GIMP Interface Proposals? 218
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?
Proper MDI. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Proper MDI. (Score:5, Informative)
And for windows there is Windows Gimp Deweirdifyer [gimp.org]
Re: MDI vs Floating Windows vs ... (Score:2)
It should be a run-time user option.
Almost all windows should be able to be floating (independent) windows, child windows of an MDI window, docked panels within a paned window, or notebook panes in a tabbed notebook.
This should apply to toolbars, image (editing) windows, tear-off menus, and some (non-modal) dialogs.
It should be possible to "mix'n'match" windows, so that some windows are MDI, others are floating, etc.
The mechanics for implemen
Re:Proper MDI. (Score:4, Insightful)
However, it's true that there should be some kind of "grouping", something to connect panels to their app. A good example of this is on Mac, where the secondary panels are only visible if one of the primary windows of the app is focused.
But that's a matter for the window manager - would be nice if that gets implemented in metacity or kwin or sawfish, or whatever floats your boat. But just because some functionality is missing in the WM, doesn't mean you should implement it in the wrong place - the applications.
(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)
Re:Proper MDI. (Score:2)
That one thing... Another is that at different platforms/WMs the same application will behave differently. That's not very good.
And yes, different applications will need different schemes anyway, so every developer will code own workaround, depending what WM it's running on.
Look, generalizations are good. But in real life it som
[frown] (Score:2, Insightful)
OK, I have never tried it on Windows, but on Linux Metacity for all its faults (and they are legion) does a reasonable job of keeping the components where I can find them.
Seems to me that the main complaint is that the GIMP doesn't follow the conventions set by MS Paint or Photoshop, and as far as I'm concerned, that is unfair. It doesn't follow that just because people are too lazy to learn how to u
Re:Proper MDI. (Score:2)
Well, I'm not sure if it's that difficult. What firefox/epiphany does, is: "when opening a new tab, add it to the end of the tab list of the current window". Now, why do you think a WM couldn't do this?
Re:Proper MDI. (Score:2)
True, if you're talking about an application that only runs on (or is only primarily used on) Linux-ish systems. There, you're talking about a user base that picks and chooses window managers.
One of the things about Windows that d
Re:Proper MDI. (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Proper MDI. (Score:2)
Re:Proper MDI. (Score:2)
So are you saying that an application running under a typical window manager doesn't know when it has focus? I'm not a programmer, but it seems that as long as the application knows it is focused, it should be trivial to bring the
virtual desktops + grey wallpaper (Score:2)
I'm not a GIMP developer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm not a GIMP developer (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:I'm not a GIMP developer (Score:3, Informative)
If you are using Apple's X11 and find it annoying that you must click on a window once to bring it to focus and a second time to use a tool on it, open a terminal window and type: defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm true This will enable "focus follows mouse". X11 must be restarted for the change to take effect.
Don't know if that info is in with the Fink version or not but I imagine it would work exactly the same.
Re:I'm not a GIMP developer (Score:2)
Re:I'm not a GIMP developer (Score:2)
Nope. (Score:2)
Re:Nope. (Score:2)
Photoshop (Score:4, Interesting)
No worries, just write one (Score:2)
Yes, I am serious. PS users in transition would just love it. And you'll die of old age waiting for a GIMP personality for PS.
Re:No worries, just write one (Score:2)
I always state "replicate, then improve" when developing UI's. Take what works and make it better. Having a few themes/masques for GIMP
That's kinda in its nature (Score:2)
Translate the Script-Fu to C, and you can have a preview for it just like everything else. Script-Fu is exactly what it says it is: a scripting language, not an extension API. It means that ad-hoc is relatively trivial but it also means that until some genius figures out how to give you previews for stuff which takes seconds-to-minutes, you're out of luck. Quicker to translate little scripts like that into C.
What I would like to see in the existing previews
What SDI? (Score:2)
If you want a separate context menu, invent one. C is not a difficult language to grasp. Then you can map the existing menu to one of the side-buttons of your mouse and be happy.
Re:What SDI? (Score:2)
That's an excellent suggestion. I'll pass it along to the art instructors and graphic design students I work with. They're always looking for tech problems to solve... why, just the other day, one of them asked me for suggestions on how to get his Zip disk out of the drive when it didn't show up on his desktop.
survival of the gimpiest (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:survival of the gimpiest (Score:2)
Re:survival of the gimpiest (Score:5, Insightful)
If only that were true!
other designers could easily make their own front end
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.
Re:survival of the gimpiest (Score:3, Interesting)
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 sourc
What's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since day one, GIMP users have been complaining en masse about free-floating tool windows. And since day one, we have all been told "it's a feature not a bug". So why bother with even more feedback? It will only get ignored again.
Have you actually used GIMP 2.2? (Score:4, Informative)
So yes, they did respond to that particular feedback, even if you didn't find out about it yet.
It's also relatively trivial in most WMs to make those floating windows always-on-toppish like the PS ones (only more flexible).
It could also be stated with much fairness that PhotoShop users form a disproportionate population of those complaining about same. And that if you don't like it, you're at liberty create a fork or a parallel patch set to implement the windows however you like them. Before anyone OMFGs me, compare the amount of effort involved in doing that with the amount of effort involved in creating the whole GIMP in the first place, and remember that with PS it's pretty close to impossible to do anything of this nature.
BTW, my sister-in-law [goldenlight.bur.st] uses The GIMP heavily, and swears by the floating windows and the tearoff menus.
Re:Have you actually used GIMP 2.2? (Score:5, Insightful)
Could it be that Photoshop users (current, potential, or former) are probably the biggest single group that might be drawn to GIMP? I think that if you're building a tool with an implicit goal of having all of the same capabilities of Photoshop, it might be nice if said tool would act something like it.
Re:Have you actually used GIMP 2.2? (Score:5, Insightful)
So essentially, while everyone that swears by the GIMP says I can use it instead of Photoshop, the instant Photoshop users say 'well but this is a pain in the ass' you say 'too bad, fix it yourself'.
Fantastic attitude there. Open-source won't win the hearts or minds of professionals if the professionals don't like the tools and aren't provided a fix for it. If given a choice between fixing all that I've found wrong with the GIMP or sticking with Photoshop, my historical choice remails: the GIMP can take a flying leap.
You can't tell professionals to use your software and then tell them you won't fix what they don't like about it. Graphic artists (myself included) will pay $800 for a Photoshop license because Photoshop already works the way they need it to work. Why should we switch if the bugs aren't going to be fixed?
No. See elsewhere in this thread... (Score:2)
Re:Have you actually used GIMP 2.2?-Fix It (Score:2)
Yes, the comment was short, but it said everything that needed to be said. It made a valid point, but apparently one that today's dittohead moderators disagreed with, and therefore decided to moderate into oblivion.
I can only conclude that the Bushite philosophy of responding to dissent by stifling it is infecting all of society.
Re:Have you actually used GIMP 2.2? (Score:3, Insightful)
Always on top is not equivalent or remotely more flexible then traditional tool windows. The non-file windows should ONLY be active if a file window is, and then they should automatically activated. Always on top means just that-- The windows are ALWAYS on top. Since modern operating systems allow more then one application to be open at a time, there may be times when I don't wan
Re:Have you actually used GIMP 2.2? (Score:2)
Fork off? It's been done. (Score:2)
This kinda reminds me of Blender (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This kinda reminds me of Blender (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This kinda reminds me of Blender (Score:2)
The Blender interface had a face lift recently to add pull down menus, collapsable toolbars, etc.
The main reason for portability is the Blender GUI is completely cross platform. It's that grey Unix style layout that you see
Re:This kinda reminds me of Blender (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This kinda reminds me of Blender (Score:2)
As to users accepting just about anythi
Re:This kinda reminds me of Blender (Score:2)
innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro have very different UIs because they are conceptually different (that's not to say that PSP is any good. I'm not a fan). The GIMP and Photoshop were both conceptually similar -- in other words, by copying features from PS, the GIMP team has forced themselves to make their UI very similar to Photoshop. In other words, copying the PS GUI exactly will create the most efficent UI for the gimp. In my mind, this is a bad thing.
But not all is lost. Here are my suggestions
1) Implement a darn menu bar and clean up the menus. The right-click system sucks.
2) Please handle pallettes like every other program does and NOT create an additional taskbar icon for every document, toolbar, and pallette.
3) Implement a Slices tool like ImageReady has
4) Rename the program. GIMP does not convey an image of a good, reliable program
Re:innovation (Score:2)
GIMP does not convey an image of a good, reliable program
Huh?And why PhotoShop does? What do you mean?
Re:innovation (Score:3, Informative)
A terrible, terrible, terrible name for a program. Almost as bad as "OmniGraffle" (which remindes me of 'scrapple', 'scapie', and other horrible things).
Re:innovation (Score:2, Funny)
Re:innovation (Score:2)
This is what comes to your mind. To me Gimp reminds nothing else than the nice Wilbur icon.
(By the way, my ex-girlfriend absolutely loved the Gimp name and the association with the icon. She said it looked very nice and friendly)
Anyway here's what the Merriam-Webster says about the word "gimp":
an ornamental flat braid or round cord used as a trimming
-what's so terrible in this?
(Disclaimer: I don't like the Gimp that much, I think its interface is quite terrible etc. But I always loved its name.)
Re:innovation (Score:2)
The name is good. Not to mention fun to say.
Re:innovation (Score:2)
I didn't say that. I said that "GIMP" tells me nothing about the program, except perhaps that it's creators decided to burden it with an acronym for a name, which itself contains a meaningless recursive acronym.
Now, acronyms aren't strictly bad. It's much easier to say NASA than National Aeronautics and Space Administration. But one reason why that works is that "nasa" is not, by itself a word (in English anyway). GI
Re:innovation (Score:2)
Right-click does *not* suck (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:innovation (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps you should first use the GIMP before offering suggestions. All image windows have their own menu bar since v2.x. Right-clicking to access the menu is entirely optional.
Slicing tool (Score:2)
What it lacks is a way to tie image sections to one another to give an effect like ROWSPAN and COLSPAN from HTML. As things stand, you have to manually tack the appropriate image pieces back together again after the guillotine. If there were a simple Merge Pieces tool to do this, it would suffice, but I would be greatly pleased if you could mark sections of a Guide line (between intersecting Guides) and indicate that you didn't want
Yeah, call it FreeTouchUp... (Score:2)
I s'pose we could try for something witty like "Frees Frame" or FLIP, for "Free/Libre Image Processor".
Re:innovation (Score:2)
Re:innovation (Score:2)
Re:innovation (Score:2)
Yeah, that too.
Text (Score:3, Interesting)
As It is Now (Score:2)
There's nothing to change. It's fine as it is.
Sorry, but MDI interfaces are dumb. No one bitches about how Photoshop on the Mac has a very similar UI. GIMP 2.x has menubars on the image windows now (unless you turn them off, as I have) so no one can complain about having to right-click being non-intuitive.
The menu structure could maybe use a bit of a reorganization, but the interface has no major flaws.
Re:As It is Now (Score:2)
< lameness> me too < / lameness >
Seriously, I fail to see why "everybody" keeps saying The Gimp's interface is ugly, or non-intuitive, or simply bad.
Please quantify "bad", 'cause I just don't see it.
Re:As It is Now (Score:2)
Unique is bad because every piece which is unique is additional learning curve and time required to get into the app.
Considering what gimp is, this interface should be a sellout conformist look that is something my grandmother will find similar to every other program she's ever used.
Translation, gimp should clone the Photoshop UI.
Re:As It is Now (Score:2)
Re:As It is Now (Score:2)
with the new menu system my only complaint is that every window is a task under "Windows" haven't installed it yet for my Mac yet as I have a copy of Photoshop of OS X.
One point about the OS X display for photoshop. If you click on the desktop the only window that stays visible is the image window all the tool bars hide. They come back when you click on the image(or the photoshop dock icon).
Whether the gimp does something similar I
Re:As It is Now (Score:2)
If you have multiple windows on-screen at once and you click on a different one, the Photoshop palettes disappear until you click on the main Photoshop window again.
Under Windows/Linux, in the GIMP each palette is treated as a seperate window. They don't all stay on the same plane. This sucks bigt
Re:As It is Now (Score:2)
I'm using WindowMaker and all of the GIMP windows have one icon. It's called SharedAppIcon mode. It's the default in newer version of WindowMaker.
When I click on the GIMP AppIcon all of the GIMP windows come to the front. When I alt-tab or manually click on a window only that window comes to the front. NetWM has (IIRC) a hint for specifying if the window is a floating pallet type of window. If GIMP isn't using it now all it has to do is set the hint for its windows (if GDK has support for a compatible hin
Naught but developers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Never, _ever_ judge something like this simply based on volume of posts - and the same goes for letter feedback to media and politicians, as well, of course.
I like the Gimp UI. And you can snap toghether or pull apart the windows in whatever combinations you want, so I don't see why people are still complaining about "free-floating" windows.
Simplify, and change the name. (Score:3, Insightful)
Figure out a clean way to handle "floating layers" I never understood that. Photoshop makes the most sense.
And PLEASE change the name. GIMP is an unprofessional name.
I've got a little list! (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and... (Score:2)
No, I'm not talking about the separate Location box which Ctrl-L brings up (although that is handy for pasting URLs from other programs), I'm talking about a typing target integrated with the existing panel.
Re:Oh, and... (Score:2)
Just as it is (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought GIMP was weird at first (I was a Photoshop 2.x user) but I rapidly came to appreciate its advantages. Basically, I love it because it's efficient and lightweight. If I want to do something to an image, I right-click the image. Simple, right? In Photoshop I have to hunt under some menu and I have to care about which image is in the foreground. And of course, in both, I can just use key accelerators -- in GIMP, even assign my own -- to speed things up.
You can't master GIMP in a day, and you sure as hell can't master Photoshop in a day either. Most of the complaining I hear is Photoshop users pissy about having to think a little differently to use GIMP. Maybe you should write a "tricks of the UI" tutorial for the unadventurous...?
Now if I were directing the GIMP project, I'd say:
Never adopt MDI. Well, okay, you can, just make it optional. There are a lot of Windows users who would love it, but a lot of current users who would dump GIMP in a second if it were mandatory.
Please rip off Photoshop's styles palette. It's one of the main reasons I use Photoshop primarily these days.
Please add serious ICC profile support wherever you can in the image workflow. Even if you don't support CMYK, good color support would rock, and it would make professionals take GIMP more seriously. Bonus points: add a calibrator like Adobe Gamma/Colorsync/Supercal.
Yeah... I think that's about all for now. Watch everyone disagree
Re:Just as it is (Score:2)
I have never actually complained about the gimp, I have only tried to use it once, so I am definitely not in the know about the program. However, I am a regualr photoshop user. I can not take the GIMP seriously because I do not have a reason to. I know photoshop inside and out, I know more than the interfa
focus (Score:2, Insightful)
of course i don't know how easy this is, and it hasn't stopped me from using the gimp as my primary raster program.. so all in all keep up the good work.
Re:focus (Score:2)
Here's my vote. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Here's my vote. (Score:2)
I know it's not directly GIMP-related (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Wish granted... in spades. (Score:3, Informative)
allow it to be skinned, to allow a FULL pshop L/F (Score:3, Insightful)
detach legal responsibility this way (like an
if we could make gimp look and feel very close to what pshop is like, we could get more of the artists who use and know pshop by heart - to give our side a try. and maybe even have an interest in porting the filters over, since that's where the real power lies.
Re:allow it to be skinned, to allow a FULL pshop L (Score:2)
Re:allow it to be skinned, to allow a FULL pshop L (Score:2)
or, you could look at it as a way of _deferral_. yes, that's right. and its not a bad thing.
detaching form from function. we've been trying to do that via gui's for a long time now. this is just another level of detachment.
its usually not worth the effort to abstract an abstraction. otoh, gimp creates gtk (the toolkit) JUST to serve as a basis FOR gimp. so its not hard to stretch to the next level and let gimp invent some new stuff to further abstract the user from the
My Wish? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
a networking analogy on why same look/feel .. (Score:2)
analogy: cisco IOS command line (CLI). its basically a marketing must-have(*) that any new networking gear have the same look/feel (when possible) to the IOS style ('show' commands, etc). with very few exceptions, its a market reality. I'm not debating its tech merit - just market acceptance (this coming from an enginerd, not a tie wearing guy).
same idea here. if gimp is to be taken seriously by working professionals in the field (like the way the pros currently have an almost scary allegian
User interface design (Score:2, Insightful)
<URL:http://www.archiphysics.com/>
Re:User interface design (Score:2)
I just want a simplified version. (Score:2)
I'd love someone to just strip down the interface and give a good walkthrough. I'm talking something akin to the early paint shop pros.
I don't use a graphical program every day. I don't want to spend hundreds of hours on a program that I'll only use occasionally for basic stuff.
Leave UI overhaul for 3.0 (Score:2, Interesting)
Well... n-bit depth (Score:2)
As I understand it, once they shim GEGL in, the rest will be easy.
Unfortunately, the GEGL domain [gegl.org] is off-air as I type, the last contribution to the GNOME repository for it [gnome.org]is some testing stuff 9 months ago, and the last "real" code 11 months ago, most of it's a year or two old, all of the recent (in relative terms) changes were done by dsrogers. Not lookin' too sanguine.
It depends (Score:2)
If you go for the mass market, choose a Photoshop-like GUI. If you want to retain a uniquness, stay with GIMP.
I have never used Photoshop, and am very satisfied with the current GUI of GIMP. Still, one has to accept that a lot of potential users are scared off because of it.
Look at how Microsoft upgrade their software's GUI:s, minimally! They know how to make people _feel_ safe; yada-yada-BSOD-yada-crash-yada...
So, despite people's feelings for GIMP's current GUI, get over it and g
Re:It depends (Score:2)
Or at least, that was the impression I got in the 5 hours or so I used it at school. I missed the right-click menus though.
I like it. (Score:2)
It's Obvious (Score:2)
2) Use native dialogs where possible (GIMP's File/Open dialogs are the worst file dialogs I've seen in years, but the bigger issue is the inconsistency).
Both of these are trivial and constantly requested. If the GIMP developers do not implement them in the next release it will prove they're not interested in listening to their users.
For my personal photos (Score:2)
What I hate is having to go go here to rotate, there to crop, somewhere else to fix the colours, and somewhere else again to resize and unsharp mask.
I'd like a single panel that puts all the common photo editing tools in one place. These tools will include:
o Rotate (90 degrees and a rotate handle)
o Crop
o Colour levels
o Brightness and contrast
o Desaturate
o Resize
o Sharpen filter
o
Re:For my personal photos (Score:2)
Tear offs dont gather the functions I commonly use near each other. I would still have to navigate here to rotate, then close that dialog and colour balance, then close that dialog, locate the next dialog, etc etc etc.
E.g.
I open a jpg.
Align and crop:
Image -> transform -> rotate 90cw
Image -> Layers -> Arbitary Transorm ( To tweak the horizon level)
( Problem 1, 2 paths to si
Re:For my personal photos (Score:2)
I occassionally use Gimp under windows at work, and occasioanlly use some of the less common GIMP tools (layers, spot editing), so will probably stick with GIMP.
I'll bite (Score:2)
First, Gimp can keep the multiple windows thing. I think it's great for those with multiple monitors. The ability to drag windows from one screen to another is quite convenient. The only thing I ask is that Gimp group all windows as one entry on the taskbar. I can't see a good reason why Gimp should spam the taskbar with four to five entries.
Establish a distinction between vector and raster via Layers. Gimp has a system where Lines are in a
How to fix the name (Score:2)
But if you really feel strongly about it, you can do it anyway. Ye olde GPL makes it easy. Just pick a better name, download the source code, do a global search-and-replace of "GIMP" with "____", make a new splash screen (I recommend using ____), recompile it, put it on the web at www.____.org, and start promoting the heck out of it. This doesn't require lot
Multiple Color Pickers (Score:2)
Now, if this is doable some other way, then let me know how... but the eyedropper tool replaces the colour and never updates it.