It's amazing how dedicated they are after all these years. Hats off to you, people involved with GIMP over the years ... your work has made a huge difference in many lives and careers.
X (Xorg now), xterm, Gimp, Emacs... These guys were there when I started with Linux and I still use them to this day!
I was modifying several PNG images. Once I was done, I closed the window. As usual, Gimp warned me that I hadn't saved anything, since it considers that saving to PNG is not saving, it's just exporting. So I ignored the message, like always. It turned out I hadn't saved/exported an image, and I swore to use a saner application and never touch Gimp again.
- You didn't save your file
- You didn't export your file
- You ignored GIMP's warning about it
And somehow it's the program's fault? I guess they could implement some form of temporary autosave like some office applications do, but that comes with its own can of worms (i.e. stuff you really didn't want to save staying on your drive).
You had a way of knowing that though. When GIMP lists all the unsaved images, it specifically says which images have been exported and to what files. It does so by appending "(exported)" to the filename (just like in the window's title when you are editing) and mentioning the exported file in the second line.
It used to be you just put what file extension you wanted in the save dialog and gimp would save the that file format. Honestly I likes it, I always thought it was one of saner ways to handle a complex subject.
However. the gimp native format is .xcf xcf is the only format that will save all of gimps internal data. due to the ease of loosing data it was decided to split the save system into two parts "save" only saves in xcf format, all other formats are exported.
so no, no longer can you just work on a png, gimp will nag you to save to xcf every time, I understand the change but I can't help but think that we lost something along the way. something about tools that stay out of your way and so what you want of them.