[gimp-web/testing] 2019 report: first draft

[Alexandre Prokoudine <aprokoudine src gnome org>]

commit b3f018b7261f5e9bacf90307f4d73f811f627aec
Author: Alexandre Prokoudine <alexandre prokoudine gmail com>
Date:   Fri Jan 3 12:33:13 2020 +0300

    2019 report: first draft

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+Title: GIMP and GEGL in 2019
+Date: 2019-01-04
+Category: News
+Authors: Wilber
+Slug: gimp-and-gegl-in-2019
+Summary: Here is what we did in 2019 and what we are planning to do in 2020.
+
+Here is what we did in 2019 and what we are planning to do in 2020
+
+# New releases and features
+
+2019 was the second year in a row where we shipped updates with new features in the stable branch. Our 
assumption was that this could change the public's perception of the ongoing development efforts and shift 
the balance towards having more contributors. Here is why.
+
+Between 2012 and 2018 (v2.8 and v2.10 releases respectively), we worked hard and added a ton of improvements 
and new features, we demoed them on social networks, mentioned them in annual reports etc., and yet we kept 
hearing how GIMP was dead because those changes were not in any stable releases. The same thing was happening 
before in the four years between v2.6 and v2.8.
+
+Moreover, this was preventing people from contributing as they would have to wait a long time to see their 
contribution actually used. That wasn't sparking an interest really.
+
+Hence, after the v2.10 release, we kept adding new features at the same pace and started producing regular 
updates with those features, and all of a sudden we started hearing how we "picked up the pace"!
+
+So this could be a lesson for other projects: arguing against the irrational is futile. Just don't keep 
people waiting. If you did something good, share it!
+
+Either way, there have been three updates in 2019. In terms of focus, here is what we targeted. The list 
below is far from being complete, these are just the most obvious changes.
+
+## Usability improvements
+
+- GIMP is finally able to optionally display and edit pixels outside the canvas boundaries.
+- There's a new preference to allow the editing of layers with disabled visibility.
+- On-canvas handles of transformation tools can now be readjusted after zooming in or out.
+- The _Free Select_ tool now creates a preliminary selection so that you could both copy and paste the 
selection and tweak positions of nodes when you do a polygonal selection. 
+- You can now switch to a particular layer by pointing at its pixels and pressing `Alt + middle click`.
+- The _Curves_ tool/filter now allows for more predictable editing and comes with two types of nodes instead 
of one to make more useful, more sophisticated curves.
+
+## Better tools
+
+- Parametric brushes now have 32-bit per channel precision.
+- The _Bucket Fill_ tool got a new mode for smart colorization of line art, this is handy for comic artists.
+- The new _Sample Merged_ option in the _Heal_ tool allows non-destructive retouching of photos on a 
separate layer.
+- The _Foreground Select_ tool got a new _Grayscale_ preview mode.
+- The New _Offset_ tool makes it possible to shift pixels and optionally wrap them around the edges so that 
you could create repeatable patterns.
+
+## Better performance
+
+- Faster painting: GIMP now doesn’t replace the paint buffer on every dab if the paint color/pixmap hasn’t 
changed.
+- Faster saving/exporting and layer groups rendering.
+- Grayscale workflows are now an order of magnitude faster thanks to changes in the babl library.
+
+## Improved file formats support
+
+- Due to popular demand, we merged the existing DDS plugin originally developed by Shawn Kirst. But as none 
of us is a game developer, we appreciate further contributions from the community.
+- Layers are now optionally preserved when exporting to TIFF, and if you load a TIFF file with an 
unspecified channel, GIMP will now ask you how to handle it.
+- GIMP now supports ICC profiles in HEIF images at both loading and exporting time when built with libheif 
v1.4.0 and newer. 
+
+## New filters
+
+A major addition here is the _Normal Map_ filter developed by Ell. It's already usable for some workflows, 
and there's a plan for further improvements.
+
+We also provided direct access to more filters, developed in GEGL a couple of years ago:
+
+- _Bayer Matrix_ (for ordered dithering) and _Linear Sinusoid_ (useful for halftoning)
+- _Newsprint_, a GEGL version of the old GIMP filter for halftoning, plus quite a few extras
+- _Mean Curvature Blur_ for edge-preserving blurring
+
+A few more filters, namely _Neon_, _Stretch Contrast_, and _Oilify_ are finally on par with the original 
implementations and thus replaced them.
+
+# Build systems, CI, and packaging
+
+During 2019, we ported babl, GEGL, and the master branch of GIMP to the Meson build system. While it's of 
little relevance to end-users who rely on ready-to-use builds of GIMP, to developers it means much faster 
compilation time and thus.
+
+We also set up Gitlab-based continuous integration (CI) for all three projects, which gives us a few bonuses 
over the previously used Jenkins-based solution. One of them is that Windows builds are now available for 
every successful commit to GIMP's master branch.
+
+Over the year, Alex Samorukov contributed a bunch of improvements to the macOS version, including support 
for Catalina.
+
+# Development in the unstable branch
+
+As you probably already know from the previous report, we manage to backport most of the new features form 
the unstable branch to the stable one. However, some changes are the result of refactoring and some changes 
rely on the tech not available in the GTK2 stack.
+
+One of the latter things is the new API for plug-ins to preserve their settings across sessions. It has been 
currently tested on file format support plug-ins. We expect more to happen there. This part of the work was 
done mostly by Michael Natterer.
+
+A really important change came from Jehan who ported GIMP to GObject Introspection and switched GIMP to use 
Python 3. This means two things: 1) with GIMP 3, we will stop relying on the now obsolete version of Python, 
and 2) developers of 3rd party Python plug-ins will have to update their code.
+
+Even more interestingly to contributors, the port to GObject Introspection means it is now possible to write 
new plug-ins in Lua and JavaScript.
+
+Most recently, Jehan also started working on a new feature that checks for availability of a newer version 
of the program and suggests downloading an update. It also integrates into the bug reporting dialog to tell 
the user if the version currently in use is out of date and the update may not have that bug anymore.
+
+# What's new in GEGL and babl
+
+There have been numerous changes in both GEGL and babl:
+
+- a ton of changes in the standalone GEGL tool, making it suitable for node-based compositing and video 
playback;
+- far more sophisticated CMYK support, up to blending CMYK and RGB pixel data, reading and writing CMYK TIFF 
and JPEG files;
+- a better use of available CPU cores on more operations thanks to newly added dynamic computation of 
per-operation thread cost;
+- better memory management: when you close large images in GIMP, it will now free used memory a lot faster.
+- sharper output when downscaling images with the cubic sampler.
+
+Øyvind Kolås also started a new project, [ctx](https://pippin.gimp.org/ctx/), an API inspired by Cairo and 
HTML5 canvas’ 2D rendering context. The ctx library already has support for floating point pixel formats, and 
that support is geared to end up generic for gray, RGB, CMYK and other multi-component formats. The latter is 
one of the things we’ve been missing in Cairo to add proper support for color spaces other than RGB-based 
ones.
+
+# Team changes
+
+Most of the source code changes in all three projects are still coming from the usual suspects: Michael 
Natterer, Jehan Pages, Ell, Øyvind Kolås, and Thomas Manni. Nevertheless, there have been a few new 
contributors who seem interested in sticking around.
+
+We now also have a small dedicated team of people, frogonia and nmat, who triage bug reports on a regular 
basis and do user support on the IRC channel. Liam Quin who has been team member for a long time, now does 
the vast majority of user support on Facebook.
+
+Of course, we keep getting no small amount of translation updates from new and seasoned translators. In 
fact, since the v2.10.14 release, we now mention non-code contributors to the project in release notes.
+
+# What's next in 2020
+
+There is an agreement among team members that 2.99.x releases are long overdue. We are likely to tie loose 
ends and start shipping them soon.
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