Hello everyone,

As our financial backers, we wanted you to be the first to know about our current status. We are still ramping up!

Linux

As soon as we have finished updating all the translations files, we should be ready to publish Glimpse Image Editor 0.2.0 on the Snap Store and Flathub. If you already have Glimpse Image Editor 0.1.2, it will be delivered as an update to your existing installation.

We expect that release to be delivered within the next week or so, as there are no release-stopping bugs. Afterwards, we will then focus our efforts on producing a Linux AppImage to assist users on distributions that are having problems installing Snaps and Flatpaks on their distribution of choice.

We will continue to develop a fork of the GNU Image Manipulation Program on Linux until the new "Glimpse NX" rewrite is ready. More details will be provided about the rewrite in coming months.

Windows

We have run into a major problem with the Windows port. We have had problems with the MSYS2 build process as documented by upstream before (for example, being unable to support Python plug-ins and filters), but it seems now the breakage is such that any version of Glimpse Image Editor we build with MSYS2 no longer detects external fonts. This breaks a significant amount of the functionality within the application, and we cannot release it in that state. You can read more about it at https://github.com/glimpse-editor/Glimpse/issues/449.

After investigating, the only workaround would be to use the "crossroad" tool, a custom cross-compiler developed by the GNU Image Manipulation Program developers specifically for their project. Unfortunately that would mean producing a completely new build process, replacing all of our automated tooling, and forking their cross-compiler to avoid any potential breakage in the future. We do not have the people, resources or expertise to do those things.

In the short term, we plan to re-release Glimpse Image Editor 0.1.2 with a new installer, configuration changes, and updated dependencies. It will be branded "Glimpse Image Editor 0.1.2 Release 2". We aim to produce that before the end of August 2020, and it will act as a kind of "sunset" release for our fully-fledged Windows port.

Beyond that, we are waiting to see if MSYS2 are able to fix their bug. If they can, we can release 0.2.0 at a later date. If they cannot, then we will provide a new Windows installer that makes customizations to pre-existing GNU Image Manipulation Program installations. Users would run the installer, and that installer would swap in new translation files, logos, splash screens and third-party plug-ins. Users can then return to a vanilla experience through "Add/Remove Programs".

In the longer term, "Glimpse NX" will replace this mechanism with its own Windows port. More details will be provided about the rewrite in coming months.

We think that path forward would provide the best experience for Windows users, and would be more sustainable over the longer term. However, this plan is not set in stone and you can make your feelings known about it on our Matrix channel #glimpse:matrix.org, or by emailing us via [email protected].