From 4047d237e5a913e8a528c5ed3b4ef35cb8b48bdd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: luxagraf Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2016 10:23:08 -0500 Subject: added first draft of gimp 2.9.2 review --- firefox-developer-edition.txt | 28 ---------------------------- gimp-bit-depth.jpg | Bin 0 -> 207333 bytes gimp-filters.jpg | Bin 0 -> 315196 bytes gimp292-review.txt | 32 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ published/firefox-developer-edition.txt | 28 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 5 files changed, 60 insertions(+), 28 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 firefox-developer-edition.txt create mode 100644 gimp-bit-depth.jpg create mode 100644 gimp-filters.jpg create mode 100644 gimp292-review.txt create mode 100644 published/firefox-developer-edition.txt diff --git a/firefox-developer-edition.txt b/firefox-developer-edition.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5c6cf9e..0000000 --- a/firefox-developer-edition.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,28 +0,0 @@ -Mozilla recently celebrated the one year anniversary of Firefox Developer Edition, the company's browser and tools aimed specifically at developers. - -When it first launched the Developer Edition of Firefox wasn't much different than the regular Firefox release, but that's changed over the last year. The latest version, Firefox DE 44, released earlier this month, packs a wealth of new features and improvements, particularly for anyone working with HTML5 and CSS 3 animation. - -The Developer Edition's Page Inspector tool adds an animation panel that allows developers to step through animations node by node and easily scrub, pause, and inspect each animation on the webpage. The animation panel also ties into the DOM inspector so it's easy to switch between global and detail views of your animation. The animation panel also offers a visual cubic-bezier editor for tweaking any easing you need to apply to animations. - -The animation tools make it much easier to create and edit animations in HTML without ever needing to leave the browser, but what might be the single most useful tool in Developer Tools 44 is the new memory profiling tools -- useful not just for developers, but by proxy end users who will thank you for reducing your memory footprint. - -The memory tool offers a snapshot of everything in memory on a per-tab basis and then breaks everything down by type. There are four types of memory objects to look at: Objects, which are JavaScript objects grouped by class name, Scripts, Strings and a generic "Other" for everything that isn't one of the first three. - -There's one other way to inspect memory, though you'll need to turn it on each time you need it since it uses quite a bit of memory itself, "allocation stack." With allocation stack activated (look for the checkbox at the top of the Memory Panel) you can quickly reference the actual code that created each object in memory. That means, if you've got some huge object you want to refactor, you can quickly see exactly which lines of code in your app created it. It might be the smartest JavaScript memory debugging tool I've ever used. Be sure to check out the Mozilla Hacks blog for more details and a nice video of everything you can do with the Memory debugger. - -Equally useful, though rougher around the edges, is the new WebSocket Debugging API. This API allows for monitoring WebSocket frames. Eventually Mozilla plans to turn this into a new WebSocket inspection panel, but at the moment you'll need to install an "experimental" add-on created by a Firefox Developer Tools engineer. Experimental or not I didn't have any problems using the add-on, it's no less stable than the rest of the Developer Edition. Because it's built atop a pre-release version of Firefox, the Developer Edition can be a bit less stable than traditional Firefox, but it does mean you get new features faster. For example, this release starts with support for Mozilla's Electrolysis project -- AKA multi-process Firefox -- enabled by default. - -This release also adds a new CSS filter inspector that lets you visually create, re-order, and edit CSS 3 filters, viewing your changes in real-time on the page. - -There are two new measurement tools in this version as well. The first is a set of pixel rulers along the page margins -- think the pixel rulers in Photoshop or Gimp. The second is the more useful new measurement tool. Click the icon in the developer panel toolbar and then just click and drag anywhere on the page to get a pixel-based measurement. This is one of those incredibly simple tools that once you use it you'll wonder how you ever did without it. It's a bit like what might be the single most useful tool for developers -- the forget button. The forget button resides in the toolbar and when clicked will quickly wipe your cache, cookies and browsing history for the last five minutes. - -Part of the problem with Firefox Developer Edition is that it doesn't come with a detailed manual (there is some great documentation, but it often lacks real-world "recipes" to show what you can do with all the various tools). To address that and showcase some potential ways the developer tools can be useful, web animation engineer Rachel Nabors helped Mozilla create DevTools Challenger, an interactive showcase that's both an example of how to use the various tools and an example of what you can build with them. - -When Firefox Developer Edition launched a year ago I was skeptical, especially given Mozilla's decision to abandon Mozilla Labs amid a string of failed projects. A year later however the Developer Edition has proved itself a valuable tool, with half a dozen features you won't find anywhere else. Even better, thus far, the development pace shows no signs of stagnating. - -screenshots: - -ff-dev-memory-allocation.jpg: Inspecting memory by allocation to quickly find any oversized chunks of memory your app is using. -ff-dev-cubic-bezier-editor.jpg: Visual editor for cubic bezier easing in animation. -ff-dev-inspecting-animation.jpg: Using the animation inspector. -ff-dev-css-filter-editor.jpg: Visually editing CSS filters with live feedback on the page. diff --git a/gimp-bit-depth.jpg b/gimp-bit-depth.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35c6898 Binary files /dev/null and b/gimp-bit-depth.jpg differ diff --git a/gimp-filters.jpg b/gimp-filters.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1db3ba8 Binary files /dev/null and b/gimp-filters.jpg differ diff --git a/gimp292-review.txt b/gimp292-review.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35639fc --- /dev/null +++ b/gimp292-review.txt @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +The Gimp project recently announced GIMP 2.9.2, which, despite the relatively obscure version number, represents a major leap forward for the popular image editing suite. + +This latest release is still considered a preview, but the features here will form the base of the stable release GIMP 2.10. In the mean time I've found the 2.9.2 to be very stable, though you will need to compile it yourself in most cases. + +Why bother compiling? This release has a lot of under the hood changes, particularly it largely finishes up the move to the Generic Graphics Library, better know as GEGL. GEGL is GIMP's "new" image processing engine and the project has been slowly incorporating GEGL code for quite a few releases. In fact, while the GEGL in GIMP still gets referred to as "new," the project itself began life in 2000 and GIMP has been slowly porting over to GEGL since 2007. + +GIMP 2.6 (which came way back 2008) featured a few GEGL-based color grading tools and an option to use GEGL "filters," which were label as "experimental". With 2012's GIMP 2.8 GEGL made its way into "projection—flattened representation of stacked layers". + +Now the upcoming GIMP 2.10 will use GEGL for pretty much everything. + +That means GIMP 2.9.2 has support for high bit depth image (16/32bit per color channel processing). There's even an option for 64bit images though that appears to be a feature planned for the future. The GEGL support also means GIMP now has basic support for the OpenEXR high dynamic range imaging image file format. In addition to OpenEXR, GIMP 2.10 has been upgraded to read and write 16/32bit per color channel data from PNG, TIFF, PSD, and FITS files. + +The other big news in this release is the new on-canvas preview for image filters. In past versions of GIMP most filters only offered a very small preview window within the filter dialog box. It works, but it often means you have to stop interacting with the filter to zoom and pan around your image to see what the effect is doing. With 2.10 many filters will be able to apply their effect to your image in the background in real time. + +According to the GIMP wiki, 57 plugins have been ported to become GEGL operations, with another 27 in progress. Another 37 plugins still need to be ported. Unfortunately some photographer favorites like Unsharp Mask, Gaussian blur and Red Eye Removal -- all of which become much more usable with real-time previews -- are still works in progress (if you use the bleeding edge PPA for Ubuntu you'll find that Gaussian and Unsharp Mask have been updated to GEGL). Still, strictly by the numbers, the majority of GIMP's filters now offer live previews. + +Third party filters are a different story. Most have not yet been ported to GEGL. For example the incredibly powerful (and very popular) G'MIC plugin has not been ported to GEGL (and probably won't be any time soon given the fact that G'MIC is a stand-alone framework used in quite a few applications). G'MIC does, however, work just fine in GIMP 2.9.2. + +The work on the GEGL port also has another great fringe benefit in that downsizing operations -- that is, for example, downscaling an image for the web, now produces higher quality results. There's another new feature handy for images bound for the web: basic support for reading and exporting WebP images. + +WebP is Google's proposed image format that claims to produce smaller files at similar resolution to JPGs. So far it's only supported in the Chrome and Opera web browsers. GIMP's WebP support is missing a few features, like the ability to embed ICC profiles or metadata and support for WebP's animation feature, but given that the primary reason to use WebP is to reduce file size, stripping metadata is arguably a feature, not a bug. + +Completing the move to GEGL also puts some exciting new features on the GIMP roadmap, including the holy grail of image editing -- non-destructive editing. You'll have to wait for GIMP 3.2 before non-destructive editing lands, but in the mean time the high bit depth support and filter previews feature already make all the work (and users waiting) for GEGL feel well worth it. + +GIMP 2.9.2 also features a completely re-written color management plugin. It offers quite a few new features and much better color management support. It means that GIMP no longer completely fails with combining images with different color spaces. To go along with the high bit depth support GIMP now uses LittleCMS v2, which minimizes color fidelity loss when you convert images between the high and low bit depths. + +Like all odd-numbered releases, GIMP 2.9.2 is considered a technical preview. Unlike some past previews though, I've found this one to be rock solid in my testing. That said, don't try to do production work in this release. GIMP has a "when it's ready" release policy, but much of what's due in 2.10 is already in 2.9.2 so hopefully an official release of 2.10 won't be too far in the future. + +screenshots: + +gimp-bit-depth.jpg Processing high bit depth OpenEXR images in GIMP 2.9.2 +gimp-filters.jpg Live, full image previews with GEGL filters in GIMP 2.9.3 diff --git a/published/firefox-developer-edition.txt b/published/firefox-developer-edition.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c6cf9e --- /dev/null +++ b/published/firefox-developer-edition.txt @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +Mozilla recently celebrated the one year anniversary of Firefox Developer Edition, the company's browser and tools aimed specifically at developers. + +When it first launched the Developer Edition of Firefox wasn't much different than the regular Firefox release, but that's changed over the last year. The latest version, Firefox DE 44, released earlier this month, packs a wealth of new features and improvements, particularly for anyone working with HTML5 and CSS 3 animation. + +The Developer Edition's Page Inspector tool adds an animation panel that allows developers to step through animations node by node and easily scrub, pause, and inspect each animation on the webpage. The animation panel also ties into the DOM inspector so it's easy to switch between global and detail views of your animation. The animation panel also offers a visual cubic-bezier editor for tweaking any easing you need to apply to animations. + +The animation tools make it much easier to create and edit animations in HTML without ever needing to leave the browser, but what might be the single most useful tool in Developer Tools 44 is the new memory profiling tools -- useful not just for developers, but by proxy end users who will thank you for reducing your memory footprint. + +The memory tool offers a snapshot of everything in memory on a per-tab basis and then breaks everything down by type. There are four types of memory objects to look at: Objects, which are JavaScript objects grouped by class name, Scripts, Strings and a generic "Other" for everything that isn't one of the first three. + +There's one other way to inspect memory, though you'll need to turn it on each time you need it since it uses quite a bit of memory itself, "allocation stack." With allocation stack activated (look for the checkbox at the top of the Memory Panel) you can quickly reference the actual code that created each object in memory. That means, if you've got some huge object you want to refactor, you can quickly see exactly which lines of code in your app created it. It might be the smartest JavaScript memory debugging tool I've ever used. Be sure to check out the Mozilla Hacks blog for more details and a nice video of everything you can do with the Memory debugger. + +Equally useful, though rougher around the edges, is the new WebSocket Debugging API. This API allows for monitoring WebSocket frames. Eventually Mozilla plans to turn this into a new WebSocket inspection panel, but at the moment you'll need to install an "experimental" add-on created by a Firefox Developer Tools engineer. Experimental or not I didn't have any problems using the add-on, it's no less stable than the rest of the Developer Edition. Because it's built atop a pre-release version of Firefox, the Developer Edition can be a bit less stable than traditional Firefox, but it does mean you get new features faster. For example, this release starts with support for Mozilla's Electrolysis project -- AKA multi-process Firefox -- enabled by default. + +This release also adds a new CSS filter inspector that lets you visually create, re-order, and edit CSS 3 filters, viewing your changes in real-time on the page. + +There are two new measurement tools in this version as well. The first is a set of pixel rulers along the page margins -- think the pixel rulers in Photoshop or Gimp. The second is the more useful new measurement tool. Click the icon in the developer panel toolbar and then just click and drag anywhere on the page to get a pixel-based measurement. This is one of those incredibly simple tools that once you use it you'll wonder how you ever did without it. It's a bit like what might be the single most useful tool for developers -- the forget button. The forget button resides in the toolbar and when clicked will quickly wipe your cache, cookies and browsing history for the last five minutes. + +Part of the problem with Firefox Developer Edition is that it doesn't come with a detailed manual (there is some great documentation, but it often lacks real-world "recipes" to show what you can do with all the various tools). To address that and showcase some potential ways the developer tools can be useful, web animation engineer Rachel Nabors helped Mozilla create DevTools Challenger, an interactive showcase that's both an example of how to use the various tools and an example of what you can build with them. + +When Firefox Developer Edition launched a year ago I was skeptical, especially given Mozilla's decision to abandon Mozilla Labs amid a string of failed projects. A year later however the Developer Edition has proved itself a valuable tool, with half a dozen features you won't find anywhere else. Even better, thus far, the development pace shows no signs of stagnating. + +screenshots: + +ff-dev-memory-allocation.jpg: Inspecting memory by allocation to quickly find any oversized chunks of memory your app is using. +ff-dev-cubic-bezier-editor.jpg: Visual editor for cubic bezier easing in animation. +ff-dev-inspecting-animation.jpg: Using the animation inspector. +ff-dev-css-filter-editor.jpg: Visually editing CSS filters with live feedback on the page. -- cgit v1.2.3