Difference between revisions of "Release notes/1.0"

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Inkscape 1.0

(definitely not released yet - AnnouncePlanning1.0)

Released on «YYYY-MM-DD».

Release highlights

Theming support and more new customization options
Better HiDPI (high resolution) screen support
Native support for macOS with a signed and notarized .dmg file
Coordinate origin in top left corner by default
Canvas rotation and mirroring
On-Canvas alignment of objects
Split view and X-Ray modes
PowerPencil for drawing editable, variable width strokes with a pressure sensitive graphics tablet
New PNG export options
Integrated centerline tracing for vectorizing line drawings
Searchable Symbols dialog
New Live Path Effect (LPE) selection dialog
New Corners (Fillet/chamfer) LPE, (lossless) Boolean Operation LPE, Offset LPE and Measure Segments LPE (and more!)
Path operations, deselection of a large number of paths as well as grouping/ungrouping are much faster now
Much improved text line-height settings
Variable fonts support (only if compiled with pango library version >= 1.41.1)
Browser-compatible flowed text
Extensions programming interface updated, with many new options - Note: this introduces breaking changes, some third-party extensions will have to be updated to work with Inkscape 1.0
Python 3 support for extensions

General: Application

Performance

Lots of small performance improvements in various areas combine to make Inkscape run smoother than before:

Accelerated breaking apart of paths and Boolean operations (by disabling intermittent canvas rendering during these operations).
Accelerated "deselect" speed (by improving internal data structure algorithms).
Faster grouping and ungrouping of groups with a large number of objects
Speed boost to operations on large sets of objects in the Objects dialog (Bug #392)
Faster lookup of attributes (MR #448)

Mac Application

Inkscape is now a first-rate native macOS application, and no longer requires XQuartz to operate. The minimum required operating system version is OS X El Capitan 10.11.

It has a standard Mac-style menu bar (rather than a menu bar within the window). Keyboard shortcuts now use the command (⌘) key rather than the control key. Retina display screen resolution is now supported. The build is now cleanly 64-bit, a prerequisite for macOS Catalina 10.15 and beyond. It comes bundled with Python 3 to power Inkscape extensions.

General User Interface

Modernized GUI Toolkit

The user interface has been changed to utilise a more recent version of GTK+ (GTK+ 3). This is a collection of user interface building blocks that Inkscape uses to draw the user interface on the screen. This new version brings many improvements, especially for users of HiDPI (high resolution) screens.

Bringing the newer GTK+ toolkit to Inkscape has been an eagerly anticipated goal for a long time. It has taken much effort by the Team involved and it was a focus point of the Boston Hackfest.

Window position / size / behavior

Improvements and fixes to the code for handling/restoring window size and position [1] were made. The window manager handles most of the jobs now, which should make it much more robust. If you still encounter problems with this, please report those to our bug tracker.

The dialog opacity options have been removed, because they were causing crashes that could not be fixed otherwise.

High Resolution Screens

Inkscape now supports HiDPI (high resolution) screens natively. This means that icons and node handles will no longer be tiny on monitors with large pixel dimensions, and the canvas will no longer look blurry.

Tool box

The tools have been reordered and grouped into more logical groups. Zoom and measure tools as well as Spray, Tweak and Eraser are now closer to the bottom. Users can customize the order of the tools by putting a customized version of the file inkscape/share/ui/toolbar-tool.ui into a folder named ui in their Inkscape user configuration folder, if they prefer a different order.

Reordered tools in the tool box

Improved number entry fields

Many numeric entry fields no longer change their value when scrolling while the mouse is hovering over them. They now need to be selected (clicked into). Then scrolling will change the value as previously. This change was made, because scrolling docked dialogs easily led to accidental change of values.

Additionally, Ctrl+Scroll on a selected numeric entry field will now change the value in larger steps.

Canvas

Y-Axis Inversion

During the Inkscape Hackfest in Kiel, a significant change by Thomas Holder was integrated into the Inkscape codebase. It sets the origin of the document to the top left corner of the page. This finally makes the coordinates that a user can see in the interface match the ones that are saved in the SVG data (unit conversions/transformations may be required), and makes working in Inkscape more comfortable for people who are used to this more standard behavior. The old behavior can be reactivated in the preferences, at Edit → Preferences → Interface (disable 'Origin in upper left with y-axis pointing down').

Option in the preferences' 'Interface' section
Effect of the option (left upper page corner at 0/0)

Canvas Rotation

With Ctrl + Shift + Scroll wheel or Ctrl + Scroll wheel dragging the drawing area can be rotated and viewed from different angles. In the bottom right corner of the window, the viewing angle can be entered manually. Right-click to select between a set of preset values. Keyboard shortcuts for clockwise/counter-clockwise/no rotation can be set in the preferences.

Canvas Mirroring

The canvas can now be flipped, to ensure that the drawing does not lean to one side, and looks good either way. The vertical/horizontal flipping is available from the menu View → Canvas orientation → Flip horizontally / Flip vertically. Keyboard shortcuts for flipping the canvas can be set in the preferences (Edit → Preferences → Interface → Keyboard shortcuts).

Pinch-to-zoom

On supported hardware (trackpad, touchpad, multi-touch screen), the canvas can be zoomed with the two-finger pinch gesture.

Duplicate Guides

A new option for duplicating guides was added to the 'Guideline' dialog. This new feature, when used in conjunction with the 'relative change' option (dialog needs to be opened twice), makes it easier to create guides that are offset by a certain distance / angle from an existing guide.

Context menu

The menu that appears after a right-click on the canvas has been extended with the following items, which makes locking/unlocking and hiding/unhiding individual objects much more comfortable:

Hide selected objects
Unhide objects below (the mouse cursor)
Lock selected objects
Unlock objects below (the mouse cursor)

New options in context menu

Snapping

In Edit → Preferences → Behavior → Snapping, a new option was added to disable snapping in new documents or files that are opened with Inkscape for the first time.

View

Center view on page

You can now center the view on the page, without changing the zoom level.

This function is available via:

View → Zoom
the Zoom tool's tool controls bar
Keyboard shortcut Ctrl + 4

Split View Mode

The new Split View Mode features a draggable separator that becomes visible as soon as the Split view mode has been activated. On one side of the separator, the canvas will look just like before, while on the other side, everything will be displayed in outline mode, and objects can more easily be grabbed with the mouse or edited with the node tool.

It can be moved on the canvas by grabbing either the separation line or the central handle. The sides can be switched by clicking on one of the little arrows on the handle.

Activate it with one of:

View → Split View Mode
Ctrl + 6

To deativate the mode, either deactivate the checkbox in the menu again, use the keyboard shortcut a second time, or drag the separator off the canvas.

X-Ray Mode

When the X-Ray mode is active, a circular area that shows objects on the canvas in outline mode will follow the mouse pointer. This makes editing complex drawings with many objects layered on top of one another much easier, and is especially useful when used with the node tool.

Activate it with:

View → XRay Mode
Alt + 6

The size of the X-Ray circle can be adjusted in Edit → Preferences → Rendering → Rendering XRay radius.

To deactivate the mode, either deactivate the checkbox in the menu again, or use the keyboard shortcut a second time.

Visible Hairlines Display Mode

This new display mode is available in the menu under View → Display Mode → Visible Hairlines. It ensures that all lines of nonzero width are visible (with a minimum visible line width), regardless of zoom level, while still drawing everything else normally.

This is especially useful if you need to assign very small line widths for use with CNC machines like laser cutters and vinyl cutters which use hairlines to denote cut lines. In that case, you will still be able to see the lines, even when zoomed out.

Paths

Changed behavior of Stroke to Path

The 'Stroke to Path' command now not only converts the stroke of a shape to path, but effectively splits it into its components.

In the case of applying it to a path that only has a stroke, the behavior is unchanged.

For paths that don't only have a stroke, but also a fill and/or markers, the result will be a group consisting of:

Stroke outline turned to path
Fill (if there was one)
A group of all markers (if applicable; one group per marker, consisting of its outline and its fill turned into a path)

Unlinking Clones for Path Operations

Clones and Symbols are now automatically unlinked, before a Boolean operation (union, difference, etc.), or one of the Path operations 'Combine', 'Break apart', or 'Stroke to Path' is performed.

A setting in the preferences at Behavior → Clones → Unlink Clones allows the User to disable the automatic unlinking.

Tools

Bézier Tool

The tool mode 'Create sequence of paraxial segments', which previously would only draw lines parallel to the x and y axis of the document, now supports arbitrary starting angles. After the first segment, all further angles will use the current angle ±90°. If you want your first segment to work as in previous versions, you need to press Ctrl after the first click. This will restrict your options to (by default) 15° steps.

Arbitrary starting angle for paraxial mode

Calligraphy Tool

A new option to add dots has been added to the tool. Click in place without moving the mouse to create a dot, Shift+Click to create a larger dot [Known issues: inbox#2368, inbox#2342].

Circle Tool

The circle tool can now also create closed ("filleted") circle shapes (closed arcs) with the click of a button.

Circle tool shapes in this release

Eraser

Added option to control eraser width with a pressure sensitive input device.
Added thinning, caps, and tremor options (as used for calligraphy tool).
New option to erase as clip, which allows the User to non-destructively erase (parts of) various types of elements, including raster images and clones.

Measurement Tool

Hovering over a path with the tool now displays the length, height, width, and position of the path. If you hover over a group, it will show the width, height, and position of the group. Holding Shift switches to showing info about the constituents of the group.

The tool also has a new option to only measure selected objects when using click-and-drag.

New info text from measurement tool (for a group)
Measurement tool info text for a single path (in a group with Shift)
Measuring only the selected object (the ice cap)

Pencil Tool

PowerPencil

Pressure sensitivity can now be enabled for the Pencil tool. This feature makes use of the PowerStroke Live Path Effect (LPE).

New settings for the tool are available for tweaking the behavior of the PowerStroke LPE when it is being created with the Pencil tool (and a graphics tablet/stylus):

Use pressure input (in the tool controls bar): activates the PowerStroke feature, if a pressure sensitive device is available.
Min/Max (in the tool controls bar): determines the minimal and maximal stroke width (0–100%). This does not change the number of available pressure levels, but spreads them out in the available line width interval.
Caps (in the tool controls bar): choose between the options 'butt', 'square', 'round', 'peak' and 'zero width' for the end caps of the stroke.
Additionally, the PowerStroke LPE itself has been improved, to better work when used in this new way, see the section about LPE updates.

Selection Tool

On-Canvas Alignment

When the option "Enable on-canvas alignment" is active in the "Align and Distribute" dialog, a new set of handles will appear on canvas when an object is clicked three times (first click: scale handles, second click: rotation/skew handles).

The handles can be used to align the selected objects relative to the area of the current selection.

Shift + click on the outer handles aligns on the outside of the selection area.
Clicking on the central handle will align the selected objects on the horizontal axis. On Shift + click objects will be aligned on the vertical axis.
With Ctrl + Shift the whole selection can be aligned to its outer boundaries / corners as a group (i.e. it is moved by its own width and / or height).

Text Tool

More Compact Tool Controls Bar

Some control buttons that have been mutually exclusive (e.g. right-aligned, left-aligned, justified) have been combined into drop-down lists, so they now take up less space.
Removed the 'Show style of outermost text element' button that made settings confusing.

Better Line Height Settings

Line spacing settings got an overhaul and are now much easier to use. Gone is the unwieldy ? button; this is now handled by selecting text on canvas.
Setting line height works like this now:
- For the whole text: click anywhere into the text without selecting anything, then adjust the line height in the tool controls bar.
- For a specific line: select the text in that line, then adjust the line height in the tool controls bar.
- Set the global line height first, and the specific line heights last. Changing global line height later will remove any line-specific line-heights (even just changing the unit will unset those ).
- Line heights for single selected lines cannot go below the height set globally.
- If more than one line is selected, the line height in between those lines can go below the line height set for the whole text.
The line height settings work in all four text types.

Improved Text Selection

When clicking on a text object, any click within the whole area of the a text line now selects the text with both selection and text tool (previously, clicking into the space between two letters did not select the text).

Variable Font Support

If Inkscape has been compiled with a Pango library version that is at least 1.41.1 (which is the case for the Windows and macOS versions, and for Ubuntu versions starting from 19.04), it comes with support for variable fonts (more info about how this looks. These are fonts that do not come with different faces, but often with various sliding scales for different font properties, like 'boldness', or 'condensing', or even playful features.

Basic Support for SVG in OpenType

Some OpenType fonts with glyphs saved as SVG render now in Inkscape.

Variable font - both texts use the same font (Decovar)
Variable font - dialog with sliders for the font styles
SVG Color font (Gilbert Color)

Flow order

With Text → Flow into Frame, text now flows into the selected frames in selection order (instead of reversed order previously).

Browser-compatible flowed text

[needs pictures]

Flowed text (created by clicking and dragging a text frame) in previous Inkscape versions was not compatible with browsers, and rendered as 'black boxes' in web browsers and other SVG viewers, or was just missing.

The old flowed text can still be enabled by unchecking Edit → Preferences → Tools → Text: Use SVG2 auto-flowed text.

Now, Inkscape offers to use two new types of flowed text, that have a compatible fallback for use with modern web browsers:

SVG 2 text using the CSS shape-inside property: This new flowed text automatically includes a fallback option (in SVG 1.1), and will show up in web browsers and other software. This type of text can be created by clicking and dragging a box on canvas, if the option 'Use SVG 2 auto-flowed text' is enabled in the Text tool's preferences. When the option is enabled, it will also be used for Text → Flow into frame [unconfirmed].
SVG 2 text with inline-size property: This is the new "Column mode" of the text tool, that can be created by clicking on the canvas, typing, and then dragging the diamond-shaped handle at the end of the text to determine the width of the text. It creates flowed text columns without a predetermined height. Note that this text can be left-, center- or right-aligned, but that justification is not possible. These texts include an SVG 1.1 fallback, too. To convert the text back to SVG 1.1 text, Ctrl-click on the diamond (this will result in all the text being placed on a single line).

The fallback option can be disabled in Edit → Preferences → Input/Output → SVG export: SVG 2: Insert SVG 1.1 fallback in text.

SVG 2 Text Support in Detail

Inkscape supports SVG 2 text (multi-line and text in a shape), both rendering and creating.

There are several types of SVG 2 text:

Multi-line text via the CSS 'white-space' property

The CSS property 'white-space' controls how white space is handled. By default, SVG collapses all adjacent white-space including newlines into a single space. By setting the white-space value to pre, pre-line, or pre-wrap, Inkscape will respect newlines and generate multi-line text. At the moment, one must use the XML Editor dialog to change the white-space property value. (Supported by Firefox. No SVG 1.1 fallback created by Inkscape.)

Multi-line text via the CSS 'inline-size' property

The CSS property inline-size defines the width (height) of a block of horizontal (vertical) text. Inkscape supports both rendering and generating multi-line text via this property. Flowed text using 'inline-size' is not justifiable (it uses the 'text-anchor' property). This text type has an SVG 1.1 fallback, that is included by default.

Multi-line text via the CSS 'shape-inside' property

The CSS property shape-inside allows placing text inside a shape. Inkscape supports this property in both rendering and creating. Inkscape also supports in rendering the CSS shape-subtract, shape-margin, and shape-padding properties.

Multi-line text via the shape-inside property is a direct replacement for SVG 1.2 flowed text. SVG 1.2 never became a final W3C standard and only the Batik SVG renderer besides Inkscape provided any support for SVG 1.2 flowed text. SVG 2 is not yet a final W3C standard but SVG 2 flowed text has one very important advantage over SVG 1.2 flowed text in that it is easy to structure the SVG 2 text such that it will be rendered (almost) correctly by an SVG 1.1 renderer. This means that browsers which do not support SVG 2 text will still render the text.

One disadvantage of using SVG 2 text is that it will not be editable as multi-line text in Inkscape 0.92 (it will still be editable as single lines of text).

Clipping / Masking

Clip paths and masks now have an inverse mode in the menu, using the PowerClip and PowerMask LPEs.

Filters

The size of the filter region can now be adjusted by dragging on two new diamond-shaped nodes with the node tool. This is especially useful for blur filters, whose area has been affected by a transformation of the filtered object.

Live Path Effects

General

Live Path Effects received a major overhaul, with lots of improvements and new features. The main changes are:

New LPE selection dialog: the LPE list is now made available as a searchable dialog with an icon for each path effect, and options to favorite, to switch between list and tile view, to display info about the selected effect and to apply it. Several additional, experimental path effects are available after the corresponding switch has been activated.
Set default parameters: default values for any LPE can be set in the respective LPE's dialogue, when it is applied to an object

(Note: we have the 'multiple desktop preferences' problem here: If you have multiple Inkscape windows open, the last one will determine what will be saved to the preferences file, as preferences changes are only saved when Inkscape is closed, and the settings are only loaded from file when a new window is opened.)

Clip and Mask: improved handling
Fix multiple LPE BBox: a problem with the size of the bounding box when applying multiple LPEs to an object has been fixed. Sometimes you need to add a intermediate LPE bounding box between.
Knots on shapes: show edit knots in LPE shapes
Switch knots: change the handles to the correct LPE handles when one selects an LPE in the list of active LPEs for the selected object.

Set default values for Mirror LPE
New LPE selection dialog

New Live Path Effects

Boolean Operations LPE

The Boolean Operations LPE finally makes non-destructive boolean operations available in Inkscape. That way, two paths can be combined to a single shape, and both are still editable:

Start with two paths. Groups, Rectangles, or other objects are also okay.
Copy the second path into the clipboard (Edit → Copy).
Select the first path and add the boolean LPE (Path → Path Effects → Add path effect (Plus) → Boolean).
Link the second path to the LPE by clicking on Operand Path - Link to path in clipboard.

Available options:

union
symmetric difference
intersection
division
difference
cut

Boolean Operations LPE

Dashed Stroke LPE

This new LPE creates uniformly dashed paths, optionally by subdividing the path's segments, or including dashes that are symmetrically wrapped around corners.

Rectangles with dashed stroke LPE with various settings

Demo Video

Ellipse from Points

This new LPE creates an optimally fitted ellipse from a path's nodes.

In contrast to the already existing LPE "Ellipse by 5 points" this LPE is more flexible (since, depending on the number of points available, it can fit both circles and ellipses) and has more features. Technical illustrators in particular can benefit from these features.

See LPE:_Ellipse_from_Points for a documentation.

Ellipse (5 nodes), circle (3 nodes), circle segment (3 nodes), isometric circle (3 nodes), isometric circle with frame (3 nodes)

Corners (Fillet/Chamfer) LPE

This new LPE adds fillet and chamfer to paths. Also adds a new internal class that allows to handle extra info per node, the LPE itself is an example of use the new classes.

Demo video

Chamfer with LPE
Chamfer with 2 steps
Inverse Chamfer with 2 steps
Fillet with LPE
Inverse fillet with LPE

Measure Segments LPE

This new path effect adds DIN and custom style measuring lines to "straight" segments in a path.

Demo video

Measure Segments LPE

Offset

[needs screenshot or gif]

Use this to add an offset to your paths, shapes and groups. Compared with the 'Dynamic Offset' available from the menu, this allows you to:

define the offset distance numerically and to choose the unit, e.g. to offset an object by 3 mm.
keep sharp corners sharp (or to make them round, or beveled, if you want to), by using different methods for calculating the corners.

Power Clip and Power Mask

This new LPE adds options to clips and masks.

New Experimental LPEs

Angle Bisector

Draws a line that halves the angle between the first three nodes of the path.

Circle by 3 points

Draws a circle whose circumference passes through the first three nodes of the path.

Circle (by center and radius)

Draws a circle where the first node of the path is the center, and the last node determines the radius.

Extrude

Extrudes the path, creating a face for each path segment.

Line segment

Draws a straight line that connects the first and last node of the path.

Parallel

Creates a draggable line that will always be parallel to a two-node path.

Perpendicular Bisector

Draws a perpendicular line in the middle of the (imaginary) line that connects the start and end nodes.

Tangent to Curve

Draws a tangent with variable length and an additional angle that can be moved along the path.

New experimental Live Path Effects (overview)

Improved LPEs

BSPline and Spiro

Improvements in Pen/Pencil mode. With Alt, you can move the previous node.

Clone Original

This path effect now allows various objects instead of only paths and is even more powerful.

Demo Video

Fill Between Many / Fill Between Strokes LPE

New options added:

Fuse coincident points
Join subpaths: fill each path separately / connect all the fills
Close: close the fill path that is created, so it can have a stroke on all sides
LPEs on linked: take the applied live path effects of the filled paths into account (Fill Between Many only)

New options for the Fill Between Many LPE

Knot LPE

New options added:

Inverse: use the stroke width of the other path as basis for calculating the gap length
Both gaps: interrupt both paths at a crossing

Mirror Symmetry and Rotate Copies LPE

Split feature: This new feature allows custom styles for each part of the resulting drawing without unlinking the LPE. Demo Video
The LPE display now updates accordingly when there are objects added or removed.

Separate styles for rotated copies

PowerStroke LPE Improvements

Width scale setting added: adjust the overall width of the stroke after it has been drawn.
Closed paths: PowerStroke now works much better on closed paths.

Import / Export

Linking and embedding SVG files

On import of an SVG file, there is now a dialog that asks if the user would like to link to the SVG file, to embed it (base64 encoded) into an <img> tag, or if the objects in the SVG file should be imported into the document (which was how Inkscape handled importing SVG files previously).

The dpi value for displaying embedded SVG files can be set in the import dialog or changed in the object properties dialog.

This makes importing SVG files work (almost) the same as importing raster images.

The 'Embed' and 'Extract' options in the context menu for linked SVG files work the same as they do for raster images. The 'Edit externally' option will open the linked SVG file with Inkscape per default. This setting can be changed in the preferences' 'Imported Images' section.

The displaying of the dialogue can be disabled by checking the 'Don’t ask me again' option.

Linked and embedded SVG images are displayed as their raster representations.

Mesh Gradient Polyfill

SVG files that include a mesh gradient now automatically include a Javascript polyfill that allows the mesh gradient to display correctly in web browsers.

SVG 1.1 compatibility

[Fill in: check box in Save as dialog, options in Edit → Preferences → Input/Output → SVG Export]

Export PNG images

The export dialog has received several new options which are available when you expand the 'Advanced' section.

Enable interlacing (ADAM7): when loading images, they will be displayed faster
Bit depth: set the number of bits that code for the color of a pixel, supports grayscale and up to 16-bit
Compression type: choose strength of lossless compression
pHYs dpi: force-set a dpi value for the image
Antialiasing: choose type of anti-aliasing or disable it
The option for "Cairo PNG" has been removed from the "Save as" dialog, as it was often confused with the "Export PNG image" option, but only supported a small subset of PNG rendering features.

PNG export options
PNG bit depth options
PNG compression options
PNG antialiasing options

PDF Export

External links in the SVG file are now kept when the file is exported to pdf (requires Cairo in version 1.15.4 or higher).
Some Inkscape file metadata (File → Document properties : Metadata) are now exported to PDF (title, subject, creator, keywords).

(E)PS Export

The title and copyright ('rights') info from the document's metadata is now exported to (E)PS.

OpenClipart Import

The dialog and settings for importing images from OpenClipart have been removed due to openclipart.org being non-functional since mid-April with no information about a return date.

Extensions

Extension dialogs

Extensions can now have clickable links, images, a better layout with separators and indentation, multiline text fields, file chooser fields and more. For detailed info for development see the developer section above.

Export Layer Slices

Extensions → Export → Export Layer Slices

The new 'Export Layer Slices' extension allows you to export PNG "slices" from your image by creating a new layer and drawing rectangles to denote the area of the export.

If you create a layer (default name "slices") with rectangles in it, this extension will export a PNG file for each rectangle into the directory with the name of the {rectangle ID}.png (use Object Properties to set this).

If the export already exists, it will skip it and color the rectangle GREY. If the "Overwrite existing exports" checkbox is selected, and the file was previously generated, it will color the rectangle RED. For new exports that did not previously exist, the rectangle will be GREEN.

If you want to create (square) icons at different sizes, select "Icon mode". Icon mode will create a square export for each dimension in "Sizes".

Frame

Extensions → Render → Frame

This new extension will add a rectangular frame with a specified stroke width, and specified stroke and fill colors to each object in the selection. Optionally, corners can be rounded, and the frame can be positioned inside or outside the selection. The result can be grouped with the frame, and the object can be clipped to the size of the frame (for further editing).

Hershey Text

Extensions → Text → Hershey Text

The "Hershey Text" extension, a utility for replacing text by stroke-based paths, has been rewritten. The most significant improvements are:

The new version converts all or only the selected text objects in place. This means that it is possible to convert text with paragraphs and to convert multiple text objects at once.
It now uses SVG fonts. This means that:
- It is now possible to easily add and use custom stroke fonts.
- Unicode characters are now supported.
- Stroke fonts now support arbitrary curves rather than only straight segments.
Improved font selection with basic international characters
Automated font-mapping: each text will be converted to the available Hershey font with the same font file name (e.g. 'Fancy Font.svg') as the current font (e.g. 'Fancy Font'), if one is available to the extension. The automated mapping overrides any other Hershey font settings.
An option to generate font samples in all available SVG fonts is available.
An extensive help text is built into the extension.
Hershey Text is now located in the Extensions → Text sub-menu.

Interactive Mockup

Extensions → Web → Interactive Mockup

The new Interactive Mockup extension is intended for use by UI/UX designers. It can help to visualize mockups and create user flows to make interactive demos for approvals.

To use it, select two or more objects: the first one(s) will be the active one (button, area, image, link…), and the last selected will be the element that should be displayed after activation.

Apply the extension, then save as SVG and open it in a browser for demonstrating the mockup to potential users.

Meshgradient to Path / Path to Meshgradient

Extensions → Modify Path → Mesh → Meshgradient to Path / Path to Meshgradient

A set of two extensions that convert mesh gradient geometry to paths and back.

Plot extension

Extensions → Export → Plot

The new option 'Convert objects to paths' will take care of converting everything to a path non-destructively before the data is sent to the plotter. [gives wrong error message, maybe not working? https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/commit/dd3b6aa099175e2244e1e04dde45bf21a966425e#note_100908512]

QR Code

Extensions → Render → Barcode → QR Code

Options for choosing the shape of single QR code dots were added.

Barcode extension with new options for dot shape at the bottom
Hershey font table (with non-ASCII characters)

Palettes

The Munsell palette, the Bootstrap 5 palette and the palette for the new GNOME Human Interface Guidelines (GNOME HIG) have been added to Inkscape's set of stock palettes.
Users can now also drag the none color field from the palette bar at the bottom onto objects to set their color to none.

Munsell palette
Bootstrap 5 palette
GNOME HIG palette

Templates

The Desktop template has new options for 4k, 5k, and 8k screens.
Some new page sizes were added to the (Blank) Page template.
New: template for an A4 3-fold roll flyer
New: template for Envelope with 2 standard envelope formats

New template options for 'Desktop' template
New A4 3-fold roll flyer template

SVG and CSS

Dashes: Inkscape can now load and display files with dashes and/or dash offsets defined in units other than the unitless user unit (e.g. %, mm) correctly. There is no user interface for editing these values currently, except for the XML editor. Values for stroke-dasharray that are entered in other units (except for %) will be converted to user units when the new values are set.

Blend modes applied via Layers and Objects dialog no longer use SVG filters, but CSS blend modes. These can be exported to PDF without rasterization. An additional option ("Isolate") allows you to <span style="color: red;">[... fill me in]</span>.

Hairlines can now be rendered in Inkscape. There is currently no user interface for adding them yet, though. Hairlines can be specified by adding stroke-width:1px; stroke-width: -ink-hairline; vector-effect:non-scaling-stroke; into the <style> tag of the object via the XML editor or the Style dialog. Hairlines will be exported to PNG correctly. Export to PDF requires that the Cairo library that your Inkscape program was compiled with contains the additional code from https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/cairo/cairo/merge_requests/21 (as of Oct. 26, 2019, there's no official Cairo version available yet that contains the patch).

Dialogs

Arrange

Object → Arrange

The 'Polar coordinates' functionality now arranges objects clockwise (in selection order) around the circle/ellipse. This should better correspond to user expectations.

Document Properties

File → Document Properties

When resizing the page, the page margin fields can now be locked, so the same value will be used for all margins, but only needs to be entered once.
The guides panel now has controls to lock or unlock all guides, create guides around the page, and delete all guides. These actions also appear on the Edit menu, making it possible to assign custom keyboard shortcuts.
Grids can now be aligned to the corners, edge midpoints, or centre of the page with a button click in the grids panel.
Checkerboard patterns can now have a color (pending issue with updating the view: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/issues/101#note_148034598). This color will also be used as a (non-checkered) background for PNG export.
A set of new page formats for different Video resolutions (SD/PAL, SD-Widescreen/PAL, SD/NTSC, SD-Widescreen/NTSC, HD 720p, HD 1080p, DCI 2k (Full Frame), UHD 4k, DCI 4k (Full Frame), UHD 8k) has been added.

Lock to set same margins for page resizing
Document properties: Toggle guide lock for document, create page border guides, remove all guides
Grid alignment options in document properties
Checkerboard background with color

Fill and Stroke

Object → Fill and stroke

The RGBA code entry field now also accepts values like #123 and autocompletes them to #112233, automatically removes hash signs in pasted codes, and keeps the old alpha value if the pasted code does not contain any.
The blur slider is now scaled quadratically as you drag the slider. This makes it easier to apply and adjust smaller blur values.

Filter Editor

Filters → Filter Editor

The filter primitives now have a symbolic icon (one whose color can be changed).

Objects

Object → Objects

The context (right-click) menu now also contains an entry for deleting the selected object.

Paint Servers

Object → Paint Servers

New dialog that allows you to see a list of patterns and SVG2 hatch fills used in the current document and to assign those to objects. The hatch fills can be modified by their handles on canvas.

Preferences

Edit → Preferences

The Bitmaps subsection has been renamed to Imported Images, as it now applies to both imported (embedded or linked) raster images as well as to imported (embedded or linked) SVG images (i.e. to everything in <img> tags).
The System subsection lists more relevant folders and offers buttons to open those folders with the system's file browser. This makes it easier to find the correct folder, e.g. for resetting the preferences or for adding an extension or a new icon set.
The System subsection now has a button for quickly resetting all Inkscape preferences, which also automatically creates a backup of the current preferences.
An option for scaling a stroke's dash pattern when scaling the stroke width has been added and can be found at Behaviour → Dashes. It is activated by default.
Autosave is now enabled by default. The default directory has changed (the path is displayed in Edit → Preferences → Input/Output → Autosave: Autosave directory).
The setting for Handle size has been moved from Input devices to Interface to make it more discoverable.

Important folders can be opened from the preferences

Selection Sets [Hidden]

[Adjust info according to decision made in https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/1665#note_317458802]

Selectors and CSS [Experimental]

New dialog for adding classes and CSS styles to elements of the drawing
Currently in experimental status, thus hidden from the menu (Edit → Selectors and CSS)
Keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Q can be used to open the dialog
Among the known issues, there are a couple crashes, which is the reason why the dialog has been disabled for the 1.0 release.

[Needs screenshot]

Symbols

Object → Symbols

The Symbols dialog can now handle a lot of symbols without delay on startup, and also allows searching. Symbols and symbol sets are now displayed in alphabetical order.

Symbol sets ordered alphabetically
Searching for symbols

Trace Bitmap

Path → Trace Bitmap

A new, unified dialog for vectorizing raster graphics is now available from Path → Trace Bitmap. It contains the previously separate Trace pixelart dialog and comes with a new option for centerline tracing.

[needs image]

Unicode Characters

The 'Glyphs' dialog has been renamed to 'Unicode Characters'.
The characters in the dialog's character list now use the selected font.
Each character now has a tooltip that shows a larger version of the character, so one can more easily find the correct character.

Unicode characters dialog with large tooltip

XML Editor

Edit → XML Editor

The side of the editor that allows one to set, edit or delete attributes can now be panned both horizontally and vertically, or be hidden entirely. Long items can more easily be edited in a little popup dialog.

XML Editor with editing popup

Menus

New option to "Unlink clones recursively" added into sub-menu at "Edit → Clone"

Customization

Customize many files in the share folder

Many files in /share can be over-ridden by placing files in the user's configuration folder (e.g. ~/.config/inkscape). Configurable contents now includes extensions, filters, fonts, gradients, icons, keyboard shortcuts, [preset markers (not yet: bug #1400)], [user paint servers (SVG hatches, patterns (currently crashes paint servers dialog, ...)], palettes, about screen, symbol sets, templates, tutorials and some user interface configuration files. Only the file 'units.xml' cannot be overridden.

Fonts

Load additional fonts

Inkscape can now load fonts that are not installed on the system. By default Inkscape will load additional fonts from Inkscape's share folder (/share/inkscape/fonts) and the user's configuration folder (~/.config/inkscape/fonts). Custom folders can be set in preferences (see Tools → Text → Additional font directories).

Set custom font folders

Keyboard shortcuts

Allow to use "Super", "Hyper" and "Meta" modifier keys
Improve shortcut handling code. This should fix a lot of issues and allow the use of many shortcuts which were inaccessible before, especially on non-English keyboard layouts.
The Keyboard shortcut editor now issues a warning when the entered shortcut is already in use.
It is now possible to assign keyboard shortcuts that align an object to the top-left, top-right, bottom-left or bottom-right corners of the anchor (determined via the 'relative to:' field), or to align the objects' top-left, top-right, bottom-left or bottom-right corners with the opposite corner of the anchor.

User interface customization

Inkscape is starting to use glade files for its dialogues, so they can be reconfigured by users. Only one is currently supported (filter editor).
The contents of the menus can be configured by customising the menus.xml file.
Toolbar contents for the command bar (commands-toolbar.ui), the snap bar (snap-toolbar.ui), the tool controls bars for each tool (select-toolbar.ui), the toolbox (tool-toolbar.ui) is now configurable.
The interface colors and some more UI styles can be customized in <preferences folder>/ui/style.css (very raw theming support).

Theme selection

In Edit → Preferences → User Interface → Theme, users can set a custom GTK3 theme for Inkscape. If the theme comes with a dark variant, activating the 'Use dark theme' checkbox will result in the dark variant being used. The new theme will be applied immediately.

New themes can be installed on your system to be made available in the list to choose from. A large selection of (more or less current) GTK3 themes are available for download at gnome-look.org . On Windows, the new themes can be placed in %AppData%\Local\themes\, so that the full path to the theme's CSS files will be %AppData%\Local\themes\<theme name>\gtk-3.0\.

Icon set selection

In Edit → Preferences → User Interface → Theme, the icon set to use can be selected. By default, Inkscape comes with 'hicolor', 'Tango', and the new 'Multicolor' icons. In addition to this, it offers to use the system's icons.

The symbolic icon set that is part of the 'hicolor' icon set as well as the new Multicolor icons can be colorized with custom colors.

Light theme with Tango icon set
Light theme with hicolor icon set
Dark theme with symbolic icon set
Dark theme with symbolic icon set and a custom icon color
New Multicolor icon set on dark theme

Saving the current file as template

A new entry for saving the current file as a template has been added to the 'File' menu. You need to specify a name for it, and optionally, you can add the template's author, a description and some keywords. A checkbox allows you to set the new template as the default template.

Save current file as a template

Custom page sizes in Document Properties

Inkscape now creates a CSV file (comma separated values) called pages.csv. It is located in your Inkscape user preferences folder, next to your preferences.xml file. This file contains the default page sizes that you can choose from in the 'Page' tab of the 'Document properties' dialog. You can edit the pages.csv file to remove the page sizes you won't use, or to add new ones.

Command Line

The Inkscape command line has undergone a major overhaul with the goal of making it more powerful and flexible for the user and easier to enhance for the developer. The most important changes are:

Each command-line argument can now be used only once. To specify multiple actions (verbs), use semicolons (e.g. --actions='ObjectFlipVertically;FileSave;FileClose').
Many actions can now take arguments (separated from the action name by a colon.
xverbs have been removed from Inkscape (command line commands that take parameters from a file, e.g. for saving the selection under a specified filename as SVG file) (mailing list thread).
Files can also be saved as Inkscape SVG without calling the GUI save dialog (new command: --export-inkscape-svg)
Multiple objects in single file can be saved into individual files by giving a comma separated list of objects to the command: --export-id.
Inkscape can now import a specific page of a PDF file from the command line, for batch processing (new option: --pdf-page N).
For importing a PDF, the option to import via poppler is now available for the command line as pdf-poppler.
New verb allows one to swap fill and stroke style from the command line: EditSwapFillStroke (a keyboard shortcut can now be assigned to it) (bug 675690)
The shell mode syntax has changed, too.
The file name can now be specified with --export-filename
The command -x / --extension-directory has been removed. Replaced with: --system-data-directory and --user-data-directory.

More information about usage and how to update your commands can be found at Using the Command Line.

Tutorials / Documentation

Some small updates were made to tutorial texts
Tutorial files got a new header / footer design, using Esteban Capella's entry for our About Screen Contest.

Translations [as of 2019-12-18]

Translations were updated for:

Basque
British English
Brazilian Portuguese
Catalan
Croatian
Czech
Dutch
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Hindi
Hungarian
Icelandic
Indonesian
Italian
Korean
Latvian
Norwegian (Bokmål)
Polish
Romanian
Russian
Slovak
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Ukrainian
Urdu
Swedish

Tutorial translations were added for:

Korean

Translations were dropped for:

Amharic

Notable Bugfixes

Symbols: Visio Stencils loaded from .vss files now use their actual name instead of a placeholder derived from the symbol file's name (bug 1676144)
Shapes on Pen and Pencil tools now retain color and width (bug:1707899).
Text and Font dialog: The font selection no longer jumps to the top of the list when clicking Apply.
Docked dialogs now open on their own when the corresponding functionality is called from a menu or button
The icon preview dialog now correctly shows the page background (Bug #1537497).
As of Windows 10 (version 1809) fonts are installed into a new user-specific folder by default. Allow Inkscape to recognize those fonts. (#50)
The default Perl interpreter executable on Windows was changed from perl.exe to wperl.exe which should usually avoid flashing a console window. (#66)
Some printers who don't correctly recognize the page formats sent by Inkscape, printed only square excerpts of the whole image that was supposed to be printed. Now they print the whole image (Merge request).

For an exhaustive list of bugs that have been fixed, please see the milestones page for Inkscape 1.0 on Launchpad and the list of milestoned issues on GitLab.

Breaking changes / Action required

For users

Custom Icon Sets

Icon sets no longer consist of a single file containing all icons. Instead each icon is allocated its own file. The directory structure must follow the standard structure for Gnome icons.

If you would like to create or convert your own icon set to the new format, please compare the 'hicolor' and 'Tango' icon theme folders, in your Inkscape installation's 'share' directory for suitable examples and check out our guide to making a new multicolor icon theme.

As a side effect of a bug fix to the icon preview dialog (see below), custom UI icon SVG files need to be updated to have their background color alpha channel set to 0 so that they display correctly (see Bug #1661989).

Third-party extensions

Most extensions that are maintained by a third-party developer (i.e. that are not an Inkscape stock extension) need to be updated to work with this version of Inkscape. Inkscape contributors have contacted many extension authors already to let them know about the upcoming changes. If your favorite third-party extension still needs to be updated to be compatible with Inkscape 1.0, please point its author to the section about updating one's extension in the Wiki.

Dropped / Replaced Extensions

Extensions that previously used the UniConvertor library for saving/opening various file formats have been removed, as well as some extensions that depended on third-party programs:

Import extensions that have been removed:

Adobe Illustrator 8.0 and below (UC) (*.ai) (Workaround: rename the file extension to .eps. Newer versions can still be imported if they contain an embedded PDF.)
Corel DRAW Compressed Exchange files (UC) (*.ccx)
Corel DRAW 7-X4 files (UC) (*.cdr) (*.cdr in general can still be imported)
Corel DRAW 7-13 template files (UC) (*.cdt)
Computer Graphics Metafile files (UC) (*.cgm)
Corel DRAW Presentation Exchange files (UC) (*.cmx)
HP Graphics Language Plot file [AutoCAD] (UC) (*.plt)
sK1 vector graphics files (UC) (*.sk1)
Dia Diagram (*.dia) (Workaround: export as a different format from Dia)

Export extensions that have been removed:

HP Graphics Language Plot file [AutoCAD] (UC) (*.plt)
sK1 vector graphics files (UC) (*.sk1)

Extensions that have been replaced:

Render → LaTeX: The EQTeXSVG extension (Render → LaTeX) that could be used to convert an inline LaTeX equation into SVG paths using Python was dropped, due to its external dependencies. It has been replaced by the extension Render → Mathematics → LaTeX (pdflatex) which serves the same purpose.

Command line changes

The Inkscape command line options have changed significantly (see below). Any command line scripts that you have used will need to be updated for Inkscape 1.0.

For extension writers

Extensions have undergone some fundamental changes.

Inkscape's stock extensions have been moved to their own repository and have been updated for compatibility with Python 3. Internally, extensions have been reorganized, many functions have been deprecated, and new functions have been added.

General

Extensions were updated to be compatible with Python 3. While we'll be migrating away from Python 2, extension writers should aim for support of Python 2.7 and Python 3.5+ for maximum compatibility.
Windows packages now ship with Python 3 (currently Python 3.7). Python 2 is not bundled anymore, so make sure to update your extension to be compatible.
Inkscape now adds itself to search path on startup, so you should always be able to call it from your extension by simply calling inkscape, without the need to add it to search path manually, or worrying about other potentially incompatible versions of Inkscape being available on search path.
The folder structure of Windows packages was updated: Binaries were moved from the installation root to bin/, Inkscape's shared files where moved from share/ to a share/inkscape subfolder.
The underscores that were previously necessary to mark elements as translatable are no longer needed. Elements that are usually translated are now by default included in translations. Elements that are usually not translated, are not included. This can be overridden by setting the translatable="yes/no" attribute.
Extensions (including their .inx files) can now be put into a subdirectory of the extensions/ folder to allow for better structuring and separation of extensions.

Extension dialogs

Extension dialogs have some new input types and layout options:

new multiline text fields
new file chooser fields
new appearance="url" for INX Parameters of type "description". You can now add clickable links to your extension UI.
a simpler version of the color chooser field has been added
new layout options (separator, table-like layouts)
all INX Parameters now have the common attribute indent="n" where n specifies the level of indentation in the extension UI.
new label parameter
new option to include an image
some confusing options have been merged
new effect extension attribute implements-custom-gui is available to hide the 'Extension is working' dialog.

[needs screenshot]

More info

Please also note the changed command line options, if your extension calls another instance of Inkscape.

More detailed instructions for updating old extensions are available at Updating your Extension for 1.0. Also check the extension (inkex) API documentation and the stock extensions repository for finding comparable extensions. If you have questions about extension development, you can join us in our extension development chat channel.

For packagers and those who compile Inkscape

autotools builds have been dropped. Please use CMake for building Inkscape from now on. More info is available on our website.
libsoup dependency added: we use libsoup for making HTTP requests without a need for dbus and gvfs.
double-conversion [2] dependency added: lib2geom now depends on an external version of the library.
Inkscape now uses a git submodule for the extensions/ directory. If you have cloned the repository and are not building from the release source code tarball, please note the updated build instructions
On Ubuntu 18.04, Gnome's fallback icon set (package 'adwaita-icon-theme-full'), that is needed to display Inkscape's default icons completely, is no longer automatically installed. It has been added as a 'recommends' level dependency.
lib2geom: [insert up-to-date info here]
The environment variable INKSCAPE_PORTABLE_PROFILE_DIR has been removed. Please use the equivalent INKSCAPE_PROFILE_DIR instead for changing the location of the profile directory at run time. (see also #114)
Inkscape extensions have been updated to work with Python 3, they no longer depend on Python 2 (but still work with it)

Known Issues

[as of Sept. 7th, 2019, "beta0"]

Various warnings printed to console output
Slowdown and temporary freezes when opening the font list
man page not entirely updated yet to account for the changes in the command line interface
Hatch fill handles are sometimes not shown on the canvas, hatchfill changes are often not displayed (only the first time)
uniconvertor not available, thus some file formats can no longer be imported
object transformation handles do not rotate along with the canvas during canvas rotation (inbox#69)

Inkview

Inkview (a simple SVG viewer) was considerably improved and got some new features:

Support folders as input (will load all SVG files from the specified folder)
The -r or --recursive option will even allow to search subfolders recursively.
Implement -t or --timer option which allows to set a time after which the next file will be automatically loaded.
Add -s or --scale option to set a factor by which to scale the displayed image.
Add -f or --fullscreen option to launch Inkview in fullscreen mode
Many smaller fixes and improvements

@@ Line 657: / Line 657: @@
 <!--T:580-->
-* Fuse coincident points: [describe]
+* Fuse coincident points <!-- needs explanation, asked Jabier -->
 * Join subpaths: fill each path separately / connect all the fills
 * Close: close the fill path that is created, so it can have a stroke on all sides