EXP [design] v2.5 — Paint, everywhere.

EXP [design] v2.5

Paint, everywhere—and a Sanaa that does the busywork.

EXP [design] 2.5 finishes the paint model: any paint—solid, gradient, or
vector pattern—can now be a fill or a stroke, patterns import from SVG as
live editable tiles, and mask groups export correctly to every surface. Sanaa
learns the cleanup work it was always meant for: bulk restyles, renames,
token application, and spacing normalization as consented, undoable batches.

Patterns, as a first-class paint

• SVG <pattern> fills import as real, editable pattern paints—the generated
  background files designers actually meet round-trip as patterns, not
  flattened images or a single flat color. Percentage lengths (width="100%")
  and gradient href stop inheritance that used to blank these files now
  import correctly.
• Any shape's fill or stroke can be a pattern (or gradient) from the
  inspector's paint editor, and it renders identically on canvas, in SVG, in
  the Handoff Package, and in raster export.
• Each pattern anchors its own way: artwork-anchored patterns ride the layer
  they paint, while imported shape-anchored (objectBoundingBox) patterns
  keep their authored behavior—and the choice is per pattern, in the
  inspector.
• Patterns save into the Design Language, apply from it, and import across
  documents.
• A vector pattern survives SVG export as a true <pattern> definition that
  browsers and Preview render live—where most professional tools rasterize
  pattern swatches on SVG export or drop them entirely.

Strokes are paints now

• Gradient and pattern strokes, on every shape, authored from the same paint
  editor fills use—on canvas, in SVG, and through the path geometry of the
  Handoff Package.
• Documents from every earlier version open unchanged; solid strokes keep
  their exact rendering, and Outline Stroke converts a gradient-stroked shape
  into an outline carrying the same paint.

Mask groups export as masks

• A masked group now exports masked: SVG gains a real <clipPath> built from
  the authored silhouette, and the semantic HTML handoff clips through the
  same silhouette via CSS clip-path—one definition shared by every export
  surface.
• The shape that defines a mask no longer appears as a real filled shape over
  the content in exports. Its fidelity row states whether the clip used its
  exact outline or its bounds rectangle.

Sanaa: cleanup and repetitive work

• New consented, undoable batch operations for the tedious parts: restyle
  every layer matching a predicate (restyleNodes), apply a Design Language
  token by value (applyToken), snap spacing to a scale
  (normalizeSpacing), and rename by rule—find/replace, prefix, suffix, or
  sequence (renameNodes).
• The permission sheet now shows what a batch will do before you allow it:
  how many layers change, what scope the request covers, and a plain warning
  when a change reaches a component source ("every placement of it updates").
• Every batch reports exactly what it did—matched, changed, skipped, with
  sample layer names—and remains one named Undo step. Token application sets
  values without creating links, and says so.

Export and workflow fixes

• The export panel remembers format and size separately, with an explicit
  scale control (0.5×–4×).
• Vector paths with a gradient or pattern stroke export to CodePen and the
  Handoff Package with the paint intact.

Honest limits

• An exported mask renders correctly in browsers and Preview, but re-imports
  into EXP unclipped until SVG clip-path import lands (tracked).
• Sanaa bulk operations edit document layers and component sources; the
  internals of a placed component instance are never edited by a bulk op—an
  instance changes as a whole layer or through its source.
• Design tokens omit patterns rather than mislabel them: the W3C token format
  has no pattern concept, and extending it would break the format's promise.
• Browser rendering remains the SVG conformance target.

EXP [design] 2.5 is build 16 and requires macOS 26.2 or later.