gimp/NEWS

GIMP 1.1 - New features                    -*- text -*-

The following list tries to describe all the new features that are
already implemented or currently being worked on. I cannot guarantee
that I describe everything correctly, since for most items I haven't
read the code but only looked at the ChangeLog entry. I can however
guarantee that a few things are missing.

Older items are on top, newer ones further down the list. At the end a
few common things are listed.

XInput support
   GIMP does now support special input devices like drawing tablets by
   default. It depends on the device being supported by your
   XServer. This is true for example for Wacom drawing
   tablets. Support for multiple devices, pressure and tilt
   sensitivity is slowly added to all paint tools.

Ink tool
   A nice new toy that really comes to life if you have an extended
   input device as described above. If you don't happen to have a
   special device, Ink will vary its size based on the speed of your
   cursor. The results can be remarkably natural-looking.

Smudge tool
   This tool lets you push pixels around on the image as if you were
   using your finger and "smudging" wet paint.

Dodge & Burn tool
   This tool lets you selectively darken or lighten the image.

Quick Mask
   With quick mask, you can quickly convert a selection to a visible
   red mask and back again. You can edit the mask directly with
   painting tools or plugins.

Image selection thumbnails
   For dialogs that allow you to choose which image they're associated
   with, the menu now has a small thumbnail image to help you
   determine which image you're selecting.

'File New' dialog
   The new dialog for creating new images allows to use real life
   units like centimeters and inches along with a resolution entry.

Hex display
   A small but nifty feature was added to the Color Picker: It know
   displays the HEX triplet of the selected color. Useful for WEB
   artists.

Pop-up button
   The small rectangle between the rulers in the upper left corner of
   the image window now gives access to the menu. Useful for people
   with tablets or two-button mice.

Status bar
   The image display know has a status bar. Plug-ins display their
   progress there and your mouse coordinates are displayed. Most tools
   use it too. The Selection tool for example shows the selection size
   while you drag.  And don't worry, it's possible to hide the
   status bar to save screen estate.

GUI enhancements
   Lots of nifty enhancements to the user interface. Spinbuttons are
   used in a lot of places. More stuff like that has to be added in
   the future...

Session management
   GIMP remembers window positions and sizes and restores them on
   startup.

Selections
   New algorithms are now used to grow and shrink the selection. The
   result looks much better!

PDB interface
   A lot more internal functions are now exported to the PDB. This
   should for example allow the GIMP Animation Plugin to work without
   changes to the GIMP core.

Better tile-caching
   Tiles are now more intelligently cached and a threaded process
   tries to swap out dirty tiles before you run out of physical
   memory.

Copy On Write
   The MAD-COW patches that appeared too late to get integrated into
   GIMP-1.0 are now integrated. And...its FASTER!!

Document Index
   The document index keeps track of the images you used with The
   GIMP. You can even drag in an image from a file-manager (GNOME MC
   for example).

Editable Brushes
   Well, editable brushes still need some work, but the basics are
   there...

Fixed size selections
   The size or the aspect ratio of selections can now be entered
   numerically as well.

Script-Fu interface improvements
   The Script-Fu dialog now allows a whole bunch of entry widgets,
   like selectors for fonts, brushes, gradients and patterns. Strings
   can be entered without the nasty quotes and numerical entries can
   use sliders and spinbuttons.  Most of the scripts were already
   updated.

Quick Reference
   The Quick Reference sheet looks much better and holds more
   information. A must-have for your desktop.

Transform Tool UI
   The user interface for the Transform tool has seen a major
   overhaul. It now offers a new 'Corrective' mode that for example
   makes it easy to correct slightly rotated scans.

Color representation
   GIMP now uses GdkRGB to provide better dithering for non truecolor
   displays. This should also speed GIMP up a bit.

Parasites
   Arbitrary data can be attached to an image and be retrieved later.

Tattoos
   A unique stamp can be attached to drawables. That way a plug-in can
   easily keep track of layers.

Dialogs
   A few dialogs can now be controlled via the PDB. That allows a
   plug-in to use the internal dialogs to select brushes, patterns and
   gradients.

Idle-Renderer
   Display re-rendering is now handled in an interruptible
   asynchronous thread. This makes The GIMP more responsive especially
   when working with the Layers-dialog.

Resolution support
   Each image now has a resolution associated with it. This needs to
   be integrated better into the GUI, but there are already a few file
   plug-ins that make use of this.

GimpPerl
   The GIMP-Perl extension and several Perl-Fu scripts are now part of
   GIMP 1.1.

Monitor resolution
   The image can now be displayed in float scale factors. If GIMP
   knows about your monitor resolution it displays one inch as one
   inch. Still needs some work...

Help in the DB Browser
   The DB Browser now also display the help that is available for a
   lot of functions in the PDB.

Internationalization
   National Language Support is coming!

New plug-ins
   Various new plug-ins were added. More have appeared in the Registry
   and wait to be added or updated. A few nice ones that are now
   included:

      * WaterSelect - a nifty way to select colors
      * NewsPrint - whee, you have to see that 
      * Guillotine - slices the image up along its guides 
      * Unsharp Mask

Internals
   Lots of changes were made to GIMP internals that I don't understand
   correctly, like objectification and removal of the image ID
   system. Read the ChangeLog yourself to figure this out.

Plug-ins and Scripts
   Various plug-ins and scripts not mentioned above have been updated
   or fixed to work with changes in the GIMP core or GTK+. One day I
   might add a list of all changed plug-ins to this list...

Color selectors
   An API has been added to allow the addition of any number of
   different color selection systems via pluggable modules. The GTK
   color selector and a triangle color selector have been added to the
   color selection dialog through this new system.

Better feedback 
   Internal operations that take a long time to complete (transforms,
   gradients, etc.) now display a progress bar and cursor change to
   inform the user about what's going on.

Unit representation 
   You can now work directly in inches, centimeters, millimeters, and
   other units without having to do pixel math to figure things out.

Paths dialog 
   Manipulating paths is much easier, and the Paths dialog is
   integrated into the Layers & Channels dialog. Paths are quite
   flexible and will soon replace the Bezier tool entirely.

Thumbnails
   The Open dialog now displays a thumbnail if it exists, and gives
   the option to generate one if it doesn't.

Indexed images
   Converting images from RGB to Indexed color has been improved.

Win32 merging
   The patches required for compiling under Win32 are being integrated
   into the main GIMP source.

Cursor changes
   The cursors now visually indicate selection modes. It's much easier
   to tell if you're adding, subtracting, or intersecting a selection
   now. Cursors also change depending on your Path mode.

Miscellaneous
   - The painting functions (brush, pencil, airbrush, etc.) have been
     optimized, and a new painting option allows you to color with a
     gradient.
   - The GAP plugin, which has some essential animation features, is
     now integrated into GIMP.
   - The font selector has been redesigned.
   - The new, slightly incomplete MAINTAINERS file should help track
     responsibility and expertise for various GIMP parts.
   - There's now a man page for the gimprc file.
   - The titlebar layout can be customized to display information in
     various ways.

Copyright 1998 by Sven Neumann
Modified by Zach Beane