After a long series of betas we do publish again a full release!
A lot has happened since 0.9.4 - good things and sad things. Please read carefully through this release note and those for the beta versions before - there is a lot to discover!
A lot of new functionalities
Linestyles
MeerK40t finally supports dashed / dotted lines - this is applicable for every basic shape from lines to Vector Text
<img src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c1c18e2e-e9e3-41b0-9596-34f97607374a" width="600">
Tabs / Bridges
You can now define for every basic shape so called tabs - small segments of uncut areas that hold the piece in place - either:
- as a property of the shape: a list of comma and/or white space separated numbers that specify the relative positions, ie percentage of total shape perimeter, of the tab centers. You may provide a placeholder for x equidistant tabs by stating '*x' e.g. '*4' for four tabs. An empty list stands for no tabs.
- or with the newly introduced tab editor:
<img src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/739117b4-aa7f-4b15-8fdb-722c4a7ffbbe" width="600">
Hiding an object
To simplify the frequent need to quickly eliminate a couple of elements from a burn without fundamentally changing the design, you can now set for all basic elements a flag (which is *not* stored and loaded, so only during runtime) that will hide them on the scene and that will exclude them from a burn operation. This flag can be set / unset either via the property panel:
<img src="https://github.com/meerk40t/meerk40t/assets/2670784/8229ee8f-e7b2-4b05-acd9-74cbf52120c2" width="600">
or via the tree / element context menu:
<img src="https://github.com/meerk40t/meerk40t/assets/2670784/9a595cbf-a264-41b6-97b1-431cf53e32b7" width="300">
<img src="https://github.com/meerk40t/meerk40t/assets/2670784/f2e9c307-1326-4edd-a3b6-1bb8a7067421" width="600">
Keyholes and other image goodies
- An overall speed update by reducing the amount of recaclulations
- A full-blown keyhole functionality. You can link a shape (ellipses, rectangles, polygons, paths, whatever you like) to an image
<img src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/daa65bcf-4bc0-4dcc-803a-259734e08a2e" width="600">
- A contour detection functionality (which will be extended and more accessible in the next release) - right now it's to be used from the image context menu (or the command line)
<img src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/910839d0-c07e-4f7e-a299-68c6d1d1814f" width="600">
Look and feel
- Some effort has been going into a more logical ordering of the context menus when right clicking a node in the tree
- There is a dark side in everyone of us and now in MeerK40t too: after Linux + MacOs we do have now a dark mode in Windows too:
<img src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2c30ad6a-671c-4ce4-af2a-546e865288ea" width="600">
Thanks a lot to Laserology for his insistence and good eye for details to make the darkmode more consistent.
- Betaeta has never been tiring to provide Italian translations with every new feature/change we implemented - a Herculean task indeed! The translations for German and Italian are up to speed with the English version, so if you want to see your own Language improve then contribute your translations too.
Countless fixes
- We have fixed quite a lot of issues being reported - either via github (remember you can always raise a bug report / a feature request [here](https://github.com/meerk40t/meerk40t/issues) ) or via the integrated bug report feature within the application. We look at everything, so don't hesitate to share these issues with us.
- A word to the moshiboard users out there - thanks to the efforts of mnoriaki the laser should again be fully supported
Some sad news
MeerK40t is the result of an incredible piece of work by David Olsen aka Tatarize. He created this program over 4 years allowing users across the world to get the best out of their K40 equipment (and additional lasertypes).
Despite having no risk factors for getting cancer, he developed a tumor on his tongue that metastasized into his lungs before the doctors could stop it and passed away on July 26, 2024.
- He was a mentor, an inspiration and a friend - he will be missed but he won't be forgotten.
- Please join the fight against cancer and consider donating to one of the many research and charity organisations across the world.
David passed on the baton for the development of MeerK40t to us, so this story, his heritage will continue. We want to use this moment though to encourage people to help and participate in this journey. So if you are interested have a look at [Assisting the project](https://github.com/meerk40t/meerk40t/wiki#help-wanted) and reach out to us - we would be delighted to hear from you.