Release Notes – March 2nd 2023

Hello! and welcome to this week’s tldraw update. This is a big one, bringing a new user interface, performance improvements, and more.

For the developers in the room, check out our open source release of Signia , the fast reactive state management library that we developed to handle the unusual requirements of tldraw.

Check out the docs and drop by the Signia discord channel if you’d like to learn more.

What’s new

We refreshed the whole user interface! 💅

The changes include: a re-designed toolbar , which has moved from the left side of the screen to the bottom of the screen, a completely re-worked menu system , a new quick-actions area above the mobile toolbar, and several accessibility improvements for keyboard users.

The design refresh also features a re-built page menu. You can now open, create, rename, duplicate, and reorder pages—all within the same menu.

This update brings cursor hints to shared projects. They point to offscreen users, helping you to find them again. We’ll have more multiplayer experience features coming soon, so watch this space.

We’ve also included a new embed menu for adding website embed shapes to tldraw’s canvas. Previously, you could create these embed shapes by pasting a URL onto the canvas. This still works—but now you’ve got a nice menu to use, too.

Finally, you can find some new items in the quick actions popup on mobile, including a link to edit a shape’s hyperlink and a button to reset the zoom in a project.

Improvements

We’ve greatly improved the performance of the app : first, we found a faster way to render draw-style shapes; and second, we improved the way we handle off-screen shapes. Shapes that were previously off-screen will appear as grey boxes until you stop moving the camera (allowing for much smoother pans and zooms, especially on crowded projects).

Finally, we made some improvements to the “scribble” shape used for tldraw’s eraser. You should find it now at least 10% more relaxing.

We also improved the quality of drawing on iPad, especially with iPad pencil.

Tweaks and Fixes

• Interface now accounts for safe space at the bottom of the screen (such as the HomeBar on iOS and iPadOS)
• Rotated text shapes no longer drift around the screen when you edit them.
• Fixed hit testing on dots drawn with the draw tool.
• Fixed an issue with the close button on the Edit link dialog still saving the current changes.
• Fixed a crash caused by bad data getting persisted during an error.
• Fixed a bug where moving some connected arrows would reorder them.
• Fix a rare bug where arrows could get an invalid length.
• Fixed a bug where moving an arrow in and out of a shape wouldn't connect it correctly.
• Desktop: Fixed a bug that caused the languages menu to be displayed twice on desktop.
• Safari: Fixed the context menu sometimes not working for embed shapes.
• Safari: Fixed a bug where you couldn't edit frame labels.

That’s all for this week. Let us know what you think of the new design and performance changes. As always, please post any questions or comments on Discord or issues on the Github repository.

See you next week!