Joao S. O. Bueno wrote on 14 Mar 2014:

So Randhir,
It is true that the stored brush size is no longer automatically used.

However, GIMP has a feature that is somewhat "hidden" that can make for it, and even give much more flexibility than just the brush size. It will require one extra level of configuration, though: GIMP 2.8 have the "tool presets" feature. You can find then in the proper dockable dialog (windows->dockable dialogs->tool presets) - besides storing suggestions for tool configurations shipped with GIMP, these presets are a fast way to restore any tool, with all the configured parameters, with a single click!

So, you have to do the following: select your desired brush, pick your tool of choice (e.g. the Paintbrush) - type in your desired size for that brush.
Since you are at it, you may optionally take your time to fine tune all painting parameters you may like with this brush: smooth stroke, an specific Painting dynamics, even a color.

When you are done, go to the "Tool presets" dialog, and press the button for a new preset. (The button marked with the same "New" icon as is used in most other dialogs). You are then taken to the "tool preset editor" dialog - it is an extremely simple dialog - because when it is open, GIMP will already remember the tool you are using, along with all the options you finetuned. All you have to do in this dialog is to mark the "Apply stored brush" checkbox, in your case (or don't if you want a preset that will change to a specific brush size, no matter the selected brush). AH, of course, type in a suitable name for the preset - like "plantbrush size 15". Click on the solitary "save" button on the bottom of this dialog, and go back to the "tools preset" dialog.

From now on, one single click on the "plantbrush size 15" icon in this dialog will instantly set your brush, size and other painting options, and switch to the painting tool of choice.

So, this is what make for fixed size for brushes in GIMP 2.8 - but there is still one further trick:
There are a lot of presets. And if you create one or more preset for each brush you have, you will soon have a lot more! Now enter in the "tags" feature - if you haven't discovered them yet - on the tool preset dialog, (or any item dialog in GIMP, for that matter), you have two text entries. The entry below the main dialog contents allow you to set Tags for each item. For example, you might want to type in "brush" in this entry (be sure to press after typing it). That is it - now your preset is Tagged with the "brush" tag. Now, you just have to type in "brush" in the other entry, above the dialog contents, and those are instantly filtered, showing only the items with the "brush" tag. Therefore, you could easily create 10-20 presets making use of a single tag, and it would be manageable. If you need more than that, you just add more tags to the mix :-)

js ->

Thanks 'JS'. It has worked. I have created some 10 presets of varying sizes of paintbrushes. This puts me back on to my sketches. Thanks a lot for the detailed guidance!

One more bothersome matter that has been encountered in GIMP-2.8.10 is that: While drawing a straight horizontal or vertical lines with earlier editions of GIMP, I used to press shift key and drag mouse to the distance required and the indication of whether the line was horizontal or vertical or NOT was given by the thin line stretched by GIMP between those two points. If there were 'kinks' in that line then it was understood that the line was NOT absolutely horizontal or vertical. Then, one could adjust the mouse position so as to eliminate all 'kinks' in the stretched line. But now that line stretched by GIMP is not very thin. It is at least double the thickness of earlier editions. Is there a way to make that stretched indicative line any thinner?

Regards,

Randhir Phagura