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CinePaint Feature Requests

The CinePaint-developers list is the place to discuss features you would like to request. Although good ideas are appreciated, we have very limited resources to implement them.

Some people suppose that they can "support" our project by suggesting new features. Giving feature ideas to CinePaint is a bit like taking a stray kitten to the cat shelter. Yes, it is the right thing to do, and we appreciate the thought. But like the cat shelter, it is not donations of strays that support us. To really support CinePaint you need to become a sponsor or adopt a feature to implement yourself.

Often features that seem like a good idea have been discussed before. It may be that plans are already underway, or that the idea had to be rejected because it wasn't within our mandate or is impractical in some way. Do a little research first. Make a quick search of the mailing list archive. Discuss it on the mailing list. Only after that, submit an official Feature Request.

Some Popular Feature Requests

• Switch the GUI API from GTK+ to something else.
  To switch to Qt or some other library would be a massive rewrite. If we undertook such a task we would have to use both libraries for years during the transition, which is too unpleasant to contemplate. Switching to GTK+2 is being researched by Andrew Lau, but no decision or timetable has been set. A long term plan is to abstract a new C++ layer to make the code less toolkit sensitive.
• Add Python or Perl as a scripting language.
  Adding Perl is being worked on by Sam Richards. There are issues with the Perl implementation in GIMP that draw into question if Perl will ever work seamlessly. PyGimp has problems too, including being an abandoned project. A Java implementation for CinePaint exists and is planned for release in 2003.
• Support plug-in [whatever] from GIMP.
  All it takes is for a programmer to support it. If you are a developer there are a number of interesting plug-ins that could be ported without much difficulty.
• A more user-friendly GUI with better access to alpha channel and layers.
  Planned for 2003.
• Color profiles
  Being researched.
• Support for 32-bit framebuffer
  Planned for 2003.
• Support for gimp-print
  Being worked on by Kai-Uwe Behrmann.
• Import and export of video formats.
  Planned for 2003.

Milestones

CinePaint public site launch at SourceForge	July 4, 2002
Release source tarball (Linux and Irix)	July 24, 2002
Fix name collisions between CinePaint and Gimp	Nov. 2, 2002
Release rpm and deb files	Nov. 18, 2002
Official Debian Unstable release	Nov. 29, 2002
Mac CinePaint release (X11)	Dec. 3, 2002
Minimal CinePaint documentation	Dec. 7, 2002
Windows CinePaint	Mar 10, 2003
Threaded plug-ins (faster load time)	Mar 10, 2003
Release 1.0	Coming 2003
Compile in C++	Coming 2003
Macro recorder/playback feature	Coming 2003
GUI redesign -- less clicks, more power	Coming 2003
Java support	Coming 2003
Video plug-in (DV, M-JPEG, and MPEG)	Coming 2003
Browse flatbed editor	Coming 2003
Mac Aqua	Coming 2003
Pixel Templates, including 32-bit support
CMYK plug-in	Coming 2003
OCR plug-in
Scanner plug-in
ICC and LUT plug-in
White balance plug-in
RTF plug-in (with spellcheck)
Flipbook audio
V4L snapshot plug-in