New unstable version of GIMP is out with nearly 5 months worth of work on bugfixes and improvements. We kinda already covered the most of the changes one by one before, so let's just sum it up.

The optional single-window mode is now officially ready for 2.8 with the rest of the planned features postponed till some time after release of 2.8. In single-window mode you can now switch between tabs using ALT+[0-9] combination. Docking was improved in various ways, and the window doesn't lose maximized state anymore, when a picture is closed.

The GEGL based Cage transform tool was given ability to add, select and remove cage vertices which we previously (lamely) illustrated with this screencast:

First introduced in 2.7.2, the new widget that merges a label, a slider and a spinbox is now propagated on the rest of tools options dialog.

The grid that you see when you use transform tools was refactored to fix a performance regression, and there is a bonus too. You can now use composition guides (rules of thirds, golden mean etc.) that you most likely know from the Crop tool.

Finally, you can now move layers inside layer groups which was one of the last serious issues to solve for 2.8. Fixing it has brought estimated 2.8 release a month closer — to November 10th. But GIMP folks are treating software development rather seriously. I'm pretty sure that they will put a lot more polish on the application before releasing the final version.

Right now there's only source code available. For unofficial Windows and Linux builds watch partha.com and Graphicall. Noone knowingly makes public builds for Mac yet.