gimp/NEWS

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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.
'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
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.
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