GIMP’s Unified Window Mode is Looking Good

For professional artists and designers, the name “Photoshop” almost seems synonymous with the type of work they do. But, with the software starting at $700, it’s pretty hard to jump all over the opportunity of owning a copy unless you absolutely need some of the features it offers. Thankfully though, for the rest of us who don’t explicitly need Photoshop, there exist many alternatives that not only happen to be free, but are very powerful.

Arguably the most common free solution is the GIMP, and it’s for good reason. It not only happens to be completely open-sourced, but it’s unbelievably feature-rich. Believe it or not, it can even do some things that Adobe’s Photoshop can’t (such as being able to adjust your select tool after you draw a box). There does exist one issue that many users do complain about, though… the fact that there’s no unified window.

Instead, GIMP has always had separate components, such as one for the toolbox, and one for each image you have open, along with additional windows should you need them, like layers. I found things to be even worse with 2.6, because simply with the application open, it will take up three spots in your taskbar, which is totally needless. But, with 2.8 on the horizon, these complaints are soon to be part of the past.

Ars Technica has taken a look at the new unified windowed mode, and overall it looks great, and there weren’t any major complaints brought about. For those who prefer GIMP as it is today, don’t worry… this unified mode will be an option. As you can see in the image below, the general interface kind of looks like Photoshop, but there are some unique features, such as total modularity, and the fact that all open images are shown in thumbnail form in a bar. That sure as heck beats having a separate image open in your taskbar, that’s for sure.

With this new unified mode, GIMP isn’t only likely to please its regular users, like me, but also bring some new ones on board. I hate to say it, but when the general layout resembles Photoshop even in the faintest way, many more people may begin to treat it as a real alternative, not a clunkier one. I can’t wait for this one.

One of the most radical and highly-anticipated changes that is documented in the specifications is a new single-window mode, an optional view that brings together all of the floating windows and converges them into a single cohesive user interface. To get a hands-on look at this feature, I compiled GIMP 2.7.1 and its core dependencies—GEGL and Babl—from source code, which can be obtained from the GNOME git repository.