Re: Building the GIMP

Somehow this didn't go through earlier, sending again...


> Hello all,
>
> I finally succeeded in building the GIMP (1.2.4) under Windows!!! :-)
>
> Thanks to Tor for all of is hard work in putting together the source and
> development packages and all the related links.
>
> Also thanks to Tor and everyone else who helped me get through all of the
> hurdles and the rather steep learning curve that allowed me to achieve
this
> plateau.
>
> I don't think that I was successful in building every single gimp feature.
> In particular I didn't build the perl, printing, browser, and mpeg
plug-ins.
> Also, I either didn't build the "modules" components properly or didn't
> install them correctly, and I'm not sure if I got the program configured
> 100% correctly after it was built and running (all directory locations,
> etc.).  Given those qualifications, the gimp does seem to be running
> correctly, and all of the rest of the features that I have looked for have
> been in place and seem to work correctly.
>
> There was only one minor issue that worries me a little bit:  When I fired
> up my newly built gimp, some of the settings from my previously installed
> binary gimp distribution (located in a different directory) showed up in
> various menus and dialogues, e.g. in the list of most recently used files.
> I'm guessing that those are coming from an rc file that was set up either
> for my machine, or for my specific user ID, or both.  The only reason that
> bothers me is that if I make any configuration changes while trying out
the
> new version of the gimp that I just built, I would prefer not to have
those
> changes possibly mess things up for my regular installed image.  This is
> probably no big deal while I am building and using the same gimp version.
> But I am about to try building the new gimp 1.3.x beta, and I don't want
it
> to screw up my rc files for 1.2.4 with incompatible settings.  Any tips on
> how to avoid that would be appreciated.  Maybe it won't happen anyway, as
I
> haven't yet checked to see if the rc files have version dependent names.
>
> Anyway, in spite of my relative lack of experience, and warnings from Tor
> and others, I am about to try porting the latest 1.3.x beta image of the
> gimp to windows.  I'll let everyone know what I come up with, if anything.
> I'm likely to be posting more questions...
>
> By the way, I have both MinGW/mSys and MS Visual C++ 6.0.  Based on some
> comments that Tor made with regard to complex library interdependencies in
> the 1.3.x incarnation of the gimp, I am leaning towards attempting to set
up
> a 1.3.x gimp release as a project in VC.  I am thinking that *might* make
it
> easier to deal with the dependency issues, but I have no specific
experience
> regarding that.  Would anyone else care to offer opinions or suggestions?
>
> Of particular importance to me in the new version of the gimp is the
> theoretical ability to handle larger image sizes.  I know that some of
that
> may be based on unix-specific capabiities.  If so, then I may need to
> develop something that will provide similar capabilities on the Windows
> side, and am prepared to give that a try if necessary.  That might take
the
> form of an enhanced stdio library, or at least enhanced replacements for
> some of its functions that may have 32 bit limits under the default
Windows
> implementation.  If I have problems attempting to get these capabilities
> into 1.3.x then I may take a look at 1.2.4 and see what changes might be
> required just for this single specific enhancement, even though that is
> probably a much less desirable solution in the long run.
>
> Thanks again to everyone for all the help so far.
>
> s/KAM
>
>