How To | Setup Gimpbox

In the past I’ve talked about my love for Gimp. I was one of those that felt a bit sad to hear that it would no longer be added by default in Ubuntu. Well, now there is more reason to love it!

There has been talks for a while now that the next major release of Gimp would allow users that ability to a single window version instead of the traditional 3-windowed version that is available now. Well, now people no longer have to wait for the official release to get their hands on this functionality! Enter…Gimpbox.

Gimpbox is simply a script that resides in your /bin folder and executes a single-window effect with your current Gimp. The installation of this script is extremely simple and can be executed by even the more novice of users. Here’s how to set up your Gimpbox:

Step 1: Open a terminal. Applications > Accessories > Terminal

Step 2: Copy/Paste this bit of code in to the terminal and press enter. This will download the script to the correct folder.

sudo wget http://gimpbox.googlecode.com/hg/gimpbox.py -O /usr/local/bin/gimpbox

Step 3: Copy/Paste this next bit of code in to the terminal and press enter. This will set the permissions on the script to execute properly.

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gimpbox

Step 4: Now that the script is in the correct location, we need to ensure that Gimp correctly recognizes the script. To do this we have to edit the Gimp entry in your Applications Menu. This is quite simple really.

• Right-click on ‘Applications’
• Click on ‘Graphics’ in the left hand pane
• Highlight ‘GIMP Image Editor’ and click on the ‘Properties’ button
• Replace the word ‘gimp’ with ‘gimpbox’

Now you’re all done! Just go to Applications > Graphics > Gimp Image Editor and open the program. You will see Gimp load and then after a second or two, all three of the traditional Gimp windows will be converter to a single-window style. 🙂

NOTE: If you’re having trouble running this please ensure you have python-wnck installed.

sudo apt-get install python-wnck

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BONUS: If you’re like me and you launch your Gimp from Docky, you will notice that simply editing the launch command in the Applications menu does not launch Gimpbox from Docky. Here is the work around for this:

Step 1: Open Nautilus with root privileges and go to /usr/share/applications and locate Gimp.

gksu nautilus /usr/share/applications

Step 2: Right-click on Gimp and change the launch command to gimpbox %u

Your Gimpbox will now launch correctly from Docky. 😀

sudo wget http://gimpbox.googlecode.com/hg/gimpbox.py -O /usr/local/bin/gimpbox