The Good Stuff!

I've run across some exciting news in the world of open source graphics! It seems that the Pinta project is somewhat "active" or at least alive, once again! A bit of surprise, seeing as the project at one point seem to be pretty much abandoned. In fact, I was hoping that someone would fork the project and/or rewrite Pinta in a more commonly used language, such as Vala or Python (that would still be a nice development).

Either way, it is nice to see this featureful editor getting some love once again, especially seeing as the image editor landscape on Linux and other open source platforms is a little bleak, compared to the likes of Mac OS and Windows. This isn't to say that the options that exist (for instance, GIMP/Glimpse, Darktable, Krita, Fotoxx, etc) aren't great. It's just that if you're looking for something a little lighter than say Photoshop, yet heavier than MS Paint, your options are... limited, to say the least.

Details - What's New?

Honestly, it's hard to say. From skimming through the commits on Github, it doesn't seem like anything too special. In fact, I would be lying to say that the project appears to be under "active" development. However, from reading through bug reports and commits, I can at least say that there seems to be some intention of finalizing the never released Pinta version 1.7, which has technically been available for quite some time via a PPA, but never officially released.

It doesn't seem like there will be much in the way of new features, if any (don't quote me on that, though, I still have to check more thoroughly to compare vesions 1.6 and 1.7), but certainly, some bug fixes should be coming down the pipeline, along with updated translations and support for the latest Ubuntu release.

In conclusion:

It's good to see this powerful image editor is still "with us" after all. I've used it quite extensively myself over the years, so it's a bright spot for me in these dark times. Hopefully, some new contributors will come along in the near future, and/or a new editor will join the ranks. We'll see what the future holds.