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.
Masks (Score:3, Funny)
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Yes and it will also support documentation that you can read so that you know what features it has.
You people that gripe about gimp's interface have really messed it up. Thanks a lot.
Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad they're doing this.
It makes it much easier to work on the images, instead of having to "mishap-click" on every single window, and having to click on the related window in order to get back into the image editor again. WAAAAY overdue, but finally here - good job guys!
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It's even worse - at least on my KDE system, the main GIMP toolbox window doesn't even show up in the task bar. I have no clue why, but this is the only program that has this issue. The net result is that I have to minimize other windows to get to it if I ever "lose" it.
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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
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the makers of a painting program should not say "use window manager X or Y". The makers of a painting program should ensure that their program works in a reasonable way on the system the user has.
User-friendlyness, you know?
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In general, if you want user-friendlyness, open source software isn't the place to be looking
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.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:4, Insightful)
Take a look at Gimp 2.2; it's - I believe - the last version with the "old" UI, which was very intuitive and convenient to use. They only screwed it up in the newer versions due to reasons completely unknown to me.
I have found the complete opposite. the old gimp UI was impossible to navigate. It's like blender, where everything about the UI is just wrong, anyone with even the slightest bit of experience on similar software simplt cannot use it.
3 horizontal windows? whats going on? I've been using various graphic programs for 15 years now, never needing a manual for any of them, until running into gimp, the 1st program I souldn't solve intuitively, through trial and error.
The new interface has the toolbar that is common to every other graphics program in existence, so it doesn't require a series of tutorials just to know where to get started. The newer gimp UI is a significant improvement. I was able to go straight from photoshop to gimp without needed a help file (which is a good thing, since Ubuntu doesn't seem to include the gimp help files) The only major problems left with gimps AI are dealing with layers; pasting is especially cumbersome.
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I would like to second that. Inkscape has a surprisingly good UI for open source software. It is at least as intuitive as Illustrator, and I actually prefer it over Illustrator for a lot of simple tasks (especially since it's footprint is much smaller and it's relatively quick and easy to use). The same cannot be said (in the past anyway) of GIMP vs. Photoshop. Inkscape and Firefox are two programs I regularly cite as great examples of open source software that's comparable to proprietary counterparts.
I rea
Inkscape won't run on netbooks (Score:2)
I actually prefer [Inkscape] over Illustrator for a lot of simple tasks (especially since it's footprint is much smaller[...])
Inkscape's footprint isn't small enough to fit on a laptop with a 1024x600 pixel screen. I tried installing it through the repository on Ubuntu 9.10, and its window was taller than the laptop's screen even after I tried to resize it down.
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It's not the user's job to change themes. It's the toolkit's job to detect when a theme is overpadded for a given application and automatically correct for it.
Sorry, but as much as I want applications to automatically do stuff on this one I have to disagree.
The application ought to honor the styles set by the Windows manager, and not run off and do its own thing. How is the application suppose to know that the user did not want it overpadded? Or do you really want every single application to have all kinds of little settings to modify the display and break the central theming provided by the Windows Manager?
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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.
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Blender is in the process of changing it's UI, too! They had this amazing and innovative idea of putting important and often used commands available on actual buttons, so you're not completely screwed if you don't happen to remember the shortcut!
You might be able to shave off at least a month of that one year learning curve now!
(The latest SVN builds for all the relevant platforms can be found here [graphicall.org], if anyone want's to check it out)
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If you want "user friendliness" then perhaps you shouldn't be looking at the tools that have "everything and the kitchen sink". No matter how much you arrange the buttons and knobs you are still going to end up with something that looks like a 747 and deals with features you can't even name ( nevermind understand ).
If you want "easy", then look for an iPhoto knockoff rather than a Photoshop knockoff.
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If you want "easy", then look for an iPhoto knockoff rather than a Photoshop knockoff.
I chose GIMP because I usually don't want to manipulate photos; I want to edit pixel art for use in a sprite comic or a video game. Occasionally I edit photos, but usually to trace them on a separate layer to make pixel graphics. What's a better tool than GIMP for doing that?
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the makers of a painting program should not say "use window manager X or Y".
They're not really saying "use window manager X or Y". They were saying "use any window manager you want as long as it supports feature X or Y" - a far more reasonable request.
Having simple pieces that all take responsibility of their own area is the *nix way; if managing windows is hard, that's not the application's fault, it's the window manager's fault. Why fix one application when you can fix all of the applications at once?
Now they're saying "since so many of you refuse to use a window manager that works, we're doing a workaround..." and then add, "but you could - you know - save time by using the current version with a window manager that's not broken. Just saying."
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:5, Interesting)
That's all very well and good, but a window manager that's broken covers:
KDE
GNOME (I believe - I've never used it in anger myself)
Windows
and probably MANY more, if not most. So, a significant proportion of the potential user-base.
Yes, some of these can be configured to work the way the developers require for sensible functioning of their app.
Also, this does not address the problem of having to use GIMP with multiple workspaces/desktops, whereby "Send to desktop n" will send the image you're working on, but none of the toolbars or dialogs associated with working on that image. This was my second biggest bugbear of using GIMP (the first, obviously, being the absurdly steep learning curve).
If the top 3 don't support it (Score:2)
They were saying "use any window manager you want as long as it supports feature X or Y" - a far more reasonable request.
That's a hard sell if the default window manager in a top 3 desktop distribution (AFAICT the top 3 are Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu) doesn't support these features.
Why fix one application when you can fix all of the applications at once?
Because other applications running under the same user account depend on the brokenness of the far-more-widespread default window manager.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:5, Insightful)
They were saying "use any window manager you want as long as it supports feature X or Y" - a far more reasonable request.
What if feature X or Y drives the user fricking insane?
The first time I used a Unix workstation 20 years ago, I was appalled by the focus-follows-mouse misfeature. It turns moving your mouse into navigating a minefield. Luckily, more sane desktop environments have been developed in the decades since.
I will never, ever enable focus-follows mouse. Nor will the vast majority of the population. I would switch to Microsoft Windows rather than suffer such abuse from a window manager. So the request is *not* reasonable.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:5, Insightful)
I was appalled by the focus-follows-mouse misfeature.
Oddly, what you're calling a misfeature is what many would call click-to-focus. Click to focus needless requires extra clicking. Now do keep in mind there is a difference between raise on focus and focus follows mouse. I hate raise on focus but focus follows mouse is extremely superior to click-to-focus. Why? Because click-to-focus needlessly forces you to waste screen real estate when referencing one screen and inputting on another. This is even more so as you continue to add more and more references screens.
Like many technology related issues, many times is a case of what's different is bad or ugly. You were likely taught to use a computer with click-to-focus and therefore anything which is not that is bad. But once you get used to it, the click-to-focus style of using interfaces, assuming the interface is designed to work with it (*cough* no windows *cough*), anything else sucks and sucks badly.
So if you enjoy needlessly clicking for the sake of needlessly clicking, then by all means continue to use click-to-focus. But for those of us that enjoy fewer clicks and higher efficiency of interface, you'll not want to go back to the insanity which is click-to-focus.
I guess if you're one of those users who maximizes every window and never multi-tasks, then there is nothing wrong with click-to-focus. But if not, you need to give it a try for a week or two and you'll be wondering what the heck you were thinking. Of course, this assumes you're not using Windows, which is specifically designed to break focus follows mouse behavior. There, its usable but IMO, a wash because of Windows' UI behaviors.
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Oddly, what you're calling a misfeature is what many would call click-to-focus. Click to focus needless requires extra clicking
I'll take ALL of those wasted milliseconds times ten over accidentally typing in the wrong field because I bumped my mouse.
You say "extra clicking" like tapping a mouse button is equivalent to a 4 hour forced march with 30lbs of equipment.
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So if you enjoy needlessly clicking for the sake of needlessly clicking, then by all means continue to use click-to-focus.
I don't do much needless clicking, because I keep my hands on the keyboard and use Alt+Tab if I can. The mouse is relegated to secondary status, only used in the rare cases when it's worth taking my hands away from the more productive keyboard.
That means that most of the time I really don't want to worry about where the mouse cursor is, and I certainly don't want it on top of the window I'm working on, and I *really* don't want to worry about what happens if I accidentally bump it.
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As a counter-anecdote, I find focus-follows-mouse absolutely indispensable. I will go to nearly any lengths to enable it, even following obscure and hard to find tutorials on what registry values to change in order to get that behavior in Windows Vista. Clicking to change windows is very jarring to me, because things aren't working the way I expect
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if managing windows is hard, that's not the application's fault, it's the window manager's fault.
If everyone followed that logic, we would never have had tabbed browsing.
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.
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They should also not alienate their users by changing the UI on every damn release. I liked the way it was back in 2.2. I can barely use 2.4. I'm quite afraid of how horrible 2.8 is going to be. Every time they move shit around to be 'more like photoshop' they end up putting things in places that make absolutely no sense. I know on one of the older versions when they first started this crap, to manage layers you went not to the 'layers' menu but to the 'dialogs' menu. WTF? Now I don't even know how anymore.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:5, Insightful)
So now they're screwing up a totally fine UI and degenerate into the train wreck that's Photoshop. Nice.
I agree! How dare they give you the option to have a single-window mode that's turned off by default! Jerks!
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I have to admit when I was using GIMP under Windows 7, having multiple windows for different toolboxes + the image window was a pain in the arse. I couldn't get the tiling to work properly. I made the move to Kubuntu about a month ago and after the initial shock getting use to a new interface and configuring the desktop I found it definitely works as good as windows in many respects and better in others; such as being able to tile the separate toolboxes in GIMP and getting the window to snap to its nearest
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FTA:
The single-window mode can be toggled from a checkbox in the Windows menu.
So... What were you arguing about again?
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Exactly. Just because a bunch of luddite Photoshop users whine like babies that the UI looks different they cave in and degrade the interface to 1995 design ideas.
Yet I dont hear the photoshop guys whining how Photoshop's lats iteration in UI changes match closer to the Gimp now with all the windows seperate and floating "all over the place" to put it into the words of a Photoshop user that snubed Gimp when I last showed him.
What I want gimp to focus on is more of the tools like the "save for web" features
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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Is the layers menu actually under "layers" now instead of "dialogs"?
Can you go to the file menu and save from there or do you have to right click the image?
These are sorts of inconsistencies that that "luddite" photoshop UI doesn't have to contend with.
the GIMP UI is like a toilet with a rope attached to the flush mechanism, with a handwritten note attached to the handle on the outside that says "we'll implement this sometime later". Sure it works, but if you use it every day you want it to work properly.
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No, the gimp UI was trainwreck. Gimped. Totally unworkable if you ever wanted to edit few images. while having some other application running. It was hiding ui elements/features (learging curve being awfull thanks to it). Several highly illogical user flow choices (if you want brush of certain width, you have to define new one!?).
I ended up buying actual application where ui was designed with intent to help user, not to make developers job easy.
Besides ... tiling windows? Is that magical thing that helps? O
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Their obvious retort is "If you had a decent window manager the UI wouldn't BE bad"
But I'm right there with you. I got fed up and bought Lightroom and now use it for about 95% of my photo work. I fire gimp up when i have to, for certain tasks.
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That's not what I read - they're _adding_ a single-window mode. You don't have to use it.
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Actually, on OS X Photoshop has a much nicer UI than the Windows versions have had (I haven't used the Win version of Photoshop since CS so it may have changed), one of the things that always bothered me with the Win version was how it handled windows and toolbars, on the OS X version the default behaviour is non-MDI (free-floating image windows) and that if Photoshop isn't the active program the toolbars are hidden. As for the "traditional" GIMP UI, well it's worse than the "traditional" Windows UI for Pho
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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.
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You mean middle. PC windows users get confused when presented with a proper 3 button mouse.
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Some of us grew up on non-PC, non-Windows machines for decades* before ever getting a Windows PC, and are not so easily confused :)
(Well, about 1.5 decades, anyway...)
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That's okay - Mac users got confused for the longest time when presented with a two-button mouse.
Sometimes even with a one-button mouse, such as when the iMac zero-button "HULK SMASH" mice were in vogue.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:5, Insightful)
Focus-follows-mouse made no sense back in the old days with Solaris work stations. It still makes no sense.
It made sense for the stereotypical bearded Unix guy with nothing but 8 different XTerms open on his gigantic Sun monitor. None of his software used a mouse for input, so why not use it as an enhanced 2-dimensional task switcher?
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Focus-follows-mouse [...]
It made sense for the stereotypical bearded Unix guy with nothing but 8 different XTerms open on his gigantic Sun monitor. [...]
OK, but how does focus-follows-mouse disadvantage everyone else? I use it, and I don't have a beard.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, but how does focus-follows-mouse disadvantage everyone else? I use it, and I don't have a beard.
I can't speak for everyone else, but in my case the keyboard and mouse works like a team, I do shortcuts on the keyboard while the mouse is on its way or already somewhere else. A typical operation is copying/moving files or text which for me is usually Ctrl-X/C *click* Ctrl-V as the click focuses on the destination. Focus follow steals the focus too soon.
Another big annoyance is losing focus if I move my hand over to the keyboard to type, particularly on the stupid apps that have focus follows mouse even inside the application. It really doesn't take much to move a line away in a form or something.
Also, I find I can be much more effective if I can be erratic with the mouse and click to confirm rather than things popping in and out of focus all over the place. That I could probably get used to ignore but I find it distracting and not productive.
Re:Smartest workflow move ....ever! (Score:4, Insightful)
None of his software used a mouse for input, so why not use it as an enhanced 2-dimensional task switcher?
I don't understand. If you're using your mouse for input (as I very frequently do), doesn't it make sense that your mouse would be over the application that you're interacting with, which at least suggests it should have focus? If you're using the mouse for input, that implies clicking, which would give that app focus in click-to-focus anyway.
I'm not saying there's something wrong with your preference, I just don't seem to get the usage model that inspires the preference. The more graphical apps I'm using, the more I appreciate focus-follows-mouse.
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Focus follows mouse has broken semantics. It only works with mouse pointer hiding. It doesn't work if you have another means of switching focus (like alt-tab) because if you bump the mouse then you end up focused on the last window you focused with the mouse. If you mouse to nowhere, you also lose focus entirely. Sloppy focus fixes this last problem, but now most of us have a desktop window and that gets focus, so now sloppy focus is deprecated. Mouse hiding is a misfeature because now you have to find the
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you should be using focus-follows-mouse
Focus-follows-mouse made no sense back in the old days with Solaris work stations. It still makes no sense.
Frankly, I still want "focus follows eyes". Maybe then I could stop typing into the wrong winsure boss I'll stop right overdow all the time.
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Click to focus makes sense to users that mostly use the keyboard (also for switching focus). Especially since mouse focus is/was often incorrectly implemented as "focus window under mouse".
If you use only the mouse, you don't need focus anyway.
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Personally I would prefer if it was enabled by default but it may be simply because this new layout is not mature enough yet.
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Yeah! Though I think they'd win more supporters if they enabled it by default instead of making it just an option that can be turned on. The article didn't seem really clear about that.
I still don't understand the point of sticking the tools in the same window as the image. I tend to have the image fullscreen one display, and the tools, layer selector, etc on another. What exactly is gained by putting them all in a big window?
Why only with tabs? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not floating windows inside the main window?
Oh I know why: because the GTK designers don't like floating windows inside a window for whatever strange reason.
But great improvement nonetheless, kudos!
Multi-window mode is also improved. (Score:2)
Since you can dock all your tool windows together, do you really need MDI emulation? The problem with the Gimp multi-window mode is really the tool windows, not the image windows.
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To me the problem is both images and tools. If I click in the taskbar on the gimp window (well, I should say "a" gimp window here), I want to see both tools and the painting.
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They should probably implement something like the Mac "floater" model, I guess.
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Maybe because gimp is an image manipulation program, not a window manager? MDI is, and always has been, a terrible workaround for systems that suck at window management.
I really hate the GIMP UI changes. (Score:2, Interesting)
I used to prefer GIMP to Photoshop back in the day because I could work so much more quickly with many, many open files and windows using GIMP thanks to the "lots of little windows" approach. It made fine-grained window management easy using a capable window manager and focus-follows-mouse.
I always found the Photoshop interface clumsy in comparison, but now with every release GIMP gets closer to it.
Re:I really hate the GIMP UI changes. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:I really hate the GIMP UI changes. (Score:4, Interesting)
I've always noticed a kind of cultural difference in this respect between people who came up through the Windows vs. the UNIX/Linux worlds. Generally, the former like their apps monolithic and full-screen, whereas the latter prefer to have multiple windows open, each just large enough to do the job. E.g., my GF, an unrepentant Windows user, runs just about everything full-screen, regardless of how little real estate the contents of the window might consume. She uses PS a lot, and to her GIMP looks very fragmented and confusing. I, on the other hand, find that GIMP's multiple windows fits my thought process very well, and consider PS to be overwrought and clunky. To each their own, I suppose...
now only a single window to bug out (Score:2)
Looks good (Score:5, Funny)
"... Two Steps Back" (Score:5, Interesting)
Are they still committed to breaking one of Gimp's best features: "Intelligent Save" ? (Inferring file type based on extension)
Splitting "File > Export" and "File > Save" is counter-intuitive; it's not DWIMish, and I guarantee more people will be frustrated that the Save dialog box is "broken" when they try to save a JPG and end up with an XCF file instead. "File > Export" reeks of being Designed By Developers, rather than actually taking user behavior into account.
(And stealing the keystroke for "Fit In Window" is just adding insult to injury...)
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I haven't heard about this yet, but that would suck. I agree, an export button in the menu is stupid, and pointless... Tell you what, I'll get the pitchforks, you get the torches and we'll meet at old Jeb's barn around midnight.
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Yes, you can lose information by saving in certain formats. That's why they show you a warning dialog if yo
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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
Finally (Score:3, Interesting)
Like a lot of novice users I gave GIMP a shot. Loved the plugin system and spent many an hour trying to get older plugins working and tweaking other plugins to do some neat effects. But in the end the UI made it difficult and confusing to use. For YEARS the internal arguments over the UI made it seem unlikely something like single window mode would reach maturity (and become usable on Windows). Kudos to the developers. I'll give it another shot.
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I recommend trying Krita aswell...often forgotten, but quite powerful and, unlike Gimp, it is not limited to use the graphic toolkit(QT), it also uses features from other parts of KDE, so it's well integrated with the rest of the kde desktop. I'm using 2.1 and while I've had a crash (which I didn't really notice it because Krita autosaves your work and it asks if you want to continue working on it after reloading the app), it has worked quite well. And it uses a single window UI today...
Re:Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, this is always the problem that big software projects have... I don't claim that users are perfect and "know" what they want, but it has to be said: if you are making a USER interface, it's probably best if the USER gets some say in that and that you listen to the USERS especially when a large of them speak up. Other parts, sure, you can say "We don't work that way" but the user interface is sacred and your *only* interaction with the program as a user. Mess that up, you might as well not have the program at all.
And I'm sorry, but I'm a single-window person. I've work in IT for years and the *easiest* way to work is on a commandline or in a full-screen window (alt-tab's, multiple desktops etc. vital, of course). Rarely do I need two things side by side on the screen but when I do, it's usually TWO and that's it, and that's easily handled by tiling the windows. Bear in mind that I have 18 windows open on my machine at the moment, everything from instant messengers, shell sessions, folder views, web browsers, development environments etc. The only "non-full-screen" ones are two shell windows where I'm referring to one file in another and need to check consistency between the two, and the instant messengers (because they don't need full-screen, are minimised, and are only on the taskbar so that they flash when I get a message). MDI is an invaluable tool - I can't web-browse without my Opera tabs - and ignoring it because of some "religious" argument is stupid. I've seen even the cheapest paint programs offer a "Do you want an MDI or SDI interface?" dialog on first run... Serif software springs to mind.
The only other program I ever really used a lot that didn't do single-window nicely was some of the old versions of Visual Basic. But there they had a reason - you were designing a UI within an UI, so it's not an easy task to do.
At last, though, GIMP has woken up to the protests of almost *every* non-professional-user that's ever wanted to use it. When the new version is released, it will be downloaded and tried, if for no other reason than to add another number to the download stats for the single-window-capable versions.
I love Gimp... but not on OS X (Score:2)
I love Gimp and have used it for many years for conversions, touch-ups of pictures, website graphics etc. When I switched to a MacBook, I was pleased to see the OS X version. But it doesn't really work, I'm afraid.
Besides the obvious graphical shortcomings (doesn't use Cocoa), you also have to click in each window first to activate it, then you can select your tool, activate your layer or what have you. This is so non-intuitive, and so not part of the usual routines, that I just don't use Gimp anymore on OS
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Besides the obvious graphical shortcomings (doesn't use Cocoa), you also have to click in each window first to activate it, then you can select your tool, activate your layer or what have you. This is so non-intuitive, and so not part of the usual routines, that I just don't use Gimp anymore on OS X.
That's actually quite easy to fix. There is an option in the xserver on how to change that behavior. It ticked me off to no end also. defaults write org.x.x11 FocusFollowsMouse -string YES Type that into the terminal and you should be good. (it was the 4th hit on google btw)
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this should be better
defaults write org.x.x11 FocusFollowsMouse -string YES
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You need to activate click-through in the X11 server. It is a pain that this isn't the default, but now that you know, you'll find GIMP so much nicer on OS X.
From http://darwingimp.sourceforge.net/guides/install_leopard/ [sourceforge.net]:
re? (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the prefix "re" usually means doing something again, which in turn requires that it was actually done in the first place.
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Loved on Linux, hate hate hate on Mac (Score:2)
I loved GIMP on linux. Even made an automatic compositing system with perl-fu.
But I really hate, hate-hate-hate GIMP on Mac OS X. Seashore and Leeshore also suck, having thrown out all the functionality I look for, but oh GIMP in X on the Mac has been utter pain.
I am sooo looking forward to this.
FYI Leeshore [bicoid.com] is the Cocoa minimized GIMP version called Seashore, but with Core Image effects added.
The site is all in Japanese but the program is in English.
Nice to have the choice. (Score:3, Insightful)
Multi-window is nice if you've got a ginormous wide-screen or multiple monitors. Multi-window on a smaller screen, or god forbid a laptop, is a real pain unless you live in it day-in day-out. Kudos for letting users choose the right tool for the job.
Re: (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.
Back to GIMPShop? (Score:2)
So, after years upon years, GIMP has suddenly heeded the message of GIMPShop - That some features are simply good to have? I am talking about the monotone MDI background here, which does not distract people from editing their images as opposed to doing so with a desktop background and a dozen of icons behind.
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.
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And colour management, but the OS has to support it as well, which means Mac or Windows at the moment.
I also used to find the Gimp to be very slow in applying filters (I'm thinking specifically of things like unsharp mask) - I think because it processes the whole image. Photoshop previews the filter on the area displayed (assuming you're at 100% and seeing a fraction of the whole image), letting you assess the effect and make small adjustments to the parameters until it looks right. Then you can apply to th
Re:Much more important features missing (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed
Adjustment layers are a messed up paradigm from being stuck in a 1D compositing 'stack'. A node-based compositing workflow, however...
cinepaint seems to have gone nowhere particular fast simply because not enough people (read: businesses) were/are interested in this. It's sad, but there you go.
Seems pretty far off the priority list for most "serious artists".. unless the only serious artists are those who print their work and have it exhibited. Let's face it - most Photoshop users, and I admit I'm including all the warez kiddies and the family members they installed Photoshop for - will only ever used Photoshop to make images suitable for display on monitors; LCD ones at that.. they won't be bothering with even calibrating their display and making sure Photoshop uses that color profile information. By the time they do want a print - they'll either send it off to one of the many online printing services who have excellent staff who deal with RGB->CMYK(and then some) conversion if their machines flag out-of-gamut results, or they'll just send it to their own inkjet/color laser printer and not really care if the colors are a bit off.
You shouldn't have to 'get used to it' - although I agree that there's other areas that need love more than how one manages their windows; although 'losing' your layer window under some other non-GIMP-related because it's separate from everything else, or being fooled once again and trying to do a color adjustment in image A but ending up doing it in image B because you forgot that each window has its own little menu for doing these things.. can get quite annoying.
Now.. a unified transform tool and a macro recorder (not every artist wants to dive straight into script-fu.. which in itself isn't exactly the most human-readable of languages) - that's what I've been making donations for; although perhaps I should hire a programmer instead and pray to the OSS gods that they'll actually include the code, as I haven't seen any headway made into these areas.. just years and years of discussions.
At least there's a bit of a push for GEGL so maybe it won't be so swaptastic to work on large images anymore.
Who cares about UI, but 16 bit per color... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Forget the UI, change the name (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, I'd even take GIMPY (the GNU Image Manipulation Program for You), since that evokes a different, albeit still negative, emotional response.
The best suggestion I've heard is just drop GNU or make GNU separate from the acronym: IMP, GNU IMP.
change the name? I'd prefer gamma correct colour! (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, I'd even take GIMPY (the GNU Image Manipulation Program for You), since that evokes a different, albeit still negative, emotional response.
I wonder how the citizens of Gympie [wikipedia.org] would feel about that assertion!
Anyway, I'd rather that time were spent so that Gimp worked in linear colour space (~ 16 bits per channel) rather than botching all the operations in 8bit/channel sRGB. As it currently stands, filtering operations etc are wrong.
For example (at least in 2.6) it still thinks that the average of sRGB black and white is 0x808080, which is far too dark. It should be something more like (doing a back of the envelope calculation) 0xBABABABA.
Re:Forget the UI, change the name (Score:4, Funny)
Let me make some suggestions then:
Professional Image Manipulation Program
Streamlined Image Manipulation Program
Windowed Image Manipulation Program
Lightspeed Image Manipulation Program
I would think all the pros would just leap at the change to PIMP their graphics.
at least... (Score:2)
...we can still complain about the name.
I.-
Innovation (Score:2)
Got to hand it to them - it looks more and more like Photoshop with each release!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Heavens. I offended the Apple Gods. LOL. Regardless, it was a serious post at the time I wrote it. :) I forgot how sensitive the fan boys were.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, "portable sketchpad" was what a lot of us were hoping for with the iPad but since it's stylus-less (and to those about to hit "Reply", a "fake-finger" stylus is completely useless for anything beyond "Ah wanna fingerpaint but mah coorduh'nachun sucks") it won't be of any use for that.
/Mikael
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I would have paid $2000+ (Score:2)
for an iPad with a stylus and the Rosetta handwriting engine from the Newton MessagePad 2x00.
As it is, I'm struggling to figure out why I should pay $499 for it.
Re: (Score:2)
News flash: You are not elite because you've conditioned yourself to use a clunky GUI. The point of one is to make interfacing with the computer easier.