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The GIMP Gets Ready for 2.2
Posted by
michael
on Sun Nov 21, 2004 05:30 AM
from the photoshop-looking-worried dept.
from the photoshop-looking-worried dept.
An anonymous contributor writes "As promised, this time it didn't take another 3 years for a new stable GIMP version to be released. 8 months after GIMP 2.0 hit the road, GIMP 2.2 is almost done. The GIMP developers released 2.2-pre2 today and unless any major problems show up, the GIMP 2.2.0 release is going to follow later this month. The GIMP Wiki has a comprehensive list of new features in GIMP 2.2 and here are some screenshots of the development version."
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GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
However I recently set up a dual boot laptop for my gf (the only way she will boot into Linux though is to play FreeCiv
Now of course, she is using a commercial package derived from a bittorrent source, and my OSS evangelism has fallen flat on its face
Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:3, Informative)
There are two main reasons for this instability under windows. The first is the irregular fashion in which GTK fixes and enhancements are ported to windows-- usually at least several weeks and occasionally several months behind the linux verions typically due to testing cycles. The second is in the gimp dev cycle itself in that (and this seems common to most windows ports of OSS to windows) it's always down to one or two people to do the rather labor intensive and unrewarding task of setting up the windows
Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't mistake my annoyance for paranoia, but I serve an IT role at a medium sized company. We have a bunch of GPL and other OSS stuff installed on our windows-centric network. When we deployed SP2 company-wide, about 30% of the OSS apps broke, and either had to be reinstalled or (in three cases) have SP2 rolled back for critical machines. not like most of it matters anyway since the machines in question are behind an honest-to-goodness, well maintained firewall, aren't used to recieve any email, and have
Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Different programs have different focuses. If I was writing a piece of photo software - the sort that's thrown in with cheap digital cameras etc, then I'd probably strive to make it very intuitive when the user first used it, based on the assumption that people buying cheap digicams aren't well versed in graphics software. That may come at the cost of making very restrictive when the user wanted to use the program in the future and expand on what they want to do.
If the software was harder to learn, then it may be that when you're more used to it, you can use it a lot more fluently after you've gotten used to it, compared to if it had been easier to grasp. It isn't hard and fast though that an easy to grasp interface is restrictive later on, or that a difficult interface is more productive after a while - but it's a rough idea of two different approaches designers can have to an interface. Needless to say, there are interfaces that are both difficult to learn, and still crap when you've got used to it.
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Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Appearently we're talking to a brick wall, but let's give this one more try....
Dear GIMP Developers... This is your #1 useabilty issue. YOU may like it, but appearently everyone else HATES it. Perhaps you might consider fixing it rather than telling us (how) to "deal with it".
I would personally love to use your software. I'd love to get all my friends hooked on your software, but I can't. This single issue alone prevents all of us from adopting your otherwise wonderful application.
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Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:3, Funny)
secially nice
get thins done
allways been
Aprently, u strggle wth ur kyboard, as wel.
Can I not have so many floating boxes? (Score:5, Interesting)
I want the good old Photoshop/Illustrator/Dreamweaver layout, without having to shuffle 4 floating tool windows about that do different stuff. I'm sure that there is a really good reason to the layout, but I just can't get beyond this unusual interface, and just switch to windows graphics packages because of it.
Even if I make the image take up my whole screen, I don't like the fact that the tool window etc can wander around and aren't fixed - like every other graphics package that I've ever used. Why oh why does it have to be different?
Re:Can I not have so many floating boxes? (Score:5, Informative)
Then drag the tools you want into the tool window. You have all the tools in one window and your image in another. It's a far superior layout to that of PS.
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Taskbar Grouping (Score:5, Informative)
Now what would be nice if there was an equivalent window manager hint available for Win32. Perhaps there is, and all that's missing is support from the Win32 GTK+ backend?
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Re:Can I not have so many floating boxes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then get a better windowmanager. Seriously. That way, you will be able to get the boxes to do exactly what you want, irrespective of what the GIMP developers think is a good idea. Gimp is good at editing images and it should stay that way. Window managers are good at managing windows. Let each component do wh
Re:Can I not have so many floating boxes? (Score:5, Informative)
The default Gimp layout is actaully the same as the default Photoshop layout under Mac. I personally do not like the Photoshop layout under MS Windows. If I maximize the image I am working on, all the other docked tool windows are always topmost and cover parts of the image. With Gimp, I have every tool window docked into one nice main tool panel. If I need to change a tool, I just alt+tab, select the tool and then alt+tab back to the maximized image with nothing covering the image.
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Re:Can I not have so many floating boxes? (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be my ideal GIMP behaviour, anyway.
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Re:Can I not have so many floating boxes? (Score:5, Informative)
This is not the default because we got a couple of angry bug reports when it used to be the default in the 1.3.x series. Now what's missing is an equivalent setting that works on Win32. Perhaps one of the
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Re:Can I not have so many floating boxes? (Score:5, Informative)
As of Gimp 2.0, you can "dock" pretty much any window or toolbar in pretty much any other. It's pretty handy for keeping your workspace clutter-free.
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Not an answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Another problem is gimp tool windows opening up underneath other windows.
The top poster is bringing up a problem. That's how they get addresses. Most of the gimp defenders in this
I use gimp exclusively because I can't afford Photoshop and won't use windows. And yes, Gimp does things differently than Photoshop. Many gimp defenders are saying to take a month and learn how to use Gimp properly. Wrong. That's not how it works. Either it is intuitive, like Photoshop, or someone moves on to something else that works for them. Today, and many times in the past, I've seen gimp defenders post that Photoshop seems counter-intuitive, and Gimp seems intuitive to them. Maybe if they've been using FOSS, GNU/Linux since it was a multi-floppy download. But intuitive Gimp is not. I'm not a graphic artist, nor a graphic or artistic professional. I use the Gimp for hobby purposes such as touching up photos for amateur web sites, touching up photos for printing, creating banners, buttons, and am starting to use it for slightly more involved image creation. But I still find old versions of Photoshop (4.0, 5.0, 5.5) easier to use for many (not all) actions. I'm no expert, and haven't walked through every page of every manual and guide on Gimp, but I have quite a few downloaded, and have gone through some of the ones that are laid out like a photo-manual. A good basic one is on that site where the guy goes nuts on Microsoft every once in a while, Mozilla magazine, or something like that. But with Photoshop, I can draw a straight line, I can pick specific images out of a photo and transfer just the specific images (without adjoining images or background from the same photo) to other photos, etc. I still haven't figured out how to draw a straight line (I know its documented elsewhere), nor have I figured out how to isolate and move specific images from a photo to another photo, or crop everything else out of a photo except the specific image in the photo. In Photoshop, my brother, who doesn't know what version of windows he's using, doesn't know how to access the web on his dsl account without opening AOL (byos) and using AOL's interface, doesn't know how to upgrade an app like firefox to the newest version, doesn't know how to install and use spyware detection tools, doesn't know much at all about computers is still right at home in using Photoshop to manipulate images for posting on ebay. He can draw straight lines, isolate specific images in a photo and transfer it to another photo or crop everything else, and do other simple and not so simple things that I find difficult or impossible to do on gimp without reading manuals or taking a course. He didn't read any manuals to figure out what to do in Photoshop.
Am I slamming Gimp? No. I'm pointing out that there are usability problems in Gimp, and they won't get solved if we keep our heads in the sand about them. If the Gimp developers go on believing that there is nothing wrong with the Gimp, and the problem lies with the user, there will continue to be usability problems with the application.
I'm not a developer. I'm not a programmer. I am contributing in my own small way to a few other projects though, as an end user. I've actually paid for Free Software. I've submitted bugs with detailed ex
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Re:Not an answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people seem to have the impression that the GIMP developers would believe that the GIMP user interface would be perfect and must not be changed. I wonder how that impression has come up since of course we see the problems and we listen to users reporting usability problems or suggesting enhancements. It's just that code doesn't fall from the sky and changes take time. Of course not everyone agrees with the priorities that the GIMP developers set and not everyone likes the solutions that we come up with. These are points that can and should be discussed on a technical level.
Whoever claims that the GIMP developers would be ignoring problems is quite ignorant himself. What do you think why I (and other GIMP developers) go through the hassle of reading the slashdot comments at all? Because it's a good way to get user feedback and perhaps in between all those flamebaits someone even comes up with a good idea and/or reasonable arguments.
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Three steps before GIMP is taken seriously. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Three steps before GIMP is taken seriously. (Score:5, Insightful)
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you forgot (Score:5, Insightful)
I like Gimp but I'm sorry, the name has got to go. If I'm proposing to my school to provide a piece of software on all campus computers it has to have a name that isn't this offensive.
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CMYK support (Score:5, Informative)
A designer needs to be able to see out of gamut colour (colour that can not print on their output device / colour space), so they can adjust their image not to change too much when printed in CMYK. You see, the CMYK and RGB colour spaces do not both contain the same set of colours, so some RGB colours cannot be reproduced in CMK and vice versa. Additionally, some output devices have even more restricted colour spaces, such as a litho press for newsprint.
Having someone's blue shirt come out purple in print is an unpleasant experience that's to be avoided. CMYK support and colour management both help avoid this. If the blue-now-purple shirt is a full page advertisment, you'll care about this when the advertiser comes a-knocking.
In general, most colour adjustment for print should be done in RGB (it's easier to control colour in RGB) but previewed in CMYK so you can get a better idea of how it'll print. In the GIMP as things stand, you can't really see how your work will print.
Calibrating your display is only half the story. If you don't have proper ICC profiles for your output device (printer / press), then it does you relatively little good. If you do have a properly calibrated display and suitable output device profiles, plus tools capable of previewing your work according to the output profile, then you may stand a chance of getting decent quality, accurate colour in print.
CMYK support is a pre-requisite for press colour management support. CMYK by its self is helpful, especially with an out-of-gamut warning, but only really comes into its own when combined with colour management.
I think you'll find, frankly, that the majority of people who know what CMYK _is_ will have a legitimate need for support for it. Most people neither know nor care.
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Copy and paste (Score:4, Interesting)
Improved ability to copy and paste between GIMP and other applications, including OpenOffice and Abiword.
Yes! The number of times I've seen Linux newbies ask "Why can't I copy and paste from GIMP" is huge. Looks to be a great release
More than 24bpp support (Score:5, Interesting)
Another thing that I miss for a long time is 'macro recording' similar to MS Office or Photoshop actions. Why do I have to write some weird script-fu skeletons and look up for functions and their parameters? It would be much easier if I could record my actions and then to parametrize them some way...
I asked about this at mailing list but the replies were a bit vague about those topics (or even angry)...
Re:More than 24bpp support (Score:5, Informative)
Macro recording needs a major redesign of the PDB but there are plans to finally address this. Nothing promised because this is entirely a volunteers' project. New features are added if and only if someone's capable and willing to put some time and effort into it.
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CinePaint does this (Score:5, Informative)
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Animated GIF (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Animated GIF (Score:3, Funny)
This sounds really scary; are Slashdot logo's becoming self-aware? This place really gives me the creeps.
Still no non-destructive editing abilities (Score:5, Interesting)
looks good (Score:3, Interesting)
Especially the many preview screens will make a big difference to average users.
While I still have a Photoshop around (several years old) I won't go for the Gimp, there's no incentive, but it is slowly becoming a program you can actually reccommend to people on a budget...
Yeah yeah, that sounds blasé... but I do like PSD's text tools, multiple undo's, actions and well, just about everything. It grows on you. Someone just starting could now get used to the Gimp and maybe feel lost in Photoshop? It's possible.
Top Reasons I hate Gimp (Score:3, Interesting)
* lack of a proper fullscreen mode, while its there is quite limited in they way that one can scroll, dialog boxes cover the drawing area so that one constantly has to move stuff around, again proper docking to the image borders might help a lot
* lack of advanced brushes, currently all of gimps brushes are quite primitive, just the bare basics and there is no way to write new-ones as plug-ins, making it hard to actually create new ones. That said it was been tried to implement new cool stuff, but it never made its way into the Gimp:
http://www.levien.com/gimp/wetdream.html
* lack of macro recorder, my 1996 version of Corel Photopaint had already a kick-ass macro recorder, making it a joy to create scripts, you just recorde a macro, do what you want, go into the script editor add a few parameters to it, add a GUI dialog and you have a nice script in basically no time, Gimp today is still stuck with only Script-Fu and friends which are both a pain to write and debug, no macrorecorder there at all
* lack of power in the scripting, plug-ins and PDB interface lacks functions, there are a bunch of functions that are available in the GUI, but not available in the scripting, so that one has to manually build-them, making scripting even more a pain than it already is. The GUI should ideally be just a 'container' that connects scripts with each other, everything in the GUI should be available in the scripting and each part of Gimp should be modifiable via scripting/plug-ins, brushes, gui, whatever.
* tablet support, while its there it is not really that good, double-clicking is almost impossible on the Gtk components, with a tablet the clicks end up at different positions, Gtk+ seems to lack the tolerance to still register it as doubleclick, might be a Gimp, Gtk+, Xfree86 issue or whatever, however its causing quite huge throuble in Gimp (if there is some fix/hack/patch for it I would like to know)
* load/save dialog, these are really just the standard Gtk+ ones with a single thumbnail, however for a graphic application it would be quite usefull to have full thumbnail view of all images, like you get in Nautilus or any fileviewer
* very bad suport indexed images, one doesn't need them all that often these days, but still sometimes one need them and then Gimp is just a pain in the ass, a decade old version of DeluxPaint was way better at handling them
* no quick&easy way to create brushes, ie. I would like to use a layer click a 'to-brush' button and then paint with it, however thats more or less impossible todo today, I have to save the image as brush, tweak some parameters, then select it from the brush dialog, etc. cost by far to much time for an operation that should really be 'single-click', beside from that brush handling itself is quite a arkward, some brushes are resizable, some others not, while idealy all should be modifiable and it even shouldn't be that difficult to implement
* developers seem to be quite hostile against any suggestions from the outside, both on IRC and on the mailing list, other people seem to have made similar experiences so its not just me, other OSS projects seem to be quite a bit more friendly to their users
There are probally a lot of more issues I have forgotten, but well, that should be the more important ones. Last not least, yeah I know, many people will now say that its OSS so I have no f*** right to critic it and if I would like the features I should implement them myself and beside Gimp is of course doing everything right and I am the one that is just using it wrong (wondering how that can happen after 6 years of gimp usage...), but well, go start flame me now...
Re:Top Reasons I hate Gimp (Score:5, Insightful)
* load/save dialog, these are really just the standard Gtk+ ones with a single thumbnail, however for a graphic application it would be quite usefull to have full thumbnail view of all images, like you get in Nautilus or any fileviewer
Why don't you use nautilus or any other fileviewer then? The point of the GIMP UI is to allow you to use it together with other apps. So why don't you just open images from nautilus or drag them onto the GIMP toolbox? In GIMP 2.2 you can also drag them to an already opened image or into the Layers dialog.
It would be a terrible waste of time and efforts to duplicate the functionality of your favorite file browser if you can just use it with The GIMP.
* no quick&easy way to create brushes, ie. I would like to use a layer click a 'to-brush' button and then paint with it, however thats more or less impossible todo today
It is possible for a long time already by means of "Script-Fu->Selection->To Brush". Sure this isn't very intuitive and it is planned to improve this with the next version. Most of the framework that is needed to make this happen is in place already.
* developers seem to be quite hostile against any suggestions from the outside, both on IRC and on the mailing list
Look at your own posting. It is titled "Top Reasons I hate GIMP". Now do you seriously expect to get friendly response when you address volunteers in such a way? You get back what you throw at people.
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Re:Top Reasons I hate Gimp (Score:3, Interesting)
I do most of the time, however having thumbnail for all files in the open/save dialog would still be extremly usefull. This functionallity might be good to have in the Gtk+ filedialog itself, however it wouldn't have been rocket-sience to implement it in Gimp already years ago.
### It is possible for a long time already by means of "Script-Fu->Selection->To Brush".
I know, it however fills the brush dialog with junk which I then have to manu
Re:Win32 (Score:3, Informative)
Clicky for Win32 goodness [sourceforge.net]
Re:Very Nice (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a need for GIMP as an application, sure, but my god there is a very long way to go, especially with the user interface, and look of the app, before Photoshop even begins to show signs of 'falling'.
I applaud all of the hard work done on the GIMP, by the many undoubtedly talented people who have given their time, but we are still four or five years away from a comfortable PS alternative, and allowing ourselves to think otherwise is totally counterproductive to actually achieving a Photoshop alternative.
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Re:quick (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tiny-fu (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Tiny-fu (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Does this mean I'll be able to (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Does this mean I'll be able to (Score:3, Funny)
Step 1: Put your hand on the mouse.
Step 2: Move your mouse across your desk relative to the "light" image next to the person's username. If you keep it "hovered" over it for a few seconds, it should say "Alter relationship".
Step 3: I'm going to introduce a new concept now. I call it "clicking". I won't go into depth on it, but you can probably check Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] for a 5 page tutorial. Here it is simply: Apply pressure to the left mouse button. Release button.
St
Re:The new GTK file chooser? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The new GTK file chooser? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Give us 16-bit color! (Score:4, Informative)
There is USM preview.
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Transformation preview (Score:5, Informative)
GIMP 2.2 adds the often requested preview for transformations but actually Corrective mode is a lot more versatile and much easier to use especially when it comes to correcting perspective distortions.
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Re:windows gui please! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Bitching (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I don't agree with the point you are trying to make (I'd like to see more intelligent window management in Windows too), but by definition, how can "the world" have moved on if 95% of people (in "the world") are using an OS that hasn't?
As the parent poster said, this is the wrong mindset for an application. The OS dictates the interface to the application, not the other way around. It's very nice that The GIMP provides a flexible interface that advanced window managers can take advantage of. However, sometimes you have to acknowledge the constraints placed on you by your environment (i.e., Windows) and work within those constraints. Changing to an OS with better window managers is just not an option for some people (plus, if that were really the goal there would be no Windows port), and once you are limited to Windows, changing window managers is pretty much not an option either.
As some of the other posters have said, I don't want to see The GIMP get rid of the interface they have. But offering other interface variations (like MDI) via a preference could really improve the experience on other operating systems.
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Re:Why? -- For slicing, obviously! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Has JPEG import been fixed? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gimp shortcuts. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gimp is uncomfortable (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, you seem to forget that something like The Gimp has thousands of functions and options, with a great deal of flexibility as to what the user can do. (An anti-virus program does only one thing.)
You'd better compare the quality of the Gimp's interface to the one found in Photoshop or its veritable replacement, Jasc PaintShop Pro. That means, you should look at consistency, adherence to operating system standards, responsiveness, and user trails, i.e. the workload a user has (number of clicks and mouse-miles) in order to execute a certain manipulation of the document.
In terms of OS standards, for example, the Mac OS X GIMP is worlds behind Adobe Photoshop.
Do I still have to click on every single tool twice in order to activate it? (Once to activate the window, once for the tool). (A global focus-follows mouse setting for X11 would bring up UI issues with all other X11 programs I use.) Is the menu bar in the 'real' menu bar on top of the screen now? Does it use the OS standard keyboard shortcuts (Apple-S, Apple-C, Apple-W etc.?)
I'd really like to use The Gimp, but the interface has been putting me off all along.
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