On 21 Sep 2002, at 11:10, Carol Spears wrote:

i am in need of a document, titled "About The GIMP". i started at the current gimp web site and stole the attached text. any thoughts on this?

I am not sure I understand your question. Is 'About the GIMP' the same text as on the web site?

On 21 Sep 2002, at 19:18, Carol Spears wrote:

On 21 Sep 2002, at 11:10, Carol Spears wrote:

"About The GIMP"

Yes, this is the text from the current web site. i have no clear problems with it, i just think that maybe the gimp has improved some since this was written.

Apart from some typos and a bit of awkward English, I see no problem with that text. What did you have in mind?

Here is my suggestion for a rewrite. Changes are marked and commentary explaining the change is written at the bottom.

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software that is useful [1] for graphics-related tasks [2] such as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

GIMP is extremely capable. While it can be used as a simple paint program, it is also used [3] as an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, and many other functions.

GIMP is extremely [4] customizable and extensible. The advanced scripting interface [5] allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted. For new [6] special effects and other advanced custom features, GIMP is designed so that plug-ins and extensions can be written to do just about anything. Plug-ins can also be developed to allow the reading and writing of new file formats.

GIMP was originally written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms, and the UNIX version is usually the most recent and stable. There are also OS/2, [7] MacOS X, and Windows versions available.

Features and Capabilities Here is a [8] short list of some of the most important GIMP features. Keep in mind that this is only the tip of the iceberg.

*Painting* - Full suite of painting tools including Brush, Pencil, Airbrush, and Clone [9]
- Sub-pixel sampling for all paint tools for high quality anti-aliasing - Extremely powerful gradient editor and blend tool - Supports custom brushes and patterns

*System* - Tile based memory managent so image size is limited only by available disk space
- Virtually unlimited number of images may be open at one time [10]

*Advanced manipulation* - Full alpha channel support
- Layers and channels
- Multiple Undo/Redo (limited only by diskspace) - Transformation tools including rotate, scale, shear and flip - Selection tools including rectangle, ellipse, free, fuzzy, bezier and intelligent scissors [11]
- 'Quickmask' allows the selection to be made by "painting" with paint tools.

*Extensible* [12]
- Advanced scripting capabilities
-- A Procedural Database for calling internal GIMP functions from external
programs such as in the included Script-Fu application - Plug-ins
-- allow for the easy addition of new file formats -- make it simple to write new effect filters -- Over 100 plug-ins already available

*Animation* - Load and save animations in a convenient frame-as-layer format

*File handling* - File formats supported include gif, jpg, png, xpm, tiff, tga, mpeg, ps, pdf, pcx, bmp, and many others
- Load, display, convert, save to many file formats

And much, much more! [13]

1: "suitable" is wimpy sounding, but something is needed

2: general, then with specific examples. Nice.

3: this phrasing illustrates the contrast in the range of uses more clearly, and also makes it clear that gimp really is used for those purposes. Ideally, each of these noun phrases should be made into hyperlinks to places like filmgimp, flamingtext, etc, and to news articles about how gimp is used in such-and-such.

4: "expandedable"? huh?

5: switched scripting and plug-ins, to go from simple and less powerful to most complex and powerful. This is how people tend to think, and it saves the most impressive for last as well.

6: explained why you would want to write a plug-in

7: yeah, I have to hold my nose to use Windows too, but really, can't we all just get along?

8: even if the list is "thrown together" it doesn't need to say so. :)

9: etc and including were redundant and said the same thing two times.

10: 'may be open'

11: intelligent scissors, not intelligent select. Also added Carol's quickmask text

12: reformatted this section to use another level of indentation

13: sounds better with the and

Rockwalrus

On Mon, Sep 23, 2002 at 11:58:45PM -0700, Nathan Carl Summers wrote:

Here is my suggestion for a rewrite. Changes are marked and commentary explaining the change is written at the bottom.

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software that is useful [1] for graphics-related tasks [2] such as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

GIMP is extremely capable. While it can be used as a simple paint program, it is also used [3] as an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, and many other functions.

GIMP is extremely [4] customizable and extensible. The advanced scripting interface [5] allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted. For new [6] special effects and other advanced custom features, GIMP is designed so that plug-ins and extensions can be written to do just about anything. Plug-ins can also be developed to allow the reading and writing of new file formats.

GIMP was originally written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms, and the UNIX version is usually the most recent and stable. There are also OS/2, [7] MacOS X, and Windows versions available.

[ gratuitous snippery ]

I'd like to point out, if I may be so bold as to do so, that it should be "The GIMP" where possible. Nitpicky I know, but that's one of the issues we need to address when writing help and I can't see any reason for core developers to feel differently ;)