Below you will find a collection of frequently asked questions regarding development of the GIMP. They are not exaustive and you should further look into the other pages of this website.

GIMP Development

Who coordinates GIMP development?

GIMP (and babl and GEGL) development is coordinated by Wilber the GIMP along with a loosely knit team of GIMP developers. The developers can be reached mostly through IRC (see the Discuss page) and the bug tracking system.

Every once in a while, GIMP developers can get together for a few days. See the Conferences section.

Who coordinates the GIMP translation efforts?

Translations is organized by teams for each language. The recommended way is therefore to contact the specific team for your language (each team may have different rule, their dedicated page will give you specifics). Any help with translations is appreciated.

Note that you usually don’t need to get in touch with developers to start and translate GIMP since everything happens through GNOME localization infrastructure. Yet if you want to discuss with developers, or if you have any problem with the aforementionned procedure, all contributors are happy to mingle. Feel free to get in touch with developers.

How do I make a stack trace?

A stack trace is a list of function calls that leads to some point in the program. By including a stack trace with your bug report, it will be much easier for the developers to fix the reported problem.

Information on how to make a good stack trace or logs can be found in our document named “Debugging Tips”.

What is the best way to submit a patch?

If you are a developer who wants to start contributing code to GIMP, the best way to get to know its structure is by fixing bugs reported in Gitlab. Pick a bug, perhaps ask the advice of another developer as to whether he/she thinks it will be an easy bug or not, and then fix it and contribute a merge request.

The Core Development section is where you want to start.

What is the preferred coding style used in GIMP?

We do have an own “GIMP Coding Style”. Please follow the coding style document throughout the GIMP project. This coding style is enforced for every new code in the official repositories.

How can I configure my editor for this coding style?

We provide configuration files for a few editors and welcome more configuration files for anyone wishing to contribute one for their favorite editor or Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

Is there another way to support GIMP development?

Yes. There are other non-technical ways of supporting the development of The GIMP as well. See the “Get Involved” page of GIMP web site on how to offer your help.

Last, but not least, donating to GIMP supports a lot the development, especially as several developers are trying and make a living by developing GIMP full-time.

Plug-In/Resource Development

Where can I find documentation for the GIMP API?

See the GIMP API reference page.

Is there a plug-in template available?

Sorry but no. Better, please check the nice tutorials, which will teach you through the process of writing and understanding your plug-in.

How do I debug a GIMP plug-in?

See: “Debugging Plug-ins” document

How do I get my plug-in included in GIMP?

If you are certain that your plug-in will be useful to all GIMP users, then you can ask the GIMP developers to consider it for inclusion in future GIMP release by creating a merge request.

However, we have been trying to limit the number of plug-ins included in the standard distribution to the most common usage only. Therefore do not expect this to to happen if your proposed plug-in caters to a specific usage.

Will my e.g. 8.x plug-in work with e.g. GIMP 88.x?

No. A major release is the occasion to fix wrong design choices, therefore the API compatibility is usually broken. It means some part of your plug-in will have to be rewritten.

What you need to rewrite is mostly infrastructure code (how the plug-in is registered) and a few calls to glue internal logics and your plug-in logics. In the end, porting your code may be frightnening but it can be done very quickly.

Miscellaneous

Is there a GIMP user FAQ available?

Please see the User FAQ on gimp.org.

How can I contribute to this FAQ?

If you would like to contribute with some neutral question to this FAQ, propose a merge request on the git repository.

With your help, if approved, this FAQ can grow and become more useful.