Installing GAP for Gimp 2.8 on Windows

The first step is to find and download the installer. Next we will extract the files from the installer and manually install the files in the user directory. As Gimp 2.8 is backwards compatible with plug-ins we will use the 2.6 windows installer for GAP.

Gimp plug-ins can either be installed into the user directory or into the program's installation folder. Putting the files in the user directory would mean that they are only available to that individual user whereas installing into the program’s installation folder the plug-ins would mean that they are available to all users. Installing into the user directory folder also makes it easier to manage and identify plug-ins that have been installed by the user rather than plug-ins that are distributed with Gimp.

To install the plug-in into the user directory folder follow the instructions below. To install into the program’s installation folder in step 3 set the destination folder to the gimp 2 installation folder. The default location for this is noted below.

C:\Program Files\GIMP 2

If Gimp 2.8 wasn’t installed in the default location this will need to be adjusted.

 

Step 1 – Download the file 

Download GAP-2.6 for Gimp 2.6-Windows from the link below.
http://photocomix-resources.deviantart.com/art/GAP-2-6-for-Gimp-2-6-Windows-135464357

Make sure you download the zip file using the button on the right of the page and not the source code linked at bottom of the text.

Step 2 – Extract the files 

 

Extract the zip file to your desktop and navigate inside the GAP .2.6_win folder.

This folder contains 5 folders and a text file describing how to install GAP.

For now we need to look inside the GAP-installer folder, we will come back to the others later.

 

Step 3 – Run the installer 

 

Double click on the installer to run it. If a UAC (User account control) dialogue box appears select ‘yes’ to continue.

Select your language then run through the installer. When it comes to selecting the destination folder the installer will NOT auto-populate with a destination folder as it is the 2.6 installer so we will need to manually move the files into the plug-ins folder later.

For now create a new folder on the desktop (this is probably easiest but the folder could be created anywhere), select this as the destination folder and then click install.

Once it complete click finish. If a message about the program not installing properly pops up just click cancel.

Now inside the new folder you created on your desktop there should have been two folders, lib and share installed.

If you look through the lib folder you will see a folder structure like the one shown below:

lib>gimp>2.0>plug-ins 

And inside the plug-ins folder is a series of exe files. These are the plug-ins that we need to place inside the Gimp 2.8 plug-ins folder.

Now if you look through the lib folder you will see a folder structure like the one shown below:

share>gimp>2.0>scripts 

And inside the scripts folder are a couple of script files that we will need to place in the Gimp 2.8 scripts folder.

 

Step 4 – Manually place files in the plug-in folder

 

As said in the previous step the plug-in files need to be placed inside the Gimp 2.8 plug-ins folder. So where is this located? If you navigate to:

C:\Users\Yourusername 

With ‘yourusername’ replaced with your actual username e.g. C:\Users\Andrew

You will see that amongst the other files are two folders relating to Gimp, .gimp-2.6 and .gimp-2.8. The one that we are concerned with is of course the 2.8 folder. It can be located here:

C:\Users\Yourusername\.gimp-2.8

Inside this folder look for the plug-ins folder then copy and paste the files from the plug-ins folder created earlier and paste them here.

Make sure to only to paste the exe files and not the folders.

Also in the .gimp-2.8 folder where you found the plug-in folder is a scripts folder.

Copy and paste the scripts from the scripts folder created earlier and paste them here.

Next start Gimp, a message will be displayed ‘Querying new plug-ins’ and you may see a series of command windows flick up on the screen for a fraction of a second.

When Gimp has fully loaded there will be a video entry on the top toolbar where the new plug-ins can be accessed from indicating GAP has been installed successfully.

Check out the documentation in the zip file provided for information on how to use GAP.

 

Step 5 – Installing the other animation scripts/plug-ins (optional)

 

Along with the GAP plug-in photocomix has also included some extra animation scripts and plug-ins as well as some documentation and tutorials. These are not part of GAP but can be useful when animating using Gimp.

In the original extracted file are the folders, EXTRA_ANIMATION_SCRIPTS, EXTRA-AUDIO-support and EXTRA-plugin-Animated_Cursor. The EXTRA_ANIMATION_SCRIPTS can be installed by copying the contents to the user directory in the same way as we did with the GAP scripts.

C:\Users\Yourusername\.gimp-2.8\scripts 

The EXTRA-plugin-Animated_Cursor can be installed by copying the contents to the user directory in the same way as we did with the GAP plugins.

C:\Users\Yourusername\.gimp-2.8\plug-ins 

To install the EXTRA-AUDIO-support you will need to navigate to

C:\Program Files\GIMP 2\bin 

And paste the files there.