Hello internet! The development behind Penpot Desktop has progressed a lot this month, with many great updates to come in the future.

Before reading, a new survey was created for Penpot Desktop users.

The Mac Update

Throughout the month of May, Penpot Desktop v2.3.0 has seen major improvements, with a big focus on macOS users. If you check SudoVanilla’s road map, you’ll see that I’ve finally purchased a Mac, which will allow me to carry out more work for macOS users.

Auto Update

Penpot Desktop will soon be able to auto-update on macOS, overcoming the need for users to manually update the app on their own. To do this, the DMG file offered has to be signed to allow for macOS to verify the update. For some reason, using macOS in a VM made this extremely challenging, but now that I’m able to perform it on real Mac hardware, the process has become quite straightforward.

Of course, I am required to have an active Apple Developer in order for this to be possible. I re-activated my Apple Developer account and exported too certificates that are needed for this, which is both the ”Developer ID Installer” and the ”Developer ID Application” certificate. Then the software to build the app, Electron Builder, was able to find this and build/signed the DMG file for me.

Sidenote, I’m also hoping this will solved the “Cannot Be Verified” issue, since the software is now signed by an official ceriticate.

Minor Changes

Other improvements have been made expressly for macOS users, such as the addition of a vibrancy effect to the window. I hadn’t noticed the vibrancy effect previously when developing ElectronJS applications because I was always using a VM that didn’t give such effects owing to the lack of a GPU.

While using the vibrancy effect, I see that one of the NPM packages I maintain, Glasstron Clarity, could drop support for macOS. Because I know ElectronJS has this built-in now and much more familiar with it.

Design Update

The style around the tabs has been modified, in addition to the addition of the vibrancy effect for macOS. Tabs now have a margin around them, similar to how Firefox tabs look, this is because the design looked too similiar to Figma Desktop and I want to stand out a bit. Active tabs now have a light green border around them.

This may change depending on the survey, but this is the design I want to aim for. Other designs and layouts are being decided depending on the survey like settings layout and vertical tabs toggle.

This has not yet been touched on as of this writing, however there is something for Linux users. If you’ve snooped around the code in the last month, you’ll see that I’m introducing options to customize the overlay titlebar. You are welcome to add your own style in the future, just as you may change the style between GNOME(GTK) and KDE(Plasma). After all, it is open source. Aside from styles, position can be additionally changed, as well as which buttons, such as Minimze and Maxmimze, are enabled. The Close button will be forced enabled by design. For elementary OS users, if you do use your default layout, there will be an option for you as well, I recommend read this and this.

Releases

The release for v0.2.3 is set for July 4th. Penpot Desktop is expected to be in it’s first stable release, coming out of beta, in August or September. Time will tell.

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Source Code