The GIMP: The GNU Image Manipulation Program
============================================

This is a pre-release of GIMP version 2.0. Actually it still is GIMP-1.3,
the developers version of The GIMP. But we got pretty close to the final
2.0 release, the plug-in API has settled and you are encouraged to try
this software. Your feedback can help to make the 2.0 release a success.
If you encounter any problems, please report them to our bug-tracker at
bugzilla.gnome.org. There are still a number of known problems, so please
check first if your problem has already been reported.

GIMP-2.0 installs side-by-side with GIMP-1.2 so there's no need to
uninstall GIMP-1.2 (but sooner or later you will not be using it any
longer...).

Some features that were present in GIMP 1.2 are not included in this
release. The perl bindings as well as all the perl scripts are not any
longer included in this source tree. They have been moved into its own
module called gimp-perl. Sooner or later there will be a gimp-perl
release for GIMP-2.0. GAP, a set of plug-ins that used to live in the
Video submenu has also become a separate package. Expect a preview
release of this software for GIMP-2.0 soon.

For detailed installation instructions, see the file INSTALL.


1. Web Resources
================

The GIMP's home page is at:

	http://www.gimp.org/

Please be sure to visit this site for information, documentation,
tutorials, news, etc.  All things GIMP-ish are available from there.

The automated plug-in registry is located at:

	http://registry.gimp.org/

There you can get the latest versions of plug-ins using a convenient
forms-based interface.

The latest version of The GIMP can be found at:

	http://www.gimp.org/download/


2. Mailing Lists
================

We have several mailing lists dedicated to GIMP user and development
discussion.  There is more info at

	https://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/<listname>

substituting <listname> for "gimp-announce", "gimp-user", "gimp-win-users"
or "gimp-developer" (without the quotes, of course) depending on the list
you want to subscribe to.  Links to the mailing list archives can be
found at the same addresses as given above.

Gimp-announce is a low-traffic list with announcements about new
releases of GIMP and plug-ins. Gimp-user is a mailing list dedicated
to user problems, hints and tips, discussion of cool effects, etc.
Gimp-developer is oriented to GIMP core and plug-in developers.  Most
people will only want to be subscribed to gimp-user. If you want to
help develop The GIMP, the gimp-developer mailing list is a good
starting point.

There is also a mailing list dedicated to users of the Win32 port
"gimpwin-users".  To subscribe, send an empty message to

	gimpwin-users-subscribe@egroups.com

You can also use the web interface at
http://www.egroups.com/group/gimpwin-users/. Note that as this mailing
list is hosted on egroups.com; the messages from the list contain
relatively unintrusive and easily ignored advertisements at the
end. But if you are absolutely allergic to ads, don't subscribe.


3. IRC
======

And finally, for the real junkies, there is an IRC channel devoted to
the GIMP. On Byxnet (a private mostly-GIMP network) there is #gimp.
Many of the developers hang out there.  One of the Byxnet servers are:

	irc.gimp.org:6667


4. Customizing
==============

The look of GIMP's interface can be customized like any other GTK app
by editing the ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file or by using "themes" (ready-made
customizations).  For downloadable themes and further details, see
http://gtk.themes.org.  Additionally GIMP reads ~/.gimp-1.3/gtkrc so
you can have settings that only apply to The GIMP.

Included is a set of keybindings similar to those in Adobe Photoshop.
You can find them in the ps-menurc file.  To use them, copy this file
to ~/.gimp-1.3/menurc. You can also manually change the keybindings to
any of your choice by editing ~/.gimp-1.3/menurc.


Have fun,

  Spencer Kimball
  Peter Mattis
  Federico Mena
  Manish Singh
  Sven Neumann
  Michael Natterer
  Dave Neary