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Hands-on: testing the GIMP 2.8 and its new single-window interface (ars technica)

Over at ars technica Ryan Paul takes the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) 2.8 release for a spin and looks at the future plans for the project, including a full transition to the Generic Graphics Library (GEGL) in the 2.10 release. "After the 2.10 release arrives, the next major version will be 3.0. According to the roadmap, the goal for 3.0 will be delivering support for Gtk+ 3, a major new version of the underlying widget toolkit that is used to build the GIMP’s interface. The other major feature item included in the roadmap for version 3.0 is pervasive high bit-depth support, a major feature that will made possible by the GEGL transition."

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Layer Groups!

Posted May 7, 2012 20:52 UTC (Mon) by qubit (guest, #57802) [Link] (6 responses)

Per the roadmap, we finally have layer groups in the GIMP! This is one of the big "Photoshop-has-it" bullet points that my wacom-tablet-wielding friends would fire at me whenever the GIMP came up in conversation.

Now where's that donation page again...

Other stuff!

Posted May 7, 2012 22:46 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (5 responses)

Stuff I'm looking forward to from the release notes:
* On-Canvas Text Editing
* Cage Transform Tool
* Brush System Improvements

...and all the small improvements that come from a 4-year release cycle.

The big feature I've been waiting for is non-destructive editing, but that's probably for a later release. I can wait.

On the negative side, the notes say that tablet support (such as wacom) might be broken in 2.8. Reading the info at the end of the release notes, it looks like installing 2.8 alongside 2.6 would require more tinkering than I have time for right now.

Other stuff!

Posted May 8, 2012 6:30 UTC (Tue) by eduperez (guest, #11232) [Link] (4 responses)

> On the negative side, the notes say that tablet support (such as wacom) might be broken in 2.8.

I have a Wacom tablet, which I use intensively in GIMP-2.8, and have not found any issue so far; perhaps some models work, and mine is one of them, or perhaps there is some missing feature that I never tried to use.

Excellent!

Posted May 8, 2012 10:45 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (3 responses)

I did some searches now and I found people saying that pressure sensitivity is what's broken for tablets in 2.8.

Have you (or others here) encountered that problem?

(I use a Wacom Bamboo "CTH-460")

Excellent!

Posted May 8, 2012 11:02 UTC (Tue) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link] (1 responses)

On my OpenSUSE 12.1 installation with 2.8rc1 from home:MargueriteSu:gimp-2.7, my intuos3 works fine. On Windows, it's broken.

(I should compile gimp, of course, just to track its progress but gimp always needs a newer glib or gtk than I have, so that's why I only checked the rc.)

Excellent!

Posted May 8, 2012 14:13 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

From what I read, it seems the Windows issue is a driver problem, and the pressure sensitivity issue is a separate problem.

I also found a post saying that someone is working on packaging gimp 2.8 for Debian unstable, so I'll wait for that. I can live without pressure sensitivity anyway.

Excellent!

Posted May 9, 2012 6:07 UTC (Wed) by eduperez (guest, #11232) [Link]

> I did some searches now and I found people saying that pressure sensitivity is what's broken for tablets in 2.8.

I own a "Wacom Pen & Touch" (medium size, don't know the exact model number) and can confirm that pressure sensitivity works flawlessly on Fedora 16.

Hands-on: testing the GIMP 2.8 and its new single-window interface (ars technica)

Posted May 8, 2012 5:39 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] (3 responses)

I find it ironic that the one UI operation you can't do is pull the tab for an image out of the single window, which is the one UI operation you can do in web browsers. For that matter, I find it ironic that you have to do something to get the mode that's less confusing and more limiting.

Hands-on: testing the GIMP 2.8 and its new single-window interface (ars technica)

Posted May 8, 2012 15:04 UTC (Tue) by Mithrandir (guest, #3031) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm not sure ironic means what you think it means.

Hands-on: testing the GIMP 2.8 and its new single-window interface (ars technica)

Posted May 8, 2012 15:23 UTC (Tue) by mikachu (guest, #5333) [Link]

How ironic.

Hands-on: testing the GIMP 2.8 and its new single-window interface (ars technica)

Posted May 8, 2012 15:13 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

tabs are hateful things.

Hands-on: testing the GIMP 2.8 and its new single-window interface (ars technica)

Posted May 8, 2012 14:00 UTC (Tue) by jpnp (guest, #63341) [Link] (1 responses)

Possibly more interesting than 2.8 getting out of the door, is that the dev version now has high bit depth support. Something rather more exciting than window & toolbox layouts, that's been a very long time coming.

http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/gimp-2.8-release...

Hands-on: testing the GIMP 2.8 and its new single-window interface (ars technica)

Posted May 11, 2012 3:53 UTC (Fri) by duffy (guest, #31787) [Link]

If you want to try the high bit depth support version, if you have Fedora 16 you can use

http://spot.fedorapeople.org/goat-invasion/

Hands-on: testing the GIMP 2.8 and its new single-window interface (ars technica)

Posted May 9, 2012 15:43 UTC (Wed) by faheem (guest, #47574) [Link] (3 responses)

I'm getting a 404 for the review link posted, namely http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/05/hands-on-tes...

Hands-on: testing the GIMP 2.8 and its new single-window interface (ars technica)

Posted May 9, 2012 15:59 UTC (Wed) by jake (editor, #205) [Link] (2 responses)

> I'm getting a 404 for the review link posted

Me too. It looks like ars underwent a redesign and that link seems to have been lost in the shuffle ... actually a quick check of other links seems to show those as 404 too ... and the search feature isn't working ... we'll have to wait and see how it all shakes out, I guess ...

jake

Hands-on: testing the GIMP 2.8 and its new single-window interface (ars technica)

Posted May 9, 2012 19:52 UTC (Wed) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link] (1 responses)

Hands-on: testing the GIMP 2.8 and its new single-window interface (ars technica)

Posted May 9, 2012 19:54 UTC (Wed) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]

And now they noticed too and fixed the forwarder it seems


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