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DrawPile 0.9.7 released, Available for Download (Mac OS X, Linux Mint, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Arch Linux)

DrawPile is an open source and completely free graphical software implemented in C++/Qt and designed from the ground up to act as a collaborative drawing application that supports multiple operating systems.

It is a sketching-oriented application that can be easily compared with the popular OpenCanvas software for the proprietary Microsoft Windows operating system. It includes various attractive features that we have listed in the next section.

Key features include anti-aliased drawing, support for layers, multiple blending modes, support for tablet devices, support for text annotations, image rotation support, built-in chat, as well as an integrated server for hosting drawing sessions. A dedicated, standalone server is also available, offering support for multiple, persistent sessions.

The program offers support for the OpenRaster file format, which means that it’s fully compatible with other open source painting/drawing applications, such as GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), Krita and MyPaint.

Another interesting feature is the ability to record drawing sessions, which can be played back a later time for research purposes. Each recording can be modified by removing individual events, undone actions or pauses. Playback capabilities including skipping forward or backward, as well as bookmarking.

Among other interesting features, we can mention support for adjusting brush parameters, support for pressure sensitive Wacom tablets, support for simulating pen pressure based on velocity and stroke distance, support for multiple layers, and support for adjusting layer parameters, such as blending mode and transparency.
This release fixes two major bugs discovered in the previous version:

• The remote host selection dropdown would not work correctly if it contained more than one address
• Drawpile would crash when reordering layers in certain circumstances

Additionally, this release adds one very interesting new feature: lag-free painting in network mode. Previously, network latency was hidden (with varying success) by painting to a temporary layer while the drawing commands were making their way to the server and back. This worked OK for the basic brushes, but poorly with certain blending modes and not at all with the new Watercolor brush.

The new version now lets local drawing happen immediately without waiting for the commands to finish their roundtrip. Of course, this open up the chance that brush strokes get applied in different order on different computers. This is where the new synchronization method comes in: when an inconsistency is detected (we draw something, but later find out someone else had drawn in the same spot earlier) the program will automatically undo the actions and then redo them in the correct order! In practice, this should happen very rarely, so this new method should actually be more efficient than the old preview based one. Those interested in the technical details can read more here.

DrawPile 0.9.7 released, Available for Download (Mac OS X, Linux Mint, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Arch Linux) :

Binary packages are available for certain distributions:

• Arch Linux - via AUR
• Ubuntu - via GetDeb
• openSUSE - in rolling release version
• Mac OS X - Download

If your distro is not listed, or the latest version has not been packaged yet, you can also build the application from sources.