GIMP Interface Proposals?

Anonymous Coward asks: "It would seem that naught but its developers themselves like the GIMP's UI. How would you like the GIMP to look? Reply with links to GIMPed (or Photoshopped, if you swing that way) screenshots. Individual features, the menu structure, or (preferably) default workspaces after you open up a blank new canvas." With the release of version 2.2 in the bag, 2.3 development should now be in full swing. What aspects of the interface do you think the GIMP team should make for the next release and for future relases down the line?

I'm not a GIMP developer

[nocomment]

And I kinda like the GIMP UI. :-)

Photoshop

[timothv]

At best, it should look almost exactly like the Photoshop UI, with a few annoyances fixed. I don't have too many ideas but I'm sure the GIMP devs can compile Photoshop annoyances and outdo it.

Re:I'm not a GIMP developer

[dn15]

Same here. I don't see anything in particular wrong with it.

On a semi-related note, it would be nice to see the Mac OS X version make some of its windows more like palettes that don't necessarily have a focused or unfocused state. As-is, clicking on a tool's icon actually takes two clicks. The first brings the window to the front, then the second selects it. Similarly, you needs to clicks to actually use it on the document. This is not a problem in Linux since the window focus model is typically configured in a way that allows the first click to select the tool even if the window does not have focus.

This kinda reminds me of Blender

[QuantumG]

The UI is non-intuitive, but once people use it they swear that it is better than every other 3d program available. Either Blender has the best UI in the world or it's just a tendancy of human beings to rationalise their decisions after they have invested in them significantly. Either way, Blender's complex non-intuitive UI has done a lot to build the Blender community. I believe the same is true of GIMP but to a slightly lesser extent. Why change anything?

Text

[Chapium]

I can't comment specifically on it, however the text interface and how you deal with text in gimp really needs to be worked on. Moving and manipulating text on that thing is simply confusing and frustrating

Right-click does *not* suck

[leonbrooks]

I miss it a fair bit when using PS.

Have you used GIMP 2.2 (or even a late 2.0)? They have menus on every image window. Purists will complain that it's cluttered, but I find it very handy to have a choice of right-clicking if you happen to be a long way from the menu bar, or clicking on the menu bar if it's not a function you use often (hunt and peck made easier) or the bar happens to be nearest.

I've got a little list!

[leonbrooks]

• Add the Free/FixedAspect/FixedSize options from the Rectangular Select tool into the Crop tool.
  
• Add a "macro recorder" to make writing Script-Fu easier
  
• Add a simple "debug mode" to trace Script-Fu execution and/or hand off to the Script-Fu Console from the invokation dialog box
  
• Add a de-red-eye tool that's a bit more intelligent, specifically
  
  • that identifies round or ovoid red-eyes rather than anything red
    
  • that uses soft edges rather than doing scalpel-like total excision
• build a Script-Fu to do this [photo.net] either straight from the camera or with all of the layers in a designated image.

There's lots more, that's just what's on the tip of my mind right now.

Re:This kinda reminds me of Blender

[Goeland86]

Well, Blender is kinda hard to learn, and counter-intuitive... However, I've heard alot of people saying that the Gimp is an Opensource Photoshop clone. While I don't think it is one, many people do, and expect to find the same UI in the Gimp that they'll have in Photoshop, or at least relatively similar. I personally think that as was mentionned in another post there should be a completely separate themeing set, where people can create their own designs, specify whether windows are independent or not. I like being able to open various windows on various virtual desktops, and it's a perfect tool for me, but for others it's less than helpful because they have to switch from one window to the other using alt-tab or clicking in the dock or taskbar. This is especially true on Windows, but also for KDE or Gnome users... I think that using something like Enlightenment's Edje library for themeing would be more than perfect to allow various themes for the Gimp, letting people choose how to open menus and whatnot, but unfortunately, Edje is still pre-alpha, and it would probably require a major re-write of the Gimp's code, which I doubt the devs are ready for.

I know it's not directly GIMP-related

[PinkX]

But a native port of GTK+ to OS X (via quartz/Aqua and not using X11) would be of great benefit.

I've been a GIMP user since its early days. I was a former Photoshop aficionado, and by far I think the GIMP's UI is easier to use and more intuitive of that of PS. The right-click menu just rocks, the floating and dockable toolbars and panels are really practical.

Almost 1 year ago I moved from Linux to OS X on the desktop. GIMP is still my favorite image manipulation software, but I would *really really* love to see it more integrated with the OS, as X11 is slow, bloated and unstable and just doesn't looks natural.

I know the GIMP developer aren't to blame for this, but a native port of GTK+ and its related tools to the OS X framework would be great, to eliminate the dependency on X11 and get a more 'at home' feeling with the app. It was already done for Windows and OS X *should* be easier AFAIK because all the underlying *NIX stuff is already there.

My Wish?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see an Visual-Studio-like interface (hear me out!) for a graphics program.

I like things to dock. It's nice to work with the document maximised and not have the palletes cover the document. It's nice to be able to customise menus and toolbars to your heart's content. It's nice to have tear-off menus for common actions, such as tearing off the menu for centring something.

It's strange how Photoshop isn't nearly as customisable as Word when it comes to interface.

Re:Proper MDI.

[John_Booty]

(As a side note, I'd like to see the same for tabbed windows a la firefox - it would be nice if an app could signal the WM to make tabs for itself, or even if one could attach different applications to each other)

I really agree. Tabbed instances of application windows make a boatload of sense. Microsoft (and other desktops) have somewhat tackled this by grouping an application's windows in the taskbar (or "dock") or whatever your WM calls them) but this isn't very useful in my opinion. I'd like to see tabs implemented by the WM in some standard way within the application itself...

Re:survival of the gimpiest

[bay43270]

The trouble is that there are no designers. At best, there are programmers that know a little bit about how to make a UI not suck. This will only get you so far. The UI is typically an afterthought, and the most common suggestions for improving it is "themes" or "skins" or "window decorations" or "make it an option", none of which actually address the problem.

I agree completely. Even if there were designers working on this, their opinion would be taken as optional fluff. By the very nature of open source programming, the programmer has the last word. Programmers wouldn't take the word of a designer until the designer had proven to the programmer that his way is better. This is where commercial software has a significant advantage - in a good company, the UI people have pull, and can mandate changes. This isn't to say all (or even most) commercial companies do this, or that all open source software has a bad interface. But I think at this point, we should be happy with what we have: a stable, free program, with lots of options and a fairly decent interface... considering.

Re:This kinda reminds me of Blender

[QuantumG]

No. Wings 3D, although terribly cool, cannot do even 1/10th of what you can do with Blender. 3d studio MAX has probably the worst UI in the world, although it is intuitive on the service, it's really hard to get anything sensible done with it in less than 300 operations. That's why they have training courses for it. Blender on the other hand doesn't even try to be sensible. It's like the Amiga mentality: don't bother standardizing on anything cause everyone who uses an amiga is a zealot so they'll accept anything.

Leave UI overhaul for 3.0

[Kickasso]

Add colour management and 16-bit depth *now*.