Difference between revisions of "ReleaseAnnounce041"

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(Writing the press release)
 
(* Try not to give the false impression that we've fixed all known crashes.)
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= Inkscape 0.41 =
= Announcing Inkscape 0.41 Release . www.inkscape.org =


'''Draw Freely.'''
February 8, 2005 UTC — The Inkscape community announced the release 0.41 of Inkscape, "A Cross-platform Open Source Vector Graphics (SVG) Drawing Tool" today. Inkscape continues to develop at a rapid pace by focusing on bug fixes, stability, color bitmap-to-vector tracing capabilities, Internationalization, pattern tiling, and translation refinements.


http://www.inkscape.org/
Inkscape developers fixed many bugs and worked on overall stability for the 0.41 release. This significantly strengthened Inkscape on Windows and overall improved Internationalization in the program.  Inkscape developer Bryce Harrington stated that "we owe deep thanks to the many users who have worked patiently with us to report the problems and validate these fixes." Several serious crashes, memory leaks and mis-features are now corrected and certain areas are noticeably snappier thanks to user submitted bug reports. Please see Inkscape's Known Issues section for noted problems that have work arounds and were not fixed for this release.


The Inkscape community is proud to announce the release 0.41 of
In addition to stability improvements, developers added several new features. First, Inkscape 0.41 builds on the black and white tracing functionality introduced in release 0.40. This functionality converts a bitmap (raster) image into an editable vector graphic. Now, Inkscape converts color and grayscale images with ease and the results are quite astounding. Second, is the addition of a new clone tiler facility which creates patterns, tesselations, and other sorts of geometric tiling arrangements with an easy-to-use dialog.
Inkscape, "A Cross-platform Open Source Vector Graphics (SVG) Drawing
Tool."


The primary focus of the 0.41 release has been on bug fixing.  Inkscape
In addition, user requests and comments stimulated a number of improvements to units handling, extensions, the Invert Selection command, layers selector, and icon theming. Translations have
has already earned a reputation for being robust and hard to crash; but
also received an amazing amount of attention this release, including several new translations of the ever-growing tutorials. All this and more is available in explicit detail in the 0.41 Release Notes, accessible at www.inkscape.org.
there were a number of corner cases and rare bugs that we took great
pleasure in squishing for you. In particular, many fixes have gone in
particular to Windows and Internationalized character sets; even more
so than in past releases we owe deep thanks to the many users who have
worked patiently with us to report the problems and validate these
fixes. Several serious crashes, memory leaks and mis-features have
been corrected, and certain areas now see noticeable speedups. We only
wish we could have fixed more!  See our Known Issues section for
problems we know about but didn't have time to fix for this release.


Of course, no Inkscape release would be complete without at least a few
Inkscape 0.41 avoided the addition of new dependencies and developers pushed back implementing ambitious new features originally planned in order to make 0.41 especially stable. The only dependency change is a minor version update for the Boehm garbage collector, libgc, which increased to version 6.4 due to freezes that occurred in some circumstances on Windows and Linux.
new features. First, we've built on the black and white tracing
functionality introduced in 0.40 with a surprisingly powerful color and
grayscale tracing capability. Second, a new clone tiler facility has
been added for creating patterns, tesselations, and other sorts of
pattern tiling arrangements.


In addition, user requests and comments stimulated a number of
However, for the upcoming Inkscape 0.42 release, the developers are going to make aggressive changes that have been worked on experimentally behind the scenes for several months.  These changes are going to destabilize the codebase considerably during this development cycle; it may be a while before the next release. The first of these changes is a complete re-implementation of the graphical user interface using Gtkmm. The second is the incorporation of a new Document Object Model (DOM) which will provide a core that the developers can finally build a scripting system on. Both of these features are major requests and have been commented on heavily by reviewers.  
improvements to unit handling, extensions, the Invert Selection
command, layers selector, icon theming, and more. Translations have
also received an amazing amount of attention this release, including
several new translations of tutorials.  All this and more can be seen
  in explicit detail in the 0.41 Release Notes.


We were quite strict with ourselves to avoid adding new dependencies
As always, Inkscape is open to contributors and developers of all levels of experience. The Inkscape development community encourages people to join the development team by submitting bug reports, making feature requests and by contributing code. For more information, visit www.inkscape.org.  
and to hold off on ambitious new features we have planned in order to
make 0.41 especially stable.  The only dependency change is a minor
version update for the Boehm garbage collector libgc, which we
increased to version 6.4 due to freezes that occurred in some
circumstances on Windows and Linux.


However, for 0.42 we intend to go a bit wild with some aggressive
Inkscape. Draw Freely.
changes that we've been working on experimentally on the side for
several months now.  We expect these changes to destabilize the
codebase considerably, so it may be a while before our next release;
please wish us luck.  The first of these changes is a complete
reimplementation of the graphical user interface using Gtkmm. The
second is the incorporation of a new DOM that will provide the core
that we can finally build a scripting system on.  Both the interface
design and scripting have been remarked on by reviewers lately so we
know this work takes Inkscape in the right direction. Wish us well,
and if you'd like to get your hands dirty with us doing this
implementation work, please drop by!




Download your packages (Linux, Windows, Mac OSX):
Download Linux, Windows, and Mac OSX packages:
   
   
     http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93438
     http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93438

Revision as of 11:37, 9 February 2005

subject line for email: Announcing Inkscape 0.41 Release . www.inkscape.org


Announcing Inkscape 0.41 Release . www.inkscape.org

February 8, 2005 UTC — The Inkscape community announced the release 0.41 of Inkscape, "A Cross-platform Open Source Vector Graphics (SVG) Drawing Tool" today. Inkscape continues to develop at a rapid pace by focusing on bug fixes, stability, color bitmap-to-vector tracing capabilities, Internationalization, pattern tiling, and translation refinements.

Inkscape developers fixed many bugs and worked on overall stability for the 0.41 release. This significantly strengthened Inkscape on Windows and overall improved Internationalization in the program. Inkscape developer Bryce Harrington stated that "we owe deep thanks to the many users who have worked patiently with us to report the problems and validate these fixes." Several serious crashes, memory leaks and mis-features are now corrected and certain areas are noticeably snappier thanks to user submitted bug reports. Please see Inkscape's Known Issues section for noted problems that have work arounds and were not fixed for this release.

In addition to stability improvements, developers added several new features. First, Inkscape 0.41 builds on the black and white tracing functionality introduced in release 0.40. This functionality converts a bitmap (raster) image into an editable vector graphic. Now, Inkscape converts color and grayscale images with ease and the results are quite astounding. Second, is the addition of a new clone tiler facility which creates patterns, tesselations, and other sorts of geometric tiling arrangements with an easy-to-use dialog.

In addition, user requests and comments stimulated a number of improvements to units handling, extensions, the Invert Selection command, layers selector, and icon theming. Translations have also received an amazing amount of attention this release, including several new translations of the ever-growing tutorials. All this and more is available in explicit detail in the 0.41 Release Notes, accessible at www.inkscape.org.

Inkscape 0.41 avoided the addition of new dependencies and developers pushed back implementing ambitious new features originally planned in order to make 0.41 especially stable. The only dependency change is a minor version update for the Boehm garbage collector, libgc, which increased to version 6.4 due to freezes that occurred in some circumstances on Windows and Linux.

However, for the upcoming Inkscape 0.42 release, the developers are going to make aggressive changes that have been worked on experimentally behind the scenes for several months. These changes are going to destabilize the codebase considerably during this development cycle; it may be a while before the next release. The first of these changes is a complete re-implementation of the graphical user interface using Gtkmm. The second is the incorporation of a new Document Object Model (DOM) which will provide a core that the developers can finally build a scripting system on. Both of these features are major requests and have been commented on heavily by reviewers.

As always, Inkscape is open to contributors and developers of all levels of experience. The Inkscape development community encourages people to join the development team by submitting bug reports, making feature requests and by contributing code. For more information, visit www.inkscape.org.

Inkscape. Draw Freely.


Download Linux, Windows, and Mac OSX packages: 

    http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93438

For many more details, see the Release Notes for 0.41: 

    http://www.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes041

Community submitted screenshots: 

    http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/
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