Google Web Designer 10 adds cropping tool to image processing dialog, expands snapping mode options

Google has released Google Web Designer 10.0 in what appears to now be a regular quarterly update. The HTML-5 content-producing tool for Windows, Mac, and Linux is a popular choice for producing all kinds of web content thanks to its user friendliness and helper tools.

Version 10.0 offers four new features and a slew of improvements and fixes, chief of which include the ability to crop images within the image processing dialog, plus new snapping modes.

The most note-worthy change is the addition of the Cropping tool to the Image processing dialog. It joins the four tools -- auto enhancement, inpainting, extend image and extract subject introduced in version 9.0.

Google Web Designer will suggest the region to crop when the tool is invoked, but users are free to make manual adjustments, and set their own aspect ratio if they wish.

Version 10 also adds a couple of new snapping modes to enable users to snap objects to share the same size or spacing. They’re accompanied by tools to change the snapping threshold and scope.

Google has also implemented what it terms a more secure method using the default browser to sign into a user account, while a new publish option links in directly to Campaign Manager 360.

Elsewhere, dynamic data bindings are now available for the Particle Effects, Parallax, and Swirl components, and an issue with autoplay looping indefinitely in the Transition Gallery has been fixed.

The pen tool also receives two fixes: anchor points should no longer shift when drawing a nested shape, and there should no longer be problems undoing or redoing the leftmost or topmost anchor point. For a complete list of other bug fixes and changes -- including ongoing issues that users should be aware of -- see the release notes for details.

Google Web Designer 10.0 is available now as a freeware download for Windows (Windows 7 or later), Mac (OS X 10.10 or later), and Linux (major 64-bit distros only).