I was thinking something along these lines myself prior to reading this post. I am rather fond of how the helix updater works. It is important to remember that in many places in Europe it is still pay-by-the-minute for net connections so it would be nice for some users not to need to install all the plug-ins when they want something more basic. Also then the user could run something like helix-update (sorry, but I like Helix Gnome) to fetch and install the new plug-ins when they come out without anything happening to GIMP itself. Once the help files are done, they will help people decide what things they want in terms of plug-ins. It would be good if downloading and installing a plugin also added relevant help files to the system. As we consider the future of GIMP, I think we may want to consider our target audience. Who exactly is the target audience of GIMP? In my opinion, it is not only useable by the high-level artists like tigert and lewing and everyone else I am neglecting, but also by the more amatuer users like me. I'm no great artist but it rocks for web graphics. As it is further developed, we need to remember to make it easily available to the less advanced users of linux systems who maybe can't make and install on their own but depend on RPMs and helix-update and things like that to maintain their systems. I know that these user interfaces are a lower priority compared to the actual functioning of the program, but it is something to keep in mind. Anyways, I love the GIMP. I'm not much of a developer (I suck at programming) but I will help however I can. And many thanks to those of you who have made it the great program it is. bex Lourens Veen wrote: > > I realise that it's probably too late already, but dare I say C++? Did > anyone ever even consider this? > > As for the plugin distribution, I think the nicest way would be to have > a plugin manager that would enable you to download plugins from the web > on the fly. Something Linux distributions have too, you just connect to > the server, list the available plugins, let the user select what he/she > wants, download and install them. That would IMHO certainly be the > nicest solution. > > Lourens
