rejon.org is Jon Phillips.

The path changing modes of the new Tweak tool
allow you to push, shrink, grow, attract, repel, or roughen any path,
easily and naturally sculpting exciting freeform shapes. This is a lot more
convenient than the Node tool not only because you don’t need to think
about nodes, but also because it can work on any number of selected
paths at the same time.

The color changing modes of the new Tweak tool,
paint and jitter, are very similar to the way a soft brush
works in a bitmap editor. If you have a number of separate
objects, you can select them all and paint over them with
any fill or stroke color.

Inkscape 0.46 comes with a selection of stock patterns,
accessible via the Fill and Stroke dialog. It is now much
easier and faster than before to fill a path with stripes,
checkerboard, or polka dots.

The use of effects which previously required to manually installed
some Python modules is now straightforward on Mac OS X: they all work
out of the box. In addition, Inkscape’s interface was made more Mac-
friendly by the use of a default theme. This theme reflects the
changes made in OS X system preferences (Appearance panel) and works
with Graphite (as demonstrated here) or Aqua variants. For advanced
users already having a custom ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file, the theme is not
enforced and their personal settings are respected.

The Paint Bucket tool works just like the Paint Bucket tool
in bitmap image editors — clicking in an area fills the area with the
chosen color. Unlike other editors, the Inkscape tool features
some additional fill methods to help you finish your work faster.

The Path along Path effect can curve a path along another path.

When this effect is applied to path A (called skeleton), another path B

(called pattern) can then be passed as a parameter. The result is that

path B is bent along path A. With the node edit tool, path A can be

editted on-canvas and the result is updated live.

This provides a direct equivalent of “vector brushes” or

“skeletal strokes” features in other vector editors.

This example shows how the new hatching techniques can be used to produce a traditional
line engraving from a photo. Note also that thinning/thickening can be used not only for
hatchings but for sculpting arbitrary paths - easy shape morphing without the Node tool!

Several new features were added to the Calligraphic pen to make Inkscape capable of the
ancient art of line engraving. This screenshot demonstrates tracking a guide path
to hatch areas quickly and uniformly; tracing background to make your pen width reflect
the lightness of the background in every point; and thinning/thickening that lets you
change the darkness of your hatchings at any point, or even erase parts of the drawing.

Now all guidelines are angled. The usual horizontal and vertical guidelines
have become angled at 0/90 degrees. To change to a different angle, just
double-click the guideline you want to change and enter the values. You can also
create a guideline with an angle of 45 degrees by dragging the guideline from
the ends of the rulers. You can also create an angled guideline from a straight
line. Draw this line and press Shift+G.