Development for the 0.92.2 release was focused primarily on fixing bugs
and regressions. Among hundreds of code commits are fixes that provide:
* Better importing and exporting of EMF/WMF files, PDF/PDF+Latex
documents, Visio Stencil files, and XML files
* Greater stability during printing on Windows
* Improved fill and stroke HSL color selection
* Greater stability when reverting and saving files
Among noteworthy feature and usability improvements are:
* An additional handle at the center of rectangles, circles/ellipses,
and stars, to allow quick and accurate alignment of these shapes with
other objects
* A command line option for updating the file's DPI value that allows for
easier processing of large file collections
* Improvements to user-defined shortcuts, including the acceptance of
previously restricted special characters
Cairo rendering for display and PNG export
OpenMP multithreading for all filters
C++ code conversion
Major improvements in the Text tool
Measure tool
Type design features
Symbol library and support for Visio stencils
Cross platform WMF and EMF import and export
Improved support for Corel DRAW documents, Visio importer
Support for real world document and page size units, e.g. millimeters
Numerous usability improvements
Native Windows 64-bit build
Adobe Illustrator SVG files containing entities can be loaded again
Support for Poppler 0.26
Support for Boehm-GC 7.4.0 and later
Several crash bugs were fixed
64-bit compilation is now possible on Windows
The highlights of this release are:
* multipath editing
* improved text tool: subscript, superscript, numerical input for text kerning,
tracking and more
* new Airbrush tool
* LaTeX export with PDF/PS/EPS
* JessyInk extension to create presentations
* numerous bugfixes
--
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
* 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
* Patch [ 1667939 ]: fix crash when tile-tracing with too small
clones
* Patch [ 1666532 ]: Broken link in inkview man page
* Patch [ 1665447 ]: fix for the blur quantization bug 1617082
* Patch [ 1664849 ]: fix for 1662589: increase blur margins
* Patch [ 1664004 ]: embedimage.py with fixed search order
* Patch [ 1662649 ]: markers.svg with reversed order
* Crudely improve check-markup for { markup, fix translations with
bugs in that area (dz and zh_TW).
* Patch [ 1659404 ]: Set locale directory from environment variable
* Patch [ 1657072 ]: fix for bug 1654495
* Patch [ 1654636 ]: defocus dropper checkboxes
* Updated slovak translation
* Adding japanese.nsh and russian.nsh into files that should go into
the release tarball
* Correct russian translation
* Patch [ 1651797 ]: fix for attributes when saving/save-a-copy
* Patch [ 1651752 ]: fix dropper tool
* Pattern along path extension fixed on Windows
* Include libtiff3.dll in the Windows distribution, fixing crash
when opening TIFF files
* Patch [ 1673067 ]: fix blur export on flowtext
* Patch [ 1678075 ]: fix FontInstance.cpp compile issue
* Patch [ 1673502 ]: fix broken Envelope (Summers Night) effect
* Security: fixed format string overflows in dialogs (CVE-2007-1463)
and whiteboard Jabber protocol (CVE-2007-1464).
This release brings the exciting new features developed by the Google
Summer of Code 2006 participants, as well as tons of other
improvements across the board. Here are the highlights:
* Gaussian blur is the first SVG filter supported by Inkscape. You
can blur any object to any extent - yet it remains vector and
fully editable. This gives a huge boost to Inkscape as a creative
art tool.
* Display speed and interactivity: not only does Inkscape render
faster, but it can now respond to user input before it finished
redrawing the screen, which greatly improves the interactivity of
the program.
* History dialog makes it easy to to review your editing session and
jump to any step of it, undoing and redoing multiple actions with
one click.
* Several important tool features are added, notably the new
selection mode in Node tool and the adjustable rounded caps in
Calligraphic pen.
* Bitmap tracing works better for multi-color traces, sports a
redesigned dialog and several new options.
* Many new extension effects are added, including Color effects and
Pattern along path.
* The Outline mode has got many fixes and improvements, including a
keyboard shortcut.
* Several new commands in Help menu open various Inkscape-related
pages in your default browser, making Inkscape reference
information more accessible as you work.
* Dozens of smaller features are added throughout the program, and
hundreds of bugs are fixed.
* fix a crash on Windows ("python.exe can't find msvcrt71.dll") by
providing that dll in the package;
* fix hang in page size widget
* on Mac OS X, removed problems with home folder path names
containing spaces;
* inkscape now finds libpng include headers on some systems where it
previously failed to do so
* several changes to allow compiling on glib-2.4 systems (e.g.
RHEL4);
* allow compiling on systems with incomplete boost library headers;
recognize if boost is too old
* inkscape now compiles with gcc-4.2.x.
* fixed a bug where stderr output from scripts was not shown
* fixed a bug affecting the recent files menu
* resolution information is now saved in exported PNG files
* fix some ODG export bugs
* fix dia import
* fix several include issues affecting building on Solaris
(there are still some more problems, at least under Solaris 8, and
similar ones on OpenBSD)
* added missing German version of the advanced tutorial and made
corrections to the calligraphy one; added missing Czech, German,
and Brazil-Portuguese tutorials to tarball; added missing German
keytable to tarball
* applied changes to the German and Spanish translations of Inkscape
strings
* interactivity improvements at high zooms
* fix for specifying CSS colors with percentages
* re-enabled old PDF exporter alongside the new one
* minor fixes to new PDF exporter (a major overhaul is still in the
works)
* fixup for invalid "s odipodi" namespace which has become
widespread in Inkscape documents
* Mac OS X packaging updates
* miscellaneous build fixes
changes:
* Layers dialog
* Outline mode, many performance improvements
* Native PDF export with transparency
* Clipping and masking support
* Configurable keyboard shortcuts, including optional Xara X
compatibility
* Docked color palette in the editing window
* Interactive indicator of the style of selection in the statusbar
* Innovative "node sculpting" and other improvements in Node tool
* Extensions are enabled by default and work on all major platforms
* Better SVG support: <switch> element, ICC color profiles for images
* Persistent rotation centers, Paste Size command
* New icons, redesigned preferences dialogs, rearranged menus, many
cosmetic improvements
* Hundreds of bugfixes and smaller features
PKGLOCALEDIR and which install their locale files directly under
${PREFIX}/${PKGLOCALEDIR} and sort the PLIST file entries. From now
on, pkgsrc/mk/plist/plist-locale.awk will automatically handle
transforming the PLIST to refer to the correct locale directory.
Changes from NEWS:
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.
* Flowed text: text objects that automatically reflow in any shape (not
only rectangle).
* Text selection: finally you can shift+arrow or drag over part of a
text and apply any style to the selected span.
* Gradient tool: a completely redesigned and much easier to use gradient
interface, with gradient handles displayed right on canvas.
* Effects are now usable from within Inkscape on all platforms; this
version ships with a collection of effects including path
interpolation, randomization, and various fractal algorithms.
* Color swatches: a standard facility in most graphic software, now in
Inkscape too.
* Colored clones: clones can now be painted differently from their
original.
* Tile tracing: the Tile Clones dialog can trace the existing image with
the tiling, producing a multitude of exciting effects.
* Grid arrange, baseline align, unclumping: new powerful ways to arrange
objects.
* Better PS/EPS export: gradient support, better text handling, a
command line option for batch export.
* Command line SVG analysis: use Inkscape from the command line to query
coordinates and dimensions of objects in an SVG file.
* Better SVG/CSS compliance: notably, internal CSS stylesheets are now
supported (read-only).
* OS X support: In addition to Linux and Windows, Inkscape 0.42 is
available as a fully self-contained dmg package for Mac OS X.
from the announcement:
The primary focus of 0.41 has been bug fixing.
[...]
A couple new features also found their way in. First, the black and
white tracing functionality introduced in 0.40 has been improved to also
allow conversion of color and grayscale images. Second, is the addition
of a new clone tiler facility which creates patterns, tesselations, and
other sorts of geometric tiling arrangements.
User requests and comments also stimulated a number of improvements to
units handling, extensions, the Invert Selection command, layers
selector, icon theming, and several new translations.
has:
This release has been slow in coming, but it was worth the wait: Inkscape
0.40 brings a huge amount of new features, usability enhancements,
documentation, and bugfixes. The three most important new features are:
* Layers are almost complete in this version; this fills a major gap in
functionality, making Inkscape usable for complex artwork.
* The Potrace bitmap tracer is incorporated into Inkscape - now
vectorizing bitmaps is easy and interactive. A matching command,
"Create bitmap copy", converts from any object to bitmap.
* The text-on-path implementation is complete and very flexible. Both
the text and the path remain fully editable and transformable.
...
* Bugfixes: too many to mention (in total, 228 bugs closed in the
tracker since 0.39), including several important SVG compatibility
fixes.
More information at http://inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ReleaseNotes040
This package now depends on boehm-gc. And it uses libsigc++2
and gtkmm24 instead of libsigc++ and gtkmm.
Many new templates added. And a new library added: libgimpgrad.
Patches removed. (The landscape printing support was added to 0.40.)
