The GIMP Gets Ready for 2.2 478
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."
Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Three steps before GIMP is taken seriously. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Can I not have so many floating boxes? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Can I not have so many floating boxes? (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be my ideal GIMP behaviour, anyway.
Re:Can I not have so many floating boxes? (Score:2, Insightful)
Still, I'm very excited about this release, the GIMP seems to get better every time. I'm sure I'll play around with it a lot once it comes out.
Bitching (Score:0, Insightful)
Stop complaining about the GIMP's interface just because your window management sucks. (This goes double for Windows users because, ironically enough, Windows' window management sucks balls.) MDI is a shitty hack, and the GIMP developers have already refused to implement it with good reason.
developers.slashdot.org (Score:1, Insightful)
Says something about GIMP, wouldn't you say?
Re:Can I not have so many floating boxes? (Score:2, Insightful)
Having "grown up" with Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and Illustrator, the idea of having 4 totally separate windows for the toolbars doesn't sit well with me. I realise that their floating palettes are effectively windows, but they're different (smaller title bars, slightly different behaviour).
One thing that might help, if the single window model is impossible, could be if they "snapped" to, say, 2 pixels of the desktop edge (as they do in Photoshop) and remember their positions between sessions. This'd at least let me quickly impose order on my GIMP virtual desktop.
GIMP could be great. I'd use it all the time instead of Photoshop under VMWare (!), if I could get my head around its little annoyances.
Give us 16-bit color! (Score:2, Insightful)
1. remove dust etc. with clone tool
2. rotate (if neccessary)
3. crop
4. levels
5. color balance, contrast adjustment (if neccessary)
6. unsharp mask
The GIMP fails to provide the tools I require in cases 2, 4, 5 and 6.
I haven't found any way to preview the rotating so that I just can rotate the canvas until I see that a line that I want to be horizontal (such as the horizont) is really horizontal. It usually takes me several tries to get a line straight.
Levels and color balance suffer from lack of 16-bit color. After basic levels or white balance restoration, the result seems pixellated. The fine tonality that was present in the original is usually gone. This becomes more evident if the picture requires more color manipulation. This is the one thing I would most like to see improved in the GIMP!
Unsharp mask tool doesn't have a preview. This means that I have to use select tool first to select an area that I wish to preview, and then do USM-undo-adjust-USM-undo-adjust cycle until I have found the right parameters. This is very much a hassle, but I actually expect USM preview to be present in the GIMP 2.2.
My message to developers is: keep up the good work! Just do not add any more of the ridiculous plug-ins and artistic filters. Keep working on digital imaging support!
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.
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.
Re:Can I not have so many floating boxes? (Score:2, Insightful)
Go to a clean desktop, start gimp, do whatever you want to do. Use another desktop for running whatever else you need/want to run at the same time. Now, I know that in the window manager I use (fluxbox), tasks that are running on one desktop are not shown in the taskbar of another desktop.
With this setup (which seems intuitive to me) I don't have the problems you mentioned.
Re:quick (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Three steps before GIMP is taken seriously. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:2, Insightful)
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 what it does best.
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.
Pulling in people (not just bitching about the ui) (Score:2, Insightful)
To do this the Gimp needs to become nicer to use for the gimp newbs, I've used photoshop for ages, before that, I used Paint Shop Pro, the change from one to the tother wasn't painless, but it was still easy enough (ie. intuitive) to find out what I wanted to do.
However, any time I've used the gimp I stop after hardly any time, almost nothing makes sense. Maybe that's an exagguration, but that's exactly how it feels.
Of course people who learnt with the Gimp find it natural, that makes sense, I'm sure if I perciviered, so would I , but it would take a lot longer that the PSP->PS switch, and what for? not much really. PS is superior to PSP in that it's industry standard, more powerful(it is, although i've not looked at psp for a while) etc etc. Where does the gimp stand? it's free, that's the only real advantage I can think of for the normal PS user. personally I think most people are better off paying out for the usability of PS.
I'm aware that the Gimp's getting better, but for real acceptance I think it needs:
To be easy to migrate to from PS/PSP.
Thats it really, at the moment, the Gimp is not. And to all the people saying you can fix the UI with a better window manager, that's useless to the masses(who you need). If you have to do something using a seperate program/utility to make the program you want to use better, it's not working like it should. Especially for a program not aimed at tech geeks. That's my 2p. Also, the name could be better.
Re:More than 24bpp support (Score:1, Insightful)
I agree that for the *final* image, >8 bits/color is pointless. Greater bit density is for keeping posterization and quantization errors down during processing.
Re:you forgot (Score:2, Insightful)
FOSS applications are great if you're trying to supply low-cost computers, but not if you have to explain the name to each and every customer - it's just not worth the hassle.
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 IIS turned off by default.
mind you we did have about 3 proprietary apps break down as well.
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.
Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Gimp shortcuts. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bitching (Score:2, Insightful)
Using a platform's window management to excuse any difficulties people are having with the product is not going to win over users. The platform is what the platform is, and for an app to be usable it must make the best of it. I hate MDI with a passion, but Windows has yet to produce a better answer to the Mac's global menu bar. If I were writing Photoshop for Windows I might use MDI too.
Responding to user complaints with things like "just set your windows up this way" or "just change these preferences" isn't a solution. I suspect the GIMP has lost and will continue to lose users who look at it, say "this doesn't measure up to Photoshop," and move on. The defaults cater to new users; advanced folks can customize.
I see several main UI advantages of Photoshop, comparing the Mac version (since that's what I use):
- The global menu bar works well in a graphics app, because means functions aren't somehow tied to a single window. With an open document I suppose that's not such a big deal, but even so I think it's cleaner.
- The palettes are smaller. The GIMP takes up a HUGE amount of space. I can't resize the toolbox down beyond 2 columns, and if I do that I lose most of the main app menus. The Small theme helps a little but doesn't really solve the problem. I don't think the GIMP is feasible to use at 1024x768.
- Photoshop palettes are more clearly secondary windows. They disappear when the app is in the background; they can be docked; their positions can be saved. This makes for easy window management without much effort. This type of functionality would serve the GIMP well.
Obviously there's more to developing the GIMP than cloning Photoshop. But there are distinct advantages to cloning Photoshop: People like it; it makes transitioning to the GIMP easier; and Adobe has put a lot of thought into Photoshop, so presumably there are good reasons for many aspects of its interface and feature set.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Transformation preview-Tailight Chasing. (Score:1, Insightful)
But, but it's NOT like PS so it must be bad.
Seriously I'm showing the fallacy behind most of the arguments presented against the Gimp.
Clone the PS interface and a couple things happen:
1) Listen to accusations that the OSS authors aren't innovative (Tailight chasing)
2) Get locked into what the other guy's doing. (Adobe sneezes, we copy that. We sneeze, everyone runs to Adobe for a tissue.)
3) Open ourselves to numerous legal issues.
EXACTLY. (Score:3, Insightful)
You have no idea. This is (IMO) the one single, most useful feature of the GIMP.
Arbitrary inverse linear transformations.
That and quick editing of masks/alpha channels. I love being able to "paste down" grayscale right into the mask layer, or an arbitrary channel.
Mix that with the "compose images" feature...
Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:1, Insightful)
Handling windows is the job of the Window Manager, which is Windows under Windows, and can be anything under Unices. So if you have an issue with the way your windows are handled, just report the problem to your window manager's developers.
By blaming Gimp for a problem with Windows, you're asking them to break an interface that works in a way that cannot work. You wouldn't ask your car manufacturer to fix your car because of a hole in the road, would you ?
Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:1, Insightful)
Gimp developers afraid to try Photoshop?! (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean to tell me that you're a Gimp developer, but you've never used Photoshop?!?!
There's your problem right there. No wonder Gimp is so hard to use.
No user interface designer or software developer should be afraid to use a competing product. It's your responsibility to know Photoshop cold before trying to write something that competes with it. Many of the users you're trying to win over certainly do.
No wonder you're having a hard time understanding why people think Gimp is clumsy and hard to use.
-Don
Re:GIMP on Windows vs Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for speaking for the rest of the world.
I for one (And checking the replies to your message, it seems I'm not alone) do not have a problem with the GIMP interface. in fact, I like it very much. I have a window on the left side for the GIMP controls, one on the right for layers, histogram, undo history, and other tools that I require then X number of windows for the graphics I'm working on. How this is more difficult to use than a single Word-style window eludes me. I've used GIMP on virtual desktops, on full-screen desktops, and even across dual monitors and it Just Works(tm). The biggest problem I have with it is on Click-To-Focus desktops that require that I click twice on icons in non-focused widgets and I fail to see how crippling the GIMP to satisfy their busted-ass UI model is going to make it better.
Re:you forgot (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, there are many definitions for the word "gimp" but only one is truly commonly used and it isn't anything you'd say to someone's face unless you knew them well.
Yes, I could create my own version of GIMP and rename it, but frankly it should come from within. Plus my reference was specifically about how to make GIMP taken seriously. If it doesn't want to be taken seriously that's fine but if it does then I, and many others, believe that the "cute" name needs to be changed.
Perhaps somebody, like the developers, could come up with a concurrent release with a more professional name, while keeping GIMP for beta testing and using GAMUT (Graphic Art Manipulation Usage Tool) for example for other releases. Or perhaps, if that's taken, then in the name of keeping linux programs named after alcohol GIN (Graphic Image Noodling), anything really would be fine. Now someone may jump in and say that gin could be offensive to alcoholics or something like that and if they're willing to drag every conversation to the lowest common denominator that's fine.
What it comes down to is that GIMP is a clever name, it's just not smart. Kinda something us geeks are stereotyped for.