It’s summer and our weekly reports are getting really hot. Check out changes for the last week:
Synfig now capable to export videos with sound (PR #1623). This is enabled automatically if your animation has sound layers. Thanks to Konstantin Dmitriev and Rafed Communication Tech L.L.C for sponsoring this issue.
Added button to stop rendering process (#1585). Thanks to Firas Hanife.
Fixed issue with canvas end-time could be set by wrong reason (PR #1614). Thanks to Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes.
Code optimization in Text Layer: Avoid unneeded font search (PR #1622). Thanks to Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes.
[Lottie Exporter] Add support for blur layers (PR #1505). Thanks to Saurabh Chand Ramola.
[Lottie Exporter] Add support for Logarithm convert method (PR #1586). Thanks to Saurabh Chand Ramola.
[Skeleton Tool] Fixed highlighting of active bone in Skeleton Deformation layer (PR #1628). Thanks to Aditya Abhiram.
[Skeleton Tool] Trigger visibility of Width Points depending on conditions (issue #1556). Thanks to Aditya Abhiram.
[Skeleton Tool] Trigger visibility of Deformation layer when Skeleton Tool switched (issue #1624). Thanks to Aditya Abhiram.
[Skeleton Tool] New Skeleton layer now created empty, without default bone (PR #1620). Thanks to Aditya Abhiram.
Source code now includes preconfigured files for developing with Visual Studio Code IDE on Windows (PR #1639). Thanks to Konstantin Dmitriev.
That’s all for today! Thanks to everyone who helps to make Synfig better. You are incredible!
Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomez is working on RTL support for Text Layer. You can see the first results in this thread.
Dialog windows now return true only if the button with id=1 (accept) is clicked. Previously, there could be a situation where files were overwritten when the dialog was closed. (PR #1573). Thanks to Firas Hanife.
Improved Layer Freetype speed: now font face file does not reload on every rendering (PR #1655). Thanks to Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes.
Fixed memory leak with Widget_Timetrack (PR #1652). Thanks to Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes.
Fixed memory leak when destroying ThreadPool (PR #1651). Thanks to Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes.
[Lottie Exporter] Added support for reciprocal convert method (PR #1619). Thanks to Saurabh Chand Ramola.
[VS Code] Added Visual Studio Code configuration for debugging on Linux (PR #1682). Thanks to Konstantin Dmitriev.
[CMake] Added basic support for MS Visual Studio 2019 and vcpkg (PR #1646). Thanks to Ayush Chamoli.
[CMake] All enabled modules added as a dependency for synfig_bin. This fixed the problem where some of the Synfig Studio icons could not be generated. (PR #1677). Thanks to Ayush Chamoli.
[CMake] Fixed FontConfig detection (PR #1664). Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
[Skeleton Tool] Fixed active bone setting while pressed on control point (PR #1662). Thanks to Aditya Abhiram.
[Skeleton Tool] Removed “Create Child Bone” action menu (PR #1663). Thanks to Aditya Abhiram.
[Skeleton Tool] Fixed ‘Make parent to active bone’ crash (PR #1671). Thanks to Aditya Abhiram.
[Skeleton Tool] Rename ‘Make parent to active bone’ (PR #1676). Thanks to Aditya Abhiram.
[Skeleton Tool] Synfig crashes when we try to edit any control point other than a bone’s (PR #1679). Thanks to Aditya Abhiram.
Fixed ‘Error: Broken pipe’ message, when installing brew packages on MacOS (PR #1659). Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
Fixed warnings ‘format ‘%lx’ expects argument of type…’ (PR #1668). Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
Fixed unused/redefined variables warnings (PR #1672). Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
[MacOS] Added proper Clang info to About dialog (PR #1675). Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
That’s all for today! Thanks to everyone who helps to make Synfig better.!
Also, Lottie Exporter now has new mode, which exports outlines without variable widths (PR #1647) - see illustration attached to this post. This greatly reduces the size of exported files and we advise to use it if your animation does not have outlines with variable widths.
Skeleton Tool got several critical fixes (thanks to Aditya Abhiram):
Fixed crash when switching to Skeleton Tool (see issue #1683)…
Fixed issue with loading file, which has layers created with Skeleton Tool (see issue #1680),
Other changes:
CMake build system: Fixed path for splash screen image and added Adwaita icons for MSYS2 builds (PR #1689). Thanks to Ayush Chamoli.
Fix for Autotools build system: Pango and Imagemagick-c++ flags moved to their respective modules (PR #1688). Thanks to Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes.
Fix for Windows build (MSYS2): Removed “set_env.sh” script. All variables replaced by native MSYS2 environment variables. Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
That’s all for today! Thanks to everyone who helps to make Synfig better! Stay tuned till the next report.
Hi guys! Last week was quiet - we’ve got GSoC 2020 finished and everyone is having some rest. You can read detailed reports on what’s has been done by our students:
Also, last week we’ve got one fix from Firas Hanife - fixed “order by name” functionality in Parameters Panel (issue #1702).
That’s all for today! Congrats to everyone with completion of GSoC and thanks so much to everyone who contributes!
P.S. I’ve got some slight health issues last week, so don’t be surprised if I am silent or responding slow. Nothing serious, I’ll be back on track soon.
As you may know, we are using MLT framework library to work with some media files. Unfortunately where is no MLT package in MSYS2 environment which we are using to build Windows version of Synfig. So, we use our own script to build and install MLT before starting the build step. This is not the best solution, as you always need to keep in mind the location of the MLT, non-standard installation paths, and more. And this week we made an MLT package for the MSYS2 environment and sent it upstream. So now you can just type pacman -Ss mingw-w64-x86_64-mlt and install it like any other package. Woohoo!
We also have made changes to the MLT CMake script by adding logic necessary for correct compiling and installation of MLT framework in MSYS2 environment.
The next thing we need to do is to suggest our changes to the MLT framework itself. After that, we are ready to clean up the Synfig build scripts and improve them.
That’s all news for this week. Thanks for your support and see you next time!
This week we have added a new feature for our infrastructure to help Synfig developers and users test new features.
Synfig developers mostly use Linux, while users use Windows. And we wanted to allow users to easily test changes made by developers via PRs before they hit the main branch.
To do this, we were working to solve several problems:
Increase the build speed (otherwise we exceed the time limits set by the Appveyor CI service, which we use to build Synfig for Windows). To achieve this, we have improved the build using CMake and Ninja.
Add to CMake the ability to install dependencies necessary for Synfig to work.
Decide where to store binary files built from each particular PR, which users will download for testing. There are many services for this, but there was one problem. Storage service usually uses a secret key to allow upload data from other service (the one that generate binary builds). But if you use secret key for deploying from PR (as we planned initially), then it opens the possibility for an attacker to extract this secret key and use it for various bad things in the future. For this reason, most services (and Appveyor too) disable the deploying from PRs because this is not secure.
It looks like we would have to abandon such a good feature, but then we discovered that Appveyour service automatically stores builded artifacts on its own servers, which is available for the user and thus makes it redundant to use secret keys. Hooray!
So, finally, we are happy to present you the new feature!
From now, for each new PR you can download the compiled portable version of Synfig for Windows.
Now you can unpack the downloaded file and run Synfig, which includes all modifications introduced in this particular PR. This is a portable version, so no need to install it.
Other changes from last week:
Many improvements for CMake from Artem Konoplin (see PR #1711).
Corrected positions of thumbnails and keyframe tooltips on Wayland (PRs #1726 and #1725). Thanks to Keyikedalube Ndang.
Fixed MSYS2 installer, generated by CMake - removed unnecessary folders, required folders added (PR #1728). Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
Fresh forces of Hacktoberfest have joined this week to Synfig contributors’ army.
And we would like to thank our friends at Digital Ocean, Keyikedalube Ndang and Ayush Chamoli for their efforts to increase project activity.
Many issues were prepared for newcomers - mostly code cleanup, compile-time warning fixes and small UX changes. These issues need to be fixed, and they are relatively easy even for the first-time contributors. And it’s a good starting point for a wonderful journey into the world of open source.
So let’s stop talking and see what we did this week?
[CMake build] Fixed target name output in warning message if msgfmt not found. Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
Some improvements for MSVC/vcpkg support (#1746). Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
That’s all for this week. As always we want to say thanks to all our contributors and supporters. Remember to have fun and joy while doing good things. See you next week!
Hi guys! Here’s what’s new in Synfig for last week:
Added window for quick keyboard shortcut reference and improved navigation hotkeys (PR #1776). See image attached to this post. Also, the “Navigation” menu is removed. Thanks to Keyikedalube Ndang.
Improvements for Skeleton Tool: Better UX when constructing Skeleton Deformation layer (see issue #1658), fixed some warnings (PR #1695). Thanks to Aditya Abhiram.
Improved support for building Synfig with MSVC: Added export variables (PR #1797). Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
Windows build: Reduce installer size by disabling lumas module in MLT (PR #1801). Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
Fixed crash in Spline Vertex converter (PR #1731, see also issue #1731). Thanks to Dmitry Razumovsky.
[CMake] Fix failing build when MSYS is installed into a path different from “c:\msys64” (issue #1785). Thanks to Dmitry Razumovsky and Artem Konoplin.
[CMake] Added FontConfig support to Synfig Studio build (#1799). Thanks to Dhairya Bahl.
[Code cleanup] Removed some old CVS/SVN stuff (PR #1791). Thanks to Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes.
About dialog now has modal property enabled (PR #1788). Thanks to Scott Hardin.
That’s all for today! Thanks to everyone who helps to make Synfig better!
Hi guys! Here’s what’s new in Synfig for last week:
Now it is possible to stylize Synfig’s UI using a CSS file (PR #1789). Installed CSS files located in “INSTALL_PREFIX/share/synfig/css”. This also fixes issues #1061 (Inconsistent Synfig UI on GNOME desktop) and #1390 (Some labels in dialog buttons are not correctly aligned). Thanks to Keyikedalube Ndang.
Do not keep layer selection after new layer(s) created using Draw Tool (see issue #1809). Thanks to Firas Hanife.
Changed redo shortcut to “Ctr+Y” on Windows and “Shift+Ctrl+Z” on Linux; also “Ctrl+Z/Shift+Ctrl+Z” is changed to “Cmd+Z/Shift+Cmd+Z” for MacOSX (PR #1811). Thanks to Keyikedalube Ndang.
That’s all for today! Thanks to everyone who helps to make Synfig better!
Hi guys! Here’s what’s new in Synfig for last week:
Improved color dialog UI (PR #1816). See attached screenshot. Thanks to Keyikedalube Ndang.
Fixed issue with improper handling of Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V / Ctrl+A keyboard shortcuts when Color and Gradient Dialogs are active (issue #1713). Thanks to Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes.
Migrate outdated Gtk::Table widgets to Gtk::Grid (issue #1787). Thanks to Keyikedalube Ndang.
Disable verbose mode for autotools build (PR #1815), build output is much cleaner now. Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
Code cleanup: Delete ColorAccumulator class (PR #1810). Thanks to Benjamin Summerton and Artem Konoplin.
That’s all for today! Thanks to everyone who helps to make Synfig better!
Synfig now uses single-key keyboard shortcuts for toolbox items (PR #1823). See discussion here for details. Thanks to Keyikedalube Ndang and Dhairya Bahl.
Zoom keyboard shortcuts improved: now it is possible to use both inkscape-like and old-style shortcuts (PR #1848). See issue #1798 for details. Thanks to Dhairya Bahl.
Added keyboard shortcut for Cutout Tool (PR #1855). Thanks to Firas Hanife.
Disable background rendering outside of playback bounds (issue #1719). Thanks to Firas Hanife.
Ask confirmation when user clicks “Restore Defaults” button in Settings Dialog (PR #1445). Thanks to Firas Hanife.
Bugfixes
Fix bug with interpolation for boolean values (PR #1826). See issues #1825 and #658 for details. Thanks to Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes.
Fixed bug with missing audio when exporting to MPEG-1 format (PR #1830). Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
Fixed issue with OSX package: SynfigStudio.app won’t start if renamed (or contain spaces in name) (PR #1834). Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
Fixed crash in Spline Tangent converter (PR #1836). Thanks to Dmitry Razumovsky.
Fixed issue #1820 - Impossible to enter “-” and space characters in Keyframes Panel and other panels (PR #1827). Thanks to Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes.
Fix issue #1766: Impossible to select “Font Family” on Windows builds (PRs #1828, #1833). Thanks to Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes.
Fix issue #1590: Duplicate layer ignoring all layers except the first one (PR #1829). Thanks to Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes.
Code cleanup, maintenance
Cleanup OptionsProcessor calss code (PR #1831). Thanks to Artem Konoplin.
UI glade files moved to “synfig-studio/src/gui/resources/ui/” directory (this is to standardize synfigstudio resources folder like gedit and other gtk apps). See issue #1818 for details.
That’s all for today! Thanks to everyone who helps to make Synfig better!
Hi guys! Here’s what’s new in Synfig development for last week:
Synfig Studio 1.4.0 released as a snap package (https://snapcraft.io/synfigstudio). It is currently on the candidate channel and will be promoted to stable channel after some testing. So if you are using Ubuntu - please check it out!
