Additionally, due to Inkscape’s ever-evolving codebase, the initial work on that project eventually became obsolete for newer versions of Inkscape. In a video Owens released about 3 weeks ago titled Shape Builder and Power Styles – Inkscape Update 27th Aug 2022, he discusses how the Shape Builder tool was initially introduced to Inkscape via a Google Summer of Code student’s project. Owens has been releasing update videos on his YouTube channel discussing his contributions to this popular and highly-requested feature for Inkscape. It was popularized by Adobe Illustator, which released the first version of the tool in Illustrator CS5 in May 2010.

The Shape Builder tool is a “live” or “on-canvas” boolean operation tool that lets you combine multiple shapes or shape segments to create new shapes.

The Shape Builder Tool is officially coming to Inkscape, and very soon! Major Inkscape Contributor Martin Owens has been making inroads with getting a workable version ready for the next major stable release version of Inkscape, and major tests are already underway.

Inkscape arrow shape