GIMP 3.2.6 Released With Some Early Preparations Toward Eventual GTK4 Port

The long-awaited GIMP 3.0 release for transitioning from GTK2 to GTK3 only saw its stable release last year. But with GTK4 already being out for years, GIMP developers have begun making some very early preparations toward an inevitable GTK4 port. GIMP 3.2.6 is now available with some of those preparations and a variety of other fixes and enhancements for this free software alternative to Adobe Photoshop. On the performance front, GIMP 3.2.6 saw "many improvements" to boost the performance when loading a large number of fonts. There is some noted lag that still applies but overall making better progress on a speedier start for those with many font files present as well as when typing in the text tool and closing the font lists. Further performance work is expected when moving to GTK4. Arguably most intriguing is that GIMP 3.2.6 has begun seeing preparations for an eventual GTK4 port! With GIMP 3.0 they finally moved from GTK2 to GTK3 while GTK4 has been out already for nearly six years. GIMP developers have begun making some changes to the codebase for avoiding deprecated functionality and other changes to be more friendly toward the eventual GTK4 port. Going from GTK3 to GTK4 is less invasive than GTK2 to GTK3, but it will still likely be some time before seeing what could be "GIMP 4.0". Of other new features, GIMP 3.2.6 adds the ability to use Cut on a layer group. There is also a new "Rotation" (Barrel Rotation) dynamic input for painting and used by newer Wacom pens. For macOS users, there is a new macOS package that is generated at the same time as the Linux and Windows packages. GIMP 3.2.6 is rounded out by a number of security fixes as well as smaller bug fixes. Downloads and more details on GIMP 3.2.6 via GIMP.org.