Path Precision Tools gains the Shared Edge Merge Tool, kept out of the
toolbars (All Tools drawer and Object › Plug-ins › Path Precision Tools,
no shortcut), and Keep Shared Points Together:
- Shared Edge Merge Tool (sharedEdge): over two paths touching at two
coincident anchors (tolerance 0 to 3 pt) hovering shows the two
stretches and the merged edge; a click replaces both with it, half way
between them, or following the upper (Shift) or lower (Alt) path. Both
paths stay closed or open, anchors either stretch has inside are
matched on the other, one undo step.
- Making ends: near anchors meet on a click and an anchor one path lacks
is added to match; Shift+Alt asks for this inside a stretch.
- Keep Shared Points Together: an option that makes Slide Anchor Along
Path, Extend Path and Set Anchor take coincident anchors along. Nothing
else in the app changes.
- Shared Edges section in the Anchor Inspector: brush diameter,
coincidence and the option.
- Commands addon.pathtools.mergeEdge and movePointsTogether, params
validated and covered by the command sweep.
- Cursor stand-in, catalog rows in every language, docs and tests.
Path Precision Tools gains two tools, kept out of the toolbars (All Tools
drawer and Object › Plug-ins › Path Precision Tools, no shortcuts):
- Corner Tool (cornerTool): editable corners on any path through the
existing Live Corners. Hover shows an eligible anchor, a click cuts a
corner with the tool's radius and kind, a drag sizes it (Shift: whole
values), a corner's marker selects it and loads its values, resizes it
and removes it at 0 or on a double-click; a corner never grows past
what fits; an Alt-marquee cuts every eligible anchor inside.
- Corners section in the Anchor Inspector: radius, kind, selected count,
Apply to Selected Anchors.
- Slide Anchor Along Path (slideAnchor): a drag runs an anchor along its
curve, the neighbouring segments refitted by the keep-shape kernel;
Shift snaps where the tangent is a multiple of 45° from the constrain
angle.
- Commands addon.pathtools.cornerSet, cornerRemove and slideAnchor, one
undo step each, params validated and covered by the command sweep.
- Cursor stand-ins, catalog rows in every language, docs and tests.
When Brushes, Color, Layers, Info, Gradient, Stroke, Attributes, Graphic
Styles, Appearance, Align, Transform, Pathfinder, Transparency or
Symbols is in front of an expanded dock group or a floating group, its
function key now hides the whole group instead of closing only that
tab. The next press brings the group back in the same place with every
tab and the panel in front, and Window > a hidden sibling also restores
the group. A background tab still comes to the front on the first
press, and in an icon column the key opens and closes the flyout.
Other panel shortcuts and plain window.panel calls keep their behavior.
Object › Plug-ins › Artwork Cleanup and a hideable Text row in its panel
gain text tools, each one undo step:
- Break Text into Lines / Paragraphs / Words / Glyphs: point type pieces
placed by the glyph of their first character, keeping their styles.
- Combine Point Text: one-line point type merged into as few objects as
it can, every glyph staying where it was (tracking and spaces, checked
against the layout).
- Split Text at Cursor, Remove Line Breaks, Remove Paragraph Breaks,
Set Alignment, Keep Position, Reset Text Transform and Replace
Missing Fonts.
Effect › Color Effects › Duotone… (addon.color.duotone, also in Object ›
Plug-ins › Color Effects) prints the grey-equivalent tone of each colour
with one to four inks, each with its own tone curve. It is a colour
adjustment like the add-on's others, so it stacks with them and works as
a filter through addon.color.filter.
- One tone of a swatch the document has gives a tint of that swatch,
linked, so a spot tone separates onto its plate; several tones give
the CMYK mix of their tints (the inks overprint, so they multiply).
- Colour adjustments now map paints with their swatch links
(ColorMap::apply_link); the existing adjustments behave as before.
- Skip Objects with Spot Colors leaves spot-linked colours as they are.
- The dialog has a row per tone and the picked tone's curve (the Curves
graph, reused), its points and Reset to Linear / Inverse.
Print Ink Fixes (addon.color.printFixes, Object › Plug-ins › Color
Effects › Print Ink Fixes…) scales CMYK colours over a total ink limit
down to it, removes white overprint and sets black overprint (Overprint
Black's logic) in a CMYK document, as one undo step, and reports what
changed. RGB documents are refused.
The panel opens both under Inks.
Deferred: an opaque undercoat, tones for type only, extra gradient stops
for smoother tints, curve flip and all-100 % buttons.
A successful command.batch now records its last Unite, Intersect or other
Pathfinder step as the operation Repeat Pathfinder runs, so playing an
action from the Actions panel updates it. A batch that fails and rolls back
leaves the previous operation in place. action.batch, which runs an action
over other files or data sets, does not set it.
Every successful Shape Mode or Pathfinder operation now sets the
operation that Repeat Pathfinder runs, including direct
object.pathfinder.* commands, not only the panel's buttons. Trap,
compound-shape edits and live effects leave it unchanged, and a failed
operation keeps the earlier one. The panel menu names the remembered
operation, and Repeat runs it on the current selection with the current
Pathfinder Options.
With too few objects selected, Cmd/Ctrl+4 leaves the art as it is and
shows the panel's selection message in the status bar. Adds the
"no Pathfinder operation applied yet" rows to the Catalan and Turkish
catalogs, and tests for direct and failed operations, Trap, compound
shapes, current options, a one-path selection and the default keys.
Effect › Color Effects › Vector Halftone… (addon.color.halftone, also in
Object › Plug-ins › Color Effects) draws its object as the halftone dots
Object › Vector Halftone makes, live: mono (one dot colour, or each dot in
the art's colour under it) or CMYK screens, the five dot shapes,
frequency, angle, invert and clip to the art's outline.
- The screens, dots and caps move to vectorcraft_effects::addons::halftone,
shared by the command (its behaviour and tests unchanged) and the effect.
- The renderer samples the art (vectorcraft_render::addons::halftone) and
keeps the dots by the object's content and what it reads from the
document, so unchanged art isn't sampled again; past 100000 cells per
screen the object draws as it is.
- Expand Appearance turns the object into its dots, and the SVG, PDF, EPS
and AI exporters write them as paths.
- Its dialog reuses the command's fields, without Keep Original.
Deferred: stochastic and radial patterns, a dot-gain curve, per-screen
separation settings, type or symbols as dots.
Path Precision Tools gains the Parametric Shape Tool: ten kinds of shape
(rectangle, ellipse, polygon, star, ring, arrow, cross, heart, gear,
speech bubble) that stay editable as numbers.
- Geometry in vectorcraft_pathops::addons::pathtools::shapes: each kind's
outline, corner rounding limited to the middle of a side, a fingerprint
of the outline, recovery of centre, size and rotation after a move,
turn or scale, and recognition of plain rectangles, ellipses and
regular polygons.
- The tool (parametricShape, All Tools drawer and Object › Plug-ins ›
Path Precision Tools only, no shortcut): drag from the centre (Shift:
45° steps), arrow keys change the count and values while dragging,
handles edit a selected shape, double-click places one.
- Commands addon.pathtools.shape.create / .set / .convert, one undo step
each; params checked (counts 3..1000, sizes up to 16384 pt).
- A shape keeps its numbers in one object-data entry (vc-pathtools-shape)
that SVG export already leaves out; anchor edits make it a plain path.
- Parametric Shape panel, cursor stand-in, catalog rows in all 25
languages, docs and tests.
People reuse the same gradients across documents and rebuilt them by
hand. The Gradient panel now has a Presets menu: the presets of the
app's built-in gradient libraries, grouped by library (theme), then
the saved ones. Choosing one gives the gradient behind the active
proxy (or a solid paint) the preset's type, stops, method and dither,
keeping its placement, as one undo step, through paint.editGradient.
The panel menu saves the current gradient as a preset (named in a
dialog) and deletes saved ones; Hide/Show Presets toggles the row.
Saved presets are kept with the preferences, next to the other user
preset lists (width profiles, flattener, perspective). Stops linked to
a document swatch keep their colour, unlinked, since a preset is used
in other documents. Built-in presets can't be deleted; names are
unique.
Commands: gradient.presets.list, .apply, .save and .delete. The menu's
rows are drawn only while in view, as its headings are.
Tests: engine tests for list, apply (fill and stroke, placement kept,
one undo step), save (unique names, unlinked swatch stops) and delete;
panel tests for applying from the menu and saving, deleting and
hiding presets from the panel menu, including scrolling the menu to
the saved presets. Docs: gaps G13, target-app and UI parity, ROADMAP.
A built-in add-on under Object › Plug-ins › Smart Pen:
- The Smart Pen Tool draws and edits Bézier paths without switching
tools: a click adds the next segment straight or curved (a panel
toggle; Tab flips the segment being placed or the last one), a drag
makes a smooth point (Alt breaks the handle, Shift snaps to 45°, Space
moves the point), a curve after a straight segment joins it tangent.
- On existing paths it selects and moves points, removes a point keeping
the shape (Alt-click), toggles smooth/corner (double-click), drags
handles, reshapes a segment by dragging it and inserts a point on it
(Alt-click); it closes, continues and joins open paths.
- The Smart Pen panel: next segment straight or curved, remove points
keeping shape, make smooth, make corner, retract handles, close or
join.
The tool stays out of both toolbars as shipped; the All Tools drawer
lists it under the add-on's heading. Commands are addon.pen.*; the
existing Pen tool, commands and menus are unchanged.
A built-in add-on under Object › Plug-ins › Path Precision Tools:
- Anchor Eraser Brush: painting over selected paths removes the anchors
under the brush that the outline can do without within a tolerance,
refitting the handles beside them (Alt ignores the tolerance, Cmd/Ctrl
deletes without refitting, pen pressure can scale the brush); one undo
step per stroke.
- Extend Path tool: dragging an end of an open path carries it on
straight, by stretching its last curve or along the circle it curves
on, or shortens it back along itself.
- Measure & Inspect tool: drag to measure distance and angle; hover a
path to read segment and path length, area, curvature, tangent and
anchor angles and handles, in the document's units.
- Anchor Inspector panel: the selected anchor's position and handles as
numbers, with Make Smooth (auto-smooth rule), Make Corner, Equalize
Handles, Remove Points Keep Shape, Add Points and three ways to close.
- Add Points at Crossings and Split at Crossings.
The tools stay out of both toolbars as shipped; the All Tools drawer
lists them under the add-on's heading. Commands are addon.pathtools.*;
the existing commands, tools and menus are unchanged.
A built-in add-on in Effect › Color Effects and Object › Plug-ins › Color Effects:
- Exposure (stops of linear light, offset and gamma), Desaturate and
Invert Colors as live colour adjustments, evaluated in stack order with
those of Effect › Color Adjustments.
- addon.color.filter applies any colour adjustment to the colours
themselves, through the Edit Colors pass, as one undo step.
- A panel picks an adjustment and its values, then adds it as a live
effect or applies it as a filter.
The add-on lives in its own modules (effects, engine and ui-egui addons
folders) and leaves the existing effects, commands and menus as they
were.
A built-in add-on under Object › Plug-ins › Artwork Cleanup:
- Simplify Anchors (Keep Shape) removes anchors while the outline stays
within a tolerance, optionally keeping sharp corners.
- Document Health Check finds and fixes 16 kinds of problems in the
selection or the document (stray points, duplicate and collinear
anchors, tiny handles, nearly closed paths, needless groups, compound
paths and clipping groups, unpainted and invisible objects, duplicate
objects, art off every artboard, empty artboards…), with Show, Fix
Selected and Fix All, each fix one undo step.
- Deep Ungroup and Rejoin Path Pieces.
The add-on lives in its own modules (pathops, engine and ui-egui
addons folders) and leaves the existing commands, tools and menus as
they were.
Every Preferences dialog option is read by shipped code, by its field or
its key, except five, each waiting on a subsystem of its own: Open
Documents As Tabs (documents in floating windows, G7), Units > East Asian
Type, Hyphenation > Default Language, Scratch Disks, and the legacy vector
clipboard. Highlight Alternate Glyphs, Real-time Drawing and the Devices
options, still listed as stored-only, act. Docs only.
Two ways the next launch came back with settings from before:
- The workspace, panels, toolbars and other settings kept only in the UI
state were written only on quitting (Preferences OK already saved at
once, #1747). A session ended any other way lost them. The app now
saves within 2 seconds of a change, and only when something changed.
- Each launch is its own process, so two windows are common (opening a
second file from the file manager). A window wrote back the whole
state it started from when it quit, so the one quitting last put back
the settings it read at its start, even with nothing changed in it.
A window now saves only what it changed since it last read or saved,
merged into the file as it is: each UI field, and each engine
preference on its own. A setting both windows changed takes the last
save.
The status line, open dialog and other fields a start resets neither
trigger a save nor replace another window's.
With the Direct Selection tool active (after the bar's Edit Path, or
switching to it) and a path selected whole, the Contextual Task Bar kept
the Selection tool's Edit Path, Offset Path and Simplify: its anchor
actions showed only for anchors picked out one by one.
The public overview lists, for a path the Direct Selection tool selects,
Simplify and the anchor actions. A path selected whole now offers Corner
and Smooth (path.convertAnchors converts every anchor of a fully
selected path), Connect for an open path, and Simplify. Remove Anchor
Points and Cut Path need anchors picked out and still wait for them.
Edit Path, which only switches to the tool already in use, is left out,
for compound paths too.
Art dragged off the canvas reached the panels (Asset Export, Graphic
Styles, Swatches, Symbols) only from the Selection tool: drag_art_out
checked for that tool by id. With the Direct Selection or Group
Selection tool the move stayed on the canvas, so nothing dropped.
Those tools now hand over a move too when every selected object is
selected whole (a press on its fill). A drag of anchor points or
segments, which they also call Move, stays a reshape and isn't handed
to the panels.
Merges kept prepending each side's whole summary as "previously: …", so
target-app-parity.md's status line had grown to 66 MB (839 copies of its
Target clause), gaps.md's and ui-parity.md's to over 1 MB. Each status
line now names its latest change only, as the progress-docs standard has
it; the revision histories keep the earlier ones.
The reference app switches the units of measurement with
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+U on Windows and Option+Shift+Command+U on macOS.
VectorCraft could set the document's units with document.setUnits or
a right-click on a ruler, but no command stepped through them and no
key did it.
document.switchUnits (Switch Units, default Cmd+Alt+Shift+U) sets the
document's units to the next one in the order a right-click on a
ruler lists them: Points, Picas, Inches, Millimeters, Centimeters,
Pixels, Feet & Inches, Meters, Yards, Feet, and from Feet back to
Points. Each press is one undo step, and the reply names the new
units. Keyboard Shortcuts lists it under Document.
The precise cursors shortcut-editor test used Cmd+Alt+Shift+U as a
free key; it now uses Cmd+Alt+Shift+Q.
Docs: docs/mcp.md, docs/ui-parity.md, docs/target-app-parity.md.
With the Selection tool, a single selected grid repeat shows a handle below the grid (rows), one right of it (columns), one past its bottom-right corner (both) and sliders between its first two columns and rows (horizontal and vertical spacing), as the public Set grid repeat options page describes. Each drag previews object.repeat.options and commits as one Repeat Options undo step; Escape cancels, and a drag that ends where it began leaves no step. Bounding-box handles keep priority where they overlap, and the controls hide with the edges or the bounding box. Before, a drag there scaled the source or started a marquee.
Part of #2691.
bflatastic