[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Gimp port

[From: Kalle Vahlman]

On 8/4/05, Simon Budig <simon at budig.de> wrote:
> Let me introduce myself before the actual reply. My name is Simon Budig,
> I am involved with the GIMP development since about 1998, working at the
> University of Siegen and learned about the Nokia 770 via Florian and
> Nils. I can't wait to get my own device  :-)

I've heard that one before ;)
 
> Koen Kooi (koen at handhelds.org) wrote:
> > If you don't mind switching between windows (the gimp main window and
> > the picture) it's pretty useable. There's one big problem: 64MB ram is
> > just not enough since the gimp caches a lot of stuff *and* swaps to
> > $HOME/.gimp. But if you can get the memory usage down it would be a nice
> > showcase that 'embedded' doesn't mean 'dumbed down'. We need such fluff :)
> 
> The main problem with the memory consumtion is a mechanism called the
> "projection", which holds the composited image (all layers merged
> together). This is unfortunately *always* present, even when the image
> is a simple RGB image. Since the projection is *always* RGBA this means,
> that a simple RGB image needs twice as much memory as necessary.

That's nasty. But if one were to make a tool designed for retouching,
the alfa channel is not as necessary as otherwise (unless some filter
requires it of course). So the projection would be first to go, as you
point out. Ability to disable projection (ie. single-layer mode)
sounds like something that could be nice to have in regular gimp too.
Do I get it right that you wouldn't need projection if working with
just a single layer and without alfa channel?
 
> Some good news:
> 
> The current CVS gimp can get built without user interface (primarily for
> scripting purposes). This one does not even link against X11/GTK+ and it
> gets built from the very same sources as the regular GIMP. There is a
> vtable that gets filled with functions to create the user interface.
> It should be possible to hook different functions in this place to
> create a UI specific for the needs of devices with smaller screens. It
> also would be great to test, if the concept for the hooks is sound.

This indeed is good news for maemo porting :)

Ah, if only the earth would spin a little slower so I could have 30h days... ;)

> Also the Gimp maintainers (Sven Neumann and Michael Natterer) both were
> lucky bastards at the Guadec and both won a Nokia 770.

I think many on this list will agree to that :)

> I am fairly
> certain that they will hack on that when they have the device in their
> hands.

Sounds like the 770 has a possibility to become a cool image processing tool ;)
 
> So yes, I definitely believe that it is possible to have Gimp on the
> Maemo or GPE platform, it even should be possible to nicely integrate it
> with Hildon, although IMHO a nicely done pure GTK+ embedded interface
> has bigger chances on getting accepted for Gimp CVS.

There's basically just three things that are a must for Hildonized app:

1. HildonApp to get task navigator integration (easily, not strictly required)
2. HildonAppView for multiple views (again, not strictly required)
3. HildonAppview's menu instead of menubar (hmm, this is not required
either, but frees up UI space)

So it's at least theoretically possible to drop the vbox you'd
normally put in GtkWindow to a HildonAppView and you are good to go.

So the actual interface *can* be pure GTK+, even if it's made for the
Maemo environment.

-- 
Kalle Vahlman, zuh at iki.fi