[gimp-web] Draft for GIMP 2.9.6 release news.

[Jehan <jehanp src gnome org>]

commit eac95d897cc1c2e845efe4fb4719d0f075f25bdf
Author: Jehan <jehan girinstud io>
Date:   Sun Apr 25 19:19:51 2021 +0200

    Draft for GIMP 2.9.6 release news.

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+Title: Development version: GIMP 2.9.6 Released
+Date: 2021-04-25
+Category: News
+Authors: Wilber
+Slug: gimp-2-9-6-released
+Summary: "Don't worry, be h-API"
+
+GIMP 2.9.6 contains quite a few visible and interesting improvements,
+yet the biggest changes are hidden to the general eyes into the API
+(Application Programming Interface for plug-in developers) which
+is evolving quite steadily.
+
+⚠️  Many of the third-party plug-ins already ported for GIMP 2.99.2 or
+2.99.4 will end up broken, and there is a high chance they will break
+again in further development releases until we stabilize the API. We
+apologize for this. This is the price of making plug-ins for a program
+in-development, yet we figured it's better to do this now rather than
+ending up stuck with a bad interface for the years to come (as stability
+will be ensured once GIMP 3 will be out).
+
+Release highlights:
+
+- Off-canvas guides
+- Template selector in Canvas Size dialog
+- Pinch gesture on canvas for zooming
+- Improved Paint Select (experimental) tool
+- Better handling of gAMA and/or cHRM chunks of PNG
+- API evolution
+
+<figure>
+<img src="{attach}TODO-wilber-and-co.jpg" alt="TODO - Wilber and co. comics strip"/>
+<figcaption>
+<em>"TODO" by <a href="https://film.zemarmot.net";>Aryeom</a>, Creative Commons by-sa 4.0 - GIMP 2.99.6</em>
+</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+# Core improvements
+## Off-canvas guides
+
+In the continuation of [out-of-canvas area
+visibility](https://www.gimp.org/news/2019/10/31/gimp-2-10-14-released/#out-of-canvas-viewing-and-editing),
+guides can now be placed outside the canvas.
+
+For people worried of graphical interaction with guides, the workflow to
+delete them (dropping the guides off-canvas) just changed to be about
+dropping the guides off-viewport, which turns out to not be so different
+after experimenting with this change in production for a few months.
+
+<figure>
+<img src="{attach}gimp-2.9.6-off-canvas-guides.gif" alt="Off-canvas guides - GIMP 2.9.6"/>
+<figcaption>
+<em>Off-canvas guides - GIMP 2.9.6</em>
+</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+## Template selector in Canvas Size dialog
+
+It is common usage to resize your canvas to a standard format, for
+instance paper formats. For this reason, our recent and quite prolific
+contributor Stanislav Grinkov implemented a template selector
+in the Canvas Size dialog.
+
+<figure>
+<img src="{attach}gimp-2.9.6-template-selector-canvas-size.gif" alt="Template selector in Canvas Size dialog 
- GIMP 2.9.6"/>
+<figcaption>
+<em>Template selector in Canvas Size dialog - GIMP 2.9.6</em>
+</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+In order to handle the cases when you choose a template with expected
+pixel density differing from the image's, you may be queried to decide
+whether you want to set your image to the template's density or scale
+the template's dimensions to match the image's density.
+
+## Pinch gesture on canvas for zooming
+
+This is very fresh news as we merged this code (by Povilas Kanapickas,
+brand new contributor!) only a few days ago: GIMP now has pinch gesture
+support for touchpads and some tablets (it might not work with all
+tablets, in particular touch screens). In other words, if you have a
+device with touch support, such as a laptop touchpad (also tested
+successfully with a Wacom Intuos Pro), you can zoom in and out through
+pinching movements with your fingers.
+
+This is known to work on Linux/Wayland and it might work in a few months
+in X11 (after [this
+patch](https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/merge_requests/530)
+gets merged). We have not found anyone yet to test the feature on
+Windows and macOS (it relies on generic GTK code, but the exact support
+depends on specific per-platform implementation). I guess this will be
+the surprise for this release. We welcome any feedback [in the
+associated
+report](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/merge_requests/401).
+
+As a note of interest, we used to say that [gesture
+support](https://www.gimp.org/news/2020/11/06/gimp-2-99-2-released/#improved-input-devices-support)
+was not our biggest priority, hence might not make it to GIMP 3. Yet
+here it is! Another great example that GIMP is made by anyone. All it
+takes for your dream features to happen is someone willing to contribute
+code! It might be you! 🙂
+
+## Paint Select tool
+
+The tool is still listed as experimental as it is not yet deemed
+finished by its contributor, Thomas Manni. Nevertheless it has already
+improved quite a bit and starts getting really interesting.
+
+Several bugs were fixed and selection is now viewport-based which allows
+it to be much faster already depending on the zoom. Yet this is not the
+expected optimization which is planned to make the tool work really fast.
+Expect more to come!
+
+This work has been happening both on GIMP code base and on our graphics
+engine library's code base, GEGL.
+
+# Plug-ins
+## PNG gAMA and cHRM chunks
+
+The PNG format has several ways to manage colors, one of them is through
+color profiles, which is also the logics in GIMP, as in any modern
+graphics editor. In the PNG specification, the presence of a color
+profile is considered priority and overrides any of the other color
+management methods.
+
+The other ways were through the `gAMA`, `cHRM` and `sRGB` chunks (a
+"chunk" is basically a PNG metadata), where instead of giving a full
+profile, a PNG could store its gamma correction as a single value (hence
+exact sRGB gamma curve cannot be stored this way, but an approximation
+of it can) in `gAMA` while the primary chromaticities can be stored in
+the `cHRM` chunk.
+
+GIMP's core logics never supported (and still won't because it is an old
+deprecated method which should not be implemented to new code) only
+using such a single gamma value. Yet we wanted to be able to read and
+display such images correctly.
+GIMP's historical workaround was to store the `gAMA` and `cHRM` values
+in a `parasite` on the XCF file, and just put it back when exporting to
+PNG again (which means that the image was wrongly displayed in GIMP
+itself but fine after export).
+
+Now GIMP will propose creating an actual ICC profile from the `gAMA` and
+`cHRM` chunks, thus the image will be properly displayed. Since we don't
+store anymore the PNG chunks, the "*Save gamma*" export option has been
+removed from PNG export dialog. Only proper profile is supported now
+(i.e. an old-style PNG image which goes through a roundtrip
+import-export in GIMP will come in with gAMA/cHRM chunk and out with an
+equivalent ICC profile). Note that it is also recommended by the PNG
+spec to [export with ICC profiles when a encoder software supports
+it](http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/spec/1.2/PNG-Encoders.html#E.Encoder-color-handling).
+
+## More plug-in work
+
+Our screenshot plug-ins has several implementations and used to always
+display a dialog. With portals nowadays (especially for Wayland and
+sandbox-style packaging), more of the logics is moved toward the portal
+itself. This is the case in particular for the Freedesktop portal which
+asks what and how to shoot your screen contents.
+Therefore when GIMP uses the Freedesktop portal, it won't show anymore
+our now-redundant dialog.
+
+Color profile and comment are now saved on each layer of an exported
+TIFF file to prevent any ambiguity for other programs (since every layer
+can have its own profile and comment in the TIFF format). As usual,
+while GIMP tries to be lenient on errors in files it imports (allowing
+to salvage even broken files), it should be strict on its own exported
+files.
+
+Other plug-ins got some minor improvements, such as progression feedback
+during PDF export, multi-layer selection support in PSD, Qbist ported to
+the new API…
+
+# API evolution
+
+TODO
+
+# New translation for the installer
+
+Our Windows installer for the development release got a new full
+[translation](https://l10n.gnome.org/languages/he/gnome-gimp/ui/) in
+**Hebrew** (GIMP itself was already partially localized in Hebrew).
+
+Once again, we want to thank all the translators doing an incredible
+work!
+
+# GEGL and babl
+
+Since we released a stable version not long ago, GIMP 2.99.6 relies on
+the same versions of [babl](https://gegl.org/babl/) 0.1.86 and
+[GEGL](https://gegl.org/) 0.4.30, which is getting stabler as time goes.
+
+# Downloading GIMP 2.99.6
+
+As previous development versions, GIMP 2.99.6 is available on [GIMP
+official website (gimp.org)](https://www.gimp.org/downloads/devel/):
+
+* The Linux flatpak has been published so that anyone who installed it
+  previously should have an update proposed by their software manager
+  (or from terminal: `flatpak update org.gimp.GIMP`).
+
+* The Windows installer is already available. Most mirrors have picked
+  it up, but some still might still not have. So if the download fails,
+  just try to click the `Download` button again.
+
+* We are not sure yet when we will be able to publich macOS DMG packages
+  for development versions. It depends on contributor time and
+  willingness. We also remind that our team is fully made of volunteers
+  so if you wish to help on macOS side (or anything else), we will
+  welcome you with opened arms! 🤗
+
+# What's next
+
+Lately, a lot of the focus has been on the application interface
+(`libgimp`), which we are still tweaking in order to provide the best
+plug-in interface possible, based on [25
+years](https://www.gimp.org/news/2020/11/21/25-years-of-gimp/) of shared
+community experience. Even though this part is not very visible, it is
+important because we ensure major API version stability, i.e. that any
+API change after GIMP 3.0 release can only be incremental, cruft over
+more cruft. This is our one chance to do things better (as well as we
+can, errors will be made of course, but let's keep these limited).
+
+Even for non-developers, a good API will mean that you will be able to
+install many useful plug-ins in the future.
+
+On GTK3 side itself, the port of `GtkAction` is still the main big
+remaining area. Some serious Wayland issues remain to be investigated,
+the space invasion is ongoing, and so on.
+Even though some progression has happened on most topics, the [development
+report](https://www.patreon.com/posts/what-remains-to-40087754) we
+shared a few months ago is still quite accurate.
+
+As usual, we won't give any type of deadline or release date for GIMP
+3.0. We don't know ourselves, and because it depends on volunteer time.
+We are very happy to have seen some new talented contributors these last
+few months (hopefully they will stay with us for a long time). We would
+enjoy getting more so if anyone wants to help, you are more than welcome
+to join the fun!
+
+Finally, please don't forget you can [donate to the project and personally
+fund several GIMP developers](https://www.gimp.org/donating/), as a way to
+give back and accelerate the development of GIMP.