tldraw SDK 5.3
Hi, Steve from tldraw here.
Today we’ve landed version 5.3 of the tldraw SDK. The headline of this release is that we’ve launched commenting. If that wasn’t enough, we’ve introduced geo shapes flipping and symmetric resizing while cropping.
You can read the full release notes here, or check out the highlights below.
Comments
Comments are one of our most requested and anticipated features. The addition of this new feature marks a step in the tldraw SDK evolution, towards more powerful add-ons and customization. Comments can integrate seamlessly into your existing workflows, or tagging logic, but with more power and flexibility under the hood.
To use comments, you simply pick the comment tool and click anywhere. A pin drops where you clicked and a thread opens next to it. Type, send, done. You can react to a comment with an emoji, @mention a teammate, and resolve the thread when it's handled.
You can also talk to and tag your agents, and instruct them to perform actions directly on the canvas.
Comments are pinned to the canvas, attached to whatever you were pointing at. Zoom out far enough and pins that are close together fold into a single badge with a count — so a busy board reads as "3 comments over here" instead of a pile of overlapping dots. Zoom back in, and they separate again.
You can copy a link to any pin and send it to someone. When they open it, the canvas flies them to that spot and opens the thread — and if the pin happened to be folded inside a cluster, it zooms in just far enough to pop it out first. There's a sidebar listing every thread, which you can filter by author or hide the resolved ones.
Move the shape, the pin follows. Rotate it, the pin rotates with it. A second person drags it on their screen, your pin updates on yours.
They’re also flexible in terms of design - you can restyle them to better suit your branding, your instance, or just your preferences.
Heads-up: comments are the first feature in our new collaboration package, licensed separately from the core SDK. Existing customers will get access right away and we'll be in touch with a new license key for you shortly. As the package evolves we'll keep you posted on what's included and how it's licensed, all with plenty of notice.
Flipping geo shapes
Geo shapes including rhombus, trapezoid, and the directional arrow geos mirror their geometry when you flip them (shift+H and shift+V) or drag a selection handle past the opposite edge, the same way image shapes do. Labels are left unmirrored, so text stays upright.
Snapping and symmetric cropping
Edges of an image now snap to other shapes and the grid with the usual snapping guidelines when cropping. Holding option resizes the crop region symmetrically from its center.
Even more updates:
- API updates including adding a generic object store to
@tldraw/sync-corefor records that sync alongside the document rather than inside it - Updates to the viewport culling performance
- Improvements to batch clean up for deleting shapes in bulk
- Delay the appearance of the "back to content" button by about a second
Thanks to all of the developers this month who opened issues or built something awesome with the tldraw SDK (or tldraw offline). Follow us on Twitter/X or join us on Discord for more discussion and to share your work!
If you’re new to tldraw, it’s easy to get started with npm create tldraw@latest or through one of our starter kits.
