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@@ -0,0 +1,439 @@ + Release Notes + Inkscape 0.43 + +In brief + + The focus of this release is on the exciting new features sponsored by + Google via their Summer of Code program. However, we have quite a bunch of + other stuff too. Here are the highlights: + + * Connectors: A new Connector tool implements creation, editing, and + autorouting (object-avoiding) of connector lines between objects. + Indispensable for diagramming. (A Google SoC project.) + * Inkboard collaborative editing: You can now connect to other Inkscape + users over the Net and edit a shared document together, watching + others' changes and making yours! (A Google SoC project.) + * Pressure and tilt sensitivity: the Calligraphy tool can now use a + tablet pen with pressure/tilt support to vary the width and angle of + the calligraphic stroke. + * Better node editing: You can freely drag/bend/stretch a Bezier curve + by any point (not only by a node), as well as add a new node at any + point on the curve. + * New extensions for envelope distortion, whirling, and adding nodes. + * Improved precision, expanded limits, many usability improvements and + bugfixes. + + Tavmjong Bah has updated his online book, A Guide to Inkscape + (http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/index.php), to cover + the Inkscape 0.43 features. This guide is not included with the Inkscape + release. Users are encouraged to read the guide in addition to these + release notes and the help included with Inkscape. + +Connectors + + * Inkscape now includes preliminary support for connectors. Connectors + are lines drawn between objects, that stay connected to the objects as + these objects are manipulated. Any object may have a "connector-avoid" + property, which, when set, causes connectors to automatically route + around the object. + + * The Connector tool (Ctrl+F2 or the o key) is a new way of creating and + rerouting connectors, as well as marking objects "avoided" for the + purpose of routing connectors. + + * A new connector can be drawn by clicking and dragging from any + point on the canvas. The connector is finalized when the mouse is + released. Connectors can also be created with two clicks, rather + than click-and-drag, if this is preferred. In this case, click once + on an empty point on the canvas to begin drawing the connector, + then move the mouse to the new connector's target point and then + click again to finalize the connector. Single clicking on a canvas + object selects/deselects that object, just as in other tools. + + * Connection point handles are shown while the mouse cursor is + hovering over a non-connector object in the connector tool. + Currently they are shown only at the center of objects. When + creating a connector, if the connector is started or ended over a + connection point then the connector will be attached to that + object. From then on the connector will be automatically rerouted + whenever the attached object is moved. + + * Connectors attached to objects are currently drawn to the bounding + box of those objects. It is planned that they will be drawn instead + to the edges of objects. + + * A selected connector will show two endpoint handles. By clicking + and dragging these, the connector can be rerouted and + attached/detached from objects. + + * The Make connectors avoid selected objects button marks all objects + in the selection as "avoided", causing all current and future + connectors to automatically avoid these objects. + + * The Make connectors ignore selected objects button marks all + objects in the selection as "ignored", causing all current and + future connectors to completely ignore these objects. This is the + default for all canvas items, i.e., no objects are automatically + routed around by default. + +Inkboard + + A first release of the Inkboard collaborative editing system (also known + as a "white board") is present in this version of Inkscape. + + * Inkboard must be enabled at compile time by passing --enable-inkboard + to the configure script: Inkboard has known bugs, and may present + security issues. + + * Inkboard uses the XMPP (http://www.xmpp.org/) protocol (used by Jabber + (http://www.jabber.org/)) to link together Inkscape clients in a + shared document session. Therefore, if you have a Jabber account, you + can use Inkboard. (There are some exceptions, which are listed below + in the "Known issues" section.) Inkboard uses the Loudmouth + (http://loudmouth.imendio.org/) library for Jabber connectivity; + versions 0.17.2 and above of the Loudmouth library are known to work. + + * Inkboard sessions may occur between two users or a group of users in a + chatroom setting. + + Inkboard usage + + * You must first connect to a Jabber server before sharing a document. + To do this, go to Whiteboard -> Connect to Jabber server. You will be + prompted to enter a server name, your username, and password. You may + specify a specific port to connect on, and whether or not you would + like to connect via SSL. + + * After connecting, you may establish a session with another user or a + chatroom. To connect to another user, go to Whiteboard -> Share with + user. Inkboard can import your Jabber contact list, and will present a + list of online contacts to you. You may select any contact in the + contact list, or enter a Jabber ID to connect to. + + * Similarly, you can establish a connection with a chatroom by going to + Whiteboard -> Share with chatroom. + + * If you are contacted by another user, Inkscape will present a dialog + telling you that you have received an invitation. The dialog contains + the Jabber ID of the user contacting you, and offers you three + choices: decline the invitation, accept the invitation, or accept the + invitation in a new window. + + * Inkboard can record a session's contents for playback at a later time. + + * If you are establishing a session, click the Write session file + checkbox in the share with user dialog to enable session + recording. You will need to provide the name of a file to which + the session contents can be written. + * If you are accepting a session invitation, click the Write + session file checkbox in the invitation dialog to enable session + recording. You will need to provide the name of a file to which + the session contents can be written. + * To play back a session, go to Whiteboard -> Open session file. + + * The Whiteboard -> Dump XML tracker menu item is intended for debugging + purposes only. + +Pressure and tilt sensitivity + + Support for extended input devices has been added. + + * The Calligraphy tool now has optional pressure and tilt support from + an input device such as a tablet. Pressure can be used to alter the + width of the pen and tilt can be used to alter the angle of the pen's + nib. + + * A standard input device dialog has been added (in File menu). Input + device settings are saved to and loaded from the preferences. + +Node tool + + * Clicking on a selected path selects the two nodes closest to the click + point. Shift+click adds or removes these two nodes to the node + selection (when only one path is selected; otherwise Shift+click works + as in Selector). + + * Double click or Ctrl+Alt+click anywhere on the selected path (even if + it is under other objects) creates a new node at the click point, + without changing the shape of the path. (Previously, you could only + add a node in the middle of a segment by using a toolbar button.) + + * You can now edit the selected path (even if it's under other objects) + by dragging any curve point, not only node(s) as before. In many cases + it's a much more convenient way to reshape paths than anything + available before. When you drag a curve close enough to one of the + nodes, only that node's handle(s) are affected; if you drag a point + midway between two nodes, both nodes' handles are adjusted. + + * When mouse is over a draggable path, the cursor is changed to + include a hand. + + * As in Selector, if you press Shift before starting to drag, you always + get a node selection rubberband rectangle (even if you start on a path + but not a node!). + + * After duplicating (Shift+D) an endnode, the selected node is always + the new endnode, so you can move it at once. + + * Selected nodes are displayed a little larger than non-selected ones. + +Extensions + + * Add Nodes: Adds nodes to the selected paths. Each segment of the + selected path is subdivided into ceil(Length/Max) equal length + segments. Lengths are measured in SVG User Units calculated from the + path data and does not take into account any transforms. + + * Whirl: Twists the selected paths around the specified center point. + + * Summer's Night: Linearly distorts a path into the destination + quadrilateral. The destination quadrilateral is specified by a four + node path (closed or not). To use, draw and position a four node path. + Select the four node path first and then add to selection the path you + wish to distort. The original position of the four nodes is considered + to be clockwise around the bounding box of the path to distort + beginning in the upper left corner. + + * The Wavy extension is renamed to Function Plotter and got many fixes + and improvements. Importantly, now you don't have to provide an + analytic formula for the derivative; instead, check the "Calculate the + first derivative numerically" checkbox and it will itself calculate + the angle at each node. In the function/derivative formulas, you can + use functions from the math (http://docs.python.org/lib/module-math.html) + and random (http://docs.python.org/lib/module-random.html) Python + modules. As before, you need to have a rectangle selected before calling + this extension. + + * Development continues on SVGSlice but it has not yet been fully + integrated into Inkscape. Please visit Digital Unleashed + (http://www.digitalunleashed.com/giving.php) for details and downloads. + +More new functionality + + * A separate project, the Open Clip Art Library Browser provides an easy + way to browse local and remote clipart collections and insert clipart + into Inkscape. Please visit + http://www.python.org/pypi/clipartbrowser/0.41 for details and + downloads. (A Google SoC project.) + + * A separate utility has been developed to convert between DXF and SVG + formats. Please visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/dxf-svg-convert + for details and downloads. (A Google SoC project.) + + * Improved support for viewBox: If the root <svg> element of your + document has width/height attributes set in percentage units and + there's a viewBox on that element, then: + + * The canvas size is set to the value of the viewBox attribute. + * Changing the canvas size in Document Preferences sets the + viewBox, without touching the width/height values. + + This does not affect regular documents created in Inkscape, but + makes it easier to edit other SVG files that use viewBox. + + * The new command line parameter, --export-area-snap, used with bitmap + export to snap the export area outwards to the nearest integer SVG + user unit (px) values. If you are using the default export resolution + of 90dpi and your graphics are pixel-snapped to minimize antialiasing, + this switch allows you to preserve this alignment even if you are + exporting an area (for example, with --export-id or + --export-area-drawing) which is itself not pixel-aligned. + + * When saving as Postscript, you now have the option to convert or not + convert texts to paths (previously only available for EPS export). + +Interface and usability + + * The Icon Preview dialog has been improved. A toggle has been added to + switch between previewing the entire document or just the current + selection. A larger 128x128 size has been added to the defaults. The + sizes are now read from the preferences file and can be customized. + + * Rectangles and ellipses now use different handle shapes, so it's much + easier to see which handle does what. The two square handles change + the size of the object, while the two round handles adjust the + rounding corners (in rectangles) and arc/segment ends (in ellipses). + + * The controls for the Rectangle tool now include W and H fields for + setting the width/height of selected rectangle(s) numerically. + + * In the controls of Rectangle and Ellipse tools, the "Not rounded" and + "Make whole" buttons are now grayed out when the selected object + cannot use the corresponding function (i.e. when a rectangle is + already not rounded and the ellipse is already whole, which are the + defaults). + + * When editing text with the Text tool, the keypad + and - keys type the + corresponding characters if NumLock is on (otherwise they zoom in and + out as before). (Still does not work on Windows.) + + * In the Text tool, Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down now move one paragraph up or + down correspondingly. + + * The Calligraphic tool, in addition to the Ctrl+F6 shortcut, has a new + one-letter shortcut, `c'. + + * The Pen, Pencil, and Calligraphy tools finally have mouse cursors of + their own. + + * The canvas width/height fields in Document Preferences are never + grayed out. Instead, the menu of the canvas sizes scrolls itself to + "Custom" or to an appropriate standard size as you edit width/height. + + * Rectangle editing handles now snap to grid/guides (snapping for other + shapes' handles is expected to come in subsequent releases). + + * The pattern move handle is restricted to horizontal/vertical when Ctrl + is pressed. + + * In the Selector, dragging the rotation center handle snaps to the + edges and central axes of the selection's bounding box. + + * In the Pen tool, while you are drawing a path, the statusbar displays + the distance and angle of the current mouse point from the last + created node of the path. This makes it easy to create a path from the + given lengths and angles of linear segments. When you are dragging to + create a curve handle, the statusbar also displays the length and the + angle of the handle. + + * A new preference option, Compass-like angle display (in the Steps + tab), allows you to have absolute angles specified in a compass + notation (0 at north, 0 to 360 range, increasing clockwise) instead of + the default trigonometric notation (0 at east, -180 to 180 range, + increasing counterclockwise). This affects the statusbar angle display + for path segments and the handles in Pen and Node tools. + + * The Pen and Pencil tools now display helpful statusbar hints when the + mouse is over one of the end anchors of the selected path. + + * The precision of most editable length fields is increased from 0.01 to + 0.001. + + * The minimum zoom is extended from 4% to 1%. + + * Work has begun on menu sensitivity and configurability, but has been + disabled in the release. + +Packaging, documentation, examples + + * The windows installer has now a modular structure that allows the + selection of separate features such as examples, tutorials, or + translations. All options are supported for a silent installation. + * Windows packages now contain the release notes (NEWS file), authors + and translators lists, the README file, the GPL and the LGPL license + files. + * The Inkscape man page is updated with additional examples. + * The About dialog now more closely resembles the stock Gtk About + dialog. A full list of authors and translators, as well as the license + are now viewable. + +Translations + + * The MacOS X package now includes interface translations and reads the + user language setting, as specified in System Preferences, to use the + corresponding translation language. + * Many interface and tutorial translations have been updated. + +Important bugfixes + + * A systematic error when scaling objects with stroke via the Selector + controls panel (W and H fields) is fixed. + * In stroke dash patterns in CSS, comma separators were erroneously + replaced by spaces upon writing the document. For now, Inkscape will + still be capable of reading both space-separated and comma-separated + lists (for compatibility with old files), but it now always writes + correct comma-separated lists on output. + * Due to a bug, Inkscape tended to replace relative paths to embedded + images by absolute, which made them fail after moving a document to + another computer; this is fixed. + * The precision of most boolean operations and offsets is improved, + especially noticeably for small paths. + * In text on path, in some cases letters were distributed unevenly along + a curve; this is now fixed. + * Searching by text in the Find dialog (Ctrl+F) was broken, now fixed. + * Some of the stock markers were missing in the marker menus in the Fill + & Stroke dialog. + * The bounding box of a stroke with markers now includes the markers. + +Internal progress + + * Source documentation: the big goal is to have a brief description for + classes and most functions in every source file; this now holds for + more than 100 files of the 1350 files in the source code. The doxygen + index file now shows many useful links to external documentation and a + categorization of main directory files which should be useful for + beginners in particular. + * Removed trailing fractional zeros in SVG for cleaner and more compact + markup. + * C++ Encapsulation: the View class hierarchy has been reimplemented in + C++, after separating the widget classes from each class. The number + of dependencies on the central file desktop.h (about 100) was reduced + by half. + +Known issues + + Windows 95/98/ME support + + * Due to issues in GTK 2.8 beyond our control this version of Inkscape + will not work on Windows 95/98/ME. Please do not send us crash reports + from those platforms. We hope to be able to resume support for these + platforms in the future, but no specific committments can be made at + this point. + + Problems on Linux under KDE + + * SuSE, Fedora Core 4: Inkscape and other GTK programs are known to + crash if the KDE Baghira theme and the package gtk_qt_engine are + installed. If you experience Inkscape crashes on KDE, please try to + install a different theme from Baghira, or uninstall the gtk_qt_engine + package from your system. + * Kubuntu: For similar reasons, Inkscape can crash on Kubuntu Breezy + when, at the same time, the gtk2-engines-smooth package is installed. + Removing it resolves the problem. Both problems also affect older + versions of Inkscape. + + Pressure and tilt sensitivity + + * Pressure and tilt sensitivity do not currently work on MacOS X, due to + a limitation of the MacOS X version of X11. + * There are known issues with the current version of the X.org server + not releasing events on extended devices that use pressure + sensitivity. What that translates to is you can start a stroke, but + when you lift your pen, the stroke won't end (and will just continue + when you put your pen back on the tablet). This seem to be linked to + the usage of /dev/psaux for the mouse instead of /dev/input/mouseXX, + see http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/index.php/howto/mouse1) + * The current version of GTK for Windows has a bug that affects tilt + sensitivity. + + Inkboard + + * Imported bitmaps are not transmitted to other users in a whiteboard + session. + * At present, Inkboard relies on Loudmouth + (http://loudmouth.imendio.org/) to provide Jabber connectivity, + which means that it is limited to Linux builds of Inkscape. + Inkboard is currently being redesigned to use a cross-platform + Jabber client; this redesign will be present in a future release. + * Inkboard cannot yet connect to Google Talk clients. This will be + remedied in a future release. (The reason is because it expects the + "server" portion of a Jabber ID to be the same as the server that it + contacts, which is not the case for the Google Talk network.) + * Inkboard's handling of concurrent modifications is still very rough. + Future releases will make this more robust. + + See http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=93438&atid=604306 for a + full list of known issues. If you find a bug not listed here, then please + report the bug: see instructions at http://inkscape.org/report_bugs.php + (the Report Bugs link from http://inkscape.org/). + +Previous releases + + * ReleaseNotes042 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes042) + * ReleaseNotes041 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes041) + * ReleaseNotes040 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes040) + * ReleaseNotes039 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes039) + * ReleaseNotes038 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes038) + * ReleaseNotes037 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes037) + * ReleaseNotes036 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes036) + * ReleaseNotes035 (http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes035) |