The first beta for Drawpile 2.3.1 has been released. It has many new features, such as autorecovery, timelapses, animation improvements, dynamic scaling on Android and more, as well as numerous bugfixes. But like the small increase in the version number implies, it is fully compatible with version 2.3.0.

• Click here to download and install the beta version. To update, simply install it over the previous one.

This has already been out and tested for a while as an "alpha" version for a while, so it should be stable and ready for use. Especially if you're using Drawpile for offline drawing, the autorecovery feature makes it worth using the beta. For animators, there also big enough improvements that this will be the superior version. On Android, there's also been a number of improvements and compatibility for more devices.

For a list of what changed, take a look at this guide. There's pictures and videos there describing the new stuff.

If you have questions, feedback or trouble using the new version, take a look at the help page on how to get in contact. And if you want to support continued development, you can donate to the project!

Updating

You can download this version from the Beta section of the downloads page and simply install it over the current version. This will update it. The new version is backward-compatible, so you can still join sessions hosted with the previous version.

Alternatively, you can run both versions side-by-side. See here for how to do that on different operating systems.

F-Droid on Android and Flatpak on Linux should get this version on their beta channels in the coming week or so. It always takes them a little bit longer to do so.

Server owners can update if they want, although it is not necessary. The most significant thing is that you can now restrict how long users can linger outside of a session, letting you prevent them idling in the session list for example, and some fixes for cases where clients weren't properly disconnected after their session ended. If you are using the all-in-one Docker server, see here how to update.

Changes in this Release

There's many features and fixes in this version, such as:

• Autorecovery. If Drawpile exits unexpectedly, Windows reboots your computer for updates or Android terminates Drawpile in the background, you can recover your session, usually right up to the moment it stopped. This replaces the (not very automatic) autosave mechanism and makes offline drawing much more robust.
• A new "project" file format, called dppr. Stores the whole history of your canvas, based on the autorecovery feature.
• Timelapses, via File → Make Timelapse. This makes a video of your drawing or animation process, some people also (incorrectly) call this "speedpaint". You can even make a cropped timelapse by selecting an area on the canvas first.
• Stroke previews and brush names in the brushes dock, rather than just thumbnails. You can switch back to those if you prefer of course.
• Animation improvements, like exposure changes, timeline zooming, inverted ranges to work on the tail ends of loops, move locking tracks and more.
• Better Android support. When Drawpile starts, it asks you how large you want the UI now. Many keyboard issues were fixed and several devices also have received special workarounds to make them work properly.
• Velocity-adjustment for the stabilizer, speeding up as you make faster strokes.
• Performance improvements, like better brush loading to make Drawpile start up faster or speeding up synchronized smudging.

And a lot more. The full changelog follows below.

Read more...