Never used GIMP before? Need some new tips? Start
here! [Updated Oct. 2]
home | random site | files | about this site | links | email me
Never used GIMP before? Need some new tips? Start
here! [Updated Oct. 2]
December 10
Cool Plugins From Hirotsuna Mizuno
Hirotsuna Mizuno has placed three new plugins on the Registry: Paper Tile, Illusion
and Fractal Trace. They're also available (with graphical previews) on his homepage. They're
all quite cool.
GIMP Manual Moves, Gets Updated
Karin and Olof's GIMP User Manual has a new home. Also,
version 0.9 will be out shortly. "We have been short of time," they write to
gimp-user, "so we are a bit late with v0.9, but have patience."
December 8
New GTK Snapshot
Manish Singh (yosh on IRC) uploaded a GTK snapshot to ftp.gimp.org today.
New RPM For Snapshot
Trond Eivind Glomsrod (sorry, I spelled that funny) has made RPM binary
packages and SRPMs for the CVS snapshot available on his FTP site. These are
intended for Red Hat 5.0 systems.
CVS Snapshot Available
Manish Singh uploaded a tarball of the the CVS tree to ftp.gimp.org. This is quite
unofficial, but should be helpful for those tired of trying to patch a six
week old 0.99.15.
Non-GIMP News
Sorry to write about non-GIMP things. If you are offended by this, please
press your browser's Back button now!
I know this is a long shot, but I'm searching desperately for a game called Inside Trader. From my research, it came bundled on a CD in the early 90s called "Solid Gold" or "Solid Gold Collection". It was a stock market simulator that had the player buy illegal tips and try to avoid getting busted by the SEC.
I have been searching high and low for this game, and I can't find it. If you have heard of it, or are willing to sell/send me a copy, please let me know. We now return to your regularly scheduled GIMP News.
December 2
Updated GTK Tutorial
Ian Main has updated his GTK
tutorial. This is an excellent introduction to GTK, and well worth
reading if you want to make some cool GTK apps.
December 1
Jonathan Clark Is Cool
I'm a little infatuated with Jonathan Clark, the Crack dot Com boy wonder who likes free software
in general and, apparently, GIMP specifically. Finger jc@crack.com to read
his latest GIMP plans. I can't wait. :)
GIMP Is (Not) Dead
I found out recently that I am not subscribed to gimp-user. However, someone
informed me that there has been a rather silly thread based on an assumption
that GIMP is no longer being actively developed.
As the official news agency of the GIMP community and an all-around trustworthy guy, I hereby declare that GIMP development has not ceased and that anyone who says so is misinformed and silly.
New GTK
My sources tell me that a new GTK is available from ftp.gimp.org. This is primarily intended for
developers. If you aren't developing GTK apps, you should probably stick
with the GTK you have now. Future GIMP releases may require an upgrade,
though.
There is a problem with Red Hat systems while building this. Run "configure" with the --disable-xim flag and it should compile correctly.
November 26
Red Hat Bundles GIMP
Red Hat Linux 5.0 will come bundled with GIMP. However, the version, I'm
told, is 0.99.12. If you do happen to get Red Hat Linux, be sure to download
the latest version of GIMP from www.gimp.org.
GIMP For Game Developers
Jonathan Clark of Crack dot Com recently
let the gimp-developer mailing list know of an upcoming conference:
There is to be a game developers conference in Austin Texas around January (presented by Miller Freeman). Since GIMP is so well suited for game developers and some of it's development mirrors what game developers do, I thought it might be interesting to have one of the original GIMP creators or a GIMP expert user attend and give a presentation. The presentation would cover GIMP's merits and uses as applies to game developers. This could be about artistic uses, and/or development design such as the plugin interface and script-fu.
If this sounds interesting to anyone, email me for more info.
Jonathan Clark
jc@crack.com
Crack dot Com
This sounds insanely cool to me.
November 24
Not Much News
Well, there hasn't been a whole lot of news lately. Be sure to check the Registry for a few updated
plugins.
Also, Byxnet, the IRC network that houses GIMP developer chat, gained a new server in Chicago. The hostname is irc.coherent.net, the port is 6667.
November 14
GFIG Update
Andy Thomas came on IRC to let us know
that there's a new GFIG available, with a variety of new features. Check it out.
New IRIX Binaries
Michael Sweet has a new SGI binary release of GIMP 0.99.15. It has many
recent patches from the mailing list, as well as the complete SANE scanner
package. It's at his home
page.
On a related note, Michael also recenly updated all his plugins on the Registry. This includes Sharpen, Despeckle, Print, and the SGI image loader.
Michael J. Hammel News
I got an email recently from Michael J. Hammel mentioning that the new Linux Gazette, when it arrives, will have
a quick GIMP tip in it.
(Michael is responsible for the big four part article about GIMP in the Linux Journal.)
Also, he mentioned that his Graphics Muse column has gone big time and gotten its own domain, graphics-muse.org, where you can find all his articles and new pictures from his GIMP Gallery.
November 13
Awesome New Plugin
I love all plugins equally. Some, however, I love more equally than others,
and one such plugin is the new IWarp, by Nobert Schmitz. I haven't seen a
plugin that's as visually fun to play with for quite some time; it's like
Whirl and Pinch on steroids. You can also use it to make movies! Check
it out!
November 12
GIMP Wins Linux Journal Reader's Choice Award
I don't think the award comes with any nifty logo or graphic, but there's
still some pride in knowing that GIMP was voted by Linux Journal readers as
the most popular graphics program available for Linux.
Also, in addition to our prize, this month's LJ has part two of Michael J. Hammel's four part article on GIMP. Check it out.
November 11
New GTK
Bet you thought I was gone, huh? Well, nope. Hey, here's some news for
you.
There is a new GTK release available from ftp.gimp.org. If you're not having trouble with GTK, you may not have any reason to upgrade, but if you're a developer you should definitely grab this.
November 3
GIMP User Manual News
Aristidi Yannick emailed me to let me know he's working on a French
language translation of Karin and Olof's GIMP UserManual. It's
available at his
homepage.
Also, a new version (0.7) of the UserManual is available from Frozenriver, although it's currently only in PostScript form.
October 30
Jonathan Clark Likes GIMP
Jonathan Clark is the co-founder of Crack.com, the game company that created
Abuse and is currently working on Golgotha, the Linux version of which will
be published by Red Hat. The other
founder, Dave Taylor, has been the initial driving force behind getting some
truly great games available for Linux. Ahh, those heady IRC #doom days...but
I digress.
Anyway, if you finger jc@crack.com, you'll see he's recently decided to try GIMP and he has some very kind words about it. Check out his finger.
October 29
Beginner's Script-Fu Tutorial
Michael Terry has created an on-line HTML guide to getting started
with Script-Fu. I haven't had a chance to go all the way through it but from
what I have seen it looks both informative and entertaining.
October 28
GTK Has A New Home
GTK information and documentation is now available at www.gimp.org/gtk.
October 27
Brandon Beattie's Archive
Brandon Beattie has a whole ton of precompiled GIMP merchandise on his home page.
New GIMP, GTK Released
GIMP 0.99.15 and gtk+971025 have been released. The new GTK breaks the color
selector, but you can easily drop in the old color selector source for the
time being. They're both available from www.gimp.org and mirrors.
This version does have a few quirks and problems. It does have some nifty new features. Oops, there's a feature freeze; those features were added before the freeze :).
In addition to the source, RPM binaries for this distribution have appeared in record time and should also be available from www.gimp.org or mirrors.
October 22
Net-Fu Source Released
Net-Fu, the tool that
lets you run Script-Fu scripts from the web, has been released and is
available from ftp.gimp.org.
This is a BETA release. Do not use this unless you are prepared to do some troubleshooting and debugging. And if you have trouble, be sure to let the authors know so they can fix them.
Binaries! We Got The Binaries!
I recently got a bunch of news about binaries of GIMP available for
various platforms.
I have heard from reliable sources that there is a strong possibility of an 0.99.15 release soon though.
October 20
GIMP User Manual 0.6
Karin and Olof send word that the new version of the GIMP User Manual is
out. Here's a verbatim list of changes from their announcement:
It's available at their FTP site. At
the time of this writing, only PostScript was available, but they said a PDF
and HTML version was forthcoming.
New Scanning Extension
Rildo Pragana recently wrote to tell me that his extension for scanning with
the "Genius Color Page-CS" works with the most recent GIMP and gimptcl. Says
Rildo,
It's included the user-level driver of the scanner, the low-level driver for the small SCSI board that's shipped with the scanner, my 'tclscan' extension for scanning into the gimp (it doesn't need SANE, nor any patch to gtk or other libs), and a nice photo of Recife, Brazilian's Venice, taken from our phonebook. I hope this helps someone!
It's available from Sunsite.
October 16
Gfig For GIMP
Andy Thomas has created a remarkable vector drawing
plugin for GIMP. If you use XFig, you'll probably find it familiar. It's
extremely impressive.
October 15
SANE 0.66 Released
SANE is a Unix scanner interface system that works with several models of
popular scanners. Just got word from David Mosberger-Tang via the SANE
mailing list that a new version is available. The mail says
- the UMAX backend has been updated (thanks to Oliver Rauch)
- the Epson backend has been updated (thanks to Kazuhiro Sasayama)
- the Mustek backend has a few additional hacks to work around problems reported with some scanners (see sane-mustek(5) for details)
- various minor bug fixes (in particular, the Linux problems with shared libs should be fixed now...)
It's available from the SANE homepage.
October 14
New European IRC Server
Do you like GIMP? Do you like IRC? Do you live in Europe?
Byxnet, the tiny IRC network that hosts GIMP Developer Chat(tm), has added a
European server. You can connect to it at irc.drwilco.net, port 6666 or
6667. Hop in channel #gimp and talk to the developers. We sometimes, very
occasionally, talk about GIMP.
0.99.14 Released
Quartic recently uploaded GIMP 0.99.14 to ftp.gimp.org. Fixed are the
shared memory failures on some OSs and the "amazing disappearing file list"
bug, as well as a new, smaller gimp-data package. It's a much quicker
download, now.
October 13
Pavel's Cool Stuff
Pavel Greenfield has a very nice Gtk Preview
Tutorial that's been on his webpage for a bit, but I just recently
noticed it. It has a lucid description of previews as well as a lot of code
and pictures.
October 8
Karin and Olof Release GIMP Manual
As I mentioned in an earlier news item, Karin and Olof have been working on
a GIMP manual. It's now available their FTP site. It's
available both in PDF and PostScript form. An HTML conversion is
available as well.
New MapObject Plugin
Tom Bech, the author of MapSphere and MapPlane, has combined these two
immensely handy plugins into a single MapObject plugin. He also plans to
extend the options to include cylinders in the future. It's available from
the Registry.
October 7
GIMP.org Debuts
Jens Lautenbacher and Adrian Likins (among others) have busted their butt to
produce an excellent looking GIMP
homepage. This is an Officially Licensed GIMP (TM) Product.
Alpha/i386 GNU libc RPMs
If you're not sure what that headline means, you probably don't need them.
However, if you do, they're available from Magnus Pfeffer's ftp
site.
October 5
Daniel Cotting Unleashes Flood Of Cool
Plugins
Daniel Cotting has placed half a dozen very interesting and cool
plugins on the
Registry: Encript & Decript [sic], Julia/Mandelbrot Fractal Chaos
Explorer, Curtain, Central-Reflection, Conical Anamorphose Distortion,
and Alien-Map. If you grab one of these, check out his "About"
logo...it's awesome.
New SANE: 0.65
Just got a note from sane-devel that SANE, the scanner driver system,
has been updated to version 0.65. There is a SANE component that can
be used as a GIMP extension to acquire images directly into GIMP.
It's available from the SANE homepage.
October 3
GIMP Chat On EFNet
You can also chat about GIMP on EFNet, channel #GIMP. The servers are too
numerous to list here.
October 2
0.99.13 Released
If you are not a developer, if you have difficulty working with C, if you
are puzzled by "./configure", if you are easily frustrated, if you have
strange compilers and libraries, if you have a 4bpp display, if you have no
patience, if you feel compelled to complain about little things that get on
your nerves, don't download the new GIMP.
Otherwise, go get it. This version does not come with Gtk! You must download that as well! If you already have it installed, you don't need to download it (there haven't been any new releases in the last week or so).
All the necessary files are also in GIMP News's files section.
(Actually, I take that back about the strange compilers and libraries...go for it, but be prepared to become a guinea pig for testing :)
Bored? Come Chat With Us
If you have absolutely nothing better to do, why not come visit the GIMP
Developers' IRC Network? We have three new servers! Servers are:
We talk about a wide variety of nearly pointless things, and sometimes GIMP :).
GIMP 0.99.12 RPMs
I noticed recently that Red Hat's i386 contrib archive
has RPMs of the very latest GIMP.
I welcome announcements of any other binary packages for other platforms and distributions.
I'd like to borrow and paraphrase the disclaimer MJH uses: NOTE: GIMP is still beta software, intended for developers. If you are unfamiliar with C programming and debugging, program and library installation, or Makefiles, you should probably not use it.
GIMP Makes Linux Journal
Cover
GIMP is not Linux specific, but it has been getting a lot of attention
in the Linux community. This month's Linux Journal cover was produced
with GIMP, and according to Michael J. Hammel, the magazine will be
running a four part series he authored about GIMP.
GIMP Plugins On BeOS?
Recently Adrian pointed me towards a Usenet article (tip: search for
gimp plugins beos) claiming that Be
Studio would support GIMP plugins. This offers some intriguing
possibilities for those of you whose corporate bureaucracy dictates
that you have to use BeOS instead of Unix on your desktop. (That was a
joke.)
Big New GIMP Tutorial
Karin and Olof recently announced that they're nearing the completion
of a ~200 page GIMP tutorial in FrameMaker, and they'll release SGML
and HTML versions of it soon (target date: October 5). It's really
pretty exciting to see some documentation start to take shape.
New GIMP.Org Contest
There's a new contest on www.gimp.org. Try and make a cool
animation, and you might win an awesome gimp.org email alias. Wouldn't
johndoe@gimp.org be a great thing to show off to your gimp-using
buddies?
September 26
GIMP 0.99.12
There used to be a story here about 0.99.12, but Quartic sent a message for
people not to download it. Apparently, there are a few Makefile blunders.
0.99.13 will be out shortly.
0.99.13 will require that you have the latest Gtk installed. 0.99.13 will not come with Gtk.
September 25
Peter Releases New Gtk
A new, patched version of Gtk is available on ftp.gimp.org. In his announcement,
Peter also mentioned that GIMP 0.99.12 (due within 48 hours) will not
be bundled with Gtk any more.
New, Cute GIMP
When I first saw Tuomas Kuosmanen's little GIMP-created creature, I felt
like I had to adopt it. It's just so cute. It's not a cat or a dog or
a fox or a wolf. It's a gimp, and its name is Wilber. Wilber the Gimp. Got
kind of a nice ring to it, I think.
MapSphere, MapPlane From Tom Bech
Tom recently uploaded new versions of MapSphere and MapPlane, his rendering
plugins, to the Registry. He
also reports that he's working to replace these plugins with a more powerful
MapObject plugin, which sounds like it has a lot of potential. Of course,
we still would love to see an 0.99.x version of Lighting, Tom... :)
September 24
New Plugins At The Registry
Some new plugins at the
Registry:
September 23
New Plugin Previews Page
Check out the new Plugin Previews
page I just created. You'll get a whole ton of before and after pictures of
the GIMP plugins in action.
September 22
0.99.11 Is Released
You've waited months for it, and it's finally here. GIMP 0.99.11 has been
released. It comprises every change in Matt Hawkins' pre11 series, plus a
number of other patches, bugfixes, and updates. It includes the most recent
GTK with some recent patches as well. It includes the most recent plugins,
scripts, brushes, and patterns available.
You can download GIMP 0.99.11 from GIMP News or directly from ftp.gimp.org.
I have a feeling that GIMP development may begin to accelerate. Hold on to your hats. But also bear in mind id Software's program release slogan: it'll be out when it's finished. :)
UPDATE The tar file has a minor problem with file dates. This will only impact people who try to compile before September 23. To fix the problem, unpack the tar file, cd into the gimp directory, and try
find . -print -exec touch {} \;
or any other suitable command to update the timestamps on your files.
September 21
I Write Up Some Basic Tips
0.99.x has a lot of hidden things that you may have never discovered, such
as guides, filename completion, constrained selections, and more. I've put
up some simple documentation for these undocumented features right below the
title graphic for this site, or here if you're too lazy
to move your mouse that far. :)
September 18
Matt Ceases Pre-11 Work
Matt Hawkins did a fine job filling an important role with GIMP
releases. He packaged up all the patches and plugins and made them
into unofficial interim releases. Well, he can't do it any more,
although hopefully soon someone will. Watch this space for more
announcements about this as they develop.
September 17
Interesting New Mailing List
Archive
I got this in the mail a week ago from Scott Hassan. There's a very
interesting mailing list
archinve on FindMail.com. It's worth checking out.
New Debian Package
Ben Gertzfield has updated the Debian package on ftp.gimp.org. This new
version is based on 0.99.pre11-3.5 and is patched to allow faxg3 to
work with libc6.
September 16
Even Newer Gtk
Peter has re-released Gtk with some improvements. Here's his message:
I've uploaded gtk+970916.tar.gz to ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gtk. This release includes 4 patches from the kind and generous gtk community. They are:
- Andrew Logan Kieschnick's change to gtkpreview so that round-off error is not a problem when the gamma value is set to 1.0.
- Jay Painter's viewport resizing changes.
- Owen Taylor's event box widget and fixes for X input support.
- Elliot Lee's changes to support Objective C.
Peter
Again, these releases should be considered to be for Gtk developers only, as they might break existing Gtk apps.
September 15
New Plugin From Pavel
Pavel Greenfield has created another massively interesting plugin
called Colormap
Rotation. He has some screenshots on his homepage which should
give you an idea about what the plugin does.
New Official Gtk
Peter Mattis has released a new version of Gtk, available from ftp.gimp.org, a mirror site, or
from GIMP news.
note This is for Gtk developers only, because it breaks parts of GIMP (according to my sources).
Mailing List Blues
I apologize to everyone who has signed up for the mailing list
recently and hasn't seen any activity. There have been some serious
delivery lag times, and I haven't taken the time to discuss it with
the volunteers who have generously donated me their SMTP services to
run the list. Sorry! I'll try to resolve this soon.
New Animation Player
Adam D. Moss has created a very nifty animation player. It can take an
animated GIF, for example, and display it as it would play in a web
browser. It's available at the Registry.
home |
random site |
files |
about this site |
links |
email me
