I sure hope that they will still have the multi window UI, although an optional single window UI might not hurt. I use a dual screen setup with plenty of desktop space and I really prefer the multi-window ui to a single window UI like in photoshop, blender or inkscape.

No matter how big my screen is, I want to have the image/document I edit fullscreened on the other screen and have my tool dialogs on the other. I recon you can do this with Photoshop, but f.ex. Blender cannot do this (limitations with their OpenGL screen setup).

I understand the problem with multi-window UI, other apps' windows might get on the way. I solve the problem by using multiple desktop workspaces.

I hope they provide the option to disable it though. I'm a mac user - multiple windows per application is my bread and butter.

I do agree that there needs to be better management of the tool dialogs though.

From TFA: "optional single-window mode"

(I'm also very excited about this.)

There is single-window option in 2.7-dev. I am using 2.7 dev version for more then 6 months and it's stable enough IMHO.

How to install it on Ubuntu from PPA - http://www.webupd8.org/2010/01/how-to-install-gimp-with-sing...

I had a thought after the last discussion.

As far as I can tell, the present GIMP multiple window mode feels pathologically brain dead because the tool windows get hidden by random windows from other applications (how dumb is that? knocking usability down by something like 90%).

If the GIMP was to simply cause the tool windows to appear and disappear "smartly" based on whether a main GIMP window was present, the problem was be much less (I vaguely recall some early versions of some Adobe apps worked this way).

I don't know if this is a better solution but it seems like a very easy solution. I.E., one that might have taken at most a month anywhere along the line (though my guess would be a week or less).

But what do I know, (other than Linux GUI programing with C++ and QT)?