Update - Multicolored text is now supported in GIMP

Thanks to Michael Natterer (mitch) who had some time to do some cleaning to my patch, and integrate his patch to allow true rendering of color for text (instead of rendering an alpha mask) GIMP now supports multicolored text :D

Go test it from the latest source and report bugs if you find some ;-)

Some updates + Feedback Needed

As I said in my previous post, I'm a bit inactive due to the tests which I had in university. After finishing Logics for Computer Science, tomorrow I have my last test - the dreaded Calculus 2...

So starting tomorrow noon (it's night here right now), I'm back on full time GIMP coding! Here is what I'm up to, and reasons for some delays:

Multicolored Text Layers
On their way - no real reason for a delay, I just need to fix some (hopefully) easy bugs :-)

Where is the PDF plugin which you promised?
A new API is being introduced into GIMP - an api for accessing layers, channels, masks and paths - all as GimpItem objects. I want this api to be finished before I'm done, so I'll write the code once.
Also, it's currently impossible for plugins to access the layers inside layer groups - instead they get one layer which is a merged version of all the group. This means that text as text will be ruined if it's inside a group, so I'll wait a while to see if there is any chance it will be fixed before I continue.
Finally,it's probably better to finish implementing the multicolored text patch, so I'll be able to test the pdf plugin when it's already integrated =)

Angular Guides - Feedback Needed
Before you get excited, don't. I'm checking the option of adding support for guides with arbitrary angles inside GIMP (instead of only horizontal and vertical like now). I'm in doubt this is going to happen soon - I had a day to play with the code a bit, but nothing more.
Someone (mitch if I remember right) suggested to implement the new guides system as paths; You can currently snap to the active path as if it was a guide (View->Snap to active Path) - that's a less commonly known feature. Anyway, Implementing it this way will possibly allow us to add things like isometric/polar grids and other snapping shape we can imagine. So even if this sounds harder, it's worth a check.

Here is where I need your feedback on:

• What kinds/shapes of guides/grids would you like to see in GIMP?
• Do we need guide groups (for enabling/disabling many guides at once)?
• Other guide related requests?

I don't promise anything yet, but if I'll know what I'm aiming for before I begin, it might help :-)

Usability of GIMP's menus - Feedback Needed
Finally, there have been a discussion on the usability of the GIMP menus. There were discussions about adding searchboxes to search GIMP's menus (since these can get cluttered if having many plugins).

Here is where I need your feedback on:

• Would you like to be able to categorize your plugins? Or maybe tag them and browse by tags?
• Do you need to be able to edit the categorization of an existing plugin (if such categorization exists)?
• How would you like to search for a plugins/built-in functions? What should appear next to the description of each action/plugin?

I'll raise some of the suggestions on the discussions in the mailing list or the developer's IRC. We need your feedback! If we want to make GIMP better for the users, we better hear them =)

Progress - Multicolored text layers in GIMP

Hello again,

Before I vanish to study to some more unexpected tests here is a small update on multi-colored text layers. mitch (Michael Natterer) has fixed up a patch, which now allows the text core to render multicolored text! Until now, text in GIMP was rendered as an alpha mask for a color layer which prevented my patch from being any good. The original reason for this, was to avoid having to handle images with different color modes (indexed/whatever) by rendering only the shape as a mask.

So, I tried my patch again today. It works, if you want gray text :D I have some issues with the conversions, but the patch basically works.

I did say it basically works - even if it's not the color you expected :D

For those of your who want to try this out, here is the bug report Bug 620674 - Adding support for multi-colored text layer. There are two patches attached - one patch by me which adds the functionality in the gui/core for specifying several colors in one layer, and the other patch (by mitch) which enables rendering of the text-layout itself instead of using it as a mask on a color layer.
Download both patches to the directory with the source of GIMP, and run the following commands in bash:

cd GIMP_SOURCE_DIRECTORY # replace with the actual path
patch -p1 < MITCH_PATCH # replace with the actual path to the patch file
patch -p1 < MY_PATCH # replace with the actual path to the patch file

Now re-compile GIMP and enjoy =)
The color selection yields the wrong colors (bright shades of gray) but it works.

I'll be back next week hopefully, but it may take a bit more time (Big exams...)

p.s.
I see that a very big fraction of the readers of this blog are from Russia - so спасибо! (For English speakers, that's thanks in Russian)