Single Window GIMP Coming 27th December 2010

By , Published January 24, 2010

We’ve discussed the singlewindow GIMP before – even telling you how to install it! Now GIMP developer Martin Nordholt has revealed that the ‘target’ release date for version 2.8 (AKA ‘Single Window GIMP) is December the 27th 2010.


Wowsh.

He is keen to point out in his blog post that this release date is by no means set in stone, stating: “if we have an estimated release date it will surely be misinterpreted as a definite release date, and if we don’t meet it, people will be annoyed”.

This is true, and I’m sure posts like mine won’t help people’s perceptions, however with this release surrounded with hype and so eagerly anticipated a time-frame to have in mind can do no harm, in my opinion.

He also posted a new feature of this way-off release – Multi-column dock windows!

Picture copyright Alexia Death

2.8 is shaping up to be the defintive GIMP release!

Article originally appeared on omgubuntu.co.uk

Related posts:

  1. GIMP To Be Removed From Lucid; F-Spot Has Challengers
  2. Install The Single-Windowed Gimp Preview in Ubuntu [How-to]
  3. First Pictures Of Single Window Gimp – It Looks AMAZING.
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  • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

    why every thing is shifted to the end of the year :(

    BTW fix the fonts in this posts, and the second screenshot doesn’t render

  • Erik

    “We’ve discussed the single window GIMP before – even telling you how to install it! Now GIMP developer Martin Nordholt has revealed that the ‘target’ release date for version 2.8 (AKA ‘Single Window GIMP) is December the 27th 1010.” <– 1010? :)

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Typo, sorry. I don’t tend to blog about stuff that went on in 1010 AD…

  • Anonymous

    Keep in mind this is only an option and not the main interface, at least thats what i heard… Or am i wrong?

    • Anonymous

      It is an option. I’ve played with it and it’s actually very nice. The one new feature I like the most, however, is the filmstrip that shows all your open projects.

      I used 2.7 for a while but found it too unstable. Once those bugs are fixed it’ll be a solid release and a year should be enough time to do it (I hope!).

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      AFAIK Song window mode will become “Default” however you will be able to ‘switch’ back to the old view.

      Single window mode is taking up a lot of development time, hence why the relatively far off release date.

  • http://www.linuxmint.com/ Jimbo

    I don’t know anything about software development but a whole other year seems crazy to me. This is the most anticipated new feature of GIMP since its inception and you can already build versions of GIMP with it working, why does it need another year of development? What ever happened to the release often mantra of open source?

    • rop7

      That’s sad gimp is no more with official installation………………..

    • http://blastfromthepast.se/ Tommy Brunn

      It needs another year because right now it’s not very stable or user friendly at all. I’ve tried out the single-window mode in 2.7, and it is completely unusable at this point. Docking docks only works half the time (at best), it freezes and crashes frequently, and the whole thing is just a mess.

      That’s why it can’t be released officially yet. If you want to try it, go ahead. But to release it as a stable build would be insane.

  • http://twitter.com/WolfHook Paul

    As a web designer, image editing is imperative. I would love to dump Photoshop, over the years it has become such a bloated bitch. It can take up to 30 seconds to boot, sometimes another 30 seconds to load up the, “Save for web” dialog box.

    I am slowly transitioning to Pixelmator on my Mac and would also like to toy around with GIMP. All my previous attempts to use GIMP have failed because it is not user friendly.

    Here’s to hoping the guy cracks it for Christmas!

    • http://twitter.com/carlrice Carl Rice

      It’s totally doable right now to be honest. For me the key was layer groups. No web design can be even remotely manageable without layer groups but if you install GIMP 2.7 you can get it now. It also has single window mode but everything bugs out, so just stick to classic window mode and you get all the up and coming features which I have been able to use for real projects without a problem.

  • http://www.johannes-eva.net/ Johannes

    One year is a long time to wait… for a feature that should have been implemented years ago!
    But anyway, looking forward to the release, GIMP is great!

    • Zachariah Thomas

      There’s a lot more going on behind the scenes actually.
      Porting as much as they can to GEGL assuring everything is GPLv3.
      As everyone knows GEGL is not stable nor near complete. I’m pretty sure the small GEGL/BABL libraries are about to get a lot more feature rich and stable over this year.

  • emgee

    Sadly, graphics and Illustration are a baby on Linux! May it be that The Gimp grow until its next release to an even better editor with single window mode. But to me as an Illustrator I simply miss so much other tools in the Linux world (And I do not speak about Photoshop). What about real dynamic brushes like in Painter? What about drawing? (Gimp has bad drawing abilities and is simply not made for this). What about a good set of pencils and crayons and all the other stuff? Photomanipulation might be fine for now, but high definition drawing is absolutly a mess until today (incl. all the paint apps like ‘mypaint’, they just need much more development).

    This is not meant to be negative, I love Linux, yet there is a long way to go and I’m afraid this means another long time together with …. Redmond or Cupertino :(

    • Anonymous

      Inkscape (and not gimp) is the alternative to illustrator

  • Ernie

    So where, exactly, are the instructions for “how to install it” as referenced in the first paragraph? The links don’t lead to anything useful to get us through until the end of the year when this real solution is delivered.

  • http://twitter.com/3v1n0 Marco Trevisan

    I’m already using this coming from a ppa release… The version I’ve has some bugs, but it’s finally what I was looking for since when I started using linux! ;)

  • http://www.silverknife.co.uk/ Mark Hewitt

    Love love *love* the Gimp and I don’t want to look an open source horse in the mouth, but it’s still ludicrous that it can’t do CMYK without fiddly, unreliable (and, as far as I can see, currently totally broken) hacking of a plugin.

  • Becky

    I can’t dispute that it looks pretty…. but I use the current version every day, under both windows and linux – and if this ‘single window’ interface locks all the dialogs within a single window, then it’s a definite no-no!

    If you’re using multiple monitors – like I do (and probably most other image specialists) – having the multiple windows is a god send; allowing us to put the image up on a big screen all by itself and keep the other dialogs out of the way.

    As long as the traditional mode is kept as an alternative, defaultable option, then I’ll upgrade when the new vesion comes out – otherwise, I’ll stay with a version that works correctly.

    Incidentaly… I feel that the most important step forward would be a full CMYK mode for GIMP – that’s the only reason I keep photoshop around. Otherwise, GIMP meets all my other requirements.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Y’know the lack of CMYK really should be a priority – and i have been longing for the single window mode since the dawn of time.

  • Richard Flood

    yay only a month