CHANGELOG.md

Changelog

📦 ⟩ v2.0.1 ⟩ Dec 8, 2024

Misc. Improvements

• Added support for Intel integrated GPUs that would previously throw an "instantiated but unable to render" error
  • Note: you may need to upgrade to the latest Mesa drivers (24.3.1 or later), especially for in-window rendering to work correctly on Linux
• Fixed window initialization for Vulkan GPUs that default to a framebuffer color-format Skia doesn't support
• Vulkan drivers that fall back to the Mesa LLVMpipe software renderer now work correctly
• Optimized font library initialization to improve SVG parsing speed

📦 ⟩ v2.0.0 ⟩ Dec 2, 2024

New Features

Website

• Documentation is now hosted at skia-canvas.org. Go there for a more readable version of all the details that used to be wedged into the README file.

Imagery

• Added initial SVG rendering support. Images can now load SVG files and can be drawn in a resolution-independent manner via drawImage() (thanks to @mpaperno #180). Note that Images loaded from SVG files that don't have a width and height set on their root <svg> element have some quirks as of this release:
  • The Image object's height will report being 150 and the width will be set to accurately capture the image's aspect ratio
  • When passed to drawImage() without size arguments, the SVG will be scaled to a size that fits within the Canvas's current bounds (using an approach akin to CSS's object-fit: contain).
  • When using the 9-argument version of drawImage(), the ‘crop’ arguments (sx, sy, sWidth, & sHeight) will correspond to this scaled-to-fit size, not the Image's reported width & height.
• WEBP support
  • Canvas.saveAs() & toBuffer() can now generate WEBP images and Images can load WEBP files as well (contributed by @mpaperno #177, h/t @revam for the initial work on this)
• Raw pixel data support
  • The toBuffer() and saveAs() methods now support "raw" as a format name and/or file extension, causing them to return non-encoded pixel data (by default in an "rgba" layout like a standard ImageData buffer)
  • Both functions now take an optional colorType argument to specify alternative pixel data layouts (e.g., "rgb" or "bgra")
• ImageData enhancements
  • The drawImage() and createPattern() methods have been extended to accept ImageData objects as arguments. Previously only putImageData() could be used for rendering, but this method ignores the context's current transform, filters, opacity, etc.
  • When creating an ImageData via the getImageData() & createImageData() methods or new ImageData() constructor, the optional settings arg now allows you to select the colorType for the buffer's pixels.

Typography

• FontLibrary.use() now supports dynamically loaded WOFF & WOFF2 fonts
• The outlineText() method now takes an optional width argument and supports all the context's typographic settings (e.g., .font, .fontVariant, .textWrap, .textTracking, etc.)
• Fonts with condensed/expanded widths can now be selected with the .fontStretch property. Note that stretch values included in the .font string will overwrite the current .fontStretch setting (or will reset it to normal if omitted).
• Generic font family names are now mapped to fonts installed on the system. The serif, sans-serif, monospace, and system-ui families are currently supported.
• Underlines, overlines, and strike-throughs can now be set via the Context's .textDecoration property.
• Text spacing can now be fine-tuned using the .letterSpacing and .wordSpacing properties.

GUI

• The Window class now has a resizable property which can be set to false to prevent the window from being manually resized or maximized (contributed by @nornagon #124).
• Window event handlers now support Input Method Editor events for entering composed characters via the compositionstart, compositionupdate, & compositionend events. The input event now reports the composed character, not the individual keystrokes.

Rendering

• The Canvas object has a new engine property which describes whether the CPU or GPU is being used, which graphics device was selected, and what (if any) error prevented it from being initialized.
• The .transform and .setTransform methods on Context, Path2D, and CanvasPattern objects can now take their arguments in additional formats. They can now be passed a DOMMatrix object or a string with a list of transformation operations compatible with the CSS transform property. The DOMMatrix constructor also supports these strings as well as plain, matrix-like objects with numeric attributes named a, b, c, d, e, & f (contributed by @mpaperno #178).
• The number of background threads used for asynchronous exports can now be controlled with the SKIA_CANVAS_THREADS environment variable

Breaking Changes

• An upgrade to Neon with N-API v8 raised the minimum required Node version to 12.22+, 14.17+, or 16+.
• Images now load asynchronously in cases where the src property has been set to a local path. As a result, it's now necessary to await img.decode() or set up an .on("load", …) handler before drawing it—even when the src is non-remote.
• The KeyboardEvent object returned by the keyup/keydown and input event listeners now has fields and values consistent with browser behavior. In particular, code is now a name (e.g., ShiftLeft or KeyS) rather than a numeric scancode, key is a straightforward label for the key (e.g., Shift or s) and the new location field provides a numeric description of which variant of a key was pressed.
• The deprecated .async property has been removed. See the v0.9.28 release notes for details.
• The non-standard .textTracking property has been removed in favor of the new .letterSpacing property

Bugfixes

• Initializing a GPU-renderer using Vulkan now uses the vulkano crate and makes better selections among devices present (previously it was just using the first result, which is not always optimal).
• The Image.onload callback now properly sets this to point to the new image (contributed by @mpaperno & @ForkKILLET).
• Creating a Window with fullscreen set to true now takes effect immediately (previously it was failing silently)
• Drawing paths after setting an invalid transform no longer crashes (contributed by @mpaperno #175)
• Windows with .on("draw") handlers no longer become unresponsive on macOS 14+ after being fully occluded by other windows
• Ellipses with certain combinations of positive and negative start- and stop-angles now render correctly—previously they would not appear at all if the total sweep exceeded 360° (contributed by @mpaperno #176)
• The drawCanvas() method now clips to the specified crop size (contributed by @mpaperno #179)
• Hit-testing with isPointInPath and isPointInStroke now works correctly when called with a Path2D object as the first argument

Misc. Improvements

• Upgraded Skia to milestone 131
• Added TypeScript definitions for the Window object’s event types (contributed by @saantonandre #163) and the roundRect method (contributed by @sandy85625 & @santilema)
• Performance improvements to FontLibrary, speeding up operations like listing families and adding new typefaces.
• Updated winit and replaced the end-of-life’d skulpin-based Vulkan renderer with a new implementation using Vulkano for window-drawing on Windows and Linux.

  It’s a fairly direct adaptation of Vulkano sample code for device setup with skia-specific rendering routines inspired by @pragmatrix’s renderer for emergent. All of which is to say, if you understand this better than I do I'd love some suggestions for improving the rendering setup.

• The GPU is now initialized only when it is needed, not at startup. As a result, setting that Canvas's .gpu property to false immediately after creation will prevent any GPU-related resource acquisition from occurring (though rendering speed will be predictably slower).
• The sample-count used by the GPU for multiscale antialiasing can now be configured through the optional msaa export argument. If omitted, defaults to 4x MSAA.
• Added support for non-default imports (e.g., import {Image} from "skia-canvas") when used as an ES Module.
• The getImageData() method now makes use of the GPU (if enabled) and caches data between calls, greatly improving performance for sequential queries

📦 ⟩ v1.0.2 ⟩ Aug 21, 2024

Maintenance

• After getting a surprise bill from Amazon for the S3 bucket hosting the pre-compiled binaries, I've moved them to GitHub Releases instead. Aside from resolving some security warnings by upgrading dependencies, this version should be functionally identical to 1.0.1…

Breaking Changes

• The 32-bit ARM-based linux builds are no longer provided pre-compiled; you'll now need to build from source.

📦 ⟩ v1.0.1 ⟩ Oct 15, 2022

Bugfixes

• If an offscreen buffer can't be allocated using the Vulkan renderer, CPU rendering is used as a fallback
• The drawCanvas() routine now works even when the destination canvas is later saved as an SVG (previously, the source canvas would be missing from the output). Caveat: this only works if the destination canvas is using the default source-over blend mode, has its globalAlpha set to 1, and is not using shadows or the effect property. If any of those defaults have been changed, the drawn canvas will not appear in the saved SVG. Bitmap and PDF exports do not have this restriction.

Misc. Improvements

• Added a fullscreen event to the Window class to flag changes into and out of full-screen mode.

📦 ⟩ v1.0.0 ⟩ Aug 5, 2022

New Features

• The new Window class can display a Canvas on screen, respond to mouse and keyboard input, and fluidly animate by calling user-defined event handlers.
• Bitmap rendering now occurs on the GPU by default and can be configured using the Canvas's .gpu property. If the platform supports hardware-accelerated rendering (using Metal on macOS and Vulkan on Linux & Windows), the property will be true by default and can be set to false to use the software renderer.
• Added support for recent Chrome features:
  • the reset() context method which erases the canvas, resets the transformation state, and clears the current path
  • the roundRect() method on contexts and Path2D objects which adds a rounded rectangle using 1–4 corner radii (provided as a single value or an array of numbers and/or DOMPoint objects)

Bugfixes

• The FontLibrary.reset() method didn't actually remove previously installed fonts that had already been drawn with (and thus cached). It now clears those caches, which also means previously used fonts can now be replaced by calling .use() again with the same family name.
• The .drawCanvas() routine now applies filter effects and shadows consistent with the current resolution and transformation state.

Misc. Improvements

• The .filter property's "blur(…)" and "drop-shadow(…)" effects now match browser behavior much more closely and scale appropriately with the density export option.
• Antialiasing is smoother, particularly when down-scaling images, thanks to the use of mipmaps rather than Skia's (apparently buggy?) implementation of bicubic interpolation.
• Calling clearRect() with dimensions that fully enclose the canvas will now discard all the vector objects that have been drawn so far (rather than simply covering them up).
• Upgraded Skia to milestone 103

📦 ⟩ v0.9.30 ⟩ Jun 7, 2022

New Features

• Enhacements to the shared FontLibrary object:
  • Added a reset() method to FontLibrary which uninstalls any fonts that had been dynamically installed via FontLibrary.use()
  • The use() method now checks for previously installed fonts with the same family name (or alias) and will replace them with the newly added font
• Added pre-compiled binaries for Alpine Linux on arm64

Bugfixes

• Calling clip with an empty path (or one that does not intersect the current clipping mask) will now prevent drawing altogether
• Transformation (translate, rotate, etc.) and line-drawing methods (moveTo, lineTo, ellipse, etc.) are now silently ignored if called with NaN, Infinity, or non-Number values in the arguments rather than throwing an error
  • applies to both the Context and Path2D versions of the drawing methods
  • a TypeError is thrown only if the number of arguments is too low (mirroring browser behavior)
• conicCurveTo() now correctly reflects the canvas's transform state
• The browser-based version of loadImage() now returns a Promise that correctly resolves to an Image object
• SVG exports no longer have an invisible, canvas-sized <rect/> as their first element
• Fixed an incompatibility on Alpine between the version of libstdc++ present on the node:alpine docker images and the version used when building the precompiled binaries

Misc. Improvements

• Upgraded Skia to milestone 101

📦 ⟩ v0.9.29 ⟩ Feb 7, 2022

New Features

• PDF exports now support the optional matte argument.

Breaking Changes

• When the drawImage() function is passed a Canvas object as its image source it will now rasterize the canvas before drawing. The prior behavior (in which it is drawn as a vector graphic) can now be accessed through the new drawCanvas() method which supports the same numerical arguments as drawImage but requires that its first argument be a Canvas.

Bugfixes

• Regions erased using clearRect() are now properly antialiased
• The clip() method now interprets the current translate/scale/rotate state correctly when combining clipping masks

Misc. Improvements

• Upgraded Skia to milestone 97

📦 ⟩ v0.9.28 ⟩ Jan 12, 2022

New Features

• Added TypeScript definitions for extensions to the DOM spec (contributed by @cprecioso)
• Added 3D-perspective transformations via the new createProjection() context method
• Colors can now use the hwb() model

Breaking Changes

• The Canvas .async property has been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
  • The saveAs, toBuffer, and toDataURL methods will now be async-only (likewise the shorthand properties).
  • Use their synchronous counterparts (saveAsSync, toBufferSync, and toDataURLSync) if you want to block execution while exporting images.
• The ImageData constructor now orders its arguments properly: the optional buffer/array argument now comes first

Bugfixes

• Fixed a stack overflow that was occurring when images became too deeply nested for the default deallocator to handle (primarily due to many thousands of image exports from the same canvas)
• The source-in, source-out, destination-atop, and copy composite operations now work correctly for paths rather than rendering shapes without color (contributed by @meihuanyu)
• Shape primitives now behave consistently with browsers when being added to a non-empty path:
  • rect() now issues an initial moveTo rather than extending the path, then leaves the ‘current’ point in its upper left corner
  • ellipse() extends the current path rather than implicitly closing it (contributed by @meihuanyu)
  • arc() also extends the current path rather than closing it

Misc. Improvements

• Upgraded Skia to milestone 96
• Added workflow for creating docker build environments

📦 ⟩ v0.9.27 ⟩ Oct 23, 2021

New Features

• Added pre-compiled binaries for Alpine Linux using the musl C library

📦 ⟩ v0.9.26 ⟩ Oct 18, 2021

New Features

• Added pre-compiled binaries for 32-bit and 64-bit ARM on Linux (a.k.a. Raspberry Pi)

Bugfixes

• Windows text rendering has been restored after failing due to changes involving the icudtl.dat file
• FontLibrary.use now reports an error if the specified font file doesn't exist
• Fixed a crash that could result from calling measureText with various unicode escapes

Misc. Improvements

• Upgraded Skia to milestone 94
• Now embedding a more recent version of the FreeType library on Linux with support for more font formats

📦 ⟩ v0.9.25 ⟩ Aug 22, 2021

Bugfixes

• Improved image scaling when a larger image is being shrunk down to a smaller size via drawImage()
• modified imageSmoothingQuality settings to provide a more meaningful range across low, medium, and high
• measureText() now returns correct metrics regardless of current textAlign setting
• Rolled back icudtl.dat changes on Windows (which suppressed the misleading warning message but required running as Administrator)

Misc. Improvements

• Now using Neon v0.9 (with enhanced async event scheduling)

📦 ⟩ v0.9.24 ⟩ Aug 18, 2021

New Features

• Path2D objects now have a read/write d property with an SVG representation of the path’s contours and an [unwind()][p2d_undwind] method for converting from even-odd to non-zero winding rules
• The createTexture() context method returns CanvasTexture objects which can be assigned to fillStyle or strokeStyle
• Textures draw either a parallel-lines pattern or one derived from the provided Path2D object and positioning parameters
• The marker used when setLineDash is active can now be customized by assigning a Path2D to the context’s lineDashMarker property (default dashing can be restored by assigning null)
• The marker’s orientation & shape relative to the path being stroked can be controlled by the lineDashFit property which defaults to "turn" but can be set to "move" (which preserves orientation) or "follow" (which distorts the marker’s shape to match the contour)

Bugfixes

• Removed use of the ?? operator which is unavailable prior to Node 14
• Prevented a spurious warning on windows incorrectly claiming that the icudtl.dat file could not be found

Misc. Improvements

• The Path2D simplify() method now takes an optional fill-rule argument
• Added support for versions of macOS starting with 10.13 (High Sierra)

📦 ⟩ v0.9.23 ⟩ Jul 12, 2021

New Features

• Conic béziers can now be drawn to the context or a Path2D with the conicCurveTo() method
• Text can be converted to a Path2D using the context’s new outlineText() method
• Path2D objects can now report back on their internal geometry with:
  • the edges property which contains an array of line-drawing commands describing the path’s individual contours
  • the contains() method which tests whether a given point is on/within the path
  • the points() method which returns an array of [x, y] pairs at the requested spacing along the curve’s periphery
• A modified copy of a source Path2D can now be created using:
  • offset() or transform() to shift position or apply a DOMMatrix respectively
  • jitter() to break the path into smaller sections and apply random noise to the segments’ positions
  • round() to round off every sharp corner in a path to a particular radius
  • trim() to select a percentage-based subsection of the path
• Two similar paths can be ‘tweened’ into a proportional combination of their coordinates using the interpolate() method

Bugfixes

• Passing a Path2D argument to the fill() or stroke() method no longer disturbs the context’s ‘current’ path (if one has been created using beginPath())
• The filter property will now accept percentage values greater than 999%

Misc. Improvements

• The newPage() and saveAs() methods now work in the browser, including the ability to save image sequences to a zip archive. The browser’s canvas is still doing all the drawing however, so file export formats will be limited to PNG and JPEG and none of the other Skia-specific extensions will be available.
• The file-export methods now accept a matte value in their options object which can be used to set the background color for any portions of the canvas that were left semi-transparent
• Canvas dimensions are no longer rounded-off to integer values (at least until a bitmap needs to be generated for export)
• Linux builds will now run on some older systems going back to glibc 2.24

📦 ⟩ v0.9.22 ⟩ Jun 09, 2021

New Features

• Rasterization and file i/o are now handled asynchronously in a background thread. See the discussion of Canvas’s new async property for details.
• Output files can now be generated at pixel-ratios > 1 for High-DPI screens. SaveAs and the other canvas output functions all accept an optional density argument which is an integer ≥1 and will upscale the image accordingly. The density can also be passed using the filename argument by ending the name with an ‘@’ suffix like [email protected].
• SVG exports can optionally convert text to paths by setting the outline argument to true.

Breaking Changes

• The canvas functions dealing with rasterization (toBuffer, toDataURL, png, jpg, pdf, and svg) and file i/o (saveAs) are now asynchronous and return Promise objects. The old, synchronous behavior is still available on a canvas-by-canvas basis by setting its async property to false.
• The optional quality argument accepted by the output methods is now a float in the range 0–1 rather than an integer from 0–100. This is consistent with the encoderOptions arg in the spec. Quality now defaults to 0.92 (again, as per the spec) rather than lossless.

Bugfixes

• measureText was reporting zero when asked to measure a string that was entirely made of whitespace. This is still the case for ‘blank‘ lines when textWrap is set to true but in the default, single-line mode the metrics will now report the width of the whitespace.
• Changed the way text rendering was staged so that SVG exports didn’t entirely omit(!) text from their output. As a result, Context2Ds now use an external Typesetter struct to manage layout and rendering.

📦 ⟩ v0.9.21 ⟩ May 22, 2021

New Features

• Now runs on Windows and Apple Silicon Macs.
• Precompiled binaries support Node 10, 12, 14+.
• Image objects can be initialized from PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, or ICO data.
• Path2D objects can now be combined using boolean operators and can measure their own bounding boxes.
• Context objects now support createConicGradient().
• Image objects now return a promise from their decode() method allowing for async loading without the loadImage helper.

Bugfixes

• Calling drawImage with a Canvas object as the argument now uses a Skia Pict rather than a Drawable as the interchange format, meaning it can actually respect the canvas's current globalAlpha and globalCompositeOperation state (fixed #6).
• Improved some spurious error messages when trying to generate a graphics file from a canvas whose width and/or height was set to zero (fixed #5).
• CanvasPatterns now respect the imageSmoothingEnabled setting
• The counterclockwise arg to ellipse and arc is now correctly treated as optional.

Misc. Improvements

• Made the console.log representations of the canvas-related objects friendlier.
• Added new test suites for Path2D, Image, and Canvas’s format support.
• Created workflows to automate precompiled binary builds, testing, and npm package updating.

📦 ⟩ v0.9.20 ⟩ Mar 27, 2021

Bugfixes

• The loadImage helper can now handle Buffer arguments

Misc. Improvements

• Improved documentation of compilation steps and use of line height with ctx.font

📦 ⟩ v0.9.19 ⟩ Aug 30, 2020

Initial public release 🎉