53 KiB
53 KiB
VectorCraft Roadmap
-
UI.5: Shared docking adds tab reordering, docking into other groups, dock splits and resizable floating panel groups. Panel positions and return locations persist with workspaces; the native icon rail and Tools panel remain available.
-
UI.4: Dock and floating-panel headers use shared accessible tabs with bounded overflow. Widget-state theme application uses
craft-ui; all four palettes, font stacks and preferences remain app-owned.
Stage: alpha · next: beta, ~13 points (ready for real work ~62% → ~75%, and reliable .ai exchange) and ~170–270 h away
Last reviewed: 2026-10-10 · Last updated: 2026-10-13 · Change: minor (Image Trace edges, strokes, memory and three new options, measured in
docs/image-trace-quality.md, headline numbers unchanged; community PRs and fixes of 2026-10-13: Polish interface, #1498; compact native saves, #1492; PDF and EPS paste as vector art, #1499;.ai, PDF, EPS and SVG import fixes, #1528, #1530, #1531, #1544, #1551, #1553; guide objects, #1534; Join after Average, #1533; Keyboard Shortcuts lists commands outside the menus, #1539; headline numbers unchanged; community PRs and fixes of late 2026-10-12: type that does not fit its frame is reported, #1471; Tabs panel drags, #1458; template layers in Outline view, #1486; dialog slider rails, #1483; Direct Selection anchor precedence, #1508; print-size images, #1517; French catalog complete again, #1511; headline numbers unchanged; Image Trace colour and photo presets, measured indocs/image-trace-quality.md, headline numbers unchanged; community PRs and fixes of 2026-10-12: Split Into Grid options, #1462; Transform Objects and Reflect across an angle, #1448 and #1460; Pathfinder on a group, #1450; unknown parameter keys refused, #1442; grayscale TIFFs with alpha, #1466 in part; many-object edits, #1429 in part; headline numbers unchanged; Image Trace places edges to a fraction of a pixel, measured indocs/image-trace-quality.md, headline numbers unchanged; Transform dialogs preview and the transform tools act on direct-selected anchors, #1412 and #1408;.aicompound path paint, #1410, overprint, #1388, and text-only PDF parts, #1387; community PRs: strokes wider than their shape, corner drags without the bounding box, pasted pictures, compound paths indocument.inspect, MCP guide; headline numbers unchanged; community PRs:.aiediting-data follow-ups (gradient stops, type of objects with an appearance, short area-type frames), PDF bleed with editing data, dialog keyboard focus, art flush with an artboard, font rescan, symbol instance redraw,--controlport check; headline numbers unchanged; Rectangular Grid and Polar Grid tool options, #1377 in part;.aifiles with placed (linked) pictures open from their editing data, #1264; community PRs:.aiand PDF bleed and editing-data import, gradient shapes imported as paths, ruler origin, Align To, Live Corners corner selection; headline numbers unchanged; G2: Film Grain added; Photoshop effects 29/57; 28 filters remain; community PRs: graph designs, Graph Data worksheet and Graph Type options; Align both centres; Pen endpoint fixes; earlier: Effect › Brush Strokes landed: Photoshop-style filters 28 of 57, raster effects 40% → 48%;.aigradients, meshes and artboard names from the editing data; headline numbers unchanged;.aiart styles and clipping fills from the editing data; headline numbers unchanged;editingData: "always"; headline numbers unchanged) · Target: Adobe Illustrator 2026 (30.x)
VectorCraft is a clean-room, open-source, pure-Rust reimplementation of the Adobe Illustrator workflow. It runs
on macOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and the web (WASM), and agents can drive all of it over MCP, the CLI and a JSON
control channel. This page is the summary; the evidence is in docs/target-app-parity.md
and the work list in docs/gaps.md.
Why alpha: the core workflows exist end to end (drawing and path editing, Pathfinder, paint and appearance,
type, SVG/PDF/EPS, print, export) and feature depth is ~75%, but a professional can't yet switch: Illustrator's
own .ai files open with a wrong layer structure in real cases and can't be saved back with Illustrator's
editing data, the interaction details have never been checked side by side, and some machines fail to start the
app. Beta needs those closed (the beta list in gaps.md). It passes the core-workflow
gate: all six core workflows (path drawing and editing, paint and style, type, layers/artboards/export, print
production, file exchange) work end to end on macOS with save and reopen, and only the last is partial, without
blocking it (Alpha gate).
Headline numbers
| Value | Kind | |
|---|---|---|
| Feature breadth (Illustrator's menu items, tools, effects, formats exist) | ~88% | measured in part: menu items 348/375 wired (92.8%), tools 89/92, Illustrator effects 44/50, Photoshop effects 29/57, 3D 4/4 (initial types, no materials) |
| Feature depth (weighted by use, scored by behaviour) | ~75% | estimated |
| To beta | ~170–270 h one agent · ~50–80 h with 4–6 agents | estimated |
| To full parity | ~360–590 h one agent · ~95–165 h with 4–6 agents | estimated |
Readiness by audience (all estimated; method in target-app-parity.md):
| Audience | Ready % | Opus 5.5 agent hours to ~95% (one agent) | With 4–6 agents | Work that dominates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full Illustrator (ready for real work; decides the stage) | ~62% (57–67%) | ~340–560 h | ~95–160 h | the mainstream work below, plus 3D (50–85 h), raster effects (23–39 h), advanced type (20–28 h), generative AI (30–60 h), localization (55–90 h) and ecosystem |
| Mainstream illustrator | ~65% (60–70%) | ~230–380 h | ~65–110 h | the interaction-fidelity pass (60–90 h), hardening and QA (30–50 h), stability (20–35 h), performance budgets (15–25 h), .ai exchange (10–20 h), the remaining depth of the everyday areas |
| Essentials user | ~75% (70–80%) | ~60–105 h | ~25–45 h | launch and stability on Windows (20–35 h), in-app help and onboarding (8–15 h), basic QA (10–15 h), Shape Builder regions (4–8 h), UI polish |
Hours are Opus 5.5 agent wall-clock hours, calibrated from this repo's merged-PR timestamps (e.g. 0.7–1.2 h per
Photoshop-style filter, ~0.8 h per medium feature); see calibration.
The installed Illustrator was not inspected: the clean-room rule in AGENTS.md forbids it, so
everything is measured from our code against Illustrator's public documentation.
By dimension
| Dimension | % | One agent (h) | Doc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Features (depth) | 75% | 220–360 | target-app-parity.md |
| UI/UX fidelity | 55% | 70–110 | ui-parity.md |
| File formats | 75% | 15–30 | file-format-parity.md |
| Hardware (GPU, pen, touch, displays) | 35% | 25–45 | hardware-parity.md |
| Localization (12 key languages) | 71% (measured) | 55–90 | localization-parity.md |
| Performance | ~60% | 15–25 | gaps.md › G15 |
| Stability | ~60% | 30–50 | gaps.md › G10 |
| Platforms | 80% | 15–25 | gaps.md › G8 |
| Ecosystem and plug-ins | 15% | 30–60 | gaps.md › G17 |
| AI features (generative) | 0% | 30–60 + owner decision | gaps.md › G18 |
| Agent automation | beyond Illustrator | — | mcp.md |
The dimension hours overlap (feature rows hold some UI, format and AI work), so they don't add up to the total.
Features
| Area | % | One agent (h) |
|---|---|---|
| Selection, transform & align | 85% | 4–6 |
| Drawing tools | 85% | 8–13 |
| Path operations, Pathfinder, Shape Builder, Live Paint | 80% | 4–8 |
| Colour, swatches, gradients, patterns, mesh, recolor | 92% | 4–7 |
| Strokes, brushes, width profiles | 88% | 8–15 |
| Appearance, transparency, graphic styles, masks | 97% | 1–2 |
| Live vector effects | 85% | 6–10 |
| Raster effects (Effect Gallery) — effects-parity.md | 49% | 23–39 |
| 3D and Materials | ~25% | 30–55 |
| Type core — type-parity.md | 80% | 14–19 |
| Type advanced (CJK, spelling, Touch Type) | 50% | 20–28 |
| Symbols, blends, envelopes, Repeat, perspective | 85% | 6–10 |
| Image Trace, graphs, image tools | 75% | 5–8 |
| Layers, artboards, document setup | 78% | 5–8 |
| View & navigation | 70% | 9–14 |
| Guides, grids, smart guides, snapping | 80% | 4–7 |
| File formats — file-format-parity.md | 75% | 10–20 |
| Export for Screens, Asset Export, slices | 85% | 2–4 |
| Print, colour management, separations | 80% | 2–4 |
| Automation (Actions, Variables, scripting) | 60% | 8–14 |
| UI chrome (panels, Properties, preferences) | 80% | 13–20 |
| Libraries, Links, Package | 82% | 2–3 |
| Generative AI | 0% | 30–60 |
Weights, evidence and the missing items per area: target-app-parity.md.
Languages
| Language | Code | Status | Translated |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | en |
full | 100% |
| Simplified Chinese | zh-hans |
partial (messages in English) | 85% |
| Spanish | es |
full | 100% |
| Hindi | hi |
none | 0% |
| Arabic | ar |
none (no right-to-left interface) | 0% |
| French | fr |
full | 100% |
| Portuguese (Brazil) | pt-br |
partial | 68% |
| Indonesian | id |
none | 0% |
| Japanese | ja |
full | 100% |
| German | de |
full | 98% |
| Korean | ko |
full | 100% |
| Vietnamese | vi |
full | 100% |
Also shipped: Traditional Chinese (partial, 80%), Hungarian, Italian, Russian and Ukrainian (full), Czech (catalog complete; render-site gaps reduced; native review pending). No catalog has had a native speaker's review. Details: localization-parity.md.
Upcoming
Ranked; detail in docs/roadmap.md and docs/gaps.md.
- Interaction-fidelity pass (G1), tool by tool from ui-parity.md: 60–90 h.
.aifiles from real users (G9): layer structure, guides, speed: 10–20 h.- Launch and stability on real machines (G10): 20–35 h.
- Core-tool correctness (G11: Shape Builder regions, Asset Export borders): 8–15 h.
- Raster effects (G2) alongside: 28 filters and the Effect Gallery, 23–39 h.
- Then: type core and advanced type (G4), the Illustrator 2026 additions (G13), 3D (G3).
Progress log
| Date | What landed |
|---|---|
| 2026-10-13 | Image Trace: neighbouring colours share one fitted edge (gaps between them 22 to 50 px of area down to under 2), a 16 megapixel photo traces in 0.9 GB (was 3.9), stroked centre lines lie in the middle of their ink at its width (0.30 to 0.05 px off, 18 to 3 anchors a stroke), nearly level lines are levelled, more sharp corners are kept; new: Ignore Color, the Auto Color and Outline presets, and the Shapes, Auto Grouping and Gradients options (off by default) (docs/image-trace-quality.md). |
| 2026-10-13 | The interface is available in Polish (pl): menus, panels, dialogs and messages, with one/few/many plurals; AI-drafted, native review pending (#1498). Native documents with a lot of path data (traced or generated art, in layers, symbols or patterns) are saved as compact JSON, about a fifth of the size; small documents stay pretty-printed (#1492). Paste takes a PDF or EPS another app copied as editable vector art: from the macOS pasteboard (with SVG), EPS on Windows beside PDF, and .eps files copied in a file manager, with the new command clipboard.importEps (#1538, fixes #1499). Opening or placing a file with an image too large to decode says so, and the Links panel shows it on the row (#1540, part of #1479). Import: a multi-artboard .ai with notes beside its artboards opens from its editing data, a page's art past its artboard no longer lying over the page before it (#1528); a .ai gradient whose stops are listed upwards keeps each midpoint on the stop that starts its part of the ramp (#1530); SVG text on a path follows basic shapes (circle, ellipse, rect, line, polyline, polygon) as their SVG 2 equivalent paths (#1531, fixes #1527); PDFs whose alpha soft masks are drawn as images import with the mask instead of empty art (#1551); EPS and PostScript type set in Type 42 (TrueType) fonts imports at its size instead of 1000 times too large (#1553); PDF and EPS import keep a clipping path whose bounding box covers the page but whose shape doesn't (#1544, fixes #1542). Make Compound Path on a group (such as outlined type) keeps the paint of its backmost path instead of drawing nothing, and compound paths joined into one keep their holes (#1537). Live Corners: a round corner next to a curved side curves smoothly instead of sticking out of the shape, and the Smooth tool smooths only the stretch of path under the drag (#1547, fixes #1512). Join merges the selected anchor points that lie on one another, as after Average, into one anchor (#1582, fixes #1533). Guides: Lock Guides also locks the objects made into guides: they can't be selected, moved or deleted (#1543); they are drawn in the guide colour and style of Preferences, and a dragged selection snaps to ruler guides with Smart Guides on (#1583, fixes #1534). Edit › Keyboard Shortcuts lists Edit › Duplicate and the other commands that are in no menu but run without parameters (panel-menu commands such as Break Link to Symbol), so they can be given shortcuts (#1549, #1580, fixes #1539). Raster effects (blur, shadow, glow, grain) drawn after a pattern, radial or freeform gradient fill export at their place and size (#1541, fixes #1536). Fonts: the font scan on Linux also reads the folders fontconfig's configuration lists, such as TeX fonts under /usr/share/texmf/fonts (#1548, fixes #1529; not verified on Linux). |
| 2026-10-13 | Image Trace's colour presets trace flat art with its own colours however many are asked for (noise no longer shatters it: 16 Colors 70 → 4 paths on the harness's flat art; no slivers of in-between colour along anti-aliased edges), and the photo presets trace a photo into smooth tones without specks or hairlines (High Fidelity Photo 3,653 → 121 paths, colour error 2.30 → 1.75; 16 megapixels traced where 4 were refused) (docs/image-trace-quality.md). |
| 2026-10-13 | Image Trace traces anti-aliased and blurred images to a fraction of a pixel in Black and White, Grayscale and Color, with corners put back, straight edges as lines and round outlines as circles; a harness measures every preset before and after (docs/image-trace-quality.md): outlines 0.31 → 0.09 px off on average (Default), 0.27 → 0.06 (Black and White Logo). |
| 2026-10-13 | Effect › 3D and Materials: Inflate takes Twist, Taper and Cap (Hollow leaves the back open), as the 3D docs list for every type. |
| 2026-10-12 | Effect › 3D and Materials: Extrude & Bevel (depth, twist, taper, solid or hollow caps, five bevel shapes with repeat, spacing, inside and both sides), Inflate (volume, both sides) and Rotate, with Position presets and the rotation and light gizmos; live, exported as vector faces, expandable (#1407). |
| 2026-10-12 | convert --editing-data (editingData: "always") opens a .ai from its editing data even where its page, which can be older, draws differently, with a note. |
| 2026-10-12 | .ai import reads an object's art style (a fill and a stroke, variable widths too, with an Outer Glow or Drop Shadow) as its own appearance, paints a clipping path's own fill under what it clips and keeps a group's transparency as its PDF part draws them. |
| 2026-10-12 | .ai import reads gradients with their matrix (radials and skew too), focal point and stop order, gradient meshes and the artboards' names from the editing data. |
| 2026-10-12 | The Rectangular Grid and Polar Grid tools take their options: a click opens the size, the divider counts with a skew slider each, Use Outside Rectangle As Frame (rectangular) or Create Compound Path From Ellipses (polar) and Fill Grid; the choices stay with the tool, so dragging draws with them, and scripts and agents pass them to shape.rectangularGrid and shape.polarGrid (#1377, in part). |
| 2026-10-12 | A .ai file with placed (linked) pictures opens from its editing data, with its guides, sublayers and hidden objects: each picture is a linked image in its place, showing the low-resolution preview the file keeps until its file is found or relinked (#1264). Scores unchanged. |
| 2026-10-12 | Desktop printing adopts the shared craft-print spooler with exact physical sheet sizes. Windows 7 retains its WMI/viewer transport and excludes the shared backend; compatibility CI checks the dependency tree and PE imports. Scores unchanged. |
| 2026-10-12 | Graphs: Object › Graph › Design… and Marker… (designs with a preview, New Design, Rename, Delete Design, Paste Design, Select Unused, and markers drawn with a design or None) (#1092); Graph Data opens as a worksheet with Import Data…, column width and decimals (#1138), and takes Transpose, Switch x/y, ` |
| 2026-10-11 | Effect › Brush Strokes: Accented Edges, Angled Strokes, Crosshatch, Dark Strokes, Ink Outlines, Spatter, Sprayed Strokes, Sumi-e (G2). Command parameters from agents and files checked before anything changes (paint, place, cuts, dashes, crop, asset ids, anchors, paths, distort; #984–#999); command dialogs keep whole numbers whole, so Create Object Mosaic takes the tiles typed (#1000); stepper arrows take Shift (×10) and Ctrl/Cmd (÷10) like the arrow keys (#991). Exports and Rasterize supersample Art Optimized edges, so shapes meeting edge to edge leave no seam (#983). Character and paragraph styles take leading, kerning, mojikumi and the other attributes left out at their defaults (#1001). Drawing, typing and pasting with no layer shown and unlocked is refused instead of adding art to a hidden or locked layer (#1002). MCP add_text gives type on or in a path the colour asked for (#1003). MCP screenshot of a connected app renders the artboard asked for (#1004). vectorcraft-cli run ends quietly when its reader closes early (#1005). Select › All on Active Artboard selects on the artboard made active, not always the first (#1006). Reverse Gradient keeps off-centre midpoints, mirrored (#1007). A polar grid with no radial dividers draws none (#1008). Use Precise Cursors also covers the Pen's join pointer (#1009). SVGs with one absolute and one unitless root side import at their size, unstretched (#1010). DXF US survey inches, yards and miles open at their size and name (#1011). A file placed into a document with no other links follows its first change even while the app sits idle (#1031). PDF import keeps the style a font name says when the file doesn't embed the font (#1023). Shift selects ruler guides and art together, and Delete removes both (#1022). Open filled paths are hit by their fill on every side, the rotate cursor bows around the corner it is at, the flip icons match their flips, the Color Picker previews on the selection, and Properties › Transform reaches Scale Corners and Scale Strokes & Effects (#1036). Offset Path and the other booleans finish on outlines where the sweep used to loop until memory ran out (linesweeper 0.5, #1028). Floating panel groups stack into sets that move together, collapse to their tabs and dock as extra dock columns that scroll (#1020). Ruler guides live on layers: listed in the Layers panel, shown, hidden, locked, duplicated, merged and deleted with their layer, and moved between layers (#1021). A .ai whose editing data uses global process colours (Xk/XK) or pattern fills keeps its sublayers: the colours come in as global swatches at their tint, the patterns as pattern swatches (#1025). A .ai in PostScript form opens through its layers, read from the program itself, also when it names the prolog defining its operators without including it, as Rhino and other CAD apps write it (#1027). A fill or stroke chosen while the Type tool has characters selected colours just those characters (#1063). Scaled type shows its scaled font size, leading, baseline shift and horizontal scale in the Character panel, and a size typed there is the size you get (#1034). Character panel menu › Proportional Metrics sets Japanese and Chinese full-width glyphs on the font's proportional widths in horizontal type (#966). Align, Distribute, Move, Arrange, Lock, Hide, Ungroup and other Object commands that would change nothing no longer record an undo step or mark the document changed (#1060). Spot colours defined in Lab open with their Lab values from .ai and PDF files, instead of as wrong RGB colours or their CMYK equivalents (#1032). Build scripts leave a generated source they wouldn't change untouched, so the next build doesn't compile most of the workspace again where file times lose their sub-second part (#1051). A fill colour recolours the gradient mesh point last clicked with the Mesh tool or Direct Selection, and a Mesh tool click on a mesh's point selects that mesh (#1052). The All Tools drawer stays two tools wide instead of filling a wide window (#1054). Text Wrap's Make, Release and Options refuse a list of object ids with a malformed or unknown id instead of skipping it (#1055). A freeform gradient line with a malformed point index is refused instead of being shortened to the indices that are valid (#1056). The Corners dialog (ui.corners) refuses a malformed object id or a listed anchor that isn't a corner instead of editing the selection or the other corners (#1057). New View refuses a centre that isn't exactly [x, y] and a rotation that isn't a number, instead of trimming the one and saving the other as 0° (#1058). The command sweeps try junk scale, spacing and artboard values too, which they had skipped since before those bugs were fixed (#1059). EPS and PostScript arc and arcn with huge angles no longer hang the import, and an arc whose angles are whole turns apart is empty, as the PostScript reference defines it (#1062). Align and Distribute Spacing keep the key object still also when it is inside a selected group or compound path (#1074). A .ai whose layers can't be read yet still opens with its artboards where they were (in a grid, say), not in a row (#1068). Layer Options (ui.layerOptions) refuses a malformed or unknown row id instead of skipping it or opening on the highlighted rows (#1077). Shaper scribbles given a list of object ids refuse a malformed or unknown id instead of skipping it and editing the shapes that remain (#1078). Delete Width Point (stroke.widthPoint.remove) refuses a list of indices with a malformed entry instead of deleting the points that remain, and no longer wraps a huge index round on the web (#1079). Preferences' checkboxes have an outline when the pointer isn't over them, in every interface brightness, as the app's other dialogs' checkboxes do (#1080). The last plain checkboxes (Properties panel snapping and Scale Strokes & Effects, Revolve, Save options, Export for Screens, Variables, plug-in forms) keep a visible box at rest in every theme too (#885). Setting or copying a width point with a malformed index is refused instead of adding a new point or wrapping a huge index round (follow-up to #1079). An Illustrator EPS opened through its layers keeps its own page size and the red outline of text stacked over a dark one, as 0.8.0 did (#1102). The macOS DMG is built so the app in it passes codesign --verify --strict --deep, and the release checks that it does (#1085). Swatch and graphic style libraries, Libraries panel files, presets and plug-ins dropped on the window open as File › Open opens them instead of being placed on the canvas (#1083). A key object needs another selected object outside it: a change that leaves one object selected lets the key go, and one selected object aligns to the artboard whatever Align To says (#1088). Align to Artboard aligns to the active artboard, and actions play their Align to Artboard, All on Active Artboard and Paste in Place, in Front and in Back steps on the artboard active when they play (#1105). Align refuses a call with neither direction, and Align, Distribute, Reflect and Shear refuse a direction, axis, target or bounds they don't take instead of falling back to a default (#1106). object.setProps deselects the objects it hides or locks, the key object included, as the Layers panel's eye and lock do (#1107). Align, Distribute and Distribute Spacing move pattern tiles with the art when General › Transform Pattern Tiles is on (#1108). Object › Lock › All Artwork Above and Object › Hide › All Artwork Above deselect the selected objects they lock or hide, the key object included (#1109). Save Swatch Library's count is the number of swatches the file holds: .gpl and .ase hold solid colors only, and CSS leaves freeform gradients out (#1110). In a rotated view (Rotate View), an artboard's name stays at its own top-left corner (#1095). Ctrl+Shift+L, C, R, J and F align or justify the paragraphs of the selected type, or those the Type tool's selection touches (#1111). On macOS, file dialogs are sheets on the document window, so resizing one no longer crashes the app; while one is open the menus, Quit and Close wait, and its answer goes to the document that asked (#867). Shape Builder merges regions that crossing lines cut along the lines' own edges, so a strip merged across a grid of lines is one outline with no seams left inside (#1081). Proportional Metrics also works in vertical type: upright glyphs take the font's proportional heights (vpal), and Line-end Punctuation Half Width takes nothing more off the punctuation it re-spaced (#1082). Plug-in whole-number parameters keep their exact value however large, and stay in the range the manifest gives (#1091). PDF and .ai import keeps type spaced glyph by glyph (character tightening, optical kerning) with each glyph in its place, giving each character its own tracking when the file's font is installed, and CJK punctuation closed up by its proportional width continues its line (#1101). Direct Selection: pressing an anchor of a path selected whole keeps all its anchors selected, so the drag moves them all; Alt-dragging by an anchor copies the whole path, held by that anchor, which snaps onto other anchors and onto the original the copy leaves behind; Alt pressed or released during the drag turns the copy on and off, as with the Selection tool, whose copies snap to their original too, and the undo step is named Copy or Move for what the drag did (#1104). The toolbar's Fill/Stroke proxy and Color, Gradient and None buttons grow in two columns, where the three drawing modes sit side by side (#1129). An image copied in a browser that puts its <img> markup on the clipboard as text pastes as the picture, not the markup (#1089). file.place of an SVG with crop: "crop" frames and clips it by its viewBox, so art drawn on a shared canvas keeps its place and scale (#788). While a star is dragged, Ctrl/Cmd keeps its inner radius as the outer one grows and Alt keeps its shoulders straight (#812). Edit Toolbar opens the All Tools drawer beside the toolbar, dims the tools already in it, and adds, removes and moves tools by drag and drop while it is open (#1018). The Selection tool's arrow is black and Direct Selection's white in every theme, as users know them: in the dark themes they looked swapped. The font menu keeps its highlight on the same font when the list changes under it (a family's styles listed above it, fonts that finish loading, a favourite unstarred), and ends the live preview when that font leaves the list (#1116). The Windows installer has a Shortcuts page with a ticked "Create a desktop shortcut" box, and a silent install adds the shortcut unless INSTALLDESKTOPSHORTCUT="" is passed (#1128). Image Trace's Noise merges specks until none under its size is left beside another colour, so a higher Noise never gives more paths (#1130). cargo clippy -D warnings passes for the wasm32 web build (#1132). Gradient stops with opacity blend colour and opacity apart on the canvas, as Illustrator and the PDF and SVG exports do: a transparent stop's colour still tints the fade (#1142). An SVG mask whose art is all hidden imports as an empty opacity mask, so its object stays hidden as browsers draw it (#1143). Shift-click with the Artboard tool, or in the Artboards panel, selects several artboards, which then move, duplicate (Alt-drag) and delete together (#1139). A shape far beyond any page (from a malformed file) is left undrawn instead of making the renderer abort the app. Live Corners round corners where curved segments meet too, trimming each curve to what the cut leaves of it (#1144). Effect › Distort & Transform › Zig Zag's dialog has sliders for Size and Ridges per segment, and Relative / Absolute and Smooth / Corner as radio buttons (#1133). Object › Path › Offset Path opens on the offset, joins and miter limit it was last applied with (#1152). A marquee selects only the objects whose paths it touches: one drawn over a background, in Preview or Outline, no longer selects the background too (#1103). On Linux, Preferences › Performance › Linux Display Server › X11 (XWayland) opens the window through XWayland on a Wayland session, where files dropped from a file manager arrive (#1151). A selected gradient mesh shows its mesh lines and points with the Selection and Direct Selection tools too, not only with the Mesh tool (#1111). A blend's spine bends: the Anchor Point tool drags any of its segments into a curve, straight ones too, and Direct Selection reshapes its curved segments (object.blend.spine.reshapeSegment, #1111). Alt-click on a hidden layer's eye shows that layer as it hides the others, and on a locked layer's lock unlocks it as it locks the others: the layer clicked is the one left in view (#1158). Object › Compound Path › Release splits a path of several subpaths (an SVG d with several Ms, a path drawn in one go over MCP) into one path per subpath, with its paint and stacking order, as it does a compound path (#1163). MCP render_preview takes an artboard index, so an agent can look at every page of a multi-artboard document (#1163). The MCP drawing tools say that omitted paint follows the new-art appearance (a white fill and 1 pt black stroke at first), and export says which formats take outlineText (#1148). The desktop app refuses a malformed --automation-read-root / --automation-write-root (no folder, an empty one, another option or the flag twice) before it starts, instead of dropping the root its environment variable set and leaving the control channel unconfined (#1157). PDF export warns, once per object, when the 64 million pixel cap renders its raster effects below the document's raster effects resolution, with the requested and the achieved ppi (#1147). MCP command_batch with atomic: true makes the whole batch one undo step, named by label (edit.undoGroup.begin/end, #1163). file.list {path} lists a folder's files and folders for agents, held to the automation read root (#1163). Thai typed in a font without Thai glyphs is set in an installed font made for Thai (Leelawadee UI, Tahoma, Thonburi, Sukhumvit Set, Noto Sans Thai…) instead of whichever face with Thai glyphs loaded first, and Lao, Khmer and Myanmar likewise. With the Type tool, the Left and Right arrows and Delete step over whole clusters (a Thai consonant with its vowel and tone marks, a letter with a combining accent, an emoji sequence), so the caret never lands inside one; Backspace still takes back one character at a time, a mistyped tone mark say. Thai, Lao, Khmer and Myanmar area type breaks its lines between words, which those scripts don't separate with spaces, instead of running on to the next space; the words come from ICU4X's line segmenter (its dictionaries on the desktop, its smaller LSTM models on the web). The font menu's script filter has Thai beside Japanese and Latin: the families whose character map has Thai. With craft-fonts' Noto Sans Thai, Thai is set in it where no Thai font is installed, and the web build fetches it before the app starts, so Thai no longer shows as empty boxes there. With the Type tool, Ctrl/Alt+arrows and double-click take Thai, Lao, Khmer and Myanmar text word by word (ภาษา, ไทย…) instead of a whole run without spaces, and a word's vowel and tone marks (and combining accents) stay part of it. Releases embed the current craft-fonts (Noto Sans Thai, Noto Sans Arabic and Noto Sans CJK SC beside the Japanese fonts), as the other craft apps' releases do. Object › Compound Path › Make cuts holes where the paths in front overlap the backmost one, also when they were drawn running the same way (#1197). On Windows, Direct3D 12 shaders compile with FXC, part of Windows, so a dxcompiler.dll another program left on the search path without its dxil.dll no longer loses the graphics device at start-up and drops the app to OpenGL (#1194). With anchor points selected by Direct Selection, the Align buttons align those points (to their own bounds or the artboard) instead of moving the whole path (#1180). With Smart Guides, an object grabbed by an anchor and dropped near another object's anchor lands exactly on it, instead of its bounds lining up a fraction of a point beside it (#955). .ai import: a copied area type or type-on-a-path object now sits where its own art puts it, not on top of the original (#1208). EPS/.ai import: a font is found by its exact PostScript name before the name is split, so families with hyphens keep their name (#1207). EPS/.ai import: type from the text document keeps its line spacing across paragraphs instead of applying the paragraph spacing twice (#1206). Brazilian Portuguese translates the remaining UI labels and engine messages (#1205). Czech joins the complete languages: panels, dialogs, plurals and status and error messages (#1189). Type: Digits (Character panel menu, with the Middle Eastern options) draws every digit in the Default, Arabic, Hindi or Farsi numeral system (#1201). Linux: under Wayland, Automatic draws on the GPU the compositor says it draws with, so a hybrid laptop whose compositor runs on the discrete GPU no longer opens an empty window (#1200). Large documents: editing a big selection takes time linear in the document (a 25,000-path nudge 3.5 s → 48 ms), live geometry effects are kept across frames, Pathfinder Trim, Merge, Crop and Outline are 9–20× faster with identical output, and undo history holds 41% less (#1173). |
| 2026-10-10 | Initial live Revolve (Effect › 3D and Materials, #846, #605), in its own three-d crate. Progress docs re-measured and restructured to the craftrules standard (this page, docs/target-app-parity.md, gaps.md, ui-parity.md, the format, hardware, localization, effects and type checklists). Same day: v0.8.0; Effect › Distort, Pixelate and Texture filters (13); German interface; Variables (data merge); Graph Type value axes and tick marks; restart when the first frame never reaches the screen (#964) |
| 2026-10-09 | Radial Blur, Smart Blur, Unsharp Mask (gap 2 begins); 340 commits, the busiest day |
| 2026-10-08 | v0.5.0–v0.7.0; community contributions: Pen and shape-tool modifiers, Layers, Artboards, Japanese composition, Hebrew/Arabic type, interface languages, saved selections |
| 2026-10-07 | v0.4.0; issue fixes; Layers panel rework |
| 2026-10-06 | M8 transform and distort fidelity pass (M8.1–M8.20) |
| 2026-10-05 | M4 files done (M4.14–M4.98); M3 paint and appearance done (92 tasks over two days) |
| 2026-10-02 | First weighted parity estimate (22 areas); look and feel measured against public screenshots |
| 2026-10-01 | Renamed from DrawCraft to VectorCraft |
| 2026-09-30 | Repository history begins |
The full pre-standard record of what landed is kept in docs/roadmap.md.
Revision history
| Date | Change | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-10 | minor | Method aligned with the standard, no new evidence: full ready for real work is the additive weighted sum, ~62%; hours per audience; beta ~13 points away |
| 2026-10-10 | minor | Added the essentials-user readiness score (~75%) |
| 2026-10-10 | minor | Ready for real work re-examined against the issue tracker and user feedback: 50% → 55% (full), 65% mainstream added; see target-app-parity.md |
| 2026-10-10 | minor | Applied the core-workflow gate (docs/roadmap.md › Alpha gate): passes, stage stays alpha |
| 2026-10-10 | major | Re-measured against Illustrator 2026 (30.x) from code counts, 71 open issues and public docs; stage set to alpha; moved the parity estimate, honest assessment and "Shipped so far" to docs/target-app-parity.md, the gap list to docs/gaps.md, milestones to docs/roadmap.md, the .ai scope to docs/file-format-parity.md |
| 2026-10-05 | major | Honest assessment by dimension and the prioritized gap list |
| 2026-10-02 | major | First 22-area weighted parity estimate |