GIMP 2.8 Will Sport a Redesigned UI 401
ceswiedler writes "Ars Technica's Ryan Paul previews the upcoming release of the GIMP. It will include a single-window mode where the user can dock toolbar windows and switch between images via tabs. There are other improvements as well, including docking support in multi-window mode and improvements to the text tool." To get this early preview, Paul compiled version 2.7.1 from the active development branch, along with its dependencies.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:2, Informative)
FTA:
The single-window mode can be toggled from a checkbox in the Windows menu.
So... What were you arguing about again?
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:3, Informative)
to you.
To many that understood the reason it makes a lot of sense.
Select in window A, Ctrl-C to copy, mouse to window B Ctrl-V to paste. works great... It's all how open you were to learning new input interfaces.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:3, Informative)
That's not what I read - they're _adding_ a single-window mode. You don't have to use it.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:5, Informative)
It is possible, take a look at inkscape: http://www.inkscape.org/ [inkscape.org]
Using inkscape was a great shock to me, it was usable out of the box, with 0 tutorials! A real usable open source image application. It should be the flagship of FOSS development IMHO.
It's not the single window/multi window that makes GIMP bad. It's the GIMP UI that makes GIMP bad. Every time I tried to use it it found myself fighting the UI. Not a single feature was easy to use, no single element reacts as you expect.
I only know 1 worse offender, Blender. Which just mocks you with it's UI.
Much more important features missing (Score:5, Informative)
GIMP is always compared to photoshop. There are some key features missing in GIMP that do not allow serious artists to move to it from Photoshop. Three of these are adjustment layers (which GEGL is suppose to eventually bring about, but it's been a long wait), proper 16 and 32 bit image editing and LAB and CYMK modes. (GIMP only does RGB). I'm greatful for GIMP and thankful for the developer's efforts but I'd rather they focus on these things than dicking around with windowing. The truth is once you get use to it, GIMP's windowing isn't THAT bad.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:3, Informative)
That's just an insane default setting in gimp. Why they choose to make the default that way is really something I would like to know.
To change it: Go to file->preference and then "Window Management" and then set "hint for the toolbox" to normal window. (This is in GIMP 2.6.8, it might be other places in other versions).
To find out what a "utility window is suposed to be", i started the gimp help and damm it's ugly. And the the text in the screenshots are impossible to read.
But the help contain kind of an explanation because it say
"If you choose "Utility Window", they will be raised into visibility whenever you activate an image window, and kept in front of every image window. If you choose "Keep above", they will be kept in front of every other window at all times. Note that changes you make here will not take effect until the next time you start GIMP."
But as you found out, this is not what really happens, so either its a bug in you window manager(I use kde 4.3/fedora 12 and there the utility window stay below and hidden, so it might just be a kde window manager bug).
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:2, Informative)
GIMP and GTK+ are holding back open source UIs (Score:5, Informative)
And the reasons for this are political, with a side of history. The GIMP developers invented GTK+, and now they're tied to it.
Know what? GTK+ is great under X11. It looks and behaves like crap under everything else, regardless of what theme you select. Basic UI principles say that your applications should be consistent with the OS, and that means using standard widgets (menu bars, icons, buttons, file open dialogs, and other things that match the look and feel of your OS). When GIMP was first released there WERE no standard widgets for Linux, so the devs hacked some together and released them as a separate library. A couple other devs saw the work that had been done, and figured that GTK could be used to save work on their own projects, and before long a ton of apps and window managers used it. Some of those app developers wanted to port their apps to Windows and Mac OS, and so GTK+ was ported as well. But because GTK+ manually renders all the buttons and widgets and so on, the ports look out of place. Strike that. They look godawful. Really this isn't GTK's fault, it's just not the right tool for the job. It's not just that they look bad, but users have to learn things like how to interact with a new file manager. It's unprofessional, it robs the user of time and effort, and it makes ported open source software seem inferior to native apps.
Recognizing the inherent problem, several other developers made toolkits so that apps would look normal again. A wxWidgets program compiled for Linux uses GTK+ to draw the dialogs and menus, but calls the native widget functions under Windows. The result is a program that looks like it was designed specifically for each OS on which it runs. Take a look at screenshots of Audacity for a great example.
They could design the UI in wxWidgets or Qt to make it actually look decent under every OS, but they won't-- and really at this point they can't, because the former would be seen as pandering, and the latter would be seen as abandoning GTK+. But to everyone outside the community, it looks like the GIMP devs are rallying to prove the superiority of GTK+ using the flagship Linux graphics app, at the expense of the open source movement. It only pisses off those of us who are trying to ease migrations to a free OS by gradually replacing existing non-free apps with free alternatives like OpenOffice. OO is a drop in replacement for MS Office in many cases, and behaves almost exactly like a native app under Windows. On the other hand, Inkscape is a great program with a decent UI, but I can't wholeheartedly recommend it as an Illustrator replacement to Windows users because it doesn't look or act like what they're used to. And if I can't get my mother weaned off the crippled photo editor that came bundled with her camera, I'm never going to get her to switch completely.
Face it, folks, GTK+ is cross platform only by the loosest possible interpretation. I realize a lot of time and effort has gone into the 2.7/2.8 "redesign", but these UI changes to GIMP are too little, too late. At this point the only thing which is really going to save The GIMP on other platforms is a complete UI redesign using something other than GTK+. If GEGL is ever finished this shouldn't be too hard. Conveniently this would also allow us to change the cringe-inducing name as well. The result would be a Photoshop replacement that would look like it wasn't cobbled together by two bearded guys in a basement.
Re:Nice to have the choice. (Score:3, Informative)
Except that multi-window also means you can hide the controls you aren't using, and allocate maximum screen real estate to the image you're working on. But I can't argue with letting users choose.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:4, Informative)
What are you talking about, typing text directly onto an image? You have to click the Text tool, then place it, but then typing goes right in. Always has as far as I know with the GIMP. Don't knock it 'till you've tried it.
Re:Inkscape won't run on netbooks (Score:3, Informative)
Just looked at it. Indeed, it seems that the windows version is build for a min height of 800px. Anything less and buttons start to disappear.
But if you change the icon size (interface preferences, nothing fancy. Does require a restart, which it doesn't mention) then it will fit as far as I can see.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:3, Informative)
Both of you are wrong.
You click to place the text first and that pops up a window that you edit in. It shows the resuting text as you edit but in two places (the edit window and also in the resulting image). This is in current Gimp.
Re:"... Two Steps Back" (Score:3, Informative)
The Import question was a long conversation in IRC actually. The conclusion is that it doesn't really add anything to split open and import, while save/export does.
Yes it is different from other programs, but the only one I can think of OOo, and the other formats (word, etc) do save enough info to keep your work.
Currently when you open a PNG, the export item becomes "Overwrite foo.png" so it's very obvious in the menu. After you export the menu gets overwrite foo.png, export to bar.png export to... plus the usual save and save to. The overwrite item goes away when you save to a XCF.
Yes very nonstandard, that's one of the things I dislike.
My biggest annoyance with all this is that when you type in foo.png in the save dialog it'll show a very unfriendly "You can use this dialog to save to the GIMP XCF format. Use File ->export to export to other file formats". The obvious thing to do would be to add an export button to that dialog or a "take me to the export dialog" so the user doesn't have to waste time navigating to the right directory again. But, in the words of the UI guy "we cannot allow the user to think of the save dialog as an unofficial way to export".
And yes, they now have a "UI expert" designing things. So it's not random developers coming up with weird things. Some of his ideas are good, but not down to the details IMHO. And he has a real NIH syndrome problem. Look at the export dialog, the adjustment layers and the non-MDI single window UI for examples.
Int his case I think the feature does make sense, but it does need some changes, liek the ones you suggest. The double save-path export offers does seem very useful for something like GImp.