v2.0.0-rc2

Beta test

This is a pre-release version of the next Skia Canvas revision. Please give it a try and leave a reaction below (or open an issue) to report whether it worked for you or needs some more attention before relase.

To install, type:

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas

See the full release notes

New Features

• Docs Website
  • Documentation is now hosted at skia-canvas.org.
• Imagery
  • SVGs & WEBP bitmaps can now be loaded as Images and drawn to the canvas
  • Canvas saveAs and toBuffer added support for WEBPs and ‘raw’ bitmaps of different types
  • drawImage and createPattern now work with ImageData objects as well as Images and Canvases
  • New loadImageData helper function to asynchronously load files & urls for direct pixel access
  • Image objects now support standard on/off/once EventEmitter methods
• Typography
  • Added support for WOFF & WOFF2 font formats
  • Added generic font mappings for sans-serif, serif, monospace, and system-ui
  • New Context type properties: textDecoration, fontStretch, letterSpacing, & wordSpacing
• GUI
  • New Window property resizable allows resizing to be disabled
  • Added keyboard support for CJK IME via compose* and input events
• Rendering
  • New Canvas engine property gives status of GPU or CPU renderer
  • The number of background threads used for asynchronous exports can now be set with the SKIA_CANVAS_THREADS environment variable
  • 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.

Breaking Changes

• The minimum required Node version is now 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

• Made Vulkan device selection & initialization more reliable
• 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
• Drawing paths after setting an invalid transform no longer crashes (contributed by @mpaperno)
• 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)
• The drawCanvas() method now clips to the specified crop size (contributed by @mpaperno)
• isPointInPath and isPointInStroke now work with Path2D objects

Misc. Improvements

• Upgraded Skia to milestone 131
• Added more thorough TypeScript definitions
• Significant performance improvements to FontLibrary and getImageData(), which now makes use of the GPU (if enabled) and caches data between calls
• New Vulkan renderer using Vulkano for window-drawing on Windows and Linux.
• Wait to initialize GPU until it is used, not at startup. Set Canvas.gpu to false to prevent any GPU-related resource acquisition from occurring
• Now supports ES Modules and the import statement
• 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

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

Deprecation Warning

This version can no longer be installed via npm due to the unsustainable expense of hosting the library on S3. You can still install it directly from this GitHub release via the commands below. Find the section for your OS and machine type and copy/paste the corresponding npm install … command into your terminal.

Installation commands

Mac (Apple Silicon)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.1/skia-canvas-v1.0.1-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

Mac (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.1/skia-canvas-v1.0.1-darwin-x64.tar.gz

Windows (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.1/skia-canvas-v1.0.1-win32-x64.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.1/skia-canvas-v1.0.1-linux-x64-glibc.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; musl C library)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.1/skia-canvas-v1.0.1-linux-x64-musl.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-64; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.1/skia-canvas-v1.0.1-linux-arm64-glibc.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-64; musl C library)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.1/skia-canvas-v1.0.1-linux-arm64-musl.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-32; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.1/skia-canvas-v1.0.1-linux-arm-glibc.tar.gz

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

Deprecation Warning

This version can no longer be installed via npm due to the unsustainable expense of hosting the library on S3. You can still install it directly from this GitHub release via the commands below. Find the section for your OS and machine type and copy/paste the corresponding npm install … command into your terminal.

Installation commands

Mac (Apple Silicon)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.0/skia-canvas-v1.0.0-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

Mac (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.0/skia-canvas-v1.0.0-darwin-x64.tar.gz

Windows (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.0/skia-canvas-v1.0.0-win32-x64.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.0/skia-canvas-v1.0.0-linux-x64-glibc.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; musl C library)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.0/skia-canvas-v1.0.0-linux-x64-musl.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-64; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.0/skia-canvas-v1.0.0-linux-arm64-glibc.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-64; musl C library)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.0/skia-canvas-v1.0.0-linux-arm64-musl.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-32; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v1.0.0/skia-canvas-v1.0.0-linux-arm-glibc.tar.gz

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

Deprecation Warning

This version can no longer be installed via npm due to the unsustainable expense of hosting the library on S3. You can still install it directly from this GitHub release via the commands below. Find the section for your OS and machine type and copy/paste the corresponding npm install … command into your terminal.

Installation commands

Mac (Apple Silicon)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.30/skia-canvas-v0.9.30-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

Mac (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.30/skia-canvas-v0.9.30-darwin-x64.tar.gz

Windows (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.30/skia-canvas-v0.9.30-win32-x64.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.30/skia-canvas-v0.9.30-linux-x64-glibc.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; musl C library)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.30/skia-canvas-v0.9.30-linux-x64-musl.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-64; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.30/skia-canvas-v0.9.30-linux-arm64-glibc.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-64; musl C library)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.30/skia-canvas-v0.9.30-linux-arm64-musl.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-32; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.30/skia-canvas-v0.9.30-linux-arm-glibc.tar.gz

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

Deprecation Warning

This version can no longer be installed via npm due to the unsustainable expense of hosting the library on S3. You can still install it directly from this GitHub release via the commands below. Find the section for your OS and machine type and copy/paste the corresponding npm install … command into your terminal.

Installation commands

Mac (Apple Silicon)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.29/skia-canvas-v0.9.29-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

Mac (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.29/skia-canvas-v0.9.29-darwin-x64.tar.gz

Windows (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.29/skia-canvas-v0.9.29-win32-x64.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.29/skia-canvas-v0.9.29-linux-x64-glibc.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; musl C library)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.29/skia-canvas-v0.9.29-linux-x64-musl.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-64; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.29/skia-canvas-v0.9.29-linux-arm64-glibc.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-32; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.29/skia-canvas-v0.9.29-linux-arm-glibc.tar.gz

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

Deprecation Warning

This version can no longer be installed via npm due to the unsustainable expense of hosting the library on S3. You can still install it directly from this GitHub release via the commands below. Find the section for your OS and machine type and copy/paste the corresponding npm install … command into your terminal.

Installation commands

Mac (Apple Silicon)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.28/skia-canvas-v0.9.28-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

Mac (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.28/skia-canvas-v0.9.28-darwin-x64.tar.gz

Windows (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.28/skia-canvas-v0.9.28-win32-x64.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.28/skia-canvas-v0.9.28-linux-x64-glibc.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; musl C library)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.28/skia-canvas-v0.9.28-linux-x64-musl.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-64; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.28/skia-canvas-v0.9.28-linux-arm64-glibc.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-32; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.28/skia-canvas-v0.9.28-linux-arm-glibc.tar.gz

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

Deprecation Warning

This version can no longer be installed via npm due to the unsustainable expense of hosting the library on S3. You can still install it directly from this GitHub release via the commands below. Find the section for your OS and machine type and copy/paste the corresponding npm install … command into your terminal.

Installation commands

Mac (Apple Silicon)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.27/skia-canvas-v0.9.27-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

Mac (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.27/skia-canvas-v0.9.27-darwin-x64.tar.gz

Windows (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.27/skia-canvas-v0.9.27-win32-x64.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.27/skia-canvas-v0.9.27-linux-x64-glibc.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; musl C library)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.27/skia-canvas-v0.9.27-linux-x64-musl.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-64; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.27/skia-canvas-v0.9.27-linux-arm64-glibc.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-32; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.27/skia-canvas-v0.9.27-linux-arm-glibc.tar.gz

New Features

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

v0.9.26

Deprecation Warning

This version can no longer be installed via npm due to the unsustainable expense of hosting the library on S3. You can still install it directly from this GitHub release via the commands below. Find the section for your OS and machine type and copy/paste the corresponding npm install … command into your terminal.

Installation commands

Mac (Apple Silicon)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.26/skia-canvas-v0.9.26-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

Mac (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.26/skia-canvas-v0.9.26-darwin-x64.tar.gz

Windows (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.26/skia-canvas-v0.9.26-win32-x64.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.26/skia-canvas-v0.9.26-linux-x64.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-64; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.26/skia-canvas-v0.9.26-linux-arm64.tar.gz

Linux (ARM-32; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.26/skia-canvas-v0.9.26-linux-arm.tar.gz

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

Deprecation Warning

This version can no longer be installed via npm due to the unsustainable expense of hosting the library on S3. You can still install it directly from this GitHub release via the commands below. Find the section for your OS and machine type and copy/paste the corresponding npm install … command into your terminal.

Installation commands

Mac (Apple Silicon)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.25/skia-canvas-v0.9.25-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

Mac (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.25/skia-canvas-v0.9.25-darwin-x64.tar.gz

Windows (Intel)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.25/skia-canvas-v0.9.25-win32-x64.tar.gz

Linux (Intel/AMD; glibc)

npm install https://github.com/samizdatco/skia-canvas/releases/download/v0.9.25/skia-canvas-v0.9.25-linux-x64.tar.gz

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)