Summary: If the OS/2 graphics market is a snooze, wake it up with GIMP - the impressive photo manipulation tool for Unix that's been ported to OS/2.

There's some good news and some bad news. The good news is that GIMP, a spectacular graphics tool with anti-aliasing support, layers, channels, and about as many plugin effects as there are pizzas in Chicago, has been ported to OS/2. The bad news is that you still need an X Window server to run it, and that's partially why we have the XFree86/2 installation tutorial in this issue too.

But GIMP, to be frank, is worth the bother. We think you'll easily see why.

What Is GIMP?

Short for GNU Image Manipulation Program, The GIMP can be a painting tool or an image manipulation tool. The difference being that when you paint you're creating a picture from scratch, and when you manipulate you're changing an existing picture.

The GIMP project was started in response to Photoshop's proprietary (and expensive) nature and as such, GIMP is free and open. Recently, programmers working together through The OS/2 Netlabs have ported it to OS/2 with the help of EMX and XFree. The use of XFree made the job much easier, of course, since they didn't have to port it to a whole new API, but it also means you won't be able to share its clipboard with any other OS/2 graphics program, nor will you be able to run it seamlessly on the OS/2 desktop unless you use a different X server such as Exceed (any X Windows program should work with any X server, even if one is running on a different operating system).

Installing GIMP

There are a number of sites where GIMP/2 has been mirrored for easier downloading. The primary site is the OS/2 Netlabs server in Switzerland, but if you're in the United States you might have better luck getting it from Hobbes. What you'll want is the latest version, 1.0.2 as of the time we write this article. These are the files you'll want to grab:

gimp102bin.zip (the main program files)
gimp10data.zip (the data files)
gimp10dataex.zip (extra, but optional data files such as brush shapes and textures)

Gimp is easier to install than XFree, although we think they were packaged in a dumb way. You just save these zip files to the root directory of the drive where you installed XFree and unzip them. They'll expand to complete directories within the XFree86 hierarchy, which is all well and good if Xfree86 is your X Server, but not fabulous if you use Exceed or PMX instead.

There's no formal install program other than GIMP itself, which will tell if you're running it for the first time. It should be noted that it considers "first time" to mean first time for a user, not the first time run on that particular machine. If you run a multi-user OS/2 system where the HOME directory is different for each person using the computer, then GIMP will re set itself up for that user the first time they run the program. This is a good thing, since it only stores its preferences plus any custom brushes and textures in each HOME directory, not the whole program.

After all the zip files have been extracted properly, just type "gimp" from an Xterm window within XFree or whichever X Server you have, navigating to the XFree86\bin directory first if necessary. GIMP can run in 256 color depth modes, but is much nicer if you start X with the "-- -bpp 16" option (or "-- -bpp 24" if your video card allows it) to jump into true-color modes.

Using GIMP

GIMP acts like most typical paint programs. While we won't go into much detail now, we will discuss a little about navigating around the program to get what you want. GIMP doesn't start up by allocating a big container window like Embellish or ColorWorks does, it just throws down a palette of tools on an otherwise empty desktop. Helpfully enough it will also display a brief usage tip.

To get started you might begin by creating a new file or opening an existing one. GIMP comes with enough filters to read everything but Klingon, so we doubt you'll have any problems importing what you've already got. When you have a canvas window open, try right clicking on it with the mouse. That's where the rest of the goodies are. In particular, go down to the "Dialogs" menu and start opening palettes such as the Layers palette (imagine your composition made up of sheets of acetate; each layer is separately editable but can be combined to view the whole image), or the Gradient Editor - a tool that compares with some of the earlier Kai's Power Tools gradient editors and honestly beats the pants off anything available for fully native OS/2.

Drawing Shapes

Some other basics to get acquainted with are the shape drawing tools (rectangles and circles). Like Photoshop, GIMP covers these basics by having you use the rectangular or circular selection tools, or the tools that select an area on the canvas and confine painting to that area. Select a circular area and click in it with the bucket fill tool and you'll create a filled circle or ellipse. Same goes for Rectangles. But if you need to make hollow shapes, you use the Brushes dialog to select which brush you use, then after drawing your shape with the selection tool pick Edit -> Stroke from the right-click menu. This command will paint the edges of the current selection (which could also be a freehand or "magic wand" selection) with the current brush. If the selection is circular, it'll paint a ring. Easy to do, even if it's a few more clicks than a regular "hollow circle" or "hollow rectangle" tool, such as what Embellish gives you.

For tutorials, more tips, and the whopping 19 megabyte PDF user manual, visit the official GIMP web site.

Scripts and Plugins

GIMP has benefited from a community of programmers clustering around its open source model, many of whom choose to add features through GIMP's scripting language: Script-Fu. As an interpreted language, you won't need a compiler to write plugins with it, and if you're completely lazy you'll be glad to find that almost all glossy gee-whiz graphical effects(.GIF, 44K) such as chromed lettering have already been implemented. Without opening any canvas windows, you can go to the "Xtras" menu in the GIMP toolbar and start playing with a few of the "Instant Logo" scripts it has listed there. Most of them will present a dialog box where you can type the text you want to render, pick the font (watch this part, most of the scripts default to a font that isn't installed with XFree), and usually also the colors or textures.

Plugins are also copiously abundant, these being compiled mini-programs rather than scripts. Already the vast majority of them have been ported to OS/2 for use with GIMP. Like with GIMP itself, these will be packaged with their directory structures intact, so you'll be unzipping them from the root directory of the drive that you installed XFree or GIMP to. Most of the plugins ported so far already come with GIMP/2, but some extras like the lighting effects plugin and the Gimpress plugin are distributed separately.

Some other plugins of interest are the Graphics Muse Tools(.GIF, 12K) and GIMP Dynamic Text.

Better News to Come

The better news to come is that the people who have ported GIMP to OS/2 for use under an X Window server are working on creating a Presentation Manager version, which will mean you'll no longer need X. We don't know how soon this will come.