Release Notes

Note: The download files for this Inkscape version are provided for historical reasons only. As most of them do not have a checksum or valid/secure GPG signature, be very careful if you download or install them on your computer.

Inkscape 0.44: overview

Inkscape 0.44 is bigger and better than ever. Some highlights:

Performance

Outline mode

An Outline ("wireframe") display mode is implemented. Use the View > Display Mode > Outline to activate it. In this mode:

The outline mode is usually not drastically faster than regular mode (usually 10% to 50% faster), and in some special cases it may even be slower. However, the value of the outline mode is not only in its speed; it is a good way to get an idea of the structure and objects of your document, and it is convenient for precision node editing and for finding "stray objects".

Speed

In addition to the Outline mode which makes it much easier to work with complex drawings, this version of Inkscape also provides significant speed improvements in many areas.

SVG conformance

Color profile support

Inkscape now includes base ICC profile functionality. If compiled with LittleCMS support (if you run configure with --enable-lcms switch), Inkscape passes the ICC color profile test by W3C. The <color-profile> element has been implemented along with the "color-profile" attribute for <image> elements.

<switch> support

Rendering support for SVG 1.1's Conditional Processing Module has been implemented, including switch element, requiredFeatures , requiredExtensions , systemLanguage attributes. Inkscape passes the Conditional processing tests ( [1] and [2] ) by W3C.

SVG output

Interface

Layers dialog

A Layers dialog ( Ctrl+Shift+L ) is implemented in this version. It works in parallel with the quick layer selector in the statusbar, so you can use whichever is more convenient for you.

Selected style indicator

A new control in the left end of the statusbar lets you quickly view and change the fill and stroke of the selected objects . When you have a text selection in Text tool or a gradient handle selected in the Gradient tool, this indicator displays and changes the style of the text fragment or gradient stop, instead of the entire object (it's the same behavior as the Fill&Stroke dialog.)

The zoom field and the cursor coordinates indicator have been rearranged for compactness and moved to the right end of the statusbar. There's also a window resize handle added at the very end of the statusbar.

Tool style indicators

For each object-creating tool (shapes, Pen/Pencil, Calligraphic, Text), the Controls bar (above the canvas) now includes a style indicator on the right. This indicator shows you which style the newly created object will have.

Controls bar for the Text tool

Docked color palette

Inkscape Preferences dialog

Not only was the Inkscape Preferences dialog completely rewritten and redesigned, with numerous bugs fixed in the rewrite.

Document Properties / Metadata dialogs

Configurable keyboard

Inkscape's keyboard shortcuts are now configurable!

There is no graphical users interface at this time, and not all Inkscape actions can have their shortcuts customized. However, if you do not mind editing a configuration file, the majority of actions, including everything you see in the menus, can already have their keys changed. We're working on making more actions configurable.

On startup, Inkscape reads its keyboard shortcuts from share/keys/default.xml . That file is a copy of inkscape.xml in the same directory, which also contains keyboard emulation profiles for other vector editors:

You can copy any of these over default.xml to use that profile. In all profiles, those keys which are not used by the corresponding program still have their Inkscape bindings. If you can contribute a profile for some vector editor that we don't yet have, we would appreciate that. The files have a simple XML-based format described in inkscape.xml .

You can also customize some of your keybindings without overwriting the main default.xml . If your profile directory ( ~/.inkscape on Linux) contains a keys subdirectory with a default.xml file, the keybindings from that file will overlay (i.e. add to, and override in case of a conflict) the default bindings. The format of your own default.xml is the same as that of the main default.xml .

Menus

Statusbar

5 objects of types Group , Path , Rectangle in layer LayerName . The order of the list will correspond to the order in which the objects were added to selection. If there are 4 or more types in selection, only the number of types is reported, for example: 5 objects of 4 types in layer LayerName .

Theme

Tools

Node tool

Node sculpting

An entirely new way of manipulating paths in Node tool is added in this version: Node sculpting. Normally, when you have several nodes selected and you drag one of them, all selected nodes move by the same amount. Now, if you Alt-drag one of the selected nodes, only that node is fully displaced; other selected nodes are moved less than the full amount, so that those farthest from the drag point remain stationary. This is similar to "proportional editing" or "soft selection" in 3D editors such as Blender.

So, for example, if you select several nodes on a straight line and Alt+drag the middle selected node, the path will bend into a smooth bell-like curve . Nodes' handles are also adjusted correspondingly to keep the overall shape smooth and natural. (If you don't have enough nodes on a path fragment that you want to reshape in this way, just select the end nodes of that fragment and press Ins a few times to populate it with nodes.)

Moreover, node sculpting is pressure-sensitive when you are using a tablet pen. If you press slightly, your curve will have a narrow sharp tip (i.e. the nearest neighbors of your dragged node will move only a bit); if you press hard, the curve's tip will be wide and blunt (i.e. the nearest neighbors will move almost as much as the dragged node). (Hint: to stop dragging without losing your shape, first release Alt and then lift the tip of the pen.)

There are many possible applications of the sculpting technique. To take a simple example, selecting all nodes of an ellipse-like shape and Alt+dragging one of them will smoothly and naturally stretch and skew the entire shape in any direction. Doing the same to a complex path, such as star or spiral, will twist and punch it without destroying its intricate structure - this is the way to get squashed or self-intersecting stars, eccentric spirals and other shapes not easily doable before. Selecting only part of all nodes allows you to smoothly reshape parts of the figure without disturbing the rest.

When applied to text converted to path, node sculpting is a fun and easy way to twist, bend and distort it, achieving effects similar to "perspective envelope" or "curvilinear envelope" in other programs - but in a more powerful and flexible way. For example, by selecting all or part of the text's nodes and Alt-dragging, you can not only make a wavy banner out of a paragraph of text, but also apply a "magnifying lens"-like effect to any word in the middle.

Especially useful node sculpting is for complex natural paths, such as calligraphic strokes or bitmap traces, where you often want to do large-scale pushes and bends without destroying the small-scale features. Things like making a calligraphic stroke narrower in one place and wider in another, or changing the proportions, extending the ear or flattening the nose of a head - all this is now much faster and more natural to do using sculpting. It is also a new way to create new paths, too - starting from en ellipse with added nodes, it takes just a few Alt+drags to tweak it into a silhouette of a head, or a map of Australia, or an Inkscape logo!

Some examples are shown on the screenshot: inkscape-0.44-nodesculpting.png [Link no longer available] .

"Show handles" toggle

The Controls bar for the Nodes tool now includes a toggle button which controls whether Bezier handles are shown on selected nodes (on by default). Selecting and dragging nodes on node-dense paths in zoom-out (e.g. for node sculpting) may be extremely difficult without hiding the handles, as it's hard to pick a node and not a handle when handles are shown.

New deletion behavior

Preserving positions of nodes and handles

Miscellaneous

Calligraphic pen

Tremor

Pen width

Selection

Style

Pen tool

Clipping and masking

Inkscape now provides some UI for using clipping paths and masks .

Transformations

Transform dialog

Fixes and improvements in the Transform dialog (Ctrl+Shift+M):

Persistent rotation centers

Pasting size

A number of commands are added to easily scale selected objects to match the size of the object(s) previously copied to the clipboard. They are all in the Paste Size submenu in Edit menu:

Connectors and automatic layout

Selective tracing with SIOX

Snapping

Sublayers

Previously, it was only possible to make a group a temporary sublayer by entering that group. Now Inkscape supports creating and using true persistent sublayers within a layer.

Markers

Extension effects

Formats

Miscellaneous shortcuts

Miscellaneous improvements

Miscellaneous bugfixes

Translations

Internal

Known problems

SVG files saved using previous version don't display font correctly

Problems with some Debian libgc-6.7 packages

Problems with "Composite" option of X.org

Namespaces may need fixing

Beware of defective themes on Linux

Make sure to remove menus.xml if you have it