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------------------------------
GNU Image Manipulation Program
Development Branch
------------------------------
This is the unstable branch of GIMP.
Overview of Changes from GIMP 2.99.2 to GIMP 2.99.4
===================================================
Core:
- Action search now always show all actions, even inactive ones. In
order not to clutter the results, inactive ones are shown after
active results (following the same match quality level).
Consequently the "Show unavailable actions" checkbox has been
removed from the `Preferences > Help System` dialog.
- Improve sample text logics for CJK fonts, showing different
sample characters for Korean and Japanese, making detection
at-a-glance of such fonts easier.
- With "Ask what to do" color profile policy, profile conversion at
image loading is not proposed anymore when the image's profile is
the preferred profile set in Preferences for the current image type
(currently it would only be discarded if the image's profile was the
built-in profile, now GIMP accounts for both cases).
- When file loading plug-ins are run, the file chooser dialog is now
hidden until the plug-in returns.
- GIMP tries to keep error dialogs above to raise awareness when they
arrive (not discovered later under other dialogs).
User Interface:
- GimpSpinScale widget improvements:
* The widget will grab focus when starting to edit the entry, and
in particular the current number will be fully selected (because
often we want to just type down a completely different number
accurately).
* Also when giving focus to the entry with middle click (from
anywhere inside the widget), the scale value doesn't change in the
same time anymore.
* Finally we can now target-click accurately the entry current value
to edit the entry (again, without changing the value and selecting
existing number fully) with the main button (usually left button).
Even though middle click is simpler because we don't have to be
accurate (we can middle-click anywhere in the spin scale widget),
it is hardly discoverable, whereas clicking a number entry which
is meant to be editable is the most common GUI interaction
expectation.
* To help feature discoverability, when hovering the widget, the
cursor will change and show a "grab" cursor when a click would
start an absolute edit (the cursor changes to "grabbing" when
actually clicking and dragging the scale) or a "text" cursor when
a click would focus the number entry. When Shift key is being
hold, the cursor is the one for the relative edit, wherever the
position over the widget. This should make discovering possible
interactions with the widget a lot easier.
- Various improvements in the Layers dockable (and similar tree view
widgets):
* The bigger thumbnail popup on long click (e.g. on a layer or mask
thumbnail) does not pop out when any modifier is hold (such as
Shift/Ctrl for multi-selection or any other modifier used for
alternative actions).
* Alternative actions which were available with modifier-clicks on
layer or mask thumbnails have been moved to an Alt+ modifier when
necessary, in order to not clash with multi-layer selection
interaction. In particular:
+ Ctrl-click on a mask to enable/disable it now moved to
Alt-Ctrl-click.
* The Shift+click and Ctrl+click actions on a layer thumbnail to add
and remove respectively a layer mask have been removed because the
much older feature for "Alpha to Selection" already use all the
Alt+ modifier combinations.
* The alternative Alt+ actions now only operate on the clicked layer
and not on the selection unlike the corresponding actions
(available through buttons, actions and menus). Also they do not
change the selection. So you can Alt+click a layer for "Alpha to
Selection", same as you can Alt+click a mask for showing it
without triggering a selection change. This allows these
alternative actions to not be redundant of the equivalent actions
but complementary with a slightly different targetting behavior.
* The various interactions with modifiers now catch the exact
modifier combination they require, hence avoiding interaction
cases running several actions (e.g. Alt-Ctrl on a layer thumbnail
removes the clicked layer's alpha channel from the selection
without modifying the selected layer while Ctrl only would modify
the selection).
Tools:
- New Paint Select tool in the playground. This is a tool prototype
which would hopefully end up as a quick binary selection tool.
- The new default dynamics is: "Pressure Size". This doesn't change
anything for common input devices (mouses, touchpad) yet would allow
tablet devices to directly show that pressure input is working on
first use. Until now, people would have the impression that tablets
are not working (even though GIMP 3 will have hotplug so it is
actually working from scratch) just because "Dynamics Off" was the
default.
Input Devices:
- Various improvements to the Input Devices editor:
* Do not show virtual devices and XTEST API (Linux/X11) device in
the Input Devices editor as they are useless from a configuration
standpoint.
* Only show the axes returned by GDK instead of the whole
list of possible axes, which made no sense.
* Show better names for axes, as returned by GDK, for instance a X
axis becomes often "Abs X" on a graphics tablet and "Rel X" on a
mouse or other devices made to work relatively.
* Don't show an empty list for devices with no axes, just don't show
the list widget at all.
* For each device, select by default the first axis with curve
ability, if any, (i.e. the Pressure axis if the device has one) in
order to make the dialog directly more useful and usable.
- Default tool have been set on different device sources:
* Pen devices (tablet styluses main input) now default to the
paintbrush tool.
* Eraser devices (tablet styluses back input) still defaults to
eraser tool.
* Touch screen (finger) defaults to Smudge tool.
* All other devices defaults to paintbrush (this was already the
case, but was broken for as long as I remember, now it should work
properly).
API:
- GimpFileEntry public variables were made private and a new function
has been added: gimp_file_entry_get_entry().
- New GimpScaleEntry and GimpColorScaleEntry widget classes and new
relevant API for these objects, replacing the former functions
creating various widgets and attaching them to a GtkGrid. This makes
for easier to use and less constrained GUI functions (with a lot
less arguments, as we try now to smartly generate appropriate
defaults for many options; gimp_scale_entry_new() in particular went
down from 17 arguments to 5), also better introspectability for
bindings, and finally it will be useful for automatic dialog
generation for plug-ins.
- New GimpLabeled class and subclasses: GimpLabelSpin,
GimpLabelIntWidget.
- Several new functions for GimpProcedureDialog for automatic dialog
generation based on input arguments. Though not mandatory, the
various functions allow to organize better the widgets.
- The GimpProcedureDialog class will now check that mnemonics are
present on every option, and also that there is no duplicate
mnemonics. It will print messages on stderr if any of these test
fails (so that it won't bother users but developers and translators
should be able to get feedback about missing/duplicate mnemonics).
- GimpSaveProcedure now has generic metadata support (with an API so
that an export procedure can declare whether it supports given
metadata types or contents).
Combined with a new subclass GimpSaveProcedureDialog (child of
GimpProcedureDialog), this ensures that:
* If a format supports a given metadata, they will always have an
auxiliary argument with the same name across plug-ins.
* The label and tooltips will also be always the same in the GUI.
* Order of metadata widgets will also stay consistent.
* The widgets will work the same (no more "Comment" text view
missing in one plug-in but present in another, or with an entry
here, and a text view there, and so on).
* The metadata frame will show an "(edit)" link which will run the
"plug-in-metadata-editor" plug-in. The eventual goal is to move
some generic logics to the metadata editor (when it makes sense)
and to raise awareness for metadata edition and viewing abilities.
This is still a work-in-progress which requires much more
improvements in said abilities.
- New gimp_get_num_processors() function for plug-ins to be able to
set their own multi-threading operations as configured in
Preferences.
Plug-ins:
- file-fli, file-tiff, file-jpeg and file-png updated to new dialog
generation API. In the most complicated case (file-jpeg), this
shaved 600 lines out of the plug-in code.
- file-heif:
- now uses gimp_get_num_processors() instead of
g_get_num_processors() (allowing to bypass system thread info).
- Realtime parameter is set for AOM encoder when Fast encoding
speed is selected by user.
- Ability to set pixel format (YUV444, RGB) is enabled
for >= libheif 1.10 to avoid issues in older versions.
- file-jp2 is now able to decode JPEG2000 files faster with
multi-threading, using the thread number settings returned by
gimp_get_num_processors().
- Improved plug-in debugging helper infrastructure: GIMP_PLUGIN_DEBUG
has a new `fatal-criticals` option and better defaults. Developer
documentation got some rewritting and debugging code benefited from
refactorization.
Installer:
- Various updates to adapt to the GIMP 2.99/3 build.
- Lua made optional.
Devel docs:
- Documentation to port GIMP 2.10 plug-ins to GIMP 3.0 has been
started in `devel-docs/GIMP3-plug-in-porting-guide/`. It is also
visible directly on out Gitlab instance with visual styling:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/tree/master/devel-docs/GIMP3-plug-in-porting-guide
Build:
- Bumping minimum harfbuzz version to 1.0.5 for hb_ft_font_set_funcs().
- Bumping minimum pango version to 1.44.0 for pango_font_has_char().
- Bumping minimum GEGL to version 0.4.28.
Overview of Changes from GIMP 2.10.x to GIMP 2.99.2
===================================================
Core:
- Improved "space invasion".
- New extension format support (.gex a.k.a. GIMP Extension) which is
an archive containing various supported data. So far, it can
package: brushes, MyPaint brushes, dynamics, patterns, gradients,
palettes, tool presets, plug-ins, splash images and themes.
- New extension manager allowing to enable, disable or uninstall
installed extensions, with a dialog available in `Edit > Manage
Extensions`.
- Multi selection of layers now possible. Various tools and features
are now multi-selection aware.
- XCF format bumped to version 14 with awareness of multiple layer
selection.
- All code is year-2038-safe with deprecated time API replaced.
- "Alpha to Selection" various actions warn when the result selection
is empty.
- Color Profile Policy (import) now exposes a "Convert to Preferred
Profile" (fourth) choice and the import dialog default "Convert"
action will convert the image to the preferred profile (if any was
set, otherwise it falls back to the built-in profile). Converting to
the built-in profile will be still available as secondary action.
- A new "Metadata Rotation Policy" is now exposed in the Preferences
dialog, next to the "Color Profile Policy" (in page `Preferences >
Image Import & Export`) with 3 options: "Ask what to do", "Discard
metadata without rotating" and "Rotate the image then discard
metadata".
This policy used to be handled API-size, with a dialog generated by
libgimpui gimp_image_metadata_load_finish(), and saved in a global
parasite. The whole logics and GUI has been moved as core logics,
similar to the "Color Profile Policy".
User Interface:
- Whole interface ported to GTK+3:
* Proper HiDPI support, which will follow the system's scale factor
for all widgets. This is a core toolkit support, unlike the basic
better-than-nothing hacks from GIMP 2.10.x.
* GTK+3 CSS-like support. All themes for former versions are
therefore not working anymore.
* GTK+3 themes have the concept of "dark variant", so a same theme
may propose both a light and a dark versions. Preference for dark
variants can now be checked in `Preferences > Themes > Use dark
theme variant if available` checkbox, allowing for instance to use
your system theme in its light variant everywhere except in GIMP.
This option is checked by default as graphics software are often
prefered in dark modes.
* Symbolic icon themes are now recolored automatically according to
the theme colors (no theme and icon theme tweaking anymore to end
up with dark on dark or light on light interfaces), except for
color elements whose SVG style is marked as "!important".
* Native Wayland support.
* Various dialogs now use Client-Side decorations and modern GTK+
widgets are being used when relevant (e.g. GtkSwitch which gives a
better feeling of a general "ON/OFF state").
- Image display rendered faster with a render cache that keeps the
result of scaling, color management, display filters and shell mask
(for tools like fuzzy select).
- Shift-click on layer GimpContainerTreeView (typically the Layers
dockable) allows to expand/collapse all item groups but the clicked
one.
- Compact GimpSpinScale is now the only available version.
- Scalable symbolic icons "switch-on", "switch-off" (from GTK
repository) and "software-update-available" (from Adwaita
repository) are now bundled with GIMP in a "hicolor" overlay so that
they are available even if missing from the custom theme.
Devices:
- Device hotplug supported (thanks to GTK+3). In particular:
* you don't need to have your tablets and other devices plugged
before you start GIMP anymore;
* enabling your devices in the "Configure Input Devices" dialog is
not needed anymore. Tablets will work out-of-the box;
* you can safely unplug and replug the same or other input devices
while GIMP is running.
- "Input Devices" dialog improved:
* "Save" and "Close" buttons replaced by "OK" (save and exit),
"Cancel" (reset and exit) and "Reset" (reset to previous settings
but keep the dialog open).
* "Keys" list has been discontinued. The "key" concept is
associated to "keyboard" devices (a tablet being a "pointing
device" with buttons, not keys) so this list was actually useless
and only confusing.
Plug-ins:
- Major rewrite of the API (see below). So GIMP 2.10.x plug-ins and
below must be ported to the new API.
- Every introspected binding which we test comes with a "Goat
Exercise", which is a demo plug-in popping a dialog and showing its
own source code. It processes a simple "gegl:invert" operation on a
drawable. All "Goat Exercises" must do the same thing in the same
way, simply in their respective languages, as documentation/example
code for a language binding.
- The Goat Exercise plug-ins are themselves installed as a GIMP
Extension, as a demo for extension creation.
- Plug-ins must be installed in their own subdirectory in
`$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/GIMP/2.99/plug-ins/`, thus preventing data mess
(with plug-ins coming with data and installing it all in the root
plug-ins/ directory) and DLL hell. The main plug-in executable must
be named the same as the directory (possibly with an added
extension).
E.g.: `plug-ins/my-cool-plug-in/my-cool-plug-in.py`
- HEIF export allows selecting color subsampling/pixel format (YUV444,
YUV420, RGB) and encoder speed (Slow, Balanced, Fast).
Lossless option delivers visually lossless output.
- New "file-heif-av1-load" procedure separate from "file-heif-load"
for AVIF only.
API:
- `GimpPDB` is now a class to represent the PDB communication channel
with GIMP. It is a singleton which exist exactly once per running
plug-in, hence it is not meant to be manually instanciated and can
only be returned by gimp_get_pdb(). It is mostly used to look up
procedures declared by other plug-ins or by GIMP core, check if a
given procedure exist and run the procedures.
- `GimpPlugIn` is a class which every plug-in should now subclass as a
way to create their plug-in, and override at least the methods
query_procedures() and create_procedure(). Two other methods
(init_procedures() and quit()) can be optionally overridden.
The new subclass must be declared to gimp by calling gimp_main() to
make it available to the core (PDB procedure, menu items, etc.).
A plug-in can obtain its own GimpPlugIn instance with
gimp_get_plug_in(). This is a singleton object which belongs to
libgimp.
- Plug-In procedures are now represented by a class `GimpProcedure`.
* The subclass `GimpFileProcedure` handles file-related procedures,
and its own subclasses `GimpLoadProcedure` and `GimpSaveProcedure`
handle load/export procedures (file format support).
* The subclass `GimpThumbnailProcedure` for procedures run during
the lifetime of the GIMP session each time a plug-in thumbnail
procedure is called.
* The subclass `GimpImageProcedure` handles `GimpImage`-related
procedures, i.e. any procedure which want to work on the opened
image (GIMP core will pass through the active image and selected
drawables to the plug-in procedure).
* Objects of the subclass `GimpPDBProcedure` are not meant to be
created or freed by plug-ins, they represent any `GimpProcedure`
and are returned by `gimp_pdb_lookup_procedure()` by looking it up
by name on the singleton `GimpPDB` object.
- `GimpProcedureConfig` is the base class to represent the arguments
when running a `GimpProcedure`. It implements the `GimpConfig`
interface and will provide proper management of saved settings
(including the last used values) and generated GUI using
prop_widgets to plug-ins. This is still a work-in-progress.
Currently `GimpProcedure` run function is called with a
`GimpValueArray` whose values can be transfered into a
`GimpProcedureConfig` by calling `gimp_procedure_config_begin_run()`
or `gimp_procedure_config_begin_export()`.
- `GimpDisplay` is now a class of its own.
- `GimpImage` is now a class to represent an opened image.
- `GimpItem` is now a class to represent various `GimpImage` items.
* `GimpVectors` subclass represents an image path.
* `GimpDrawable` subclass represents drawable object but is a
simili-abstract class as it won't be a finale object class, which
can be so far either a:
+ `GimpLayer` represents image layers.
+ `GimpChannel` represents a `GimpImage` channel which is
typically in GIMP a named channel which can be added into a
`GimpImage` channel stack (the "Channels" dockable in the GUI)
with `gimp_image_insert_channel()`. This class is not really
used to represent a color space component though this is
conceptually the same thing (so maybe some day) and named
channel can actually be created from an image color component
with `gimp_channel_new_from_component()`.
Some other specific usages have their own subclasses:
- `GimpLayerMask` subclass is used for a `GimpLayer` mask.
- `GimpSelection` subclass is used for a `GimpImage` selection.
- GimpImage, GimpItem and GimpDisplay (and their various subclasses)
represent objects which can be passed through the PDB. They are
managed by libgimp and should not be freed by plug-ins.
- The PDB-passing classes still have IDs which can be obtained with
gimp_image_get_id(), gimp_item_get_id() and gimp_display_get_id()
respectively. Conversely you can get back the object with
gimp_image_get_by_id(), gimp_item_get_by_id() and
gimp_display_get_by_id().
Specific variants exist to get back an item object from its ID, such
as gimp_layer_get_by_id(), which do additional class verification
(other than this, they are similar to gimp_item_get_by_id()).
**NOTE**: since objects are managed by libgimp, you are ensured that
a `*_get_by_id()` call returns you exactly the same object you had
previously for a given object. Consequently you can do pointer
comparison of objects to compare images, items or displays during a
given run. This will work because objects are unique (these are not
several object copies representing the same remote object).
- Type validation function which used to work on IDs now work directly
with object arguments while new function with added `*_id*` have
been created to validate from an object ID instead, GIMP 2.10-style.
To verify if an ID exist:
* gimp_image_is_valid() / gimp_image_id_is_valid()
* gimp_item_is_valid() / gimp_item_id_is_valid()
* gimp_display_is_valid() / gimp_display_id_is_valid()
To check if GimpItem are from specific subclasses:
* gimp_item_is_drawable() / gimp_item_id_is_drawable()
* gimp_item_is_layer() / gimp_item_id_is_layer()
* gimp_item_is_text_layer() / gimp_item_id_is_text_layer()
* gimp_item_is_channel() / gimp_item_id_is_channel()
* gimp_item_is_layer_mask() / gimp_item_id_is_layer_mask()
* gimp_item_is_selection() / gimp_item_id_is_selection()
* gimp_item_is_vectors() / gimp_item_id_is_vectors()
**NOTE**: since these are GObject classes, you can also use the
GObject style macros such as GIMP_IS_LAYER(). Yet these macros do
not do any ID verification (which is not a problem anyway in most
cases as you got the object from API calls) and will not exist in
bindings.
**IMPORTANT**: using IDs is mostly for internal usage and actually
there are very few reasons to ever need to get an object ID from a
plug-in. Usually you should rather just work only with the unique
object pointers returned by the API.
- The whole API has been updated to use objects instead of object IDs
when relevant. For instance all existing libgimp functions from 2.10
which were called on an image ID are now called on a GimpImage
object instead.
- All file paths procedure parameters are now handled by GIO's `GFile`
which simplify various file handling issues (path formats, encoding,
etc.) and brings new features (remote access, secure protocol
support, etc.). We also got rid of the "filename" vs "raw_filename"
differenciation in parameters. Hence all libgimp* functions with
these parameters have been updated as well.
- gimp_image_metadata_load_finish() is now fully GUI/GTK-code free.
The first consequence is that it is not in libgimpui anymore, but in
libgimp, as it should. The second consequence is that the boolean
`interactive` argument has been removed. Now all image rotation
logics (the part which needed a GUI) has been moved into core and
will be automatically run when normally loading images from GIMP's
interface, similarly as to how color profiles was already handled.
- 2 new libgimp functions: gimp_image_policy_rotate() and
gimp_image_policy_color_profile() are now available to explicitly
call the Preferences-set policy on an image. This may result in a
dialog being presented to the user if `interactive` is TRUE and
settings is "Ask what to do".
It is unecessary to call these functions when developing a new
GimpLoadProcedure because the core will automatically do the right
thing and call these on normal image loading workflow.
Instead if a plug-in calls such GimpLoadProcedure through the PDB,
no such functions will be run automatically. It is up to the plug-in
to decide what to do (no conversion, mandatory conversion, or using
user settings, possibly with a dialog to decide, hence calling these
functions explicitly).
- New function gimp_export_comment() to query the user settings (as
set in Preferences) on whether or not a file plug-in should export
the image's comment.
- Several functions which are returning C-array of objects with a size
output argument now also have a GList counterpart (not as
replacement, but as additional API):
* gimp_get_images() -> gimp_list_images()
* gimp_image_get_layers() -> gimp_image_list_layers()
* gimp_image_get_selected_layers() -> gimp_image_list_selected_layers()
* gimp_image_get_channels() -> gimp_image_list_channels()
* gimp_image_get_vectors() -> gimp_image_list_vectors()
* gimp_item_get_children() -> gimp_item_list_children()
- New function gimp_vectors_stroke_reverse() to reverse a specified
stroke in a given GimpVectors.
- In GIMP 2.10, functions gimp_drawable_preview_get_drawable() and
gimp_zoom_preview_get_drawable() got deprecated in favor of
respectively gimp_drawable_preview_get_drawable_id() and
gimp_zoom_preview_get_drawable_id(). The original names have been
reinstated and now returns a GimpDrawable object, whereas the newer
functions got removed.
Similarly gimp_zoom_preview_new_from_drawable_id() and
gimp_drawable_preview_new_from_drawable_id() are replaced by
respectively gimp_zoom_preview_new_from_drawable() and
gimp_drawable_preview_new_from_drawable().
- Deprecated functions in GIMP 2.10.x have been removed. To get a list
of these function, this file should hopefully map most of them to a
replacement equivalent:
devel-docs/GIMP3-plug-in-porting-guide/removed_functions.md
- gimp_spin_button_new() had some weird compatibility macro to expand
to a newer or older signature depending on the number of arguments.
Now only the newer signature with 3 arguments is available.
- Properties removed from custom widgets:
* GimpAspectPreview, GimpDrawablePreview and GimpZoomPreview had a
deprecated "drawable" property in favor of "drawable-id" property.
The "drawable" property got reinstated (and the "drawable-id"
removed) and obviously now stores a GimpDrawable object rather
than an integer.
* The property "stock-id" was removed from GimpHintBox and
GimpCellRendererToggle. Use "icon-name" instead.
- Note: there are likely more API changes, unfortunately we haven't
kept the NEWS file up-to-start from scratch. The best is to look at
the API generated documentation.
- The full API is GObject Introspected into 2 modules: Gimp and
GimpUi. This means plug-ins can be written in various non-C
languages. So far the following languages have been tested and work
well: Python 3, Lua, Javascript and Vala.
(Note: Python 2 is also working, but considering that this language
is end-of-life since 2020, we don't really care).
- All pygimp specific Python API does not exist anymore. Python will
use the same API as C plug-ins, introspected through GObject
Introspection.
Documentation:
- `devel-docs/xcf.txt` updated to handle XCF 14.
Build:
- New meson build system. Still deemed "experimental" for the time
being. Packagers are recommended to continue using the autotools
build system in order to avoid build system-specific bugs.
- Continuous integration in Gitlab with:
- an autotools build with GCC on a Debian/testing runner
- an autotools distcheck build on a Debian/testing runner
- a meson build with GCC on a Debian/testing runner
- a meson build with Clang on a Debian/testing runner
- a meson cross-build with Mingw-w64 for Windows 32-bit
- a meson cross-build with Mingw-w64 for Windows 64-bit
- static code analysis with cppcheck
- a source tarball distribution job (tar.bz2 and tar.xz)
- a ready-to-run Windows 64-bit test archive
- a ready-to-run Windows 32-bit test archive
Known blocker issues:
- GTK+3 port is functional but not complete as some deprecated APIs
are still being used.
- Space invasion is still a work-in-progress.
- Plug-ins API update is still a work-in-progress.
- GIMP extensions are still a work-in-progress.
- Multiple layer selection is still work-in-progress. Some issues are
expected, and possibly even some crashes in code paths which were
not updated yet.
- No custom theme yet, in particular we want a neutral gray theme with
light/dark variants, and a middle-gray theme too.
- We probably want to revive a "Small" theme as well with smaller
icons (useful on smaller displays, or mid-high density displays or
simply depending on tastes).
- Various blocking bugs happen on Wayland only.
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