Gimp Traffic #4 For 4 Jul 1999

There were 27 different contributors. 14 posted more than once. 13 posted last week too.

Michael Natterer wrote that he had committed a help browser into the CVS for inclusion in the next versions of the Gimp. The help browser use the same HTML widget as the Gnome Help Browser, GtkXmHTML. GtkXmHTML is currently only packaged with gnome-libs, so to use it you need gnome-libs installed. Shawn T . Amundson suggested contacting Miguel de Icaza, of the GNOME project, about how to move GtkXmHTML out of gnome-lib since there really isn't anything that the package is dependent on.

Michael also wrote that Olof and Karin, of the Official Gimp User's Manual, have volunteered to write the help for the newly in place help system. Later, under the Subject: [gimp-devel] GIMP Help Browser / GIMP Help system (http://www.usaworks.com/~sam/gimp-devel/msg00792.html) , Olof wrote:

Well, I don't know how much help you guys/girls want on the help system. Anyway my and Karins idea was to extract information out of the Gimp User's Manual. Then process the extracted information so it will be suitable for a help system.

The information will then be "saved" into small help files that is present in a directory hierarchy resembling a logical way of describing GIMPs hierarchy / functionality. This will make it very easy to generate TOC and INDEX for the help system by using ordinary UNIX scripts.

There has been a lot of discussion about the format to use for the help system. This is a naturally important, but what is even more important to discuss is what should be in a help system.

It is very easy to over blot a help with for example unnessesary images. My and Karin idea was to have a compact help system providing the user with necessary information how to operate the "tool". For tools that are hard to understand a "wizard" like example could be provided.

We will use a very simple HTML code to make the help system.

There was some discussion, including talk of linking the help system to the PDF'd version of the Gimp User's Manual.

Zach Beane wrote that he was impressed with the new thumbnail that appears in the file selector for the Layers, Channels, and Paths dialog, but it seemed to be having problems with greyscale images.

Tom Rathbone wrote that the same thing was happening to him too, but also that some interesting green noise came briefly into the thumbnail while loading. A few other people confirmed that they were having a problem as well.

Andy Thomas wrote that he had a fix for the problem, but wouldn't be able to place it in the CVS for a couple of days or a week.

Shuji Narazaki posted a patch, and wrote: "A few weeks ago, I made another bell-and-whistle: drop-open. You can open images by dragging icons from gmc or guash to the gimp's toolbox. Enjoy, if you like it :-)"

The patch got a very positive response from people, and everyone hoped it would appear in the CVS soon.

At the end of the short thread tigert asked about the possibility of saving to an ftp or web server. End of Thread.

1.			Gimp Help Browser
2.			Menu Thumbnails
3.			Drag and Drop

Gimp Traffic #4 For 4 Jul 1999

By Sam Phillips