Almost all developers are moving up to GTK4, and GIMP, after which the library is named, is still on GTK2.

GIMP 2.10.34

Almost every day, or at least every seven days, we read that some developer or project has made the port of your app to use GTK4. This available from end of 2020, and currently has already received ten medium upgrades, so it cannot be said that it is still immature. What is somewhat striking is that GIMP, after which the library is named, is still in GTK2 today.

And the thing goes long. To be able to upload to a new version it takes time, and that time can prevent it from improving in other points. The next major release of the GNU Image Manipulation Program will be GIMP 3.0, and the developer team behind it is prioritizing features. They want to release GIMP 3.0 as soon as possible, and to do it with the right updates and without bugs.

GIMP and GTK4: question of aesthetics?

There is a thread (in fact there are several) on GitLab in which they talk about the subject, but it has not been updated for a year. The thread was opened over two years ago, when GTK4 was just released. There are at least two messages that explain how the issue is. @Jehan says they're not against moving to GTK4, but it doesn't just magically snap your fingers. He requires a lot of time, and that it would be a change that no one would notice in the end. Therefore, they are focused on GTK3.

On the other hand, @prokoudine said a year ago that:

We have already made the mistake of trying to do too much. Hence the 6 year development cycle between 2.8 and 2.10 (and the 4 years between 2.6 and 2.8). It's been more than 3 years since version 2.10.0, which is a lot, not to say too much, and we still have important parts to complete. It's hard to say in advance how long the migration from gtk3 to gtk4 will take. Delaying the release of version 3.0 for another month is acceptable. Delaying it another half year or more is not.

Most everyone is treating v3.0 as the necessary evil that has to happen before we can start working on really exciting things like non-destructive editing.

In short, they believe that getting to GTK4 is not worth the time it takes, or not right now. It's a "nice thing to do", but we'll have to wait for GIMP 3.2 at the very least. This is something that was said a year ago, so when may vary.

GNU Image Manipulation Program needs that facelift... and more

GIMP looks the same for a long time. I remember using Photoshop on Linux using PlayOnLinux, but for what I needed, GIMP was enough, so I stopped playing with WINE and decided to make the change. Since that time, the image of the most popular free Photoshop alternative has not changed, or it has and my memory is failing me.

That people don't use GIMP may be due to its interface. I'm not saying it; says Edward Snowden and who taught me part of what I know about HTM/CSS/JavaScript. As a GIMP user, I don't agree, but people like those mentioned frown when talking about this program. What is certain is that it looks a bit dated, especially when you go into RawTherapee or DarkTable, applications that GIMP relies on to "develop" RAW photos. There is everything like newer, in the case of the first with the characteristic blue of GTK3 + for everything.

What Snowden is probably referring to is distribution (position of things, nothing to do with distro). Photoshop seems like more intuitive, at least for those who are used to it. I don't know, this is already a matter of taste.

GIMP 3.0 does not have a release date yet. Right now it is in beta phase, and it will not arrive in the form of a stable version until they close everything they have pending.


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  1.   Nonamed said

    By the way, whoever uses gtk3 and is not interested in porting to gtk4 can use ctk, it's a fork of gtk3:

    https://github.com/cafe-desktop/ctk