ANNOUNCE: GIMP 2.1.6 Development Release

[Sven Neumann]

Hi,

a new development snapshot of GIMP 2.1 is now available from
ftp.gimp.org and it's mirrors:

   http://gimp.org/downloads/#mirrors

Actually we wanted to have the first pre-release for 2.2 out by now
but there are still a couple of minor API and UI changes that need to
be done. So this is another development snapshot on the road to GIMP
2.2. Hopefully the next release will be called 2.2-pre1 then.

This also means that we need to freeze the UI, translatable strings
and the APIs very soon now. So if you have any patches pending, make
sure you tell us about it. We will soon have to reject further changes
for 2.2. I still hope that we will at least be very close to the 2.2
release by the end of this month.

Please note that you cannot install gimp-2.1 side-by-side with
gimp-2.0 into the same prefix. A number of files will clash, so please
use a separate prefix to install this development version! For
details, please read the file INSTALL.


Here's an overview of the changes since 2.1.6 was released:

Overview of Changes in GIMP 2.1.6
=================================

- Added more drawable previews (Color Exchange, DOG, Deinterlace,
  Engrave, Oilify, Ripple, Shift).

- Added new preview widget that shows a scaled view of the full
  drawable. Use it for Apply Lens, Blinds, Channel Mixer, Destripe,
  Emboss, Illusion, Map Color, Max RGB, Plasma, Polar, Solid Noise,
  Supernova, Whirl and Pinch.

- Added "Open as Layer" functionality to the menus.

- Implemented the recent-file-spec for shared storage of a list of
  recently used files (really URIs).

- Cleaned up plug-in procedure handling. Added the possibility to let
  plug-ins and scripts run using a private GimpContext.

- Added multi-line text entries for Script-Fu and Gimp-Python.

- Cleaned up PDB API for brushes, gradients, palettes and patterns.
  Deprecated lots of functions and added saner replacements. Added
  gimp-context-* PDB namespace with replacements for some of the
  deprecated stuff.

- Let GimpView handle pixbuf previews. Added a (themable) drop shadow
  to image-file previews.

- Cleaned up the dbbrowser and plugindetails code and GUI and factored
  out common code. Renamed both executables and menu entries.

- Made tools cancelable with <Escape>.

- Let GimpDialog add a help button to give easier access to the help pages.


Contributors:

   Michael Natterer, Sven Neumann, David Odin, Maurits Rijk, Dave Neary,
   Manish Singh, Robert Oegren, Kevin Cozens, Kevin Turner, Dov Grobgeld,
   Joao S. O. Bueno,  Michael Schumacher, Jonathan Levi, Daniel Egger


Happy GIMPing