GIMPRC

NAME

gimprc - gimp configuration file

DESCRIPTION

The gimprc file is a configuation file read by the gimp when it starts up. There are two of these: one system-wide one stored in /etc/gimp/1.2/gimprc and a per-user $HOME/.gimp-1.2/gimprc which may override system settings.

Comments are introduced by a hash sign (#), and continue until the end of the line. Blank lines are ignored.

The gimprc file associates values with properties. These properties may be set by lisp-like assignments of the form:

: (property-name value)
where:
property-name: is one of the property names described below.
value: is the value the property is to be set to.

Either spaces or tabs may be used to separate the name from the value.

The values have an associated type, described below:

STRING: A sequence of characters surrounded by double-quotes ("). A backslash (\) may be used to escape either double-quote or itself to generate a literal double-quote or a literal backslash.
PATH: Same as STRING, but path-expansion (see below) is also performed.
DOUBLE: An optional minus sign (-) followed by zero or more decimal digits, and optionally a decimal-point (.) followed by zero or more decimal digits.
FLOAT: Same as DOUBLE.
INT: Same as DOUBLE, except the value is rounded to the next lowest integer.
BOOLEAN: One of true, on, yes, false, off, or no. Alternatively, the empty string is interpreted to mean true.
POSITION: Same as two INTs separated by whitespace.
MEMSIZE: An INT followed by a size specifier. A size specifier is one of m, M, k, K, b, or B. The size specified may be omitted, in which case it defaults to k.
IMAGETYPE: One of rgb, grey, or gray.
COLORCUBE: Four whitespace separated INTs, giving the number of shades of red, green, blue and grey (respectively) in the color cube.
PREVIEWSIZE: One of none, tiny, small, medium, large or huge, or an INT. tiny is 24x24, small is 32x32, medium is 48x48, large is 64x64 and huge is 128x128.
UNIT: One of inches, millimeters, picas, or points or the identifier of one of the units you have defined in your user units database.

PROPERTIES

Valid properties and their types:

temp-path PATH

Set the temporary storage directory. Files will appear here during the course of running the gimp. Most files will disappear when the gimp exits, but some files are likely to remain, such as working palette files, so it is best if this directory not be one that is shared by other users or is cleared on machine reboot such as /tmp.

swap-path PATH

Set the swap file location. The gimp uses a tile based memory allocation scheme. The swap file is used to quickly and easily swap tiles out to disk and back in. Be aware that the swap file can easily get very large if the gimp is used with large images. Also, things can get horribly slow if the swap file is created on a directory that is mounted over NFS. For these reasons, it may be desirable to put your swap file in "/tmp".

brush-path PATH

Set the brush search path. This is a colon-separated list of directories to be searched for brushes.

pattern-path PATH

Set the pattern search path. This is a colon-separated list of directories to be searched for patterns.

plug-in-path PATH

Set the plug-in search path. This is a colon-separated list of directories which will be scanned at startup to register new plugins.

palette-path PATH

Set the palette search path. This is a colon-separated list of directories to be searched for palettes.

gradient-path PATH

Set the gradient search path. This is a colon-separated list of directories to be searched for gradients.

module-path PATH

Set the module search path. This is a colon-separated list of directories which will be scanned at startup for modules to be loaded.

default-brush STRING

Specify a default brush. This doesn't actually do anything any more, since the default brush is set as part of the saved device status.

default-pattern STRING

Specify a default pattern. The pattern is searched for in the specified pattern path.

default-palette STRING

Specify a default palette. The palette is searched for in the specified palette path.

default-gradient STRING

Specify a default gradient. The gradient is searched for in the specified gradient path.

gamma-correction DOUBLE

Set the gamma correction value for the display. 1.0 corresponds to no gamma correction. For most displays, gamma correction should be set to between 2.0 and 2.6 Run the utility "gamma_correct" to determine appropriate values for your display. XXX is this valid info? One important item to keep in mind: Many images that you might get from outside sources will in all likelihood already be gamma-corrected. In these cases, the image will look washed-out if the gimp has gamma-correction turned on. If you are going to work with images of this sort, turn gamma correction off by setting the value to 1.0.

color-cube COLORCUBE

Set the displays color cube. No longer used in gimp-1.2.x since the introduction of GdkRgb.

install-colormap BOOLEAN

Install a private colormap by default - not actually used anymore since the introduction of GdkRgb.

tile-cache-size MEMSIZE

The tile cache is used to make sure the gimp doesn't thrash tiles between memory and disk. Setting this value higher will cause the gimp to use less swap space, but will also cause the gimp to use more memory. Conversely, a smaller cache size causes the gimp to use more swap space and less memory. Note: the gimp will still run even if `tile-cache-size' is set to 0. The actual size can contain a suffix of 'm', 'M', size as being specified in megabytes, kilobytes and bytes respectively. If no suffix is specified the size defaults to being specified in kilobytes.

marching-ants-speed INT

Speed of marching ants in the selection outline. This value is in milliseconds (less time indicates faster marching).

last-opened-size INT

How many recently opened image filenames to keep on the File menu.

undo-levels INT

Set the number of operations kept on the undo stack.

transparency-type INT

Set the manner in which transparency is displayed in images. Transparency type can be one of 0 - Light Checks, 1 - Mid-Tone Checks, 2 - Dark Checks, 3 - White Only, 4 - Gray Only, or 5 - Black Only.

transparency-size INT

Check size can be one of 0 - Small, 1 - Medium, or 2 - Large

perfect-mouse BOOLEAN

If set to true, the X server is queried for the mouse's current position on each motion event, rather than relying on the position hint. This means painting with large brushes should be more accurate, but it may be slower. Perversely, on some X servers turning on this option results in faster painting.

colormap-cycling BOOLEAN

Specify that marching ants for selected regions will be drawn with colormap cycling as oposed to redrawing with different stipple masks. This color cycling option works only with 8-bit displays.

default-threshold INT

Tools such as fuzzy-select and bucket fill find regions based on a seed-fill algorithm. The seed fill starts at the intially selected pixel and progresses in all directions until the difference of pixel intensity from the original is greater than a specified threshold. This value represents the default threshold.

stingy-memory-use BOOLEAN

There is always a tradeoff between memory usage and speed. In most cases, the GIMP opts for speed over memory. However, if memory is a big issue, set stingy-memory-use.

allow-resize-windows BOOLEAN

When zooming into and out of images, this option enables the automatic resizing of windows.

dont-allow-resize-windows BOOLEAN

Negated version of allow-resize-windows.

cursor-updating BOOLEAN

Context-dependent cursors are cool. They are enabled by default. However, they require overhead that you may want to do without.

no-cursor-updating BOOLEAN

Negated version of cursor-updating.

preview-size PREVIEWSIZE

Set the layer preview size.

show-rulers BOOLEAN

Set the ruler visibility. The default behavior is for rulers to be on. This can also be toggled with the View->Toggle Rulers command or shift+control+r.

dont-show-rulers BOOLEAN

Negated version of show-rulers.

show-statusbar BOOLEAN

Controlling statusbar visibility. The default behavior is to show the statusbar. This can also be toggled with the View->Toggle Statusbar command or shift+control+s.

dont-show-statusbar BOOLEAN

Negated version of show-statusbar.

auto-save BOOLEAN

Auto saving is not yet implemented! Nothing will be auto-saved, no matter how you set this.

dont-auto-save BOOLEAN

Negated version of auto-save.

interpolation-type [nearest-neighbor|linear|cubic]

Sets the level of interpolation used when scaling or transforming. By default, GIMP uses linear interpolation, which is faster, but has poorer quality than cubic interpolation.

confirm-on-close BOOLEAN

Ask for confirmation before closing an image without saving. This is the default.

dont-confirm-on-close BOOLEAN

Negated version of confirm-on-close.

save-session-info BOOLEAN

Remember the positions and sizes of the main dialogs and asks your window-manager to place them there again the next time you use the GIMP.

dont-save-session-info BOOLEAN

Negated version of save-session-info.

save-device-status BOOLEAN

Remember the current tool, pattern, color, and brush across GIMP sessions.

dont-save-device-status BOOLEAN

Negated version of save-device-status.

always-restore-session BOOLEAN

Let GIMP try to restore your last saved session.

show-tips BOOLEAN

Set to display a handy GIMP tip on startup.

dont-show-tips BOOLEAN

Negated version of show-tips.

show-tool-tips BOOLEAN

Set to display tooltips in the toolbox.

dont-show-tool-tips BOOLEAN

Negated version of show-tool-tips.

default-image-size POSITION

Set the default image size in the File/New dialog.

default-image-type IMAGETYPE

Set the default image type in the File/New dialog.

default-units UNIT

Set the default units for new images and for the File/New dialog. This units will be used for coordinate display when not in dot-for-dot mode. The default units can be one of inches , millimeters, points or picas or the identifier of one of the units defined in your user units database. The default is inches.

default-xresolution FLOAT

Set the default horizontal resolution for new images and for the File/New dialog. This value is always in dpi (dots per inch).

default-yresolution FLOAT

Set the default vertical resolution for new images and for the File/New dialog. This value is always in dpi (dots per inch).

default-resolution-units UNIT

Set the units for the display of the default resolution in the File/New dialog. The default resolution units can be one of inches, millimeters, points or picas or the identifier of one of the units defined in your user unit database. The default is inches.

monitor-xresolution FLOAT

Set the monitor's horizontal resolution, in dots per inch. If set to 0, forces the X server to be queried for both horizontal and vertical resolution information.

monitor-yresolution FLOAT

Set the monitor's vertical resolution, in dots per inch. If set to 0, forces the X server to be queried for both horizontal and vertical resolution information.

num-processors INT

On multiprocessor machines, if GIMP has been compiled with --enable-mp this sets how many processors GIMP should use simultaneously.

image-title-format STRING

Set the text to appear in image window titles. Certain % character sequences are recognised and expanded as follows:

%% literal percent sign
%f bare filename, or "Untitled"
%F full path to file, or "Untitled"
%p PDB image id
%i view instance number
%t image type (RGB, indexed, greyscale)
%z zoom factor as a percentage
%s source scale factor
%d destination scale factor
%Dx expands to x if the image is dirty, the empty string otherwise. The x can be any character, eg %D*.

The default format string is "%f-%p.%i (%t)".

PATH EXPANSION

Strings of type PATH are expanded in a manner similar to bash(1). Specifically: tilde (~) is expanded to the user's home directory, and ${variable} is expanded to the current value of the variable. Note that the bash feature of being able to refer to other user's home directories by writing ~userid/ is not valid in this file.

The only variable initially defined is gimp_dir , which is set to either the interned value .gimp-1.2 or the environment variable GIMP_DIRECTORY. If the path in GIMP_DIRECTORY is relative, it is considered relative to your home directory. The same variable expansion syntax can be used to refer to environment variables. New variables may be defined so long as their name does not shadow one of the property names given in the previous section. Variables are set using the following syntax:

: (variable-name PATH)

Note that the right hand side of this assignment is itself path expanded before setting the value of the variable.

Typically, the system-wide gimprc file will set a few convenience variables:

prefix: The installation prefix for this build, /usr.
exec_prefix: The path to architecture-specific executables, ${prefix}.
gimp_data_dir: Path to sharable data, /usr/share/gimp/1.2.
gimp_plugin_dir: Base for paths to architecture-specific plugins and modules, ${exec_prefix}/lib/gimp/1.2.

FILES

/etc/gimp/1.2/gimprc: System-wide configuration file
$HOME/.gimp-1.2/gimprc: Per-user configuration file