home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
/ Mac Easy 2010 May / Mac Life Ubuntu.iso / casper / filesystem.squashfs / usr / share / gimp / 2.0 / help / en / gimp-introduction-history-early-days.html < prev    next >
Encoding:
Extensible Markup Language  |  2008-05-03  |  8.7 KB  |  179 lines
  1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
  2. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
  3. <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  4.   <head>
  5.     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
  6.     <title>2.¬† The Early Days of GIMP</title>
  7.     <link rel="stylesheet" href="gimp-help-plain.css" type="text/css" />
  8.     <link rel="stylesheet" href="gimp-help-screen.css" type="text/css" />
  9.     <link rel="stylesheet" href="gimp-help-custom.css" type="text/css" />
  10.     <link rel="alternate stylesheet" href="gimp22.css" type="text/css" title="gimp22" />
  11.     <meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.73.2" />
  12.     <link rel="start" href="index.html" title="GNU Image Manipulation Program" />
  13.     <link rel="up" href="gimp-introduction-history.html" title="Appendix¬†A.¬† GIMP History" />
  14.     <link rel="prev" href="gimp-introduction-history.html" title="Appendix¬†A.¬† GIMP History" />
  15.     <link rel="next" href="gimp-introduction-history-1-0.html" title="3.¬† The One to Change the World" />
  16.   </head>
  17.   <body>
  18.     <div class="navheader">
  19.       <table width="100%" summary="Navigation header">
  20.         <tr>
  21.           <th colspan="3" align="center">2.¬†
  22.       <span lang="en" xml:lang="en">The Early Days of GIMP</span>
  23.     </th>
  24.         </tr>
  25.         <tr>
  26.           <td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="gimp-introduction-history.html"><img src="../images/prev.png" alt="Prev" /></a>¬†</td>
  27.           <th width="60%" align="center">Appendix¬†A.¬†
  28.     <span lang="en" xml:lang="en">GIMP History</span>
  29.   </th>
  30.           <td width="20%" align="right">¬†<a accesskey="n" href="gimp-introduction-history-1-0.html"><img src="../images/next.png" alt="Next" /></a></td>
  31.         </tr>
  32.       </table>
  33.       <hr />
  34.     </div>
  35.     <div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
  36.       <div class="titlepage">
  37.         <div>
  38.           <div>
  39.             <h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="gimp-introduction-history-early-days"></a>2.¬†
  40.       <span lang="en" xml:lang="en">The Early Days of GIMP</span>
  41.     </h2>
  42.           </div>
  43.         </div>
  44.       </div>
  45.       <div class="variablelist">
  46.         <dl>
  47.           <dt>
  48.             <span class="term">Version 0.54</span>
  49.           </dt>
  50.           <dd>
  51.             <p>
  52.             Version 0.54 was released in February 1996, and had a major impact
  53.             as the first truly professional free image manipulation program.
  54.             This was the first free program that could compete with the big
  55.             commercial image manipulation programs.
  56.           </p>
  57.             <p>
  58.             Version 0.54 was a beta release, but it was so stable that you
  59.             could use it for daily work. However, one of the major drawbacks
  60.             of 0.54 was that the toolkit (the slidebars, menus, dialog boxes,
  61.             etc.) was built on Motif, a commercial
  62.             toolkit. This was a big drawback for systems like
  63.             ‚Äú<span class="quote">Linux</span>‚Äù, because you had to buy
  64.             Motif if you wanted to use the faster,
  65.             dynamically linked <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym>. Many
  66.             developers were also students running Linux,
  67.             who could not afford to buy Motif.
  68.           </p>
  69.           </dd>
  70.           <dt>
  71.             <span class="term">Version 0.60</span>
  72.           </dt>
  73.           <dd>
  74.             <p>
  75.             When 0.60 was released in July 1996, it had been under S and P
  76.             (Spencer and Peter) development for four months. Main programming
  77.             advantages were the new toolkits, <acronym class="acronym">GTK</acronym>
  78.             (<acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym> Toolkit) and <acronym class="acronym">gdk</acronym>
  79.             (<acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym> Drawing Kit), which eliminated the
  80.             reliance on Motif. For the
  81.             graphic artist, 0.60 was full of new features like: basic layers;
  82.             improved painting tools (sub-pixel sampling, brush spacing); a
  83.             better airbrush; paint modes; etc.
  84.           </p>
  85.             <p>
  86.             Version 0.60 was only a developer's release, and was not intended
  87.             for widespread use. It served as a workbench for 0.99 and the
  88.             final 1.0 version, so functions and enhancement could be tested
  89.             and dropped or changed. You can look at 0.60 as the alpha version
  90.             of 0.99.
  91.           </p>
  92.           </dd>
  93.           <dt>
  94.             <span class="term">Version 0.99</span>
  95.           </dt>
  96.           <dd>
  97.             <p>
  98.             In February 1997, 0.99 came on the scene. Together with other
  99.             developers, S and P had made several changes to
  100.             <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym> and added
  101.             even more features. The main difference was the new API
  102.             (Application Programming Interface) and the
  103.             ‚Äú<span class="quote">PDB</span>‚Äù, which made it possible to write scripts;
  104.             Script-Fus (or
  105.             macros) could now automate things that you would normally do by
  106.             hand. <acronym class="acronym">GTK/gdk</acronym> had also changed and was now
  107.             called <acronym class="acronym">GTK+</acronym>. In
  108.             addition, 0.99 used a new form of tile-based memory handling that
  109.             made it possible to load huge images into <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym>
  110.             (loading a 100 MB image into <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym> is no
  111.             problem). Version 0.99 also introduced a new
  112.             native <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym> file format called XCF.
  113.           </p>
  114.             <p>
  115.             The new API made it really easy to write extensions and plug-ins
  116.             for <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym>. Several new plug-ins and extensions
  117.             emerged to make <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym>
  118.             even more useful (such as <acronym class="acronym">SANE</acronym>, which enables
  119.             scanning directly into <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym>).
  120.           </p>
  121.             <p>
  122.             In the summer of 1997, <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym> had reached
  123.             version 0.99.10, and S and
  124.             P had to drop most of their support since they had graduated and
  125.             begun jobs. However, the other developers of
  126.             <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym> continued under
  127.             the orchestration of Federico Mena to make
  128.             <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym> ready for prime time.
  129.           </p>
  130.             <p>
  131.             <acronym class="acronym">GTK+</acronym> was separated from
  132.             <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym> in September 1997.
  133.             <acronym class="acronym">GTK+</acronym> had been
  134.             recognized as an excellent toolkit, and other developers began
  135.             using it to build their own applications.
  136.           </p>
  137.             <p>
  138.             <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym> went into feature freeze in October
  139.             1997. This meant that no
  140.             new features would be added to the <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym>
  141.             core libraries and program. <acronym class="acronym">GUM</acronym> (GIMP Users
  142.             Manual) version 0.5 was also released early in October 1997.
  143.             The developing work continued to make <acronym class="acronym">GIMP</acronym>
  144.             stable and ready for version 1.0.
  145.           </p>
  146.           </dd>
  147.         </dl>
  148.       </div>
  149.     </div>
  150.     <div class="navfooter">
  151.       <hr />
  152.       <table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer">
  153.         <tr>
  154.           <td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="gimp-introduction-history.html"><img src="../images/prev.png" alt="Prev" /></a>¬†</td>
  155.           <td width="20%" align="center">
  156.             <a accesskey="u" href="gimp-introduction-history.html">
  157.               <img src="../images/up.png" alt="Up" />
  158.             </a>
  159.           </td>
  160.           <td width="40%" align="right">¬†<a accesskey="n" href="gimp-introduction-history-1-0.html"><img src="../images/next.png" alt="Next" /></a></td>
  161.         </tr>
  162.         <tr>
  163.           <td width="40%" align="left" valign="top"><a accesskey="p" href="gimp-introduction-history.html">Appendix¬†A.¬†
  164.     <span lang="en" xml:lang="en">GIMP History</span>
  165.   </a>¬†</td>
  166.           <td width="20%" align="center">
  167.             <a accesskey="h" href="index.html">
  168.               <img src="../images/home.png" alt="Home" />
  169.             </a>
  170.           </td>
  171.           <td width="40%" align="right" valign="top">¬†<a accesskey="n" href="gimp-introduction-history-1-0.html">3.¬†
  172.       <span lang="en" xml:lang="en">The One to Change the World</span>
  173.     </a></td>
  174.         </tr>
  175.       </table>
  176.     </div>
  177.   </body>
  178. </html>
  179.