Wednesday, November 30, 2011
G'MIC 1.5.0.7
David announced on Flikr the latest stable release of G'MIC, version 1.5.0.7. He is of course already on the road to 1.5.0.8. One change for Windows Users is that filenames starting with ".", such as personal favorites, are no longer supported. Hence you will have to rename your files without the "." before it. So, rename ".gmic_faves" to "gmic_faves" and you will be all set. You do not need to worry about files generated by the system. They will be handled automatically. You can find discussions on this release on Flikr and Gimpchat.
There were issues with my builds before where the users were unable to update filters right from the program. The error message was "Filters update from Internet (partially) failed !". This happened because the filter downloads are compressed and the curl library included with my build did not handled zipped files. This has been corrected and you should be able to update filters on the fly. Please let me know if you have any difficulties with updating.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Gimp 2.7.4 with Tablet Support
Introducing the next Gimp git release! This release is based on November 25 git pulled from the Gimp nightly tars (see link on the right). This version is significant since the engine has been updated. In particular, this version is buiilt with GTK+ 2.24.8 and GLIB 2.30.2. This means that the issues we faced before with respect to using tablets (the Wacom kind, not the iPad kind) are apparently fixed. Please let me know if you have any issues with this version or if your tablet is not working. You will need to install the drivers corresponding to your tablet to get the features specific to your tablet. However, even without the proprietary drivers, you should have basic functionality. For instance, you should be able to draw just fine.
This version allows you to save images in BZIP2 compressed format (extension xcf.bz2). This should result in a smaller file size.
I got tired of the default theme. It now is a nice gray, which does not distract from the image you are editing. As before, if you don't like the theme, you can change it by adding new themes into your themes directory. You also can change to the other default theme which is included.
Here is a screenshot of the new build.
Portable Version
The portable versions have been updated to match the desktop version. In particular, tablets should work on this version just like on the desktop version. The portable versions are transportable, provided you do not make any links to folders outside of the portable environment. All the useful plugins are already included in the portable version, so you do not need to make a separate download.
Installation
Download the version that is appropriate for your OS – 64-bit for 64-bit Windows and 32-bit for 32-bit Windows. Once you do that, simply click on the executable that you downloaded and install like any other software. If you don't like it, use your control panel to uninstall. Please don't mix and match the versions (Why would you want to?) especially if you are using my Gimp builds. The DLLs are the same and since the 64-bit DLLs will not work with the 32-bit one, you are likely to get an error and the application will quit. If you are missing DLLs, please drop me a line and let me know!
For the portable version, please note the included executable called gimprun.exe. Please click on that file to run the portable version. Please don't try to go into the bin directory to run the program. It will not work.
As usual, if you are inclined to leave me feedback or a comment...
