graphic editor release , which continues to refine the functionality and improve the stability of the branch . The release of GIMP 2.10.16 was skipped due to a critical bug that was discovered post-fork. A package is available for installation in the format (package format until updated).
In addition to fixing bugs, GIMP 2.10.18 introduces the following improvements:
- The grouped layout mode of the toolbar is offered by default. The user can create their own groups and move the instruments into them at their discretion. For example, different tools for transformation, selection, filling and drawing can be hidden behind the general buttons of the group, without displaying each button separately. Grouping mode can be disabled in the settings in the Interface/Toolbox section.
- By default, a compact view of slider buttons (sliders) is enabled, which are commonly used to set filter and tool options. The compact style, which reduces the top and bottom padding, saves a lot of vertical screen space and allows you to fit more elements into the visible area. To change the value of the parameters, you can use the movement after clicking the left mouse button, while additional holding Shift leads to a decrease in the change step, and Ctrl - to increase it.
- Improved docking of panels and dialogs in the single-window interface. When trying to move embedded dialogs in drag&drop mode, an annoying message is no longer displayed with information about the possibility of leaving the dialog in the current position. Instead of a message to inform that a floating dialog can be docked, all dockable areas are now highlighted.
- A set of high-contrast character icons has been added, which can be selected in the settings (the old icons are left by default).
- A new mode for previewing the results of applying transformation tools has been added, called "Composited Preview". When this mode is activated, the rendering of the preview during transformation is carried out taking into account the position of the layer being changed and the correct blending mode.
The new mode also offers two additional options: "Preview linked items" to preview changes to all linked items such as layers, not just the selected item, and "Synchronous preview" to draw a preview while moving the mouse/stylus without waiting for the pointer to will stop.
In addition, an automatic preview of the clipped parts of transformable layers is implemented (for example, during rotation).
- A new XNUMXD transformation tool has been added that allows you to arbitrarily change the perspective in a XNUMXD plane with the rotation of the layer along the X, Y and Z axes. The ability to limit panning and perspective in relation to one of the coordinate axes is available.
- Improved the smoothness of the brush pointer movement by increasing the refresh rate of information on the screen from 20 to 120 FPS. Due to the use of mipmap, the quality of drawing with raster brushes of a reduced scale has been improved. Added an option to disable snapping to strokes. Airbrush frequency increased from 15 to 60 impressions per second. The Warp Transform tool now honors pointer settings.
- In the symmetrical drawing mode, the "kaleidoscope" option has appeared, which allows you to combine rotation and reflection (strokes are reflected at the edges of symmetrical beats).
- The layer panel has been improved, in which the interface for merging layers and attaching selected areas is combined. At the bottom, when there is a selection, instead of the button to merge layers, the button "anchor" is now displayed. When merging, you can use modifiers: Shift to merge the group, Ctrl to merge all visible layers and Ctrl + Shift to merge all visible layers with past values.
- The loading of brushes in the ABR (Photoshop) format has been accelerated, which has significantly reduced the startup time with a large number of brushes in this format.
- Improved support for PSD files and faster loading by eliminating the resource-intensive stage of converting to the internal representation of the project. Large PSD files now load one and a half to two times faster. Added the ability to load PSD files in CMYK(A) representation via conversion to sRGB profile (the ability is currently limited to files with 8 bits per channel).
- At each launch, a check for the availability of a new version of GIMP is implemented by sending requests to the project server. In addition to the version of GIMP itself, the presence of a newer installation kit is also checked, in case the third-party libraries offered in the kit have been updated. The version information is used when generating a problem report in the event of a crash. Automatic version checking can be disabled in the settings on the "System Resources" page and check for updates manually through the "About" dialog. You can also disable the version check code at build time with the "--disable-check-update" option.
- Automated testing of the build of the main GIMP branch in the continuous integration system using Clang and GCC during the build is provided. For Windows, the formation of 32-bit and 64-bit assemblies built with crossroad/Mingw-w64 has been implemented.
From plans for the future, the continuation of work on the future branch of GIMP 3 is noted, in which a significant cleaning of the code base will be carried out and a transition to GTK3 will be made. Developers are also looking into improving the single-window interface and implementing named workspaces that are optimized for different tasks (general editing, web design, photo editing, painting, etc.).
Project development continues , which develops a fork of the GIMP graphics editor (the creators of the fork consider it unacceptable to use the word gimp because of the negative connotation). Last week testing the beta version of the second release 0.1.2 (odd versions, used for development). The release is expected on March 2. Of the changes, the addition of new interface themes and icons, the removal of filters from mentioning the word "gimp" and the addition of a setting for choosing a language on the Windows platform are noted.
Source: opennet.ru