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5.
What's New in GIMP 2.2?
Here is a brief summary of some of the most important new features
introduced in GIMP
2.2. There are many other smaller changes that long-time users will notice
and appreciate (or complain about!). There are also important changes at
the level of plug-in programming and script-fu creating that are not
covered here.
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Interoperability and Standards Support
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You can drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste image data from the
GIMP to
any application which supports image/png drops (currently
Abiword and
Kword at least) and image/xml+svg drops
(Inkscape
supports this one). So you can copy-and-paste curves into the
GIMP
from Inkscape, and then drag a
selection into Abiword to include it
inline in your document.
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Patterns can now be any supported GtkPixbuf
format, including png, jpeg, xbm and others.
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GIMP can load gradients from SVG files, and
palettes from ACT and RIFF files.
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Drag-and-drop support has been extended. You can now drop
files and URIs onto an image window, where they will be opened
in the existing image as new layers.
![[Note]](images/note.png)
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Please note, that Drag and Drop will not work for Apple Mac OS X
between GIMP and the finder. This is due to a lack of
functionality on Apples X11.app
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Shortcut Editor
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You can now edit your shortcuts in a dedicated dialog, as well as
continue to use the little-known dynamic shortcuts feature (which has
been there since 1.2).
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Plug-in Previews
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We have provided a standard preview widget for plug-in authors which
greatly reduces the amount of code required to support previews. David
Odin has integrated this widget into all the current filters, so that
now many more filters in the GIMP include a preview
which updates in
real time, and the various previews behave much more consistently.
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Real-Time Previews of Transform Operations
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The transform tools (shear, scale, perspective and rotate) can
now show a real-time preview of the result of the operation when
the tool is in “Traditional” mode. Previously, only a
transforming grid was shown.
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GNOME Human Interface Guide Conformance
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A lot of work has been done on making the GIMP's
interface simpler and
more usable for newcomers. Most dialogs now follows the
GNOME HIG to
the best of our knowledge. In addition, dialogs have separated out or
removed many “Advanced” options, and replaced them with
sane defaults or hidden them in an expander.
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GTK+ 2.4 Migration
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Menus use the GtkUIManager to
generate menu structure dynamically from XML data files.
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A completely revamped File Chooser is used everywhere in the
GIMP
for opening or saving files. The best thing about it is that it
lets you create a set of “bookmarks”, making it
possible to
navigate quickly and easily to commonly used directories.
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GIMP now supports fancy ARGB cursors when they
are available on the system.
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Basic Vector Support
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Using the GFig plug-in, the GIMP now supports the
basic functionality
of vector layers. The GFig plug-in supports a number of vector
graphics features such as gradient fills, Bezier curves and curve
stroking. It is also the easiest way to create regular or irregular
polygons in the GIMP. In the
GIMP 2.2, you can create GFig layers, and
re-edit these layers in GFig afterwards. This level of vector support
is still quite primitive, however, in comparison to dedicated
vector-graphics programs such as Inkscape.
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Also . . .
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There are many other smaller user-visible features. A rapid-fire list
of some of those features is below.
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It is now possible to run the GIMP in batch
mode without an X server.
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We have a GIMP binary
(GIMP-console) which is not linked to GTK+
at all.
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Improved interface for extended input devices
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Editable toolbox: You can now decide which tools should be shown
in the Toolbox, and their order. In particular, you can add any or
all of the Color Tools to the Toolbox if you wish to.
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Histogram overlays R, G and B histograms on the Value histogram, and
calculates the histogram only for the contents of the selection.
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Shortcuts are now shared across all GIMP windows.
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