder that contains your changed file, then select ''Tortoise SVN -> Create Patch''. Now tick only the file/s you edited and save the patch file. This can be posted to a bug report as a test, and possibly committed to SVN if your patch works.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch the hard way using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works independently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patch file must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous security software, screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

'''''Doing A New Build'''''

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat
You can usually just type mingwenv (enter) and Windows will execute the batch file.

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

'''''Re-building after modifying source modules'''''

If you've already built the source once and done a few changes to source code files, you can do a quick rebuild using many of the files already compiled in the ''build'' directory. Only those that need to be rebuilt will be, and the ''btool'' program automatically figures that out. It will then 'link' the relevant files together and copy them into the ''inkscape'' directory.

To do a quick rebuild, simply go to the directory that contains the source and do the following;

* Delete or rename the ''inkscape'' directory, which contains the previous fully built and linked version of Inkscape
* Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool
* Ishmal's build tool should now rebuild the individual files that have changed, along with any extra 'dependencies' these might require. If you've only applied one new patch, it can be done in less than 5 minutes!

'''''Note:''''' It is best not to do a quick rebuild if you have changed the version of libraries in C:\DEVLIBS. This can cause problems, as the files in the ''build'' directory incorporate functions from these libraries, which can change significantly between library versions. You will need to rebuild from scratch (see below).

'''''Rebuilding From Scratch'''''

To rebuild from scratch, you need to clean out any build files. First of all, if you want to keep the previously built version, rename the ''inkscape'' directory. Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool clean
...> btool

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? For instance if one particular file has gone wrong, or I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - To find the right command for building any particular file in Inkscape, just look in the compile.lst after you have used btool once. Search for the name of the particular file (eg: print.cpp) and you will find the command used to compile it. You'll need to paste this into a text file, remove any carriage reurns and then paste that onto the command line.

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Installing Inkscape

2008-04-25T01:32:26Z

Rygle: /* Installing on a Mac */ Tweaked 10.5.x notes

== Installing on a Mac ==

There are two steps needed to install on a Mac.

'''1. Getting The Right Inkscape Installer:'''

You need to download the right installation file from [http://www.inkscape.org/download/ here]. Note that this page has a separate version for Panther (10.3.9 only), and Tiger (10.4.x) and above. The Panther version is PPC only, while the Tiger version is ''Universal Binary'', meaning it installs on either older PPC or newer Intel Macs. The Tiger version will also work on Leopard (10.5.x)

Once you have the Inkscape installation package, double click on it and it will open a windows with an Inkscape icon on one side, and a shortcut to the Applications folder on the other side. You need to drag the Inkscape icon across and drop in on the Applications folder. This will copy the file to the Application folder.

To make a shortcut on your Dock, open the Applications folder, and drag the Inkscape icon to the place you want it on the dock.

'''2. Getting The Right X11 Installer:'''

To run Inkscape, you will also need to install X11. This is an environment that provides Unix like X-Window support for applications, including Inkscape (For more about X11 see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X11 here]). A native Mac OSX version that doesn't need X11 will be available sometime in the future (see [http://www.nabble.com/attachment/14733036/1/Inkscape%20OSX%20PL.gif here] or [http://jo.irisson.free.fr/?p=34 here] or [http://jo.irisson.free.fr/?p=62 here] for a sneak peek). But for now you need to do one of the following, depending on your OSX version.

'''''For Panther (10.3.x):'''''

You can download a suitable X11 from [http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/x11formacosx.html Apple] or mirrored [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Panther.dmg here].

'''''For Tiger (10.4.x):'''''

You can install X11 from your original install DVD (for help see [http://overstimulate.com/articles/2005/11/04/installing-x11-on-os-x-10-4-tiger here]). Alternately, you can download a version for PPC [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Tiger_PPC.dmg here], or Intel [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Tiger_Intel.dmg here]. These files are able to be freely re-distributed as X11 is open source.

'''Notes:'''
*Once installed, you should also update your X11 to version 1.1.2 [http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/x11update2006113.html here]. This requires the earlier version, so you cannot just install the update.
*A heavily improved version of X11 called [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/ XQuartz] is expected to be available for Tiger some time in 2008. This will bring X11 on Tiger (10.4.x) into line with Leopard (10.5.x). See [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/roadmap here] for a roadmap of that project.

'''''For Leopard (10.5.x):'''''

Leopard officially ships with a version of X11 called [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/ XQuartz] pre-installed, however the preinstalled version has some problems. Starting from January 2008, the XQuartz community released several updates to the XQuartz package in Mac OS X 10.5.x on [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz Mac OS Forge]. These releases significantly improve X11 on the version of XQuartz found in the original Leopard release.

On February 11 2008, Apple released an official XQuartz update in the [http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1052comboupdate.html Mac OS X 10.5.2 update]. This update addresses [http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307430 two security issues], although it is still somewhat behind the current XQuartz releases, upon which the official update is based. The [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz XQuartz site] notes that "''10.5.2's version of X11 is somewhere between the 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 packages released through this site''". It also warns that "''Installing versions prior to X11 2.1.2 onto OS-X 10.5.2 may work but is not supported.''"

XQuartz 2.2.0.1, released on April 14 2008, requires OS X 10.5.0, however if you install the 10.5.2 update (or other updates) after XQuartz, you will probably need to reinstall XQuartz.

For optimal performance and security, it is always best to install the latest Mac OS X updates, and then install the latest XQuartz over the top. This is what XQuartz is designed to do.

'''Notes:'''
*Because of changes to lanchd, you will need to logout after installing XQuartz.
*For the keen, pre-release candidates and recent deprecated versions of XQuartz are available [http://xquartz.macosforge.org/downloads/ here]. Information on a given release or release candidate is normally available at http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/wiki/X112.2.x (change x to suit)
*The XQuartz release roadmap is available [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/roadmap here].
*For more technical information about X11 on Mac, a good place to go is http://homepage.mac.com/sao1/X11/index.html

== Installing on Unix like systems ==

=== Using Precompiled Packages (For Normal Users) ===

==== Ubuntu Linux ====
Probably the easiest way to install on Ubuntu is to use the apt command.

Open a terminal and type;
sudo apt-get update (enter)
sudo apt-get install inkscape (enter)

==== Ubuntu Linux Development Versions ====

A few people have made builds of the development version of Inkscape 0.46 as it approaches release.

Bryce Harrington has made available some i386 builds of the early January 2008 version for ''Gutsy'' (7.10) and ''Hardy'' (8.04 - currently in development). See the relevant post on the [http://www.nabble.com/Inkscape-0.46%7Esvn-Ubuntu-.deb-snapshot-td14645864.html Inksape-user email list]. This seems to be a one-off snapshot.

NJH is offering nightly i386 and AMD64 builds for Gutsy and Edgy, along with supporting libraries like libcairo and libpixman. You can go to
[http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/ http://ubuntu.cafuego.net] and select the link for the particular version of Ubuntu you're using. On the next page, select Inkscape, or Cairo etc, then follow the instructions on the following page.

'''Note:''' Development versions offer some nice new features, but can be somewhat unstable, so save often. Inexperienced users will also quite possibly have problems installing them.

==== Slackware Linux ====
Pbhj says:

I used the [http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93438&package_id=99112&release_id=426990 precompiled rpm] provided by Inkscape for the 0.44 release as my gcc wouldn't compile it. All you need to then do is run rpm2tgz at the command line on the package, eg " rpm2tgz inkscape-0.44-0.i686.rpm" and then install with "installpkg inkscape-0.44-0.i686.tgz".

--[[User:Pbhj|Pbhj]] 13:29, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

=== Compiling Your Own (For The Techies) ===

NOTE: this isn't finished. I currently have two screwed up systems from fooling with bleeding edge GTK+ stuff, I don't know how that happened. !! :) I'll get to the end over the next few days tho. Setting up a more stable home network atm.
--
Tsingi

This was written building an InkScape snapshot on a new RedHat Linux installation. If you find that it doesn't answer your needs exactly, please update this file when you solve your particular problem.

'''Installing libraries'''

If you are running a debian based system, and have something like synaptic that lists recent enough versions of the libraries below, use that. If you want the latest libs, which you may need, especially if you are installing a snapshot or building from svn, you will want to download sources. Generally you will get a ''foo.tar.bz2'' or ''foo.tar.gz'' or ''foo.tgz'' file that you will need to unpack and build.

''bz2'' files are the smallest. Uncompress them first by typing ''bunzip2 foo.tar.gz'' then unpack the remaining tar file by typing ''tar -xvf foo.tar''

''foo.tar.gz'' files and ''foo.tgz'' files can be extracted in one operation by typing ''tar -xvzf foo.tar.gz''

Change to the directory that you just created ''foo''. type ''./configure'' then ''make'' then, as root, ''make install''

Sometimes that is all you will need to do.

Sometimes you will run into dependancy errors because you need a library you haven't installed yet. If you try installing inkscape without some of these dependancies, you will get a list of what you need. hopefully the instructions below will help you solve these dependancies.

'''Running ldconfig'''

after installing libs, (as root) you need to run ''ldconfig'' so that the linker can find the libraries that you have just installed. If you aren't logged in as root (i.e. if you became root by typing su) you may not have the /sbin/ directory in your path. so if ''ldconfig'' isn't working for you try typing ''/sbin/ldconfig''

'''pkg-config'''

''pkg-config'' is a utility that lists dependancies for libraries that sets up flags and paths for compiling. When it's working right it's wonderful. Getting it to work right is a pain in the ass if you don't know how. It's amazing how silent an IRC channel will get when you mention it.

''pkg-config'' references pc files that applications install to give information about them. These are called metadata files, metadata means data about data. For a list of libraries that pkg-config sees, type ''pkg-config --list-all'' Having done that and looking at a list of pc files on my system (using ''find /usr -name "*.pc" > find.pc'', then browsing find.pc) I see that I also have a directory called ''/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/'' I might as well get that in there while I'm at it since none of those libs show up in a listing either and that's where most of them are.

Depending on what shell you use, there are different ways of doing this. I'm adding a couple lines to my /etc/profile file:

''PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib/pkgconfig/:/usr/share/pkgconfig/:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/''

''export PKG_CONFIG_PATH''

Note that I have a new 64 bit system, which is why I'm going through all this. You probably won't have a ''/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/'' unless you do too, so don't just copy what I did. Also note that on a Windows system PATH type environment variables use semi-colons ";" for delimiters as opposed to colons ":"

Using bash, to immediately source the file in the shell you are using, type ''. /etc/profile'. This won't test to see if the path gets put into your environment when open a shell though, so maybe a better thing to do is close your terminals and open new ones to see that it is actually set automagically.

Ahh, I can now configure glibmm. The hair on the back of my neck is laying flat again, I think I'll have a coffee. :)

'''libgc'''

download and install the latest version of libgc[[http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/gc_source/]]

libgc installs in /usr/local/lib by default. If you have installed it and it is still not linking, you may not have that in your library path. There is a LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, or alternatively you can make sure that /usr/local/lib is listed in the file /etc/ls.so.conf

'''libsig++'''

download and install libsig++ [http://libsigc.sourceforge.net/stable.shtml]

this should be fairly straightforward.

'''glibmm'''

This is where, if you haven't wrestled with pkg-config on your system you start scratching your head. Because when you run configure on glibmm you may an error like this

''checking for GLIBMM... configure: error: Package requirements (sigc++-2.0 >= 2.0.0 glib-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gobject-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gmodule-2.0 >= 2.8.0) were not met. Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
installed software in a non-standard prefix.''

''Alternatively you may set the GLIBMM_CFLAGS and GLIBMM_LIBS environment variables to avoid the need to call pkg-config. See the pkg-config man page for
more details.''

It seems that most packages install in a non standard prefix, in direct defiance of everything we have been led to believe regarding the concept of standard, so you may have to deal with this. See the note on ''pkg-config'' above.

''gtkmm'' [http://www.gtkmm.org/]

----
(Ben) Tsingi, you are writing in the 'User Documentation' section. Most of this material is only appropriate for Developers and some would be better on the Mailing List. You will probably find that when you have finished, this page will be edited and pruned back. FWIW, I was expecting to find information about 'apt-get' (Debian) 'emerge' (Gentoo) and AutoPackage (the others).

[[Category:User Documentation]]

Installing Inkscape

2008-04-25T01:28:13Z

Rygle: /* Installing on a Mac */ Updated XQuartz details

== Installing on a Mac ==

There are two steps needed to install on a Mac.

'''1. Getting The Right Inkscape Installer:'''

You need to download the right installation file from [http://www.inkscape.org/download/ here]. Note that this page has a separate version for Panther (10.3.9 only), and Tiger (10.4.x) and above. The Panther version is PPC only, while the Tiger version is ''Universal Binary'', meaning it installs on either older PPC or newer Intel Macs. The Tiger version will also work on Leopard (10.5.x)

Once you have the Inkscape installation package, double click on it and it will open a windows with an Inkscape icon on one side, and a shortcut to the Applications folder on the other side. You need to drag the Inkscape icon across and drop in on the Applications folder. This will copy the file to the Application folder.

To make a shortcut on your Dock, open the Applications folder, and drag the Inkscape icon to the place you want it on the dock.

'''2. Getting The Right X11 Installer:'''

To run Inkscape, you will also need to install X11. This is an environment that provides Unix like X-Window support for applications, including Inkscape (For more about X11 see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X11 here]). A native Mac OSX version that doesn't need X11 will be available sometime in the future (see [http://www.nabble.com/attachment/14733036/1/Inkscape%20OSX%20PL.gif here] or [http://jo.irisson.free.fr/?p=34 here] or [http://jo.irisson.free.fr/?p=62 here] for a sneak peek). But for now you need to do one of the following, depending on your OSX version.

'''''For Panther (10.3.x):'''''

You can download a suitable X11 from [http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/x11formacosx.html Apple] or mirrored [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Panther.dmg here].

'''''For Tiger (10.4.x):'''''

You can install X11 from your original install DVD (for help see [http://overstimulate.com/articles/2005/11/04/installing-x11-on-os-x-10-4-tiger here]). Alternately, you can download a version for PPC [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Tiger_PPC.dmg here], or Intel [http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/X11User_Tiger_Intel.dmg here]. These files are able to be freely re-distributed as X11 is open source.

'''Notes:'''
*Once installed, you should also update your X11 to version 1.1.2 [http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/x11update2006113.html here]. This requires the earlier version, so you cannot just install the update.
*A heavily improved version of X11 called [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/ XQuartz] is expected to be available for Tiger some time in 2008. This will bring X11 on Tiger (10.4.x) into line with Leopard (10.5.x). See [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/roadmap here] for a roadmap of that project.

'''''For Leopard (10.5.x):'''''

Leopard officially ships with a version of X11 called [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/ XQuartz] pre-installed, however the preinstalled version has some problems. Starting from January 2008, the XQuartz community released several updates to the XQuartz package in Mac OS X 10.5.x on [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz Mac OS Forge]. These releases significantly improve X11 on the version of XQuartz found in the original Leopard release.

On February 11 2008, Apple released an official XQuartz update in the [http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1052comboupdate.html Mac OS X 10.5.2 update]. This update addresses [http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307430 two security issues], although it is still somewhat behind the current XQuartz releases, upon which the official update is based. The [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz XQuartz site] notes that "''10.5.2's version of X11 is somewhere between the 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 packages released through this site''". It also warns that "''Installing versions prior to X11 2.1.2 onto OS-X 10.5.2 may work but is not supported.''"

XQuartz 2.2.0.1, released on April 14 2008, requires OS X 10.5.0, however if you install the 10.5.2 update (or other updates) after XQuartz, you will probably need to reinstall XQuartz.

For optimal performance and security, it is always best to install the latest Mac OS X updates, and then install the latest XQuartz over the top. This is what XQuartz is designed to do.

'''Notes:'''
*For the keen, pre-release candidates and recent deprecated versions of XQuartz are available [http://xquartz.macosforge.org/downloads/ here]. Information on a given release or release candidate is normally available at http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/wiki/X112.2.x (change x to suit)
*The XQuartz release roadmap is available [http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/roadmap here].

== Installing on Unix like systems ==

=== Using Precompiled Packages (For Normal Users) ===

==== Ubuntu Linux ====
Probably the easiest way to install on Ubuntu is to use the apt command.

Open a terminal and type;
sudo apt-get update (enter)
sudo apt-get install inkscape (enter)

==== Ubuntu Linux Development Versions ====

A few people have made builds of the development version of Inkscape 0.46 as it approaches release.

Bryce Harrington has made available some i386 builds of the early January 2008 version for ''Gutsy'' (7.10) and ''Hardy'' (8.04 - currently in development). See the relevant post on the [http://www.nabble.com/Inkscape-0.46%7Esvn-Ubuntu-.deb-snapshot-td14645864.html Inksape-user email list]. This seems to be a one-off snapshot.

NJH is offering nightly i386 and AMD64 builds for Gutsy and Edgy, along with supporting libraries like libcairo and libpixman. You can go to
[http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/ http://ubuntu.cafuego.net] and select the link for the particular version of Ubuntu you're using. On the next page, select Inkscape, or Cairo etc, then follow the instructions on the following page.

'''Note:''' Development versions offer some nice new features, but can be somewhat unstable, so save often. Inexperienced users will also quite possibly have problems installing them.

==== Slackware Linux ====
Pbhj says:

I used the [http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93438&package_id=99112&release_id=426990 precompiled rpm] provided by Inkscape for the 0.44 release as my gcc wouldn't compile it. All you need to then do is run rpm2tgz at the command line on the package, eg " rpm2tgz inkscape-0.44-0.i686.rpm" and then install with "installpkg inkscape-0.44-0.i686.tgz".

--[[User:Pbhj|Pbhj]] 13:29, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

=== Compiling Your Own (For The Techies) ===

NOTE: this isn't finished. I currently have two screwed up systems from fooling with bleeding edge GTK+ stuff, I don't know how that happened. !! :) I'll get to the end over the next few days tho. Setting up a more stable home network atm.
--
Tsingi

This was written building an InkScape snapshot on a new RedHat Linux installation. If you find that it doesn't answer your needs exactly, please update this file when you solve your particular problem.

'''Installing libraries'''

If you are running a debian based system, and have something like synaptic that lists recent enough versions of the libraries below, use that. If you want the latest libs, which you may need, especially if you are installing a snapshot or building from svn, you will want to download sources. Generally you will get a ''foo.tar.bz2'' or ''foo.tar.gz'' or ''foo.tgz'' file that you will need to unpack and build.

''bz2'' files are the smallest. Uncompress them first by typing ''bunzip2 foo.tar.gz'' then unpack the remaining tar file by typing ''tar -xvf foo.tar''

''foo.tar.gz'' files and ''foo.tgz'' files can be extracted in one operation by typing ''tar -xvzf foo.tar.gz''

Change to the directory that you just created ''foo''. type ''./configure'' then ''make'' then, as root, ''make install''

Sometimes that is all you will need to do.

Sometimes you will run into dependancy errors because you need a library you haven't installed yet. If you try installing inkscape without some of these dependancies, you will get a list of what you need. hopefully the instructions below will help you solve these dependancies.

'''Running ldconfig'''

after installing libs, (as root) you need to run ''ldconfig'' so that the linker can find the libraries that you have just installed. If you aren't logged in as root (i.e. if you became root by typing su) you may not have the /sbin/ directory in your path. so if ''ldconfig'' isn't working for you try typing ''/sbin/ldconfig''

'''pkg-config'''

''pkg-config'' is a utility that lists dependancies for libraries that sets up flags and paths for compiling. When it's working right it's wonderful. Getting it to work right is a pain in the ass if you don't know how. It's amazing how silent an IRC channel will get when you mention it.

''pkg-config'' references pc files that applications install to give information about them. These are called metadata files, metadata means data about data. For a list of libraries that pkg-config sees, type ''pkg-config --list-all'' Having done that and looking at a list of pc files on my system (using ''find /usr -name "*.pc" > find.pc'', then browsing find.pc) I see that I also have a directory called ''/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/'' I might as well get that in there while I'm at it since none of those libs show up in a listing either and that's where most of them are.

Depending on what shell you use, there are different ways of doing this. I'm adding a couple lines to my /etc/profile file:

''PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib/pkgconfig/:/usr/share/pkgconfig/:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/''

''export PKG_CONFIG_PATH''

Note that I have a new 64 bit system, which is why I'm going through all this. You probably won't have a ''/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/'' unless you do too, so don't just copy what I did. Also note that on a Windows system PATH type environment variables use semi-colons ";" for delimiters as opposed to colons ":"

Using bash, to immediately source the file in the shell you are using, type ''. /etc/profile'. This won't test to see if the path gets put into your environment when open a shell though, so maybe a better thing to do is close your terminals and open new ones to see that it is actually set automagically.

Ahh, I can now configure glibmm. The hair on the back of my neck is laying flat again, I think I'll have a coffee. :)

'''libgc'''

download and install the latest version of libgc[[http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/gc_source/]]

libgc installs in /usr/local/lib by default. If you have installed it and it is still not linking, you may not have that in your library path. There is a LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, or alternatively you can make sure that /usr/local/lib is listed in the file /etc/ls.so.conf

'''libsig++'''

download and install libsig++ [http://libsigc.sourceforge.net/stable.shtml]

this should be fairly straightforward.

'''glibmm'''

This is where, if you haven't wrestled with pkg-config on your system you start scratching your head. Because when you run configure on glibmm you may an error like this

''checking for GLIBMM... configure: error: Package requirements (sigc++-2.0 >= 2.0.0 glib-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gobject-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gmodule-2.0 >= 2.8.0) were not met. Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
installed software in a non-standard prefix.''

''Alternatively you may set the GLIBMM_CFLAGS and GLIBMM_LIBS environment variables to avoid the need to call pkg-config. See the pkg-config man page for
more details.''

It seems that most packages install in a non standard prefix, in direct defiance of everything we have been led to believe regarding the concept of standard, so you may have to deal with this. See the note on ''pkg-config'' above.

''gtkmm'' [http://www.gtkmm.org/]

----
(Ben) Tsingi, you are writing in the 'User Documentation' section. Most of this material is only appropriate for Developers and some would be better on the Mailing List. You will probably find that when you have finished, this page will be edited and pruned back. FWIW, I was expecting to find information about 'apt-get' (Debian) 'emerge' (Gentoo) and AutoPackage (the others).

[[Category:User Documentation]]

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-04-18T00:50:12Z

Rygle: /* Getting The Compiler & Libraries */ Updated devlibs and simplified explanation

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* A recommended step is to download and install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching
* You need to download the source code and possibly apply patches if bug testing

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Thanks to Ishmal, it is extremely easy to set up your system to compile Inkscape. He has made a complete set of compiler and library files available from his website - http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the latest versions. As of '''April 17 2008''' those are:
* The mingw compiler version 4.2.1 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* Other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080417.7z

The configuration files expect these packages in specific directories:
* Unzip the compiler (mingw-{version}.7z) to C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* Unzip the other libraries (devlibs-{version}.7z) to C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
** For the 0.47 development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;

1. Find your patch. Windows Patches to the main SVN are now being kept in a folder under your main working directory called ''packaging\win32\patches''. If you download or make a subsequent patch, put it in this directory to keep things orderly. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff

2. Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''. Because the Windows patches are kept a little tucked away, Tortoise will probably give a message; '''The path {working directory}\packaging\win32\patches seems not to match the paths in the patchfile. But Tortoise found the path {working directory} matches it better. Do you want to use the suggested path instead?''' Click ''Yes'' to proceed.

3. Now comes the actual patching process. See the Tortoise website for an explanation of how to use the merge tool - http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view (see also the following pages)

4. Once patched, you will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick, as do its parent folders. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version, and helps you find altered files really quickly.

5. If you want to go back to the SVN version you originally ''checked out'', simply right click on an individual file or a whole folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. This will bring up a list of files that can be reverted. If you only selected one file, only that will be available to revert. If you selected a folder, all the modified files in that folder will be available to revert. Tick only those you wish to revert to the SVN version last checked out.

'''''Notes:'''''
* When applying several patches at once, you will possibly find that some patches update the same code modules. This is normal, and Tortoise can help you compare files and resolve conflicts. See the [http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view link mentioned above] to learn more.
* Sometimes conflicts are not able to be resolved using Tortoise, and you will need to edit the files by hand. Don't worry, you can always ''revert'' the files if you make a mistake. A good text editor to help is Notepad 2 - http://www.flos-freeware.ch/
* If you edit the source files yourself, Tortoise will register that the files are changed with an exclamation mark. To create your own patch from a changed file, right click on the ''src'' directory folder that contains your changed file, then select ''Tortoise SVN -> Create Patch''. Now tick only the file/s you edited and save the patch file. This can be posted to a bug report as a test, and possibly committed to SVN if your patch works.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch the hard way using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works independently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patch file must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous security software, screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

'''''Doing A New Build'''''

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat
You can usually just type mingwenv (enter) and Windows will execute the batch file.

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

'''''Re-building after modifying source modules'''''

If you've already built the source once and done a few changes to source code files, you can do a quick rebuild using many of the files already compiled in the ''build'' directory. Only those that need to be rebuilt will be, and the ''btool'' program automatically figures that out. It will then 'link' the relevant files together and copy them into the ''inkscape'' directory.

To do a quick rebuild, simply go to the directory that contains the source and do the following;

* Delete or rename the ''inkscape'' directory, which contains the previous fully built and linked version of Inkscape
* Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool
* Ishmal's build tool should now rebuild the individual files that have changed, along with any extra 'dependencies' these might require. If you've only applied one new patch, it can be done in less than 5 minutes!

'''''Note:''''' It is best not to do a quick rebuild if you have changed the version of libraries in C:\DEVLIBS. This can cause problems, as the files in the ''build'' directory incorporate functions from these libraries, which can change significantly between library versions. You will need to rebuild from scratch (see below).

'''''Rebuilding From Scratch'''''

To rebuild from scratch, you need to clean out any build files. First of all, if you want to keep the previously built version, rename the ''inkscape'' directory. Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool clean
...> btool

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? For instance if one particular file has gone wrong, or I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - To find the right command for building any particular file in Inkscape, just look in the compile.lst after you have used btool once. Search for the name of the particular file (eg: print.cpp) and you will find the command used to compile it. You'll need to paste this into a text file, remove any carriage reurns and then paste that onto the command line.

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-04-03T06:46:05Z

Rygle: /* Building The Binary */ Updated directions for rebuilding

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* A recommended step is to download and install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching
* You need to download the source code and possibly apply patches if bug testing

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Ishmal provides a complete set of compiler and library files on his website. You can get all packages from http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the last versions. As of April 1 2008 those are:
* the mingw compiler version 4.2 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080401.7z

The configuration files expect the packages in specific directories:
* the compiler C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* other libraries C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
** For the 0.47 development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;

1. Find your patch. Windows Patches to the main SVN are now being kept in a folder under your main working directory called ''packaging\win32\patches''. If you download or make a subsequent patch, put it in this directory to keep things orderly. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff

2. Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''. Because the Windows patches are kept a little tucked away, Tortoise will probably give a message; '''The path {working directory}\packaging\win32\patches seems not to match the paths in the patchfile. But Tortoise found the path {working directory} matches it better. Do you want to use the suggested path instead?''' Click ''Yes'' to proceed.

3. Now comes the actual patching process. See the Tortoise website for an explanation of how to use the merge tool - http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view (see also the following pages)

4. Once patched, you will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick, as do its parent folders. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version, and helps you find altered files really quickly.

5. If you want to go back to the SVN version you originally ''checked out'', simply right click on an individual file or a whole folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. This will bring up a list of files that can be reverted. If you only selected one file, only that will be available to revert. If you selected a folder, all the modified files in that folder will be available to revert. Tick only those you wish to revert to the SVN version last checked out.

'''''Notes:'''''
* When applying several patches at once, you will possibly find that some patches update the same code modules. This is normal, and Tortoise can help you compare files and resolve conflicts. See the [http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view link mentioned above] to learn more.
* Sometimes conflicts are not able to be resolved using Tortoise, and you will need to edit the files by hand. Don't worry, you can always ''revert'' the files if you make a mistake. A good text editor to help is Notepad 2 - http://www.flos-freeware.ch/
* If you edit the source files yourself, Tortoise will register that the files are changed with an exclamation mark. To create your own patch from a changed file, right click on the ''src'' directory folder that contains your changed file, then select ''Tortoise SVN -> Create Patch''. Now tick only the file/s you edited and save the patch file. This can be posted to a bug report as a test, and possibly committed to SVN if your patch works.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch the hard way using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works independently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patch file must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous security software, screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

'''''Doing A New Build'''''

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat
You can usually just type mingwenv (enter) and Windows will execute the batch file.

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

'''''Re-building after modifying source modules'''''

If you've already built the source once and done a few changes to source code files, you can do a quick rebuild using many of the files already compiled in the ''build'' directory. Only those that need to be rebuilt will be, and the ''btool'' program automatically figures that out. It will then 'link' the relevant files together and copy them into the ''inkscape'' directory.

To do a quick rebuild, simply go to the directory that contains the source and do the following;

* Delete or rename the ''inkscape'' directory, which contains the previous fully built and linked version of Inkscape
* Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool
* Ishmal's build tool should now rebuild the individual files that have changed, along with any extra 'dependencies' these might require. If you've only applied one new patch, it can be done in less than 5 minutes!

'''''Note:''''' It is best not to do a quick rebuild if you have changed the version of libraries in C:\DEVLIBS. This can cause problems, as the files in the ''build'' directory incorporate functions from these libraries, which can change significantly between library versions. You will need to rebuild from scratch (see below).

'''''Rebuilding From Scratch'''''

To rebuild from scratch, you need to clean out any build files. First of all, if you want to keep the previously built version, rename the ''inkscape'' directory. Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool clean
...> btool

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? For instance if one particular file has gone wrong, or I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - To find the right command for building any particular file in Inkscape, just look in the compile.lst after you have used btool once. Search for the name of the particular file (eg: print.cpp) and you will find the command used to compile it. You'll need to paste this into a text file, remove any carriage reurns and then paste that onto the command line.

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-04-03T06:35:59Z

Rygle: /* Getting The Compiler & Libraries */ Updated devlibs version

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* A recommended step is to download and install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching
* You need to download the source code and possibly apply patches if bug testing

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Ishmal provides a complete set of compiler and library files on his website. You can get all packages from http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the last versions. As of April 1 2008 those are:
* the mingw compiler version 4.2 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080401.7z

The configuration files expect the packages in specific directories:
* the compiler C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* other libraries C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
** For the 0.47 development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;

1. Find your patch. Windows Patches to the main SVN are now being kept in a folder under your main working directory called ''packaging\win32\patches''. If you download or make a subsequent patch, put it in this directory to keep things orderly. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff

2. Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''. Because the Windows patches are kept a little tucked away, Tortoise will probably give a message; '''The path {working directory}\packaging\win32\patches seems not to match the paths in the patchfile. But Tortoise found the path {working directory} matches it better. Do you want to use the suggested path instead?''' Click ''Yes'' to proceed.

3. Now comes the actual patching process. See the Tortoise website for an explanation of how to use the merge tool - http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view (see also the following pages)

4. Once patched, you will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick, as do its parent folders. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version, and helps you find altered files really quickly.

5. If you want to go back to the SVN version you originally ''checked out'', simply right click on an individual file or a whole folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. This will bring up a list of files that can be reverted. If you only selected one file, only that will be available to revert. If you selected a folder, all the modified files in that folder will be available to revert. Tick only those you wish to revert to the SVN version last checked out.

'''''Notes:'''''
* When applying several patches at once, you will possibly find that some patches update the same code modules. This is normal, and Tortoise can help you compare files and resolve conflicts. See the [http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view link mentioned above] to learn more.
* Sometimes conflicts are not able to be resolved using Tortoise, and you will need to edit the files by hand. Don't worry, you can always ''revert'' the files if you make a mistake. A good text editor to help is Notepad 2 - http://www.flos-freeware.ch/
* If you edit the source files yourself, Tortoise will register that the files are changed with an exclamation mark. To create your own patch from a changed file, right click on the ''src'' directory folder that contains your changed file, then select ''Tortoise SVN -> Create Patch''. Now tick only the file/s you edited and save the patch file. This can be posted to a bug report as a test, and possibly committed to SVN if your patch works.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch the hard way using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works independently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patch file must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous firewall software like Comodo's Defense+, which is a great firewall, but asks for confirmation to allow every new process that runs. It might also be good to disable screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

'''''Doing A New Build'''''

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat
You can usually just type mingwenv (enter) and Windows will execute the batch file.

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

'''''Re-building after modifying source modules'''''

If you've already built the source once and done a few changes to source code files, you can do a quick rebuild using many of the files already compiled in the ''build'' directory. Only those that need to be rebuilt will be, and the ''btool'' program automatically figures that out. It will then 'link' the relevant files together and copy them into the ''inkscape'' directory.

To do a quick rebuild, simply go to the directory that contains the source and do the following;

* Delete or rename the ''inkscape'' directory, which contains the previous fully built and linked version of Inkscape
* Now delete four files created by btool.
** config.h
** inkscape_version.h
** compile.lst
** build.dep
* Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool
Ishmal's build tool should now rebuild the individual files that have changed, along with any extra 'dependencies' these might require. If you've only applied one new patch, it can be done in less than 5 minutes!

'''''Note:''''' It is best not to do a quick rebuild if you have changed the version of libraries in C:\DEVLIBS. This can cause problems, as the files in the ''build'' directory incorporate functions from these libraries, which can change significantly between library versions. You will need to rebuild from scratch (see below).

'''''Rebuilding From Scratch'''''

To rebuild from scratch, you will also need to delete the ''build'' directory and again open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? For instance if one particular file has gone wrong, or I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - To find the right command for building any particular file in Inkscape, just look in the compile.lst after you have used btool once. Search for the name of the particular file (eg: print.cpp) and you will find the command used to compile it. You'll need to paste this into a text file, remove any carriage reurns and then paste that onto the command line.

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Release notes/0.46

2008-03-29T04:45:47Z

Rygle: /* Known Issues */ Adjusted Known Issues to match latest version on SF

=Inkscape 0.46=

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

* Conversion of objects to 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 Grow and carving holes with Shrink. 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 AI; 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, shrinking, or growing 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 shrinking or growing 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 create drawings or objects that appear three-dimensional. The new '''3D box tool''' helps you create such drawings by automating the most common operation: creating a box in a given 3D 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; Shift+drag without releasing the mouse button to extrude in Z direction.

* Adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles. The 4 handles on the front X/Y side resize it, the four ones on the back X/Y side expand/contract the box in Z direction. With Shift, the functions of handles on front and back sides are reversed. With Ctrl, the side-resizing handles snap to the coordinate axes or diagonals.

* 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 on the canvas (see below) or toggling their states; all boxes sharing this perspective are affected by a vanishing point move.

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.

In SVG, a 3D box is represented as a '''group''' (svg:g) with a special extension attribute (in Inkscape's 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.

===Keyboard shortcuts===

* '''X''', '''Shift+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.

* When the 3D box tool is active, '''Shift+X''', '''Shift+Y''', and '''Shift+Z''' toggle perspective lines in the corresponding direction between "converging" and "parallel".

==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), as well as to '''-1/3''', '''-1/2''', '''-1''', '''-2''', '''-3''', etc. 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.

==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.

* 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.

==Ellipse Tool==

* It is now easy to create ellipses/circles passing through particular points. Normally, the starting and ending point of the mouse drag mark the corners of the '''bounding box'''. Now the '''Alt''' modifier can be used to enlarge the ellipse so that its '''circumference''' passes through these two points.

* '''Ctrl+Alt+drag''' is an exception from this rule. It creates a perfect circle whose diameter is defined by the starting and ending point of the drag.

==Pen/Pencil Tools==

These tools can now create '''single dots''' by '''Ctrl+click''' on the canvas. This creates a small circle filled with the current stroke color. The radius can be set in the Preferences of the respective tools (it is specified as a multiple of the current stroke width). '''Shift+Ctrl+click''' creates a dot twice the specified size, and '''Alt+Ctrl+click''' varies the size of the created dots randomly.

==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 '''feFlood''' filter primitive fills its region with a given color and opacity. It can be used as an auxiliary tool, usualy in combination with other filter primitives, in order to facilitate some common color handling operations.

* 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

===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!

=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 '''Generate from Path > Dimensions''' extension creates CAD style dimensions that are basically arrows with lengths equal to selection's bounding box and captions representing length.

* 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.

=Markers=

* A new command, '''Objects to Marker''', was added to the Object menu. It converts the current selection into a marker. After you do it, the selection is deleted, but the list of markers in the Fill and Stroke dialog, Stroke style tab, now contains the new marker that you can apply to paths.

:* When creating the new marker, Inkscape assumes that the original objects are oriented as they should be on a horizontal path that goes from left to right. For example, if you create a new arrowhead that you plan to use as an end marker, make it point horizontally to the right before converting it to marker.

:* Similar to standard markers, the user-created marker will scale up and down as you change the stroke width. Its initial size (i.e. the size of the object that you have turned into a marker) corresponds to the 1 px stroke.

:* When you create a new marker, Inkscape uses the rotation center of the (first) selected object as the anchor point, i.e. the point which will coincide with the node to which that marker is attached. By default, the rotation center is in the center of the object's bounding box, which means the newly created marker will be centered around its node. If you move the rotation center, for example, to one of the corners of the object, the new marker will touch its node by that corner.

* Several new '''UML markers''' were added to the standard set, including filled and hollow diamonds and triangles.

* '''Master opacity''' did not apply to path markers as it should; this is fixed.

* '''Stock markers''', if used in the document, now appear in the "this document's markers" section at the top of the marker lists in the Fill & Stroke dialog. Before, any markers with stock IDs (including markers modified by the user) were hidden, making it difficult to work with modified stock markers.

=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.

== OS support ==

Сolor management is supported in Linux and Mac OS X only at this time.

=Grids, guides, snapping=

==Grids==
Grids have undergone some big changes under-the-hood. These are the visible changes:

* There is a new 3D/axonometric grid. It consists of three sets of parallel lines, one vertical and others at angles of +30 and -30 degrees from the horizontal. The angles of these two latter sets and the spacing of the grid are user-settable.

* A new tab in the Document Properties dialog, Grids, is devoted solely to grids; the former grid/guide tab is renamed Guides and is now used only for guides. On the Grids page, you can create and manage grids of various types in your document; so far the two types available are Rectangular (default) and Axonometric, but more types may be added in the future.

* More than one grid can be active at the same time:
:* Each grid can be enabled/disabled separately from the Document Properties dialog.

* For each grid, you can hide it by unchecking the "Visible" checkbox in the grid's tab, or disable snapping to it by unchecking "Enabled". Note that you can have "Enabled" on and "Visible" off (but not vice versa), in which case you snap to the invisible grid.

* Multiple views on the same document (i.e. different Inkscape windows with the same document loaded) share the same grids, but the grid can be turned on and off for each view separately. For example, you could have a zoomed-out "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.

* 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 by subclassing CanvasGrid. 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!
* Grid information is now stored in SVG as a child of sodipodi:namedview. Old files will be converted to this new format automatically.
* An old bug is fixed: apparently the origin of the document coordinate system used to be set to the origin of the grid. For example, in 0.45.1 and before, specifying a grid origin of (20,20) moved the origin or coordinates to that point, and the grid was still starting at (0,0) in this moved coordinate system. This is now disabled, and the coordinate origin is not affected by grid origin.

==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 end of the ruler, 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 '''Ctrl''' is pressed, the angle is perpendicular to the grid lines (useful for aligning gradients).

==Creating guidelines from objects==

* Selected objects can now be converted to guidelines. To do this, either use the menu command '''"Object->Object to guides"''' or press '''Shift+G''' in Selector tool (this shortcut also works in some other tools, see below). The conversion process recurses into groups, i.e. all objects in the current selection are converted regardless if they are grouped or not.

* Created guides can be quickly deleted by '''Ctrl'''+clicking on them (this is of course not restricted to guides created by the process described above). Note that this only works in Selector and Node tools, i.e., in contexts where guidelines can be manipulated with the mouse.

* '''Paths''' are converted by creating one guide for each straight line segment occurring in the path (whereas curved segments are not taken into account). To make this conveniently accessible, the shortcut '''Shift+G''' works in Pen and Pencil tools, too.

* For all other objects, conversion usually happens by placing the guidelines around the object's bounding box (use the corresponding checkbox in the "Tools" page of Inkscape Preferences to switch between geometric and visual bounding box).

*For '''rectangles''' and '''3D boxes''' there is a special option in their preferences pages (checked by default) which instead allows the guidelines to be placed along the object's edges so that they imitate its true shape. This is especially useful when converting rotated or skewed rectangles (to create guidelines in a special position) or for creating 3D scenes containing other objects than just boxes. The shortcut '''Shift+G''' works in these tools as well.

==Snapping==

* Snapping has been implemented or improved for:

:* '''Newly created shapes'''

:* '''Skewing''' of objects

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

:* '''Images''', '''ellipses''', 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).

=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. 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 and requires that you have Python and UniConvertor installed. As of UniConvertor 1.1.1, versions from 7 to X4 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.

==WMF import==

Now Inkscape uses UniConvertor for opening WMF files, which results in three noticable changes:

# imported files are editable now
# known rendering issues are resolved
# WMF import works on all platforms where UniConvertor works (including Windows)

Text objects are not supported by UniConvertor as of version 1.1.1.

==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 ==

Inkscape features a preliminary support for importing drawings from [http://openclipart.org/ Open Clip Art Library].

After specifying account details in Preferences dialog (Import/Export tab) use 'File > Import From Open Clip Art Library' command to open a dialog, then search for tags and pick one of the results to merge this found drawing into your document.

=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 ==

Inkscape's dialog handling has been reworked in this release to allow dialogs to behave like '''dockable panels'''. The dock area that holds the user's dialogs is located right of the canvas.

Dialogs placed in the dock can easily be rearranged, resized, stacked in groups or iconified. Furthermore, a dialog can be dragged of the dock to become a floating dock in itself—this allows other dialogs to be dragged and dropped on it to form a floating group of dialogs.

The old dialog behavior (used in releases before 0.46) has been preserved as an option, and if it is preferred, one can select it under ''Windows'' > ''Dialog behavior'' in the Inkscape preferences dialog.

====Known issues====

* Some of Inkscape's dialogs are yet to be adapted to allow docking, these include the "Text and Font" dialog, the "Tiled clones" dialog, the "XML editor" and the "Object properties" dialog.

* Floating dialogs that are closed and later reopened might reappear on positions slightly different than their original ones.

* Resizing dialogs that are placed in the dock can be a bit slow and quirky.

* The total height of content the dock will in most cases remain the same when a dialog is closed/iconified, i.e. the remaining docked dialogs will fill the hole. This might not the desired behavior.

====Settings====

Three settings that control dockable dialogs behavior are present in the <code>preferences.xml</code> file under a <code>options</code> group called <code>dock</code>:

* <code>cancenterdock</code>: controls if dialogs are allowed to be stacked on top of each other to be ordered in groups. Valid values are <code>"0"</code> and <code>"1"</code>.

* <code>dockbarstyle</code>: controls what information is shown for iconified dockable dialogs. <code>"0"</code> = icons only, <code>"1"</code> = text only, <code>"2"</code> = both icons and text.

* <code>switcherstyle</code>: controls what information is shown for grouped dockable dialogs. <code>"0"</code> = icons only, <code>"1"</code> = text only, <code>"2"</code> = both icons and text.

== Toolbars ==

'''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.

Switching to stock GTK+ toolbars. This allows for the main window to be made narrower, with toolbar items flowing into a popup menu as it is resized.

== 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.

:* A new submenu has been added to affect the shape of the displayed swatches, allowing their preferred size to be made thinner or wider. Among other things, this allows for more to be seen on screen at once when made thinner.

:* Sizing of the swatches has been corrected to be properly progressive, and now go form smaller to larger on all platforms.

:* Space reserved for the scrollbar is no longer kept with smaller palettes shown in the bottom of the main UI. This allows for more working space when palettes with not many entries are selected at smaller sizes.

==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.

== Bounding box option moved ==

The preferences option to select between "visual" and "geometric" bounding box was moved in Inkscape Preferences dialog from the "Selector" page to "Tools" page (since it applies more globally than just in Selector tool).

== 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.

== Keyboard profiles ==

New profiles have been added:

* '''Corel DRAW X4''' (corel-draw-x4.xml)
* '''Zoner Draw 5''' (zoner-draw.xml)
* '''ACD Systems Canvas 11''' (acd-canvas.xml)

Also, profile for Adobe Illustrator has been fixed and includes bindings for tools now.

(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>.)

=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.

* Inkscape application bundle on '''Mac OS X''' now has the possibility to contain '''pre-compiled python modules''' (e.g. lxml, numpy, etc.) and to use them without requiring any work from the user. Since Python itself is shipped with Mac OS X, the user only has to drag and drop Inkscape on its hard-drive and all the extensions will be '''functional immediately'''.

=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).

* 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.

* '''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; it is now fixed.

* Serious usability issues with the font size field in the Text tool's controls bar have been fixed.

* The rulers are now correctly scaled and will align nicely with document coordinates, with or without the scrollbars displayed.

=Known Issues=

* (LP: #180890) Blend modes do not work correctly over transparent backgrounds. A workaround is to place an opaque rectangle underneath the bottom-most layer.
* (LP # 202704) Blur and other filters are very slow when applied to an object with transform= attribute with rotation or skew. To avoid this slowdown, either do not rotate/skew objects you use with filters, or apply filters only to paths (but not shapes to text) because paths, by default, get no transform= attribute when you rotate or skew them.
* Windows printing has two known issues. In both cases the workaround is to print to bitmap (Print -> Rendering -> Bitmap).
** (LP # 205732) Blurred objects are misaligned when printing.
** (LP # 208217) Masked objects disappear from the page when printing.

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.46

2008-03-28T08:42:31Z

Rygle: /* Known Issues */ Modified Windows Known Issues

=Inkscape 0.46=

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

* Conversion of objects to 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 Grow and carving holes with Shrink. 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 AI; 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, shrinking, or growing 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 shrinking or growing 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 create drawings or objects that appear three-dimensional. The new '''3D box tool''' helps you create such drawings by automating the most common operation: creating a box in a given 3D 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; Shift+drag without releasing the mouse button to extrude in Z direction.

* Adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles. The 4 handles on the front X/Y side resize it, the four ones on the back X/Y side expand/contract the box in Z direction. With Shift, the functions of handles on front and back sides are reversed. With Ctrl, the side-resizing handles snap to the coordinate axes or diagonals.

* 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 on the canvas (see below) or toggling their states; all boxes sharing this perspective are affected by a vanishing point move.

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.

In SVG, a 3D box is represented as a '''group''' (svg:g) with a special extension attribute (in Inkscape's 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.

===Keyboard shortcuts===

* '''X''', '''Shift+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.

* When the 3D box tool is active, '''Shift+X''', '''Shift+Y''', and '''Shift+Z''' toggle perspective lines in the corresponding direction between "converging" and "parallel".

==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), as well as to '''-1/3''', '''-1/2''', '''-1''', '''-2''', '''-3''', etc. 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.

==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.

* 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.

==Ellipse Tool==

* It is now easy to create ellipses/circles passing through particular points. Normally, the starting and ending point of the mouse drag mark the corners of the '''bounding box'''. Now the '''Alt''' modifier can be used to enlarge the ellipse so that its '''circumference''' passes through these two points.

* '''Ctrl+Alt+drag''' is an exception from this rule. It creates a perfect circle whose diameter is defined by the starting and ending point of the drag.

==Pen/Pencil Tools==

These tools can now create '''single dots''' by '''Ctrl+click''' on the canvas. This creates a small circle filled with the current stroke color. The radius can be set in the Preferences of the respective tools (it is specified as a multiple of the current stroke width). '''Shift+Ctrl+click''' creates a dot twice the specified size, and '''Alt+Ctrl+click''' varies the size of the created dots randomly.

==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 '''feFlood''' filter primitive fills its region with a given color and opacity. It can be used as an auxiliary tool, usualy in combination with other filter primitives, in order to facilitate some common color handling operations.

* 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

===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!

=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 '''Generate from Path > Dimensions''' extension creates CAD style dimensions that are basically arrows with lengths equal to selection's bounding box and captions representing length.

* 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.

=Markers=

* A new command, '''Objects to Marker''', was added to the Object menu. It converts the current selection into a marker. After you do it, the selection is deleted, but the list of markers in the Fill and Stroke dialog, Stroke style tab, now contains the new marker that you can apply to paths.

:* When creating the new marker, Inkscape assumes that the original objects are oriented as they should be on a horizontal path that goes from left to right. For example, if you create a new arrowhead that you plan to use as an end marker, make it point horizontally to the right before converting it to marker.

:* Similar to standard markers, the user-created marker will scale up and down as you change the stroke width. Its initial size (i.e. the size of the object that you have turned into a marker) corresponds to the 1 px stroke.

:* When you create a new marker, Inkscape uses the rotation center of the (first) selected object as the anchor point, i.e. the point which will coincide with the node to which that marker is attached. By default, the rotation center is in the center of the object's bounding box, which means the newly created marker will be centered around its node. If you move the rotation center, for example, to one of the corners of the object, the new marker will touch its node by that corner.

* Several new '''UML markers''' were added to the standard set, including filled and hollow diamonds and triangles.

* '''Master opacity''' did not apply to path markers as it should; this is fixed.

* '''Stock markers''', if used in the document, now appear in the "this document's markers" section at the top of the marker lists in the Fill & Stroke dialog. Before, any markers with stock IDs (including markers modified by the user) were hidden, making it difficult to work with modified stock markers.

=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.

== OS support ==

Сolor management is supported in Linux and Mac OS X only at this time.

=Grids, guides, snapping=

==Grids==
Grids have undergone some big changes under-the-hood. These are the visible changes:

* There is a new 3D/axonometric grid. It consists of three sets of parallel lines, one vertical and others at angles of +30 and -30 degrees from the horizontal. The angles of these two latter sets and the spacing of the grid are user-settable.

* A new tab in the Document Properties dialog, Grids, is devoted solely to grids; the former grid/guide tab is renamed Guides and is now used only for guides. On the Grids page, you can create and manage grids of various types in your document; so far the two types available are Rectangular (default) and Axonometric, but more types may be added in the future.

* More than one grid can be active at the same time:
:* Each grid can be enabled/disabled separately from the Document Properties dialog.

* For each grid, you can hide it by unchecking the "Visible" checkbox in the grid's tab, or disable snapping to it by unchecking "Enabled". Note that you can have "Enabled" on and "Visible" off (but not vice versa), in which case you snap to the invisible grid.

* Multiple views on the same document (i.e. different Inkscape windows with the same document loaded) share the same grids, but the grid can be turned on and off for each view separately. For example, you could have a zoomed-out "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.

* 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 by subclassing CanvasGrid. 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!
* Grid information is now stored in SVG as a child of sodipodi:namedview. Old files will be converted to this new format automatically.
* An old bug is fixed: apparently the origin of the document coordinate system used to be set to the origin of the grid. For example, in 0.45.1 and before, specifying a grid origin of (20,20) moved the origin or coordinates to that point, and the grid was still starting at (0,0) in this moved coordinate system. This is now disabled, and the coordinate origin is not affected by grid origin.

==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 end of the ruler, 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 '''Ctrl''' is pressed, the angle is perpendicular to the grid lines (useful for aligning gradients).

==Creating guidelines from objects==

* Selected objects can now be converted to guidelines. To do this, either use the menu command '''"Object->Object to guides"''' or press '''Shift+G''' in Selector tool (this shortcut also works in some other tools, see below). The conversion process recurses into groups, i.e. all objects in the current selection are converted regardless if they are grouped or not.

* Created guides can be quickly deleted by '''Ctrl'''+clicking on them (this is of course not restricted to guides created by the process described above). Note that this only works in Selector and Node tools, i.e., in contexts where guidelines can be manipulated with the mouse.

* '''Paths''' are converted by creating one guide for each straight line segment occurring in the path (whereas curved segments are not taken into account). To make this conveniently accessible, the shortcut '''Shift+G''' works in Pen and Pencil tools, too.

* For all other objects, conversion usually happens by placing the guidelines around the object's bounding box (use the corresponding checkbox in the "Tools" page of Inkscape Preferences to switch between geometric and visual bounding box).

*For '''rectangles''' and '''3D boxes''' there is a special option in their preferences pages (checked by default) which instead allows the guidelines to be placed along the object's edges so that they imitate its true shape. This is especially useful when converting rotated or skewed rectangles (to create guidelines in a special position) or for creating 3D scenes containing other objects than just boxes. The shortcut '''Shift+G''' works in these tools as well.

==Snapping==

* Snapping has been implemented or improved for:

:* '''Newly created shapes'''

:* '''Skewing''' of objects

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

:* '''Images''', '''ellipses''', 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).

=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. 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 and requires that you have Python and UniConvertor installed. As of UniConvertor 1.1.1, versions from 7 to X4 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.

==WMF import==

Now Inkscape uses UniConvertor for opening WMF files, which results in three noticable changes:

# imported files are editable now
# known rendering issues are resolved
# WMF import works on all platforms where UniConvertor works (including Windows)

Text objects are not supported by UniConvertor as of version 1.1.1.

==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 ==

Inkscape features a preliminary support for importing drawings from [http://openclipart.org/ Open Clip Art Library].

After specifying account details in Preferences dialog (Import/Export tab) use 'File > Import From Open Clip Art Library' command to open a dialog, then search for tags and pick one of the results to merge this found drawing into your document.

=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 ==

Inkscape's dialog handling has been reworked in this release to allow dialogs to behave like '''dockable panels'''. The dock area that holds the user's dialogs is located right of the canvas.

Dialogs placed in the dock can easily be rearranged, resized, stacked in groups or iconified. Furthermore, a dialog can be dragged of the dock to become a floating dock in itself—this allows other dialogs to be dragged and dropped on it to form a floating group of dialogs.

The old dialog behavior (used in releases before 0.46) has been preserved as an option, and if it is preferred, one can select it under ''Windows'' > ''Dialog behavior'' in the Inkscape preferences dialog.

====Known issues====

* Some of Inkscape's dialogs are yet to be adapted to allow docking, these include the "Text and Font" dialog, the "Tiled clones" dialog, the "XML editor" and the "Object properties" dialog.

* Floating dialogs that are closed and later reopened might reappear on positions slightly different than their original ones.

* Resizing dialogs that are placed in the dock can be a bit slow and quirky.

* The total height of content the dock will in most cases remain the same when a dialog is closed/iconified, i.e. the remaining docked dialogs will fill the hole. This might not the desired behavior.

====Settings====

Three settings that control dockable dialogs behavior are present in the <code>preferences.xml</code> file under a <code>options</code> group called <code>dock</code>:

* <code>cancenterdock</code>: controls if dialogs are allowed to be stacked on top of each other to be ordered in groups. Valid values are <code>"0"</code> and <code>"1"</code>.

* <code>dockbarstyle</code>: controls what information is shown for iconified dockable dialogs. <code>"0"</code> = icons only, <code>"1"</code> = text only, <code>"2"</code> = both icons and text.

* <code>switcherstyle</code>: controls what information is shown for grouped dockable dialogs. <code>"0"</code> = icons only, <code>"1"</code> = text only, <code>"2"</code> = both icons and text.

== Toolbars ==

'''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.

Switching to stock GTK+ toolbars. This allows for the main window to be made narrower, with toolbar items flowing into a popup menu as it is resized.

== 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.

:* A new submenu has been added to affect the shape of the displayed swatches, allowing their preferred size to be made thinner or wider. Among other things, this allows for more to be seen on screen at once when made thinner.

:* Sizing of the swatches has been corrected to be properly progressive, and now go form smaller to larger on all platforms.

:* Space reserved for the scrollbar is no longer kept with smaller palettes shown in the bottom of the main UI. This allows for more working space when palettes with not many entries are selected at smaller sizes.

==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.

== Bounding box option moved ==

The preferences option to select between "visual" and "geometric" bounding box was moved in Inkscape Preferences dialog from the "Selector" page to "Tools" page (since it applies more globally than just in Selector tool).

== 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.

== Keyboard profiles ==

New profiles have been added:

* '''Corel DRAW X4''' (corel-draw-x4.xml)
* '''Zoner Draw 5''' (zoner-draw.xml)
* '''ACD Systems Canvas 11''' (acd-canvas.xml)

Also, profile for Adobe Illustrator has been fixed and includes bindings for tools now.

(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>.)

=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.

* Inkscape application bundle on '''Mac OS X''' now has the possibility to contain '''pre-compiled python modules''' (e.g. lxml, numpy, etc.) and to use them without requiring any work from the user. Since Python itself is shipped with Mac OS X, the user only has to drag and drop Inkscape on its hard-drive and all the extensions will be '''functional immediately'''.

=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).

* 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.

* '''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; it is now fixed.

* Serious usability issues with the font size field in the Text tool's controls bar have been fixed.

* The rulers are now correctly scaled and will align nicely with document coordinates, with or without the scrollbars displayed.

=Known Issues=

* Blend modes do not work correctly over transparent backgrounds. (LP: [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/180890 #180890]) A workaround is to place an opaque rectangle underneath the bottom-most layer.
* Windows printing is not perfect. Blurred objects are sometimes misaligned.Also objects with a mask may disappear from the page when printing. In both cases the workaround is to print to bitmap (Print -> Rendering -> Bitmap).

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-27T07:06:29Z

Rygle: /* Patching The Source Code */ Lots more about Tortoise

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* A recommended step is to download and install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching
* You need to download the source code and possibly apply patches if bug testing

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Ishmal provides a complete set of compiler and library files on his website. You can get all packages from http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the last versions. As of March 13 2008 those are:
* the mingw compiler version 4.2 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080313.7z

The configuration files expect the packages in specific directories:
* the compiler C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* other libraries C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
** For the 0.47 development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;

1. Find your patch. Windows Patches to the main SVN are now being kept in a folder under your main working directory called ''packaging\win32\patches''. If you download or make a subsequent patch, put it in this directory to keep things orderly. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff

2. Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''. Because the Windows patches are kept a little tucked away, Tortoise will probably give a message; '''The path {working directory}\packaging\win32\patches seems not to match the paths in the patchfile. But Tortoise found the path {working directory} matches it better. Do you want to use the suggested path instead?''' Click ''Yes'' to proceed.

3. Now comes the actual patching process. See the Tortoise website for an explanation of how to use the merge tool - http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view (see also the following pages)

4. Once patched, you will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick, as do its parent folders. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version, and helps you find altered files really quickly.

5. If you want to go back to the SVN version you originally ''checked out'', simply right click on an individual file or a whole folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. This will bring up a list of files that can be reverted. If you only selected one file, only that will be available to revert. If you selected a folder, all the modified files in that folder will be available to revert. Tick only those you wish to revert to the SVN version last checked out.

'''''Notes:'''''
* When applying several patches at once, you will possibly find that some patches update the same code modules. This is normal, and Tortoise can help you compare files and resolve conflicts. See the [http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view link mentioned above] to learn more.
* Sometimes conflicts are not able to be resolved using Tortoise, and you will need to edit the files by hand. Don't worry, you can always ''revert'' the files if you make a mistake. A good text editor to help is Notepad 2 - http://www.flos-freeware.ch/
* If you edit the source files yourself, Tortoise will register that the files are changed with an exclamation mark. To create your own patch from a changed file, right click on the ''src'' directory folder that contains your changed file, then select ''Tortoise SVN -> Create Patch''. Now tick only the file/s you edited and save the patch file. This can be posted to a bug report as a test, and possibly committed to SVN if your patch works.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch the hard way using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works independently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patch file must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous firewall software like Comodo's Defense+, which is a great firewall, but asks for confirmation to allow every new process that runs. It might also be good to disable screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

'''''Doing A New Build'''''

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat
You can usually just type mingwenv (enter) and Windows will execute the batch file.

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

'''''Re-building after modifying source modules'''''

If you've already built the source once and done a few changes to source code files, you can do a quick rebuild using many of the files already compiled in the ''build'' directory. Only those that need to be rebuilt will be, and the ''btool'' program automatically figures that out. It will then 'link' the relevant files together and copy them into the ''inkscape'' directory.

To do a quick rebuild, simply go to the directory that contains the source and do the following;

* Delete or rename the ''inkscape'' directory, which contains the previous fully built and linked version of Inkscape
* Now delete four files created by btool.
** config.h
** inkscape_version.h
** compile.lst
** build.dep
* Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool
Ishmal's build tool should now rebuild the individual files that have changed, along with any extra 'dependencies' these might require. If you've only applied one new patch, it can be done in less than 5 minutes!

'''''Note:''''' It is best not to do a quick rebuild if you have changed the version of libraries in C:\DEVLIBS. This can cause problems, as the files in the ''build'' directory incorporate functions from these libraries, which can change significantly between library versions. You will need to rebuild from scratch (see below).

'''''Rebuilding From Scratch'''''

To rebuild from scratch, you will also need to delete the ''build'' directory and again open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? For instance if one particular file has gone wrong, or I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - To find the right command for building any particular file in Inkscape, just look in the compile.lst after you have used btool once. Search for the name of the particular file (eg: print.cpp) and you will find the command used to compile it. You'll need to paste this into a text file, remove any carriage reurns and then paste that onto the command line.

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-27T06:32:47Z

Rygle: /* Patching The Source Code */ Added info on patching process

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* A recommended step is to download and install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching
* You need to download the source code and possibly apply patches if bug testing

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Ishmal provides a complete set of compiler and library files on his website. You can get all packages from http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the last versions. As of March 13 2008 those are:
* the mingw compiler version 4.2 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080313.7z

The configuration files expect the packages in specific directories:
* the compiler C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* other libraries C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
** For the 0.47 development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;
* Download the patch to the ''src'' directory. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff
* Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''
* Now comes the actual patching process. See the Tortois website for an explanation of how to use the merge tool - http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view
* Once patched, you will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version.
* If you want to go back to the SVN version you originally ''checked out'', simply right click on a file or inside a folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. Doing this with a single file will only ask to revert that one file. Clicking on a folder folder will offer to revert all files in that folder.

When applying several patches at once, you will possibly find that some patches update the same code modules. This is normal, and Tortoise can help you compare files and resolve conflicts. See the [http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseMerge_en/tmerge-dug.html#tmerge-dug-open-view link mentioned above] to learn more.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works indepently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patchfile must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous firewall software like Comodo's Defense+, which is a great firewall, but asks for confirmation to allow every new process that runs. It might also be good to disable screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

'''''Doing A New Build'''''

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat
You can usually just type mingwenv (enter) and Windows will execute the batch file.

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

'''''Re-building after modifying source modules'''''

If you've already built the source once and done a few changes to source code files, you can do a quick rebuild using many of the files already compiled in the ''build'' directory. Only those that need to be rebuilt will be, and the ''btool'' program automatically figures that out. It will then 'link' the relevant files together and copy them into the ''inkscape'' directory.

To do a quick rebuild, simply go to the directory that contains the source and do the following;

* Delete or rename the ''inkscape'' directory, which contains the previous fully built and linked version of Inkscape
* Now delete four files created by btool.
** config.h
** inkscape_version.h
** compile.lst
** build.dep
* Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool
Ishmal's build tool should now rebuild the individual files that have changed, along with any extra 'dependencies' these might require. If you've only applied one new patch, it can be done in less than 5 minutes!

'''''Note:''''' It is best not to do a quick rebuild if you have changed the version of libraries in C:\DEVLIBS. This can cause problems, as the files in the ''build'' directory incorporate functions from these libraries, which can change significantly between library versions. You will need to rebuild from scratch (see below).

'''''Rebuilding From Scratch'''''

To rebuild from scratch, you will also need to delete the ''build'' directory and again open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? For instance if one particular file has gone wrong, or I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - To find the right command for building any particular file in Inkscape, just look in the compile.lst after you have used btool once. Search for the name of the particular file (eg: print.cpp) and you will find the command used to compile it. You'll need to paste this into a text file, remove any carriage reurns and then paste that onto the command line.

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-26T12:12:25Z

Rygle: /* Building The Binary */ Clarification and warnings about rebuilding over old builds

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* A recommended step is to download and install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching
* You need to download the source code and possibly apply patches if bug testing

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Ishmal provides a complete set of compiler and library files on his website. You can get all packages from http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the last versions. As of March 13 2008 those are:
* the mingw compiler version 4.2 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080313.7z

The configuration files expect the packages in specific directories:
* the compiler C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* other libraries C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
** For the 0.47 development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;
* Download the patch to the ''src'' directory. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff
* Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''
* You will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version.
* If you want to go back to the SVN version, simply right click on a file or inside a folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. Doing this with a single file will only ask to revert that one file. Clicking on a folder folder will offer to revert all files in that folder.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works indepently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patchfile must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous firewall software like Comodo's Defense+, which is a great firewall, but asks for confirmation to allow every new process that runs. It might also be good to disable screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

'''''Doing A New Build'''''

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat
You can usually just type mingwenv (enter) and Windows will execute the batch file.

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

'''''Re-building after modifying source modules'''''

If you've already built the source once and done a few changes to source code files, you can do a quick rebuild using many of the files already compiled in the ''build'' directory. Only those that need to be rebuilt will be, and the ''btool'' program automatically figures that out. It will then 'link' the relevant files together and copy them into the ''inkscape'' directory.

To do a quick rebuild, simply go to the directory that contains the source and do the following;

* Delete or rename the ''inkscape'' directory, which contains the previous fully built and linked version of Inkscape
* Now delete four files created by btool.
** config.h
** inkscape_version.h
** compile.lst
** build.dep
* Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool
Ishmal's build tool should now rebuild the individual files that have changed, along with any extra 'dependencies' these might require. If you've only applied one new patch, it can be done in less than 5 minutes!

'''''Note:''''' It is best not to do a quick rebuild if you have changed the version of libraries in C:\DEVLIBS. This can cause problems, as the files in the ''build'' directory incorporate functions from these libraries, which can change significantly between library versions. You will need to rebuild from scratch (see below).

'''''Rebuilding From Scratch'''''

To rebuild from scratch, you will also need to delete the ''build'' directory and again open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? For instance if one particular file has gone wrong, or I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - To find the right command for building any particular file in Inkscape, just look in the compile.lst after you have used btool once. Search for the name of the particular file (eg: print.cpp) and you will find the command used to compile it. You'll need to paste this into a text file, remove any carriage reurns and then paste that onto the command line.

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-26T10:30:08Z

Rygle: /* Building The Binary */ Added info on rebuilding after initial build

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* A recommended step is to download and install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching
* You need to download the source code and possibly apply patches if bug testing

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Ishmal provides a complete set of compiler and library files on his website. You can get all packages from http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the last versions. As of March 13 2008 those are:
* the mingw compiler version 4.2 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080313.7z

The configuration files expect the packages in specific directories:
* the compiler C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* other libraries C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
** For the 0.47 development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;
* Download the patch to the ''src'' directory. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff
* Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''
* You will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version.
* If you want to go back to the SVN version, simply right click on a file or inside a folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. Doing this with a single file will only ask to revert that one file. Clicking on a folder folder will offer to revert all files in that folder.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works indepently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patchfile must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous firewall software like Comodo's Defense+, which is a great firewall, but asks for confirmation to allow every new process that runs. It might also be good to disable screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

'''''Doing A New Build'''''

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat
You can usually just type mingwenv (enter) and Windows will execute the batch file.

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

'''''Re-building after modifying source modules'''''

If you've already built the source once and done a few changes to source code files, you can simply go to the directory that contains the source and do the following;
* Delete or rename the ''inkscape'' directory, which contains the previously built version of Inkscape
* Now delete four files created by btool.
** config.h
** inkscape_version.h
** compile.lst
** build.dep
* Now open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool
Ishmal's build tool should now do a minimum rebuild, just rebuilding the individual files that have changed, and any extra ''dependencies'' these might require. This should take much less time than a full build, and will vary depending on how many changes you've made.

'''''Rebuilding From Scratch'''''

To rebuild from scratch, you will also need to delete the ''build'' directory and again open a command window and run the following;
...> mingwenv
...> btool

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? For instance if one particular file has gone wrong, or I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - To find the right command for building any particular file in Inkscape, just look in the compile.lst after you have used btool once. Search for the name of the particular file (eg: print.cpp) and you will find the command used to compile it. You'll need to paste this into a text file, remove any carriage reurns and then paste that onto the command line.

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-25T14:32:16Z

Rygle: /* Dealing With Build Errors */ Slight update to build errors answer

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* A recommended step is to download and install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching
* You need to download the source code and possibly apply patches if bug testing

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Ishmal provides a complete set of compiler and library files on his website. You can get all packages from http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the last versions. As of March 13 2008 those are:
* the mingw compiler version 4.2 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080313.7z

The configuration files expect the packages in specific directories:
* the compiler C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* other libraries C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
** For the 0.47 development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;
* Download the patch to the ''src'' directory. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff
* Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''
* You will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version.
* If you want to go back to the SVN version, simply right click on a file or inside a folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. Doing this with a single file will only ask to revert that one file. Clicking on a folder folder will offer to revert all files in that folder.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works indepently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patchfile must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous firewall software like Comodo's Defense+, which is a great firewall, but asks for confirmation to allow every new process that runs. It might also be good to disable screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? For instance if one particular file has gone wrong, or I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - To find the right command for building any particular file in Inkscape, just look in the compile.lst after you have used btool once. Search for the name of the particular file (eg: print.cpp) and you will find the command used to compile it. You'll need to paste this into a text file, remove any carriage reurns and then paste that onto the command line.

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Release notes/0.46

2008-03-24T16:08:23Z

Rygle: /* Known Issues */ Slight rewording.

=Inkscape 0.46=

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

* Conversion of objects to 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 Grow and carving holes with Shrink. 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 AI; 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, shrinking, or growing 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 shrinking or growing 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 create drawings or objects that appear three-dimensional. The new '''3D box tool''' helps you create such drawings by automating the most common operation: creating a box in a given 3D 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; Shift+drag without releasing the mouse button to extrude in Z direction.

* Adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles. The 4 handles on the front X/Y side resize it, the four ones on the back X/Y side expand/contract the box in Z direction. With Shift, the functions of handles on front and back sides are reversed. With Ctrl, the side-resizing handles snap to the coordinate axes or diagonals.

* 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 on the canvas (see below) or toggling their states; all boxes sharing this perspective are affected by a vanishing point move.

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.

In SVG, a 3D box is represented as a '''group''' (svg:g) with a special extension attribute (in Inkscape's 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.

===Keyboard shortcuts===

* '''X''', '''Shift+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.

* When the 3D box tool is active, '''Shift+X''', '''Shift+Y''', and '''Shift+Z''' toggle perspective lines in the corresponding direction between "converging" and "parallel".

==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), as well as to '''-1/3''', '''-1/2''', '''-1''', '''-2''', '''-3''', etc. 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.

==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.

* 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.

==Ellipse Tool==

* It is now easy to create ellipses/circles passing through particular points. Normally, the starting and ending point of the mouse drag mark the corners of the '''bounding box'''. Now the '''Alt''' modifier can be used to enlarge the ellipse so that its '''circumference''' passes through these two points.

* '''Ctrl+Alt+drag''' is an exception from this rule. It creates a perfect circle whose diameter is defined by the starting and ending point of the drag.

==Pen/Pencil Tools==

These tools can now create '''single dots''' by '''Ctrl+click''' on the canvas. This creates a small circle filled with the current stroke color. The radius can be set in the Preferences of the respective tools (it is specified as a multiple of the current stroke width). '''Shift+Ctrl+click''' creates a dot twice the specified size, and '''Alt+Ctrl+click''' varies the size of the created dots randomly.

==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 '''feFlood''' filter primitive fills its region with a given color and opacity. It can be used as an auxiliary tool, usualy in combination with other filter primitives, in order to facilitate some common color handling operations.

* 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

===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!

=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 '''Generate from Path > Dimensions''' extension creates CAD style dimensions that are basically arrows with lengths equal to selection's bounding box and captions representing length.

* 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.

=Markers=

* A new command, '''Objects to Marker''', was added to the Object menu. It converts the current selection into a marker. After you do it, the selection is deleted, but the list of markers in the Fill and Stroke dialog, Stroke style tab, now contains the new marker that you can apply to paths.

:* When creating the new marker, Inkscape assumes that the original objects are oriented as they should be on a horizontal path that goes from left to right. For example, if you create a new arrowhead that you plan to use as an end marker, make it point horizontally to the right before converting it to marker.

:* Similar to standard markers, the user-created marker will scale up and down as you change the stroke width. Its initial size (i.e. the size of the object that you have turned into a marker) corresponds to the 1 px stroke.

:* When you create a new marker, Inkscape uses the rotation center of the (first) selected object as the anchor point, i.e. the point which will coincide with the node to which that marker is attached. By default, the rotation center is in the center of the object's bounding box, which means the newly created marker will be centered around its node. If you move the rotation center, for example, to one of the corners of the object, the new marker will touch its node by that corner.

* Several new '''UML markers''' were added to the standard set, including filled and hollow diamonds and triangles.

* '''Master opacity''' did not apply to path markers as it should; this is fixed.

* '''Stock markers''', if used in the document, now appear in the "this document's markers" section at the top of the marker lists in the Fill & Stroke dialog. Before, any markers with stock IDs (including markers modified by the user) were hidden, making it difficult to work with modified stock markers.

=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.

== OS support ==

Сolor management is supported in Linux and Mac OS X only at this time.

=Grids, guides, snapping=

==Grids==
Grids have undergone some big changes under-the-hood. These are the visible changes:

* There is a new 3D/axonometric grid. It consists of three sets of parallel lines, one vertical and others at angles of +30 and -30 degrees from the horizontal. The angles of these two latter sets and the spacing of the grid are user-settable.

* A new tab in the Document Properties dialog, Grids, is devoted solely to grids; the former grid/guide tab is renamed Guides and is now used only for guides. On the Grids page, you can create and manage grids of various types in your document; so far the two types available are Rectangular (default) and Axonometric, but more types may be added in the future.

* More than one grid can be active at the same time:
:* Each grid can be enabled/disabled separately from the Document Properties dialog.

* For each grid, you can hide it by unchecking the "Visible" checkbox in the grid's tab, or disable snapping to it by unchecking "Enabled". Note that you can have "Enabled" on and "Visible" off (but not vice versa), in which case you snap to the invisible grid.

* Multiple views on the same document (i.e. different Inkscape windows with the same document loaded) share the same grids, but the grid can be turned on and off for each view separately. For example, you could have a zoomed-out "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.

* 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 by subclassing CanvasGrid. 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!
* Grid information is now stored in SVG as a child of sodipodi:namedview. Old files will be converted to this new format automatically.
* An old bug is fixed: apparently the origin of the document coordinate system used to be set to the origin of the grid. For example, in 0.45.1 and before, specifying a grid origin of (20,20) moved the origin or coordinates to that point, and the grid was still starting at (0,0) in this moved coordinate system. This is now disabled, and the coordinate origin is not affected by grid origin.

==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 end of the ruler, 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 '''Ctrl''' is pressed, the angle is perpendicular to the grid lines (useful for aligning gradients).

==Creating guidelines from objects==

* Selected objects can now be converted to guidelines. To do this, either use the menu command '''"Object->Object to guides"''' or press '''Shift+G''' in Selector tool (this shortcut also works in some other tools, see below). The conversion process recurses into groups, i.e. all objects in the current selection are converted regardless if they are grouped or not.

* Created guides can be quickly deleted by '''Ctrl'''+clicking on them (this is of course not restricted to guides created by the process described above). Note that this only works in Selector and Node tools, i.e., in contexts where guidelines can be manipulated with the mouse.

* '''Paths''' are converted by creating one guide for each straight line segment occurring in the path (whereas curved segments are not taken into account). To make this conveniently accessible, the shortcut '''Shift+G''' works in Pen and Pencil tools, too.

* For all other objects, conversion usually happens by placing the guidelines around the object's bounding box (use the corresponding checkbox in the "Tools" page of Inkscape Preferences to switch between geometric and visual bounding box).

*For '''rectangles''' and '''3D boxes''' there is a special option in their preferences pages (checked by default) which instead allows the guidelines to be placed along the object's edges so that they imitate its true shape. This is especially useful when converting rotated or skewed rectangles (to create guidelines in a special position) or for creating 3D scenes containing other objects than just boxes. The shortcut '''Shift+G''' works in these tools as well.

==Snapping==

* Snapping has been implemented or improved for:

:* '''Newly created shapes'''

:* '''Skewing''' of objects

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

:* '''Images''', '''ellipses''', 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).

=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 and requires that you have Python and UniConvertor installed. As of UniConvertor 1.1.1, versions from 7 to X4 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.

==WMF import==

Now Inkscape uses UniConvertor for opening WMF files, which results in three noticable changes:

# imported files are editable now
# known rendering issues are resolved
# WMF import works on all platforms where UniConvertor works (including Windows)

Text objects are not supported by UniConvertor as of version 1.1.1.

==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 ==

Inkscape features a preliminary support for importing drawings from [http://openclipart.org/ Open Clip Art Library].

After specifying account details in Preferences dialog (Import/Export tab) use 'File > Import From Open Clip Art Library' command to open a dialog, then search for tags and pick one of the results to merge this found drawing into your document.

=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 ==

Inkscape's dialog handling has been reworked in this release to allow dialogs to behave like '''dockable panels'''. The dock area that holds the user's dialogs is located right of the canvas.

Dialogs placed in the dock can easily be rearranged, resized, stacked in groups or iconified. Furthermore, a dialog can be dragged of the dock to become a floating dock in itself—this allows other dialogs to be dragged and dropped on it to form a floating group of dialogs.

The old dialog behavior (used in releases before 0.46) has been preserved as an option, and if it is preferred, one can select it under ''Windows'' > ''Dialog behavior'' in the Inkscape preferences dialog.

====Known issues====

* Some of Inkscape's dialogs are yet to be adapted to allow docking, these include the "Text and Font" dialog, the "Tiled clones" dialog, the "XML editor" and the "Object properties" dialog.

* Floating dialogs that are closed and later reopened might reappear on positions slightly different than their original ones.

* Resizing dialogs that are placed in the dock can be a bit slow and quirky.

* The total height of content the dock will in most cases remain the same when a dialog is closed/iconified, i.e. the remaining docked dialogs will fill the hole. This might not the desired behavior.

====Settings====

Three settings that control dockable dialogs behavior are present in the <code>preferences.xml</code> file under a <code>options</code> group called <code>dock</code>:

* <code>cancenterdock</code>: controls if dialogs are allowed to be stacked on top of each other to be ordered in groups. Valid values are <code>"0"</code> and <code>"1"</code>.

* <code>dockbarstyle</code>: controls what information is shown for iconified dockable dialogs. <code>"0"</code> = icons only, <code>"1"</code> = text only, <code>"2"</code> = both icons and text.

* <code>switcherstyle</code>: controls what information is shown for grouped dockable dialogs. <code>"0"</code> = icons only, <code>"1"</code> = text only, <code>"2"</code> = both icons and text.

== Toolbars ==

'''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.

Switching to stock GTK+ toolbars. This allows for the main window to be made narrower, with toolbar items flowing into a popup menu as it is resized.

== [filedialogs] ==

== 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.

:* A new submenu has been added to affect the shape of the displayed swatches, allowing their preferred size to be made thinner or wider. Among other things, this allows for more to be seen on screen at once when made thinner.

:* Sizing of the swatches has been corrected to be properly progressive, and now go form smaller to larger on all platforms.

:* Space reserved for the scrollbar is no longer kept with smaller palettes shown in the bottom of the main UI. This allows for more working space when palettes with not many entries are selected at smaller sizes.

==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.

== Bounding box option moved ==

The preferences option to select between "visual" and "geometric" bounding box was moved in Inkscape Preferences dialog from the "Selector" page to "Tools" page (since it applies more globally than just in Selector tool).

== 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.

== Keyboard profiles ==

New profiles have been added:

* '''Corel DRAW X4''' (corel-draw-x4.xml)
* '''Zoner Draw 5''' (zoner-draw.xml)
* '''ACD Systems Canvas 11''' (acd-canvas.xml)

Also, profile for Adobe Illustrator has been fixed and includes bindings for tools now.

(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>.)

=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.

* Inkscape application bundle on '''Mac OS X''' now has the possibility to contain '''pre-compiled python modules''' (e.g. lxml, numpy, etc.) and to use them without requiring any work from the user. Since Python itself is shipped with Mac OS X, the user only has to drag and drop Inkscape on its hard-drive and all the extensions will be '''functional immediately'''.

=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).

* 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.

* '''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; it is now fixed.

* Serious usability issues with the font size field in the Text tool's controls bar have been fixed.

* The rulers are now correctly scaled and will align nicely with document coordinates, with or without the scrollbars displayed.

=Known Issues=

* Blend modes do not work correctly over transparent backgrounds. (LP: [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/180890 #180890]) A workaround is to place an opaque rectangle underneath the bottom-most layer.
* Windows printing is not perfect. Blurred objects are sometimes misaligned. When printing falls back to bitmap, the bitmap is not always an ideal resolution. In both case the workaround is to print to bitmap (Print -> Rendering -> Bitmap).

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.46

2008-03-24T16:07:10Z

Rygle: /* Known Issues */ Updated printing status

=Inkscape 0.46=

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

* Conversion of objects to 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 Grow and carving holes with Shrink. 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 AI; 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, shrinking, or growing 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 shrinking or growing 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 create drawings or objects that appear three-dimensional. The new '''3D box tool''' helps you create such drawings by automating the most common operation: creating a box in a given 3D 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; Shift+drag without releasing the mouse button to extrude in Z direction.

* Adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles. The 4 handles on the front X/Y side resize it, the four ones on the back X/Y side expand/contract the box in Z direction. With Shift, the functions of handles on front and back sides are reversed. With Ctrl, the side-resizing handles snap to the coordinate axes or diagonals.

* 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 on the canvas (see below) or toggling their states; all boxes sharing this perspective are affected by a vanishing point move.

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.

In SVG, a 3D box is represented as a '''group''' (svg:g) with a special extension attribute (in Inkscape's 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.

===Keyboard shortcuts===

* '''X''', '''Shift+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.

* When the 3D box tool is active, '''Shift+X''', '''Shift+Y''', and '''Shift+Z''' toggle perspective lines in the corresponding direction between "converging" and "parallel".

==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), as well as to '''-1/3''', '''-1/2''', '''-1''', '''-2''', '''-3''', etc. 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.

==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.

* 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.

==Ellipse Tool==

* It is now easy to create ellipses/circles passing through particular points. Normally, the starting and ending point of the mouse drag mark the corners of the '''bounding box'''. Now the '''Alt''' modifier can be used to enlarge the ellipse so that its '''circumference''' passes through these two points.

* '''Ctrl+Alt+drag''' is an exception from this rule. It creates a perfect circle whose diameter is defined by the starting and ending point of the drag.

==Pen/Pencil Tools==

These tools can now create '''single dots''' by '''Ctrl+click''' on the canvas. This creates a small circle filled with the current stroke color. The radius can be set in the Preferences of the respective tools (it is specified as a multiple of the current stroke width). '''Shift+Ctrl+click''' creates a dot twice the specified size, and '''Alt+Ctrl+click''' varies the size of the created dots randomly.

==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 '''feFlood''' filter primitive fills its region with a given color and opacity. It can be used as an auxiliary tool, usualy in combination with other filter primitives, in order to facilitate some common color handling operations.

* 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

===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!

=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 '''Generate from Path > Dimensions''' extension creates CAD style dimensions that are basically arrows with lengths equal to selection's bounding box and captions representing length.

* 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.

=Markers=

* A new command, '''Objects to Marker''', was added to the Object menu. It converts the current selection into a marker. After you do it, the selection is deleted, but the list of markers in the Fill and Stroke dialog, Stroke style tab, now contains the new marker that you can apply to paths.

:* When creating the new marker, Inkscape assumes that the original objects are oriented as they should be on a horizontal path that goes from left to right. For example, if you create a new arrowhead that you plan to use as an end marker, make it point horizontally to the right before converting it to marker.

:* Similar to standard markers, the user-created marker will scale up and down as you change the stroke width. Its initial size (i.e. the size of the object that you have turned into a marker) corresponds to the 1 px stroke.

:* When you create a new marker, Inkscape uses the rotation center of the (first) selected object as the anchor point, i.e. the point which will coincide with the node to which that marker is attached. By default, the rotation center is in the center of the object's bounding box, which means the newly created marker will be centered around its node. If you move the rotation center, for example, to one of the corners of the object, the new marker will touch its node by that corner.

* Several new '''UML markers''' were added to the standard set, including filled and hollow diamonds and triangles.

* '''Master opacity''' did not apply to path markers as it should; this is fixed.

* '''Stock markers''', if used in the document, now appear in the "this document's markers" section at the top of the marker lists in the Fill & Stroke dialog. Before, any markers with stock IDs (including markers modified by the user) were hidden, making it difficult to work with modified stock markers.

=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.

== OS support ==

Сolor management is supported in Linux and Mac OS X only at this time.

=Grids, guides, snapping=

==Grids==
Grids have undergone some big changes under-the-hood. These are the visible changes:

* There is a new 3D/axonometric grid. It consists of three sets of parallel lines, one vertical and others at angles of +30 and -30 degrees from the horizontal. The angles of these two latter sets and the spacing of the grid are user-settable.

* A new tab in the Document Properties dialog, Grids, is devoted solely to grids; the former grid/guide tab is renamed Guides and is now used only for guides. On the Grids page, you can create and manage grids of various types in your document; so far the two types available are Rectangular (default) and Axonometric, but more types may be added in the future.

* More than one grid can be active at the same time:
:* Each grid can be enabled/disabled separately from the Document Properties dialog.

* For each grid, you can hide it by unchecking the "Visible" checkbox in the grid's tab, or disable snapping to it by unchecking "Enabled". Note that you can have "Enabled" on and "Visible" off (but not vice versa), in which case you snap to the invisible grid.

* Multiple views on the same document (i.e. different Inkscape windows with the same document loaded) share the same grids, but the grid can be turned on and off for each view separately. For example, you could have a zoomed-out "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.

* 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 by subclassing CanvasGrid. 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!
* Grid information is now stored in SVG as a child of sodipodi:namedview. Old files will be converted to this new format automatically.
* An old bug is fixed: apparently the origin of the document coordinate system used to be set to the origin of the grid. For example, in 0.45.1 and before, specifying a grid origin of (20,20) moved the origin or coordinates to that point, and the grid was still starting at (0,0) in this moved coordinate system. This is now disabled, and the coordinate origin is not affected by grid origin.

==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 end of the ruler, 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 '''Ctrl''' is pressed, the angle is perpendicular to the grid lines (useful for aligning gradients).

==Creating guidelines from objects==

* Selected objects can now be converted to guidelines. To do this, either use the menu command '''"Object->Object to guides"''' or press '''Shift+G''' in Selector tool (this shortcut also works in some other tools, see below). The conversion process recurses into groups, i.e. all objects in the current selection are converted regardless if they are grouped or not.

* Created guides can be quickly deleted by '''Ctrl'''+clicking on them (this is of course not restricted to guides created by the process described above). Note that this only works in Selector and Node tools, i.e., in contexts where guidelines can be manipulated with the mouse.

* '''Paths''' are converted by creating one guide for each straight line segment occurring in the path (whereas curved segments are not taken into account). To make this conveniently accessible, the shortcut '''Shift+G''' works in Pen and Pencil tools, too.

* For all other objects, conversion usually happens by placing the guidelines around the object's bounding box (use the corresponding checkbox in the "Tools" page of Inkscape Preferences to switch between geometric and visual bounding box).

*For '''rectangles''' and '''3D boxes''' there is a special option in their preferences pages (checked by default) which instead allows the guidelines to be placed along the object's edges so that they imitate its true shape. This is especially useful when converting rotated or skewed rectangles (to create guidelines in a special position) or for creating 3D scenes containing other objects than just boxes. The shortcut '''Shift+G''' works in these tools as well.

==Snapping==

* Snapping has been implemented or improved for:

:* '''Newly created shapes'''

:* '''Skewing''' of objects

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

:* '''Images''', '''ellipses''', 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).

=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 and requires that you have Python and UniConvertor installed. As of UniConvertor 1.1.1, versions from 7 to X4 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.

==WMF import==

Now Inkscape uses UniConvertor for opening WMF files, which results in three noticable changes:

# imported files are editable now
# known rendering issues are resolved
# WMF import works on all platforms where UniConvertor works (including Windows)

Text objects are not supported by UniConvertor as of version 1.1.1.

==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 ==

Inkscape features a preliminary support for importing drawings from [http://openclipart.org/ Open Clip Art Library].

After specifying account details in Preferences dialog (Import/Export tab) use 'File > Import From Open Clip Art Library' command to open a dialog, then search for tags and pick one of the results to merge this found drawing into your document.

=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 ==

Inkscape's dialog handling has been reworked in this release to allow dialogs to behave like '''dockable panels'''. The dock area that holds the user's dialogs is located right of the canvas.

Dialogs placed in the dock can easily be rearranged, resized, stacked in groups or iconified. Furthermore, a dialog can be dragged of the dock to become a floating dock in itself—this allows other dialogs to be dragged and dropped on it to form a floating group of dialogs.

The old dialog behavior (used in releases before 0.46) has been preserved as an option, and if it is preferred, one can select it under ''Windows'' > ''Dialog behavior'' in the Inkscape preferences dialog.

====Known issues====

* Some of Inkscape's dialogs are yet to be adapted to allow docking, these include the "Text and Font" dialog, the "Tiled clones" dialog, the "XML editor" and the "Object properties" dialog.

* Floating dialogs that are closed and later reopened might reappear on positions slightly different than their original ones.

* Resizing dialogs that are placed in the dock can be a bit slow and quirky.

* The total height of content the dock will in most cases remain the same when a dialog is closed/iconified, i.e. the remaining docked dialogs will fill the hole. This might not the desired behavior.

====Settings====

Three settings that control dockable dialogs behavior are present in the <code>preferences.xml</code> file under a <code>options</code> group called <code>dock</code>:

* <code>cancenterdock</code>: controls if dialogs are allowed to be stacked on top of each other to be ordered in groups. Valid values are <code>"0"</code> and <code>"1"</code>.

* <code>dockbarstyle</code>: controls what information is shown for iconified dockable dialogs. <code>"0"</code> = icons only, <code>"1"</code> = text only, <code>"2"</code> = both icons and text.

* <code>switcherstyle</code>: controls what information is shown for grouped dockable dialogs. <code>"0"</code> = icons only, <code>"1"</code> = text only, <code>"2"</code> = both icons and text.

== Toolbars ==

'''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.

Switching to stock GTK+ toolbars. This allows for the main window to be made narrower, with toolbar items flowing into a popup menu as it is resized.

== [filedialogs] ==

== 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.

:* A new submenu has been added to affect the shape of the displayed swatches, allowing their preferred size to be made thinner or wider. Among other things, this allows for more to be seen on screen at once when made thinner.

:* Sizing of the swatches has been corrected to be properly progressive, and now go form smaller to larger on all platforms.

:* Space reserved for the scrollbar is no longer kept with smaller palettes shown in the bottom of the main UI. This allows for more working space when palettes with not many entries are selected at smaller sizes.

==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.

== Bounding box option moved ==

The preferences option to select between "visual" and "geometric" bounding box was moved in Inkscape Preferences dialog from the "Selector" page to "Tools" page (since it applies more globally than just in Selector tool).

== 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.

== Keyboard profiles ==

New profiles have been added:

* '''Corel DRAW X4''' (corel-draw-x4.xml)
* '''Zoner Draw 5''' (zoner-draw.xml)
* '''ACD Systems Canvas 11''' (acd-canvas.xml)

Also, profile for Adobe Illustrator has been fixed and includes bindings for tools now.

(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>.)

=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.

* Inkscape application bundle on '''Mac OS X''' now has the possibility to contain '''pre-compiled python modules''' (e.g. lxml, numpy, etc.) and to use them without requiring any work from the user. Since Python itself is shipped with Mac OS X, the user only has to drag and drop Inkscape on its hard-drive and all the extensions will be '''functional immediately'''.

=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).

* 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.

* '''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; it is now fixed.

* Serious usability issues with the font size field in the Text tool's controls bar have been fixed.

* The rulers are now correctly scaled and will align nicely with document coordinates, with or without the scrollbars displayed.

=Known Issues=

* Blend modes do not work correctly over transparent backgrounds. (LP: [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/180890 #180890]) A workaround is to place an opaque rectangle underneath the bottom-most layer.
* Windows printing is not perfect. Blurred objects are sometimes misaligned. When printing falls back to bitmap, the bitmap is not always an ideal resolution. Again the workaround is to print to bitmap (Print -> Rendering -> Bitmap).

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.46

2008-03-23T16:10:46Z

Rygle: /* Known Issues */ Added known Windows printing issue.

=Inkscape 0.46=

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

* Conversion of objects to 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 create drawings or objects that appear three-dimensional. The new '''3D box tool''' helps you create such drawings by automating the most common operation: creating a box in a given 3D 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; Shift+drag without releasing the mouse button to extrude in Z direction.

* Adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles. The 4 handles on the front X/Y side resize it, the four ones on the back X/Y side expand/contract the box in Z direction. With Shift, the functions of handles on front and back sides are reversed. With Ctrl, the side-resizing handles snap to the coordinate axes or diagonals.

* 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 on the canvas (see below) or toggling their states; all boxes sharing this perspective are affected by a vanishing point move.

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.

In SVG, a 3D box is represented as a '''group''' (svg:g) with a special extension attribute (in Inkscape's 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.

===Keyboard shortcuts===

* '''X''', '''Shift+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.

* When the 3D box tool is active, '''Shift+X''', '''Shift+Y''', and '''Shift+Z''' toggle perspective lines in the corresponding direction between "converging" and "parallel".

==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), as well as to '''-1/3''', '''-1/2''', '''-1''', '''-2''', '''-3''', etc. 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.

==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.

* 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.

==Ellipse Tool==

* It is now easy to create ellipses/circles passing through particular points. Normally, the starting and ending point of the mouse drag mark the corners of the '''bounding box'''. Now the '''Alt''' modifier can be used to enlarge the ellipse so that its '''circumference''' passes through these two points.

* '''Ctrl+Alt+drag''' is an exception from this rule. It creates a perfect circle whose diameter is defined by the starting and ending point of the drag.

==Pen/Pencil Tools==

These tools can now create '''single dots''' by '''Ctrl+click''' on the canvas. This creates a small circle filled with the current stroke color. The radius can be set in the Preferences of the respective tools (it is specified as a multiple of the current stroke width). '''Shift+Ctrl+click''' creates a dot twice the specified size, and '''Alt+Ctrl+click''' varies the size of the created dots randomly.

==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 '''feFlood''' filter primitive fills its region with a given color and opacity. It can be used as an auxiliary tool, usualy in combination with other filter primitives, in order to facilitate some common color handling operations.

* 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

===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!

=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 '''Generate from Path > Dimensions''' extension creates CAD style dimensions that are basically arrows with lengths equal to selection's bounding box and captions representing length.

* 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.

=Markers=

* A new command, '''Objects to Marker''', was added to the Object menu. It converts the current selection into a marker. After you do it, the selection is deleted, but the list of markers in the Fill and Stroke dialog, Stroke style tab, now contains the new marker that you can apply to paths.

:* When creating the new marker, Inkscape assumes that the original objects are oriented as they should be on a horizontal path that goes from left to right. For example, if you create a new arrowhead that you plan to use as an end marker, make it point horizontally to the right before converting it to marker.

:* Similar to standard markers, the user-created marker will scale up and down as you change the stroke width. Its initial size (i.e. the size of the object that you have turned into a marker) corresponds to the 1 px stroke.

:* When you create a new marker, Inkscape uses the rotation center of the (first) selected object as the anchor point, i.e. the point which will coincide with the node to which that marker is attached. By default, the rotation center is in the center of the object's bounding box, which means the newly created marker will be centered around its node. If you move the rotation center, for example, to one of the corners of the object, the new marker will touch its node by that corner.

* Several new '''UML markers''' were added to the standard set, including filled and hollow diamonds and triangles.

* '''Master opacity''' did not apply to path markers as it should; this is fixed.

* '''Stock markers''', if used in the document, now appear in the "this document's markers" section at the top of the marker lists in the Fill & Stroke dialog. Before, any markers with stock IDs (including markers modified by the user) were hidden, making it difficult to work with modified stock markers.

=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.

== OS support ==

Сolor management is supported in Linux and Mac OS X only at this time.

=Grids, guides, snapping=

==Grids==
Grids have undergone some big changes under-the-hood. These are the visible changes:

* There is a new 3D/axonometric grid. It consists of three sets of parallel lines, one vertical and others at angles of +30 and -30 degrees from the horizontal. The angles of these two latter sets and the spacing of the grid are user-settable.

* A new tab in the Document Properties dialog, Grids, is devoted solely to grids; the former grid/guide tab is renamed Guides and is now used only for guides. On the Grids page, you can create and manage grids of various types in your document; so far the two types available are Rectangular (default) and Axonometric, but more types may be added in the future.

* More than one grid can be active at the same time:
:* Each grid can be enabled/disabled separately from the Document Properties dialog.

* For each grid, you can hide it by unchecking the "Visible" checkbox in the grid's tab, or disable snapping to it by unchecking "Enabled". Note that you can have "Enabled" on and "Visible" off (but not vice versa), in which case you snap to the invisible grid.

* Multiple views on the same document (i.e. different Inkscape windows with the same document loaded) share the same grids, but the grid can be turned on and off for each view separately. For example, you could have a zoomed-out "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.

* 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 by subclassing CanvasGrid. 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!
* Grid information is now stored in SVG as a child of sodipodi:namedview. Old files will be converted to this new format automatically.
* An old bug is fixed: apparently the origin of the document coordinate system used to be set to the origin of the grid. For example, in 0.45.1 and before, specifying a grid origin of (20,20) moved the origin or coordinates to that point, and the grid was still starting at (0,0) in this moved coordinate system. This is now disabled, and the coordinate origin is not affected by grid origin.

==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 end of the ruler, 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 '''Ctrl''' is pressed, the angle is perpendicular to the grid lines (useful for aligning gradients).

==Creating guidelines from objects==

* Selected objects can now be converted to guidelines. To do this, either use the menu command '''"Object->Object to guides"''' or press '''Shift+G''' in Selector tool (this shortcut also works in some other tools, see below). The conversion process recurses into groups, i.e. all objects in the current selection are converted regardless if they are grouped or not.

* Created guides can be quickly deleted by '''Ctrl'''+clicking on them (this is of course not restricted to guides created by the process described above). Note that this only works in Selector and Node tools, i.e., in contexts where guidelines can be manipulated with the mouse.

* '''Paths''' are converted by creating one guide for each straight line segment occurring in the path (whereas curved segments are not taken into account). To make this conveniently accessible, the shortcut '''Shift+G''' works in Pen and Pencil tools, too.

* For all other objects, conversion usually happens by placing the guidelines around the object's bounding box (use the corresponding checkbox in the "Tools" page of Inkscape Preferences to switch between geometric and visual bounding box).

*For '''rectangles''' and '''3D boxes''' there is a special option in their preferences pages (checked by default) which instead allows the guidelines to be placed along the object's edges so that they imitate its true shape. This is especially useful when converting rotated or skewed rectangles (to create guidelines in a special position) or for creating 3D scenes containing other objects than just boxes. The shortcut '''Shift+G''' works in these tools as well.

==Snapping==

* Snapping has been implemented or improved for:

:* '''Newly created shapes'''

:* '''Skewing''' of objects

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

:* '''Images''', '''ellipses''', 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).

=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 and requires that you have Python and UniConvertor installed. As of UniConvertor 1.1.1, versions from 7 to X4 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.

==WMF import==

Now Inkscape uses UniConvertor for opening WMF files, which results in three noticable changes:

# imported files are editable now
# known rendering issues are resolved
# WMF import works on all platforms where UniConvertor works (including Windows)

Text objects are not supported by UniConvertor as of version 1.1.1.

==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 ==

Inkscape features a preliminary support for importing drawings from [http://openclipart.org/ Open Clip Art Library].

After specifying account details in Preferences dialog (Import/Export tab) use 'File > Import From Open Clip Art Library' command to open a dialog, then search for tags and pick one of the results to merge this found drawing into your document.

=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 ==

Inkscape's dialog handling has been reworked in this release to allow dialogs to behave like '''dockable panels'''. The dock area that holds the user's dialogs is located right of the canvas.

Dialogs placed in the dock can easily be rearranged, resized, stacked in groups or iconified. Furthermore, a dialog can be dragged of the dock to become a floating dock in itself—this allows other dialogs to be dragged and dropped on it to form a floating group of dialogs.

The old dialog behavior (used in releases before 0.46) has been preserved as an option, and if it is preferred, one can select it under ''Windows'' > ''Dialog behavior'' in the Inkscape preferences dialog.

====Known issues====

* Some of Inkscape's dialogs are yet to be adapted to allow docking, these include the "Text and Font" dialog, the "Tiled clones" dialog, the "XML editor" and the "Object properties" dialog.

* Floating dialogs that are closed and later reopened might reappear on positions slightly different than their original ones.

* Resizing dialogs that are placed in the dock can be a bit slow and quirky.

* The total height of content the dock will in most cases remain the same when a dialog is closed/iconified, i.e. the remaining docked dialogs will fill the hole. This might not the desired behavior.

====Settings====

Three settings that control dockable dialogs behavior are present in the <code>preferences.xml</code> file under a <code>options</code> group called <code>dock</code>:

* <code>cancenterdock</code>: controls if dialogs are allowed to be stacked on top of each other to be ordered in groups. Valid values are <code>"0"</code> and <code>"1"</code>.

* <code>dockbarstyle</code>: controls what information is shown for iconified dockable dialogs. <code>"0"</code> = icons only, <code>"1"</code> = text only, <code>"2"</code> = both icons and text.

* <code>switcherstyle</code>: controls what information is shown for grouped dockable dialogs. <code>"0"</code> = icons only, <code>"1"</code> = text only, <code>"2"</code> = both icons and text.

== Toolbars ==

'''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.

Switching to stock GTK+ toolbars. This allows for the main window to be made narrower, with toolbar items flowing into a popup menu as it is resized.

== [filedialogs] ==

== 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.

:* A new submenu has been added to affect the shape of the displayed swatches, allowing their preferred size to be made thinner or wider. Among other things, this allows for more to be seen on screen at once when made thinner.

:* Sizing of the swatches has been corrected to be properly progressive, and now go form smaller to larger on all platforms.

:* Space reserved for the scrollbar is no longer kept with smaller palettes shown in the bottom of the main UI. This allows for more working space when palettes with not many entries are selected at smaller sizes.

==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.

== Bounding box option moved ==

The preferences option to select between "visual" and "geometric" bounding box was moved in Inkscape Preferences dialog from the "Selector" page to "Tools" page (since it applies more globally than just in Selector tool).

== 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.

== Keyboard profiles ==

New profiles have been added:

* '''Corel DRAW X4''' (corel-draw-x4.xml)
* '''Zoner Draw 5''' (zoner-draw.xml)
* '''ACD Systems Canvas 11''' (acd-canvas.xml)

Also, profile for Adobe Illustrator has been fixed and includes bindings for tools now.

(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>.)

=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.

* Inkscape application bundle on '''Mac OS X''' now has the possibility to contain '''pre-compiled python modules''' (e.g. lxml, numpy, etc.) and to use them without requiring any work from the user. Since Python itself is shipped with Mac OS X, the user only has to drag and drop Inkscape on its hard-drive and all the extensions will be '''functional immediately'''.

=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).

* 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.

* '''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; it is now fixed.

* Serious usability issues with the font size field in the Text tool's controls bar have been fixed.

* The rulers are now correctly scaled and will align nicely with document coordinates, with or without the scrollbars displayed.

=Known Issues=

* Blend modes do not work correctly over transparent backgrounds. (LP: [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/180890 #180890]) A workaround is to place an opaque rectangle underneath the bottom-most layer.
* Windows printing is not perfect. Blurs objects are sometimes misaligned. Workaround is to print as a bitmap. This option is found under the Rendering tab in the print dialog.

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Release notes/0.46

2008-03-23T15:51:50Z

Rygle: /* CDR (CorelDraw) import */ Correction - Uniconverter is no longer Unix only

=Inkscape 0.46=

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

* Conversion of objects to 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 create drawings or objects that appear three-dimensional. The new '''3D box tool''' helps you create such drawings by automating the most common operation: creating a box in a given 3D 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; Shift+drag without releasing the mouse button to extrude in Z direction.

* Adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles. The 4 handles on the front X/Y side resize it, the four ones on the back X/Y side expand/contract the box in Z direction. With Shift, the functions of handles on front and back sides are reversed. With Ctrl, the side-resizing handles snap to the coordinate axes or diagonals.

* 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 on the canvas (see below) or toggling their states; all boxes sharing this perspective are affected by a vanishing point move.

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.

In SVG, a 3D box is represented as a '''group''' (svg:g) with a special extension attribute (in Inkscape's 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.

===Keyboard shortcuts===

* '''X''', '''Shift+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.

* When the 3D box tool is active, '''Shift+X''', '''Shift+Y''', and '''Shift+Z''' toggle perspective lines in the corresponding direction between "converging" and "parallel".

==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), as well as to '''-1/3''', '''-1/2''', '''-1''', '''-2''', '''-3''', etc. 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.

==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.

* 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.

==Ellipse Tool==

* It is now easy to create ellipses/circles passing through particular points. Normally, the starting and ending point of the mouse drag mark the corners of the '''bounding box'''. Now the '''Alt''' modifier can be used to enlarge the ellipse so that its '''circumference''' passes through these two points.

* '''Ctrl+Alt+drag''' is an exception from this rule. It creates a perfect circle whose diameter is defined by the starting and ending point of the drag.

==Pen/Pencil Tools==

These tools can now create '''single dots''' by '''Ctrl+click''' on the canvas. This creates a small circle filled with the current stroke color. The radius can be set in the Preferences of the respective tools (it is specified as a multiple of the current stroke width). '''Shift+Ctrl+click''' creates a dot twice the specified size, and '''Alt+Ctrl+click''' varies the size of the created dots randomly.

==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 '''feFlood''' filter primitive fills its region with a given color and opacity. It can be used as an auxiliary tool, usualy in combination with other filter primitives, in order to facilitate some common color handling operations.

* 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

===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!

=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 '''Generate from Path > Dimensions''' extension creates CAD style dimensions that are basically arrows with lengths equal to selection's bounding box and captions representing length.

* 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.

=Markers=

* A new command, '''Objects to Marker''', was added to the Object menu. It converts the current selection into a marker. After you do it, the selection is deleted, but the list of markers in the Fill and Stroke dialog, Stroke style tab, now contains the new marker that you can apply to paths.

:* When creating the new marker, Inkscape assumes that the original objects are oriented as they should be on a horizontal path that goes from left to right. For example, if you create a new arrowhead that you plan to use as an end marker, make it point horizontally to the right before converting it to marker.

:* Similar to standard markers, the user-created marker will scale up and down as you change the stroke width. Its initial size (i.e. the size of the object that you have turned into a marker) corresponds to the 1 px stroke.

:* When you create a new marker, Inkscape uses the rotation center of the (first) selected object as the anchor point, i.e. the point which will coincide with the node to which that marker is attached. By default, the rotation center is in the center of the object's bounding box, which means the newly created marker will be centered around its node. If you move the rotation center, for example, to one of the corners of the object, the new marker will touch its node by that corner.

* Several new '''UML markers''' were added to the standard set, including filled and hollow diamonds and triangles.

* '''Master opacity''' did not apply to path markers as it should; this is fixed.

* '''Stock markers''', if used in the document, now appear in the "this document's markers" section at the top of the marker lists in the Fill & Stroke dialog. Before, any markers with stock IDs (including markers modified by the user) were hidden, making it difficult to work with modified stock markers.

=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.

== OS support ==

Сolor management is supported in Linux and Mac OS X only at this time.

=Grids, guides, snapping=

==Grids==
Grids have undergone some big changes under-the-hood. These are the visible changes:

* There is a new 3D/axonometric grid. It consists of three sets of parallel lines, one vertical and others at angles of +30 and -30 degrees from the horizontal. The angles of these two latter sets and the spacing of the grid are user-settable.

* A new tab in the Document Properties dialog, Grids, is devoted solely to grids; the former grid/guide tab is renamed Guides and is now used only for guides. On the Grids page, you can create and manage grids of various types in your document; so far the two types available are Rectangular (default) and Axonometric, but more types may be added in the future.

* More than one grid can be active at the same time:
:* Each grid can be enabled/disabled separately from the Document Properties dialog.

* For each grid, you can hide it by unchecking the "Visible" checkbox in the grid's tab, or disable snapping to it by unchecking "Enabled". Note that you can have "Enabled" on and "Visible" off (but not vice versa), in which case you snap to the invisible grid.

* Multiple views on the same document (i.e. different Inkscape windows with the same document loaded) share the same grids, but the grid can be turned on and off for each view separately. For example, you could have a zoomed-out "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.

* 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 by subclassing CanvasGrid. 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!
* Grid information is now stored in SVG as a child of sodipodi:namedview. Old files will be converted to this new format automatically.
* An old bug is fixed: apparently the origin of the document coordinate system used to be set to the origin of the grid. For example, in 0.45.1 and before, specifying a grid origin of (20,20) moved the origin or coordinates to that point, and the grid was still starting at (0,0) in this moved coordinate system. This is now disabled, and the coordinate origin is not affected by grid origin.

==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 end of the ruler, 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 '''Ctrl''' is pressed, the angle is perpendicular to the grid lines (useful for aligning gradients).

==Creating guidelines from objects==

* Selected objects can now be converted to guidelines. To do this, either use the menu command '''"Object->Object to guides"''' or press '''Shift+G''' in Selector tool (this shortcut also works in some other tools, see below). The conversion process recurses into groups, i.e. all objects in the current selection are converted regardless if they are grouped or not.

* Created guides can be quickly deleted by '''Ctrl'''+clicking on them (this is of course not restricted to guides created by the process described above). Note that this only works in Selector and Node tools, i.e., in contexts where guidelines can be manipulated with the mouse.

* '''Paths''' are converted by creating one guide for each straight line segment occurring in the path (whereas curved segments are not taken into account). To make this conveniently accessible, the shortcut '''Shift+G''' works in Pen and Pencil tools, too.

* For all other objects, conversion usually happens by placing the guidelines around the object's bounding box (use the corresponding checkbox in the "Tools" page of Inkscape Preferences to switch between geometric and visual bounding box).

*For '''rectangles''' and '''3D boxes''' there is a special option in their preferences pages (checked by default) which instead allows the guidelines to be placed along the object's edges so that they imitate its true shape. This is especially useful when converting rotated or skewed rectangles (to create guidelines in a special position) or for creating 3D scenes containing other objects than just boxes. The shortcut '''Shift+G''' works in these tools as well.

==Snapping==

* Snapping has been implemented or improved for:

:* '''Newly created shapes'''

:* '''Skewing''' of objects

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

:* '''Images''', '''ellipses''', 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).

=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 and requires that you have Python and UniConvertor installed. As of UniConvertor 1.1.1, versions from 7 to X4 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.

==WMF import==

Now Inkscape uses UniConvertor for opening WMF files, which results in three noticable changes:

# imported files are editable now
# known rendering issues are resolved
# WMF import works on all platforms where UniConvertor works (including Windows)

Text objects are not supported by UniConvertor as of version 1.1.1.

==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 ==

Inkscape features a preliminary support for importing drawings from [http://openclipart.org/ Open Clip Art Library].

After specifying account details in Preferences dialog (Import/Export tab) use 'File > Import From Open Clip Art Library' command to open a dialog, then search for tags and pick one of the results to merge this found drawing into your document.

=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 ==

Inkscape's dialog handling has been reworked in this release to allow dialogs to behave like '''dockable panels'''. The dock area that holds the user's dialogs is located right of the canvas.

Dialogs placed in the dock can easily be rearranged, resized, stacked in groups or iconified. Furthermore, a dialog can be dragged of the dock to become a floating dock in itself—this allows other dialogs to be dragged and dropped on it to form a floating group of dialogs.

The old dialog behavior (used in releases before 0.46) has been preserved as an option, and if it is preferred, one can select it under ''Windows'' > ''Dialog behavior'' in the Inkscape preferences dialog.

====Known issues====

* Some of Inkscape's dialogs are yet to be adapted to allow docking, these include the "Text and Font" dialog, the "Tiled clones" dialog, the "XML editor" and the "Object properties" dialog.

* Floating dialogs that are closed and later reopened might reappear on positions slightly different than their original ones.

* Resizing dialogs that are placed in the dock can be a bit slow and quirky.

* The total height of content the dock will in most cases remain the same when a dialog is closed/iconified, i.e. the remaining docked dialogs will fill the hole. This might not the desired behavior.

====Settings====

Three settings that control dockable dialogs behavior are present in the <code>preferences.xml</code> file under a <code>options</code> group called <code>dock</code>:

* <code>cancenterdock</code>: controls if dialogs are allowed to be stacked on top of each other to be ordered in groups. Valid values are <code>"0"</code> and <code>"1"</code>.

* <code>dockbarstyle</code>: controls what information is shown for iconified dockable dialogs. <code>"0"</code> = icons only, <code>"1"</code> = text only, <code>"2"</code> = both icons and text.

* <code>switcherstyle</code>: controls what information is shown for grouped dockable dialogs. <code>"0"</code> = icons only, <code>"1"</code> = text only, <code>"2"</code> = both icons and text.

== Toolbars ==

'''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.

Switching to stock GTK+ toolbars. This allows for the main window to be made narrower, with toolbar items flowing into a popup menu as it is resized.

== [filedialogs] ==

== 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.

:* A new submenu has been added to affect the shape of the displayed swatches, allowing their preferred size to be made thinner or wider. Among other things, this allows for more to be seen on screen at once when made thinner.

:* Sizing of the swatches has been corrected to be properly progressive, and now go form smaller to larger on all platforms.

:* Space reserved for the scrollbar is no longer kept with smaller palettes shown in the bottom of the main UI. This allows for more working space when palettes with not many entries are selected at smaller sizes.

==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.

== Bounding box option moved ==

The preferences option to select between "visual" and "geometric" bounding box was moved in Inkscape Preferences dialog from the "Selector" page to "Tools" page (since it applies more globally than just in Selector tool).

== 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.

== Keyboard profiles ==

New profiles have been added:

* '''Corel DRAW X4''' (corel-draw-x4.xml)
* '''Zoner Draw 5''' (zoner-draw.xml)
* '''ACD Systems Canvas 11''' (acd-canvas.xml)

Also, profile for Adobe Illustrator has been fixed and includes bindings for tools now.

(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>.)

=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.

* Inkscape application bundle on '''Mac OS X''' now has the possibility to contain '''pre-compiled python modules''' (e.g. lxml, numpy, etc.) and to use them without requiring any work from the user. Since Python itself is shipped with Mac OS X, the user only has to drag and drop Inkscape on its hard-drive and all the extensions will be '''functional immediately'''.

=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).

* 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.

* '''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; it is now fixed.

* Serious usability issues with the font size field in the Text tool's controls bar have been fixed.

* The rulers are now correctly scaled and will align nicely with document coordinates, with or without the scrollbars displayed.

=Known Issues=

* Blend modes do not work correctly over transparent backgrounds. (LP: [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/180890 #180890]) A workaround is to place an opaque rectangle underneath the bottom-most layer.

= Previous releases =

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

[[Category:Marketing]]

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-22T14:39:05Z

Rygle: /* For more information */ Reverted Heading Level

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* A recommended step is to download and install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching
* You need to download the source code and possibly apply patches if bug testing

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Ishmal provides a complete set of compiler and library files on his website. You can get all packages from http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the last versions. As of March 13 2008 those are:
* the mingw compiler version 4.2 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080313.7z

The configuration files expect the packages in specific directories:
* the compiler C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* other libraries C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
** For the 0.47 development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;
* Download the patch to the ''src'' directory. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff
* Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''
* You will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version.
* If you want to go back to the SVN version, simply right click on a file or inside a folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. Doing this with a single file will only ask to revert that one file. Clicking on a folder folder will offer to revert all files in that folder.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works indepently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patchfile must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous firewall software like Comodo's Defense+, which is a great firewall, but asks for confirmation to allow every new process that runs. It might also be good to disable screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? I tried deleting the compile.lst file in the root to force it to start again, hoping that it would skip all but that file.

Here's how I got into trouble. The build seemed to pause when I was away and the screen saver, or possibly the automatic defrag that triggers on low user activity, or something similar, activated. I saw that the last file built was made 3 hours ago, and I pressed CTRL-Z to stop the process, but it just stopped that one file and continued the overall process. I deleted the ''file.o'' file being worked on when I pressed CTRL-Z because it was huge, but the rest of the .o files seemed to have built normally. After that it gave errors and complained about line 200 in the build.xml file, which is the compile process.

This could also be a relevant question if I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - ??? Is this something like ''g++ module.cpp -o module.o'' and then put the file in the right place ???

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-22T14:22:27Z

Rygle: /* For more information */ Upped heading level

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* A recommended step is to download and install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching
* You need to download the source code and possibly apply patches if bug testing

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Ishmal provides a complete set of compiler and library files on his website. You can get all packages from http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the last versions. As of March 13 2008 those are:
* the mingw compiler version 4.2 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080313.7z

The configuration files expect the packages in specific directories:
* the compiler C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* other libraries C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
** For the 0.47 development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;
* Download the patch to the ''src'' directory. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff
* Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''
* You will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version.
* If you want to go back to the SVN version, simply right click on a file or inside a folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. Doing this with a single file will only ask to revert that one file. Clicking on a folder folder will offer to revert all files in that folder.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works indepently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patchfile must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous firewall software like Comodo's Defense+, which is a great firewall, but asks for confirmation to allow every new process that runs. It might also be good to disable screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? I tried deleting the compile.lst file in the root to force it to start again, hoping that it would skip all but that file.

Here's how I got into trouble. The build seemed to pause when I was away and the screen saver, or possibly the automatic defrag that triggers on low user activity, or something similar, activated. I saw that the last file built was made 3 hours ago, and I pressed CTRL-Z to stop the process, but it just stopped that one file and continued the overall process. I deleted the ''file.o'' file being worked on when I pressed CTRL-Z because it was huge, but the rest of the .o files seemed to have built normally. After that it gave errors and complained about line 200 in the build.xml file, which is the compile process.

This could also be a relevant question if I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - ??? Is this something like ''g++ module.cpp -o module.o'' and then put the file in the right place ???

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

=== For more information ===
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-22T14:21:11Z

Rygle: /* Building Your Own Binary */ Updated to use TortoiseSVN

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* A recommended step is to download and install the TortoiseSVN program to help manage source files and patching
* You need to download the source code and possibly apply patches if bug testing

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Ishmal provides a complete set of compiler and library files on his website. You can get all packages from http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the last versions. As of March 13 2008 those are:
* the mingw compiler version 4.2 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080313.7z

The configuration files expect the packages in specific directories:
* the compiler C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* other libraries C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====
The best way to get the source is straight from the SVN repository using the TortoiseSVN program. Follow these steps;

'''''Setting up a local source repository:'''''
* Get TortoiseSVN from http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads
* Install Tortoise SVN.
* Once Tortoise is installed, make a working folder wherever you want.
* Inside the working folder, right click and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Create repository here''. This will make a bunch of folders inside your working folder.
* Now make another folder in the working folder called 0.46branch or whatever else you'd like to call it. This will hold the source files.

'''''Getting the source:'''''
* Enter the folder you created for the source files. Right click and select ''SVN Checkout''.
* Enter the URL for the source code you want;
** For the 0.46 release branch, use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH/ (This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.)
** For the 0.47 development branch (trunk), use https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/ (This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.)
* TortoiseSVN will now download the source files, which are just over 30Mb.

'''''Notes:'''''
* You can also get a zipped up version of the trunk (0.47 dev) from Ishmal's site - http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Using TortoiseSVN:'''''

Tortoise makes patching quite easy. Follow these steps;
* Download the patch to the ''src'' directory. It should be called {patchname}.patch or {patchname}.diff
* Right click on the patch, and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Apply Patch...''
* You will now notice that the patched file has a red exclamation rather than a green tick. This signifies that it has been altered from the SVN version.
* If you want to go back to the SVN version, simply right click on a file or inside a folder and select ''TortoiseSVN'' -> ''Revert''. Doing this with a single file will only ask to revert that one file. Clicking on a folder folder will offer to revert all files in that folder.

'''''Using the GNU patch program:'''''

For those who love the command line, you can patch using the GNU patch program.

* Download the program from here - http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm
* Put the patch program wherever you like, as it works indepently from the compiler.
* If the patch file refers to the location in its header, put it in the /src directory and then patch, otherwise put it in the same directory as the file to be patched
* In a command window, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
* You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.
* The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patchfile must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous firewall software like Comodo's Defense+, which is a great firewall, but asks for confirmation to allow every new process that runs. It might also be good to disable screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat

Now, build the build tool:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape directory.

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Feel free to add any questions or answers you have in here;

'''Q''' - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

'''A1''' - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

'''A2''' - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

'''A3''' - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

'''Q''' - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? I tried deleting the compile.lst file in the root to force it to start again, hoping that it would skip all but that file.

Here's how I got into trouble. The build seemed to pause when I was away and the screen saver, or possibly the automatic defrag that triggers on low user activity, or something similar, activated. I saw that the last file built was made 3 hours ago, and I pressed CTRL-Z to stop the process, but it just stopped that one file and continued the overall process. I deleted the ''file.o'' file being worked on when I pressed CTRL-Z because it was huge, but the rest of the .o files seemed to have built normally. After that it gave errors and complained about line 200 in the build.xml file, which is the compile process.

This could also be a relevant question if I want to try patching just one part of the code.

'''A''' - ??? Is this something like ''g++ module.cpp -o module.o'' and then put the file in the right place ???

'''Q''' - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

'''A''' - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
There is some old information on building Inkscape with either Mingw on Windows, or a cross-compiler on Linux, at http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-22T12:27:36Z

Rygle: /* Dealing With Build Errors */

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

=== Inkscape under Windows ===

Inkscape was originally written for Linux, but has been ported to other platforms, including Windows, through the work of a number of dedicated developers.

You can get pre-built binaries of the Windows releases (both stable and development) from the [http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en Inkscape download page]

=== Building Your Own Binary ===
As well as getting a pre-built binary, you can also build your own. You may do this for fun, to learn about programming, or to help test or improve Inkscape.

Several steps are required to build your own binary, as follows;
* You need to download the source code
* You will need to download and install the MinGW compiler
* You will also need the supporting libraries used by Inkscape
* If you wish to apply patches for bug-testing, you will also need to download the patch utility

==== Getting The Inkscape Source ====

Depending on which version of Inkscape you are trying to build, you can try one of the following options;

'''''For the 0.46 Release Branch:'''''

This branch of the source is frozen for the 0.46 release. New features are not allowed in order to focus on bug fixing. This is what you need to test for bugs in the 0.46 release.

To get it, you will need to use an [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/WorkingWithSVN SVN program] to checkout the source code from;

https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/branches/RELEASE_0_46_BRANCH

'''''For the 0.47 Trunk:'''''

This branch of the source is for ongoing development and includes new and experimental features not in the 0.46 release branch. It is slowly diverging from the 0.46 release branch, thus becoming progressively less useful for testing bugs in the 0.46 release.

An easy way to get it is via Ishmal's SVN snapshots; http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/

Download the latest file (or earlier if testing bugs) and decompress it. It does not need to be in a particular place, so put it wherever is convenient for you.

Alternately, you can use an [http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/WorkingWithSVN SVN program] to checkout the source code from;

https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk/

==== Getting The Compiler & Libraries ====

Ishmal also provides a complete set of compiler and libraries on his website. You can get all packages from http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/.

Before you download, check for the last versions. As of March 13 2008 those are:
* the mingw compiler version 4.2 http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/mingw-4.2.1-071022-dw2.7z
* other libraries http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/devlibs-2.12-080313.7z

The configuration files expect the packages in specific directories:
* the compiler C:\MINGW (referenced by mingwenv.bat)
* other libraries C:\DEVLIBS (referenced in build.xml used by buildtool)

==== Patching The Source Code ====

'''''Getting the patch program'''''

To patch the Inkscape source code, you can use the patch program. One of the best places to get it is from the GnuWin32 project;

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm

This page has binaries, source and documentation for patch. You can put the patch program wherever you like, as it works indepently from the compiler.

'''''Patching'''''

One way of patching a particular module of code is to copy that code into the patch directory, as well as the patch/diff file, and then after patching to copy the patched file back to the source directory. Note: there can sometimes be several code modules with the same name (eg: print.cpp is in three places, but all are different)

To do the actual patching, you will again need to be in a command window. To patch, type something like the following;
...>patch --binary {''modulename''}.cpp {''modulename''}.cpp.patch
You should now have a patched code module to copy back to the same spot in the source tree.

'''''Notes:'''''
*The ''--binary'' switch is only necessary if the files contain the wrong sort of line endings. The [http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm GnuWin32 Patch page] notes the following; ''"On MS-Windows, the patchfile must be a text file, i.e. CR-LF must be used as line endings. A file with LF may give the error: "Assertion failed, hunk, file patch.c, line 343," unless the option '--binary' is given."''
* Requirements for patch are "''Win32, i.e. MS-Windows 95 / 98 / ME / NT / 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista with msvcrt.dll and msvcp60.dll. If msvcrt.dll or msvcp60.dll is not in your Windows/System folder, get them from [http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;259403 Microsoft], or (msvcrt.dll only) by installing [http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie Internet Explorer] 4.0 or higher.''"

==== Building The Binary ====

Before you begin, it might be an idea to temporarily lower the level of any over zealous firewall software like Comodo's Defense+, which is a great firewall, but asks for confirmation to allow every new process that runs. It might also be good to disable screen savers or other background programs that chew a lot of processor power when the computer is not attended. These programs can interfere with the build process, and cause you to have to start again.

You will need to open a command window (DOS prompt) to build the binary. Go to the Start Menu, select Run, and then type command (or cmd). Now you need to step into the Inkscape source directory:
...\> cd ...\inkscape

Ishmal's SVN snapshots include some convenient tools to help Windows users build a binary. Firstly run the batch file that sets up the MinGW environment variables
...\> mingwenv.bat

Now, build the magic make replacement:
...\> g++ buildtool.cpp -o btool
or, if you get errors about gettimeofday:
...\> g++ -DNEED_GETTIMEOFDAY buildtool.cpp -o btool

Now you can start the build process by simply running btool.
...\> btool

Grab a coffee and find something else to do. On an AMD-64 3000+ 1Gb it takes about 70 minutes, but your mileage may vary. The build process can normally continue in the background while you're doing other stuff on your PC.

If everything went well, you should now have you fresh Inkscape in the ...\Inkscape\Inkscape directory.

==== Dealing With Build Errors ====
Write any questions or answers you have in here;

Q - My firewall software (Comodo's Defense+ component or similar) stopped the process continuing to the next step in the build, because I wasn't there to permit an action and it timed out. What can I do?

A1 - The best thing is to disable stuff like Defense+ (put it in learning mode works) because it will stop any process that is not approved, and building makes new files which can't be approved before they're built. Disabling Comodo's Defense+ does not disable your firewall, either inbound or outbound, but just the part that scans every application for suspicious operations. Other firewalls etc may vary.

A2 - If that doesn't suit, often you can simply run btool again and wait for Defense+ (or similar) to ask for approval for the process, and it will then continue as normal with the build. But remember that approving all the processes involved in the build process once doesn't mean they will all slip through next time.

A3 - This is the more complex way to continue, but may help if you have problems with A2. If you know the stage the process was meant to be up to (look at the output in the command windows and compare to the stages in the ''build.xml'' file), you can start again from there.

You may see something like this in the command window;
=============================
## Target : link : link objects and library to create executable
---- task : rc
============ cmd ============
windres -o build/inkres.o --include-dir=src src/inkscape.rc
=============================
---- task : link
This will likely be followed by an error message. This means you were at the ''link'' stage

Now simply type;
...>btool ''stage''
Or in this case
...>btool link
And the build will continue from there.

After this, you will probably have to step through the remaining stages manually, one by one. The stages can include (see build.xml, where each stage is labelled 'target name="''target''"') ''init'', ''touchabout'', ''compile'', ''java'', ''lib'', ''i18n'', ''link'', ''linkinkview'', ''dist'', ''dist-all'', ''clean''.

Q - How do I rebuild just one ''file.o'' file? I tried deleting the compile.lst file in the root to force it to start again, hoping that it would skip all but that file.

Here's how I got into trouble. The build seemed to pause when I was away and the screen saver, or possibly the automatic defrag that triggers on low user activity, or something similar, activated. I saw that the last file built was made 3 hours ago, and I pressed CTRL-Z to stop the process, but it just stopped that one file and continued the overall process. I deleted the ''file.o'' file being worked on when I pressed CTRL-Z because it was huge, but the rest of the .o files seemed to have built normally. After that it gave errors and complained about line 200 in the build.xml file, which is the compile process.

This could also be a relevant question if I want to try patching just one part of the code.

A - ??? Is this something like ''g++ module.cpp -o module.o'' and then put the file in the right place ???

Q - After I patched a file, I left a backup of the old file in the same directory called Copy of{filename}.cpp. The compiler complains about this file when building and stops.

A - Do not leave anything with a suffix .cpp in the source directories, apart from the original (or patched) source files. The build tool will try to compile everything ending in .cpp and will complain. If you backup an old file in the same directory before patching, call it {filename}.cpp.old or similar.

==== For more information ====
We will update this page soon with information on how to build Inkscape on the Win32 platform. In the meantime,
there are some fairly complete notes on how to build the current package with either Mingw on Windows, or a
cross-compiler on Linux, at

http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32_inkscape_org/win32buildnotes.html

(note: http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32libs/ may have more complete and up-to-date library packages).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- [[JonCruz|Jon C]]

=== SVN and Windows ===

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

John

Class:Creating Scientific Posters

2008-03-20T10:16:51Z

Rygle: /* Creating Scientific Posters */ - Class Details Skeleton

Presenter: Albert Cardona

Target Audience: Inkscape Users

Synopsis: To Be Added.

Class:Using Clones

2008-03-17T08:24:43Z

Rygle: /* Using Clones*/ Class Details Skeleton

'''Presenter:''' Bernard Gray

'''Target Audience:''' Inkscape Users

'''Synopsis:''' To Be Added.

Class:Creating Icons using Inkscape

2008-03-17T08:23:48Z

Rygle: /* Creating Icons Using Inkscape*/ Class Detail Skeleton

'''Presenter:''' Bernard Gray

'''Target Audience:''' Inkscape Users

'''Synopsis:''' To Be Added.

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-16T23:25:21Z

Rygle: /* Getting The Inkscape Source */ Spelling

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-16T13:30:49Z

Rygle: /* Getting The Inkscape Source */ Typo correction

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-16T13:30:15Z

Rygle: /* Getting The Inkscape Source */ Minor Formatting

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-16T13:29:42Z

Rygle: /* Patching The Source Code */ Minor Formatting

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-16T13:29:16Z

Rygle: /* Patching The Source Code */ Minor Formatting

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-16T13:25:52Z

Rygle: /* Getting The Compiler & Libraries */ Updated Dev Libs Link and minor formatting

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-16T13:20:05Z

Rygle: /* Getting The Inkscape Source */ Added details to get both trunk and 0.46 Release branch from SVN

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-13T21:26:25Z

Rygle: /* Building The Binary */

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-13T08:00:04Z

Rygle: /* Dealing With Build Errors */

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-13T07:18:03Z

Rygle: /* Dealing With Build Errors */

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-13T07:16:34Z

Rygle: /* Dealing With Build Errors */

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-13T06:33:33Z

Rygle: /* Dealing With Build Errors */

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-13T06:32:25Z

Rygle: /* Dealing With Build Errors */

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-13T06:32:04Z

Rygle: /* Dealing With Build Errors */

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-13T06:28:30Z

Rygle: /* Dealing With Build Errors */

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-13T06:14:33Z

Rygle: /* Dealing With Build Errors */ Added some questions and answers

Compiling Inkscape on Windows 32-bit

2008-03-13T05:42:46Z

Rygle: /* Building The Binary */

CompilingMacOsX

2008-03-13T05:30:46Z

Rygle: /* For the impatient */

= For the impatient =

1. Install [http://developer.apple.com/tools/xcode/ XCode tools] from your OS X installation DVD

2. Download and install [http://www.macports.org/ MacPorts]

3. In Terminal (Applications>Utilities>Terminal) type
<pre>sudo port sync
sudo port selfupdate
sudo port install cairo +pdf boehmgc gtkmm intltool libxslt lcms popt poppler boost gnome-vfs \
libgnomeprintui automake autoconf subversion</pre>
Grab a cup of coffee

4. In Terminal, get and build Inkscape
<pre>
svn co https://inkscape.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/inkscape/inkscape/trunk inkscape
cd inkscape/packaging/macosx/
./osx-build.sh a c b i -s p</pre>

''Et voilà''. If you want to understand what you just did, read on.

= Requirements =
To compile Inkscape from source you need:
*Mac OS X > 10.3
*XCode Tools. They are on your installation DVD, in the optional installs, or can be download from [http://developer.apple.com/tools/xcode/ Apple Developer Connection]. You can customize the install to make it smaller (avoir documentation and example software for example). You need at least: gcc, XCode, X11SDK.
*Inkscape's source code. You can download an [http://www.inkscape.org/download.php official release source code], a [http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/?M=D development snapshot] or checkout a copy of the current state of the [http://www.inkscape.org/svn.php?lang=en SVN repository] using [http://subversion.tigris.org/ subversion]. Subversion comes pre-installed on Leopard. On previous system, subversion can be installed by package management systems (see point below) or with an OS X installer [http://homepage.mac.com/martinott/ package]
*A means of getting Inkscape's numerous dependencies: glibmm, gtkmm, lmcs, boehmgc... We recommend the use of [http://www.macports.org/ MacPorts] right now. [http://www.finkproject.org/ Fink] was used in the past but there is no information about wether it meets Inkscape needs currently. Alternatively you could use Inkscape all-in-one universal build script to install them (see below).

= Compiling Inkscape with X11, using MacPorts [Recommended method]=

== Installing dependencies ==
You can use MacPorts to list Inkscape dependencies:
<pre>port deps inkscape</pre>

Some are mandatory and you can install them with the command:
<pre>sudo port install boehmgc gtkmm intltool libxslt lcms popt boost</pre>

Others provide additional functionality to Inkscape:
* <code>gnome-vfs</code> : access to remote servers, in particular import from Open Clipart Library
* <code>aspell</code> : check spelling of text elements [Note: I have never seen it working on OS X]
* <code>libgnomeprintui</code>
* <code>loudmouth</code> : jabber library used by InkBoard
* <code>cairo +pdf</code> (cairo with the pdf variant) : better pdf export
* <code>poppler</code> : better pdf import
<pre>sudo port install gnome-vfs aspell libgnomeprintui loudmouth cairo +pdf poppler</pre>
NB: Cairo was already installed at previous step as a GTK dependency. You need to either deactivate the old version and install this one, or directly write it on the command line above.

In addition, Inkscape requires versions of the autotools more recent thant those that ship with OS X. Install them:
<pre>sudo port install autoconf automake</pre>

== Setting the build environment ==
MacPorts's hierarchy (/opt/local/) is not searched for libraries by default. Therefore, before the configuration starts, some environment variables need to be set. The environment variables are presented in bash syntax here.
<pre>export LIBPREFIX="/opt/local"
# automake seach path
export CPATH="$LIBPREFIX/include"
# configure search path
export CPPFLAGS="-I$LIBPREFIX/include"
export LDFLAGS="-L$LIBPREFIX/lib"
# compiler arguments
export CFLAGS="-O3 -Wall"
export CXXFLAGS="$CFLAGS"
</pre>

You can also use <code>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ccache ccache]</code> (<code>sudo port install ccache</code>) to speed up the compilation a bit. To do so, add compiler variables:
<pre>export CC="ccache gcc"
export CXX="ccache g++"</pre>

== Configuring ==
If you compile Inkscape for the first time from an svn checkout you need to generate the configure script. Navigate to Inkscape's source directory and run:
<pre>./autogen.sh</pre>

Then run configure with the options <code>--disable-static --enable-shared</code> and <code>--prefix</code> which sets the directory where the build products are placed. It must be somewhere you have write access to.
<pre>./configure --disable-static --enable-shared --prefix=/path/to/build/products/</pre>

I you want to package Inkscape into a double-clickable <code>.app</code> bundle in order to access it like a regular OS X application (you probably want to), you need to add the option <code>--enable-osxapp</code>:
<pre>./configure {...} --enable-osxapp</pre>

If you have loudmouth installed and you want to enable whiteboard functionality in Inkscape, add <code>--enable-inkboard</code>.

Other configuration options can be set, check the list of options by issuing:
<pre>./configure --help</pre>

== Building and Installing ==
Just run:
<pre>make
make install</pre>

== Creating an .app bundle ==
Assuming that you have used the <code>--enable-osxapp</code> option during <code>configure</code>, navigate to Mac OS X packaging directory in Inkscape source code and use the automated script:
<pre>cd packaging/macosx
./osx-app.sh -s -b /path/to/install/prefix/bin/inkscape -p ../../Info.plist</pre>
The script copies Inkscape binary and all its dependencies into the app bundle. The <code>-s</code> options strips libraries from debugging information (the bundle is therefore smaller). Omit this option if you want to keep debugging info.

== Creating a disk image to distribute Inkscape ==
Inkscape.app created at the previous step is completely independent from the original location of MacPorts libraries and can therefore be distributed. It will only work on your platform though (PPC or Intel) and incompatibilities are known between X11 versions on different major versions of OS X (Panther, Tiger and Leopard). The general rule is that versions are not backward compatible.

The most widespread way of distributing applications on Mac OS X is via .dmg images. You can created a dmg image of Inkscape, with a nice background and all, using the script:
<pre>./osx-dmg.sh -p Inkscape.app</pre>
in the packaging directory for Mac OS X (where your app bundle should be, otherwise modify the path to Inkscape.app).

== Automated build script ==
All these steps are automated by a build script: <code>osx-build.sh</code>. It has built-in help so to known how to use it just type:
<pre>./osx-build.sh help</pre>

= Compiling a Universal Binary of Inkscape with X11, using the all-in-one build script [untested]=

To build a Universal Binary of Inkscape you also need to build Universal versions of all its dependencies (i.e., gtk+, cairo, pango, etc). You can do this using the build-gtk.sh script from the Inkscape repository (it's in packaging/macosx/native-gtk/).

This process is relatively untested, as it is only being used by Michael Wybrow for official Inkscape release builds. If you have any troubles using this process then please report them to Michael (mjwybrow on sourceforge).

The process is:
<pre>export PREFIX=/your/install/prefix
export UNIVERSAL_BUILD=Yes
./build-gtk bootstrap
./build-gtk build inkscape
</pre>

= Compiling a Universal Binary of Inkscape with X11, using MacPorts [in progress]=

Just use the +universal variant of everything to build universal versions.

Port that fail currently
* poppler : Error: Error executing universal: Default universal variant only works with ports based on configure
* docbook-xsl : similar. can be build non universal it is not a runtime dependency. it is just a compile time dependency for gtk-doc. but this is a pain since one cannot just do port install gtk2 +univeral anymore because it tries to find docbook-xsl +universal. so one have to install everything by hand.
* more to come...

= Compiling Inkscape with native GTK using MacPorts [experimental] =
This process is very similar to compiling an X11 version of Inkscape except for the building of dependencies: need to build native versions of Inkscape dependencies. At the moment (2007-12-17) this process does not produce a usable version of Inkscape but the more people try to use it, the quicker the bugs will be ironed out!

== Native version of Inkscape dependencies ==
Thanks to the power of port "variants" and port "deactivation" you can install native versions of gtk, cairo, pango and such, alongside the regular X11 ones. To know which ports have a <code>quartz</code> or <code>no_x11</code> variant, use the command:
<pre>port list variant:quartz variant:no_x11</pre>
This will give you an idea of what need to be replaced.

Assuming your MacPorts tree has been already used to build regular versions of Inkscape, you first need to deactivate (suppress from the tree without really uninstalling) the X11 versions of gtk, cairo, cairomm and pango:
<pre>sudo port deactivate gtk2 cairo cairomm pango</pre>

Then install native variants:
<pre>sudo port install cairo +quartz+pdf+no_x11 cairomm +quartz pango +no_x11 poppler +quartz gtk2 +quartz</pre>

Rather than deactivating and reactivating ports, you can also keep two MacPorts trees side by side, provided you install the second one from source. Let say I want to install a new tree for native versions in /opt/local/native, I would do
<pre>export PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin
cd ~/MacPorts-1.x.x/
./configure --prefix=/opt/local-native --with-tclpackage=/Library/Tcl/macports-native
make
sudo make install</pre>
Then you need to have only one version of the port command in the path at any time so you need to setup your .bashrc (or .bash_profile or .profile) accordingly. I use shell aliases to quickly and temporarily switch to the universal version:
<pre>alias portpathregular="export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/Developer/Tools:/usr/local/bin: \
/usr/X11R6/bin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin"
alias portpathuniv="export PATH=/opt/local-univ/bin:/opt/local-univ/sbin:/Developer/Tools:/usr/local/bin: \
/usr/X11R6/bin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin"</pre>
NB: the \ are just to mark line continuation here, suppress them and put everything in one line.

== Install the rest ==
Eventually, follow the regular install procedure for the rest:
<pre>sudo port install libxslt boost boehmgc gtkmm lcms intltool popt</pre>
If your MacPorts tree was already ready to compile Inkscape, you should not need to reinstall anything, with the possible exception of gtkmm, which may need to be rebuilt against the native version of gtk rather than against the X11 one (please someone confirm this).

Get inkscape source code and go in the mac OS X specific packaging directory
<pre>cd packaging/macosx</pre>
There edit <code>osx-build.sh</code> to remove the configure option <code>--enable-osxapp</code> because it puts inkscape in a .app bundle where it is started together with X11, which would defeat the purpose of this native compilation. You can also specify an alternative install prefix if you want. Then
<pre>./osx-build.sh u a c b i</pre>
and a native version of Inkscape is installed in the prefix you specified or in the <code>Build/bin</code> directory of Inkscape's source code. You can test it by
<pre> cd ../../Build/bin/
./inkscape</pre>

NB: if you compiled a GTK theme engine against your old GTK install (i.e. the one with X11) and try to use it with the new install, it will complain, so edit <code>~/.gtkrc-2.0</code> to remove the offending theme or recompile it with the new native GTK.

= Compiling Inkscape with native GTK using the all in one build script [experimental] =

To build a native-GTK build of Inkscape, GTK and some of its dependencies must be built with special options. You can do this using the build-gtk.sh script from the Inkscape repository (it's in packaging/macosx/native-gtk/). This is a modified version of the Imendio native build script, found with instructions on this page:
http://developer.imendio.com/projects/gtk-macosx/build-instructions

This process is relatively untested. If you have any troubles using this process then please report them to Michael Wybrow (mjwybrow on sourceforge).

The process is:
<pre>export PREFIX=/your/install/prefix
./build-gtk bootstrap
./build-gtk build inkscape
</pre>

= Enabling python effects =
moved to [[GettingEffectsWorking]]. They should work out of the box in the new versions anyway.

= Links =

== User Examples ==
* Adam Strzeleki has outlined some improvements to this process on the Inkscape [http://www.nabble.com/Inkscape-native-Mac-OS-X-build---look-improvements-td14733036.html email list]. See his screenshot from January 10, 2008 [http://www.nabble.com/attachment/14733036/1/Inkscape%20OSX%20PL.gif here].
* JiHO has a video of his builds [http://jo.irisson.free.fr/?p=34 here] and [http://jo.irisson.free.fr/?p=62 here].

== Apple Documentation ==
* [http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPRuntimeConfig/BPRuntimeConfig.html Introduction to Runtime Configuration] Covers the Info.plist files, Preferences, Environment variables and has a list of the most important Properties that the Property List should contain.

== Packaging ==

* [http://www.sveinbjorn.org/platypus Sveinbjorn Thordarson's Website] The author of Platypus, the Script Exec wrapper that launches the Inkscape binary.
* [http://freespace.ausgamers.com/2005/02/creating-os-x-application-bundles-step.html Creating OS X application bundles step by step] Covers the bundle concepts, copying libraries into the bundle, editing libraries with the install_name_tool, the Info.plist file and adding an icon.
* [http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/JavaLP/JavaToMac3/ Bringing your Java Application to Mac OS X] I would regard this a little dated, and the detail is (unsurprisingly) Java-related, but it is a gentle introduction to the role of the .app bundle and give a most clear account of how to create one.
* The [http://gimp-app.sourceforge.net/gimp.app.howto.txt Gimp .app Howto] This is a very bare document, and would be of little help to you if you were new to making packages. Note that it seems to refer to a more mature Clipboard technique and Online help than we currently have; and we ought to move to parity in these areas.

[[Category:Developer Documentation]]