May Update
Hello. Let’s talk about the first quarter’s wrap-up, the new development structure, and version 1.0 preparations.
Q1 Finale
In March and April, due to illness and other commitments, I couldn’t dedicate as much time as planned to developing Penpot Desktop. Hence, I decided to delay long-form update(s) and focus on development and support.
Since the last update, across seven releases, Penpot Desktop gained:
- New user interface design (UI) - The new UI is unified and seamlessly integrates with the look of the Penpot app while maintaining familiarity. It’s based on the concept by @RenanMayrinckDesign and Penpot’s official design system, Pencil. Read more
- Local instance creator - An automated setup for local Penpot installation, based on the official Docker method for self-hosting. Read more
- Native title bar support - A switch between overlay-style window controls and a full, native title bar.
- And fixes - Like instance’s session persistence, instance colour validity, or top/tab bar spacing.
With the refreshed UI and the local instance creator, Q1 is completed with a score of 3/4. From what I have researched, for a mix of technical and legal reasons, the local fonts feature is currently out of reach.
New development structure
The last few months showed a need for a flexible development structure, over rigid cycles. After Q2, I will do an official experiment with an open, living roadmap. The milestone features stay the same, they will still be published in sets of 3-4 main objectives, but a dynamic roadmap will allow me to weave in tasks based on your ongoing feedback and previous development.
You can track the development by following the prioritised backlog.
Road to 1.0
I would like to use the summer season of the northern hemisphere to clear the path for version 1.0.
In July and August, instead of major milestones, I will tackle a few administrative tasks and behind-the-scenes improvements like new distribution channels, build signing, automated testing, non-destructive settings, and so on. I would also like to explore options to improve the project’s sustainability as it grows (and inevitably the amount of work with it).
It will give us a solid foundation to have a 1.0 release, perhaps later in the year.
Thank you for reading and your support. I hope you enjoyed this update. You are welcome to reach out with feedback, suggestions, and ideas in this thread, in the project’s repo (through an issue or a discussion), on BlueSky, and Mastodon. Stay tuned for the next one.
