THIS IS A PREVIEW RELEASE FOR TESTING PURPOSES
==============================================

This is a preview release of GIMP 2.2 which will replace GIMP 2.0 as
the stable GIMP. This is not yet the final release but it should have
all the features that 2.2.0 will have. This code hasn't seen a lot of
testing yet so there are certainly bugs. If you find any, make sure
you report them at bugzilla.gnome.org (after checking that it isn't
reported already).

Please do not install this pre-releae of GIMP 2.2 into the same prefix
as GIMP 2.0. It would overwrite most of the GIMP 2.0 installation. To
install in parallel to 2.0, please use a different prefix which is not
in your default library search path. If you wish to replace GIMP 2.0
with this pre-release, then please remove the GIMP 2.0 installation
before installing this software.

The GIMP 2.2 plug-in API is fully backward compatible to GIMP 2.0.
Plug-ins for GIMP 2.0 should continue to work and don't need to be
recompiled. We do however hope that plug-in authors will update their
plug-ins for GIMP 2.2 and adapt the GUI changes we did with this
version.

It might turn out that we have to do some late changes to the newly
added API before the final 2.2.0 release, so don't consider the API
strictly frozen yet. The API is however guaranteed to be backward
compatible (source and binary) with the GIMP 2.0 API. If you find that
your 2.0 plug-in break when used with the GIMP 2.2 libraries, or if
you cannot compile a GIMP 2.0 plug-in against the GIMP 2.2 header
files, please report that as a bug.

If you want to hack on The GIMP, please read the file HACKING. 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/downloads/


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>

with <listname> replaced by "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, "gimpwin-users", dedicated to users of the
Win32 port.  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-2.2/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-2.2/menurc. You can also manually change the keybindings to
any of your choice by editing ~/.gimp-2.2/menurc.


Have fun,

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