Hi GIMPers,

our latest release had some issues and we considered to do a quick bug-fix release but I think it was worth to wait a little longer for GIMP-1.3.14. Grab your copy from

ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/v1.3/v1.3.14/

Quite a few rather long-standing bugs have been fixed (thanks to the help of Pedro Gimeno) and GIMP-1.3 is actually becoming quite useable these days. Here's a short summary of changes. For a more complete coverage, please consult the ChangeLog:

Overview of Changes in GIMP 1.3.14 ==================================

- Better resampling for the transform tools [OEyvind Kolaas] - Added MNG save plug-in [S. Mukund] - Added framework for image templates [Mitch] - Vector tool improvements [Simon]
- Improved look and feel if layer previews are disabled [Mitch, Sven, Jimmac] - Keyboard navigation for grid views [Sven] - List and grid views for fonts [Mitch, Sven] - Some text tool improvements [Sven] - More icons in even more sizes [Jimmac, Mitch, Sven] - I18n header cleanup [Sven]
- Lots of bug fixes

Other contributors: Manish Singh, Pedro Gimeno, Owen, Raphael Quinet

Please give this release lots of testing and if you find bugs, report them at http://bugzilla.gnome.org/.

Salut, Sven

Hi,

Damien Genet writes:

as a Gimp 1.2 user, i'd like to know how much are the latest experimental 1.3 versions usable ?

There are issues with the path tool and the text tool is also still being worked on. Overall it's already quite useable if you remember to save your work frequently.

Are there also incompatibilites between the file format of the 1.3 and 1.2 series (ie: will i be able to open 1.2 files in 1.3, and 1.3 files in 1.2 with no lost) ?

You will be able to open all XCF files saved with 1.2 in 1.3 and almost all of the XCF files saved with 1.3 are compatible with GIMP-1.2. Only if you use any of the new layer modes that have not been available in 1.2, the XCF file will not be compatible with GIMP-1.2.

Salut, Sven

Hi,

"Branko Collin" writes:

Only if you use any of the new layer modes that have not been available in 1.2, the XCF file will not be compatible with GIMP-1.2.

Does that mean 1.2 won't load these at all, or will it just render the affected layers incorrectly?

GIMP 1.2 refuses to load the files since they are written in XCF version 2 and 1.2 doesn't know how to handle this format. IMO this is the only reasonable way to handle new layer formats.

I will try to avoid this problem for the text layer we've introduced, so that it will eventually be possible to load XCF files with text layers using GIMP-1.2 (the text wouldn't be editable however). The idea is to use a parasite similar to what GDynText did. One might even implement parsing of GDynText parasites which would make text created with gdyntext in 1.2 editable with the 1.3 text tool. Don't get this wrong, this is all just plans, at the moment, no text layer info is written to the XCF yet.

Salut, Sven

Hi,

Olivier Ripoll writes:

Compared to the 1.3.13, I had to install many additional dev packages to be able to compile this version, mainly gnome ones, so I can understand this.

There is no additional dependency compared to 1.3.13. OK, we require pango-1.2 now but you should be using that with gtk+-2.2 anyway.

Of course the new MNG plug-in introduces new dependencies but you should be able to build without it. configure is supposed to skip the build of the MNG plug-in if libmng is not available. If that didn't work for you, please file a bug-report with detailed configure output.

But why did I have to install sendmail to be able to compile gimp? I mean sendmail is a security issue, and I don't even have a modem on my computer (so for me sendmail is not a security issue, but for many peopl it should be). Couldn't there be a flag like --disable-sendmail ? Is sendmail really needed for gimp, or is it only during development stage and will dissapear when 1.4 is out? Why not postfix or qmail instead?

You don't have to install sendmail to compile GIMP. Sendmail is being used by the mail plug-in and the configure check for sendmail dates back to somewhen before GIMP version 1.0. I agree that the plug-in is useless (it's called the GIMP Useless Mail Plug-in after all).

Are you saying that GIMP didn't build without sendmail being available? That would be a bug. On the other hand, sendmail is available almost everywhere since all other MTAs that I know of install a sendmail binary for compatibility.

Also, there was no test for the presence of lcms headers (little colour management system) in the configure step, while it happened to be needed during make (for the mng plugin I think).

AFAIK, the MNG plug-in doesn't use the headers directly and it should be the job of the MNG library to assure that its headers can safely be included.

Salut, Sven

Hi,

Olivier Ripoll writes:

Olivier Ripoll writes:

Compared to the 1.3.13, I had to install many additional dev packages to be able to compile this version, mainly gnome ones, so I can understand this.

There is no additional dependency compared to 1.3.13. OK, we require pango-1.2 now but you should be using that with gtk+-2.2 anyway.

I think I already had pango. From memory, I had to install gtkhtml-devel, who in turn asked for gnome-vfs, and other gnome libbs (devel packages, of course) one having a name like "liboad" (my memory is not very good).

gtkhtml2 is not required. If it is missing, the help browser plug-in will be build. Then, gtkhtml2 doesn't depend on gnome-vfs, it only uses it for a small example/test application. The gtkhtml2 library itself doesn't use it at all. configure (of gtkhtml2) should detect the absence of gnome-vfs and skip the build of the test application. You can even build gtkhtml2 without gail if you pass --disable-accessibility to configure.

Also, python-dev had to be installed, and of course libmng-devl, lib-aa-devel, although these two ones where not mandatory. There were other libs, but haven't noted their names.

These are all not mandatory. Please stop spreading rumours that GIMP would be dependant on any GNOME libraries.

Of course the new MNG plug-in introduces new dependencies but you should be able to build without it. configure is supposed to skip the build of the MNG plug-in if libmng is not available. If that didn't work for you, please file a bug-report with detailed configure output.

no, configure found libmng stuff, but did not check the presence of little cms.

AFAIK, you can not install libmng without lcms. If your distribution managed to do so, something is most probably screwed up somewhere.

You don't have to install sendmail to compile GIMP. Sendmail is being used by the mail plug-in and the configure check for sendmail dates back to somewhen before GIMP version 1.0. I agree that the plug-in is useless (it's called the GIMP Useless Mail Plug-in after all).

configure stopped with an error because it could not find sendmail. I could not even get to the make step.

That is a bug, please report it. Trivial to get this fixed.

Well, some computers do not use mail servers ;) I don't even have a modem at home...

still, sendmail is being used to deliver local mail. The sendmail binary has traditionally be part of every UNIX installation. This is totally unrelated to the fact if a mail server is running or not.

Salut, Sven

Hi,

Jakub Steiner writes:

GIMP 1.2 refuses to load the files since they are written in XCF version 2 and 1.2 doesn't know how to handle this format. IMO this is the only reasonable way to handle new layer formats.

If I was a GIMP 1.2 user I'd much more appreciate a warning dialog and then having the image loaded with wrong layer modes. This is the same as with broken xcfs. I love the way GIMP tries to load as much off the broken file as possible.

We discussed this but unfortunately we can't add a warning dialog to an application which has already been released. The current solution assures that almost all files written by 1.3 can be read with 1.2. The XCF version number is only increased if the new layer modes are used. Users of GIMP-1.2 will have to ask a GIMP-1.3 user to change the layer mode and save the file in XCF version 1 for them.

Salut, Sven

Hi,

Olivier Ripoll writes:

configure fails when they are not here. Sorry, I did not mean to spread rumors. I apologise if it sounds like this. Maybe there is a bug in configure.

configure fails when what exactly is not there? Definitely not becausing of missing GNOME libraries. There may be bugs in configure but I'm pretty sure we don't depend on gtkhtml2.

Salut, Sven