Re: [Gimp-developer] GIMP branched: new stable branch gimp-2-10

[Elle Stone <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>]

Hi All,

On 05/20/2018 05:23 PM, Elle Stone wrote:
> On 05/20/2018 04:31 PM, Michael Natterer wrote:
> > On Sun, 2018-05-20 at 21:27 +0200, Carmelo DrRaw wrote:
> > > What is the recommended branch for nightly development snapshots?
> > >
> > > Should one provide snapshots for both master and gimp-2-10?
> >
> > That depends on what you want or what these snapshots are for:
> >
> > gimp-2-10 is where 2.10.x releases are made from.
> >
> > master is bleeding edge.

> Is current git master more or less stable for actual use? For context, I 
> started using GIMP-2.9 back in 2013 and from my point of view it was 
> already sufficiently stable. I don't mind the occasional crash (well, 
> assuming the crash doesn't destroy XCF files that aren't actually open 
> for editing).

Regarding which branch to use for editing (as opposed to which 
branch(es) to provide for users to choose from), over on the gimp-gui 
mailing list Jehan had this to say about the new gimp git master branch, 
post-merging with the gtk+3 branch:

> A note: are you actually planning on working with master? Even though
> for the last few years, master was absolutely production-usable, this is
> not the case with new master with GTK+3.
>
> A lot of stuff is broken on the GTK+3 port. As I write this, I am
> working on the icon themes for instance which are completely broken.
> This is not production-ready. If you want a moving target while still
> stay usable, build "gimp-2-10" branch (which is old master). I predict
> it will still stay quite active, much more than what the "gimp-2-8"
> branch used to be since we will continue to backport features when
> possible/not too hard.
I had asked on the gimp-gui mailing list about some issues with the 
GTK+3/"new git" branch GTK+3 user interface. Even apart from other stuff 
that might be broken, the current git GIMP master GTK+3 interface is not 
very nice to use, at least not as it appears on my computer. The thread 
is here, if anyone is interested:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-gui-list/2018-May/thread.html
and click on the thread "gimp git master branch user interface".

Personally I've decided to hold off switching to the "new git/GTK+3" 
branch and stick with the 2.10 branch, at least until the user interface 
issues are resolved.

I guess changing toolkits is a necessary evil (eg QT4 to QT5, GTK+2 to 
GTK+3 with GTK+4 already in the wings . . . ). But it uses up a lot of 
developer time and energy, and the benefits of changing toolkits to the 
actual purposes for which we use editing software seem to me to be a bit 
iffy.

For a very insightful developer perspective on a comparable change in 
toolkits, when Krita went from QT4 to QT5, see this link:

https://valdyas.org/fading/software/krita-3-0/

Best,
Elle

> > > > On 20 May 2018, at 21:17, Michael Natterer <mitch gimp org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi everybody,
> > > >
> > > > We just branched:
> > > >
> > > > Stable GIMP 2.10.x lives on the new gimp-2-10 branch now.
> > > >
> > > > The gtk3-port branch has been merged to master, we're
> > > > back to normal development in master again.