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The Gimp Programming Technology

GIMP Interface Proposals? 218

Posted by Cliff from the how-do-you-like-to-work? dept.
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?
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GIMP Interface Proposals? More

GIMP Interface Proposals?

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  • Proper MDI. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Refrozen ( 833543 ) <email.answers@gmail.com> on Sunday December 26, 2004 @06:52PM (#11186963)
    All I'd want is a proper MDI, all the windows in a main container, I hate having them all free, loose, and can fall behind everything else and.... ugh.

    • Re:Proper MDI. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Miffe ( 592354 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @06:55PM (#11186993)
      For X there is Xnest.
      And for windows there is Windows Gimp Deweirdifyer [gimp.org]

    • Re:Proper MDI. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by obi ( 118631 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @08:35PM (#11187846)
      Ugh, no. That's one of the things on Windows I hate the most. These apps take the functionality over of the window manager, and you get several types of focus (the one in the app, the focused app, etc) - leading to confusion and clutter, and it makes it hard to use different apps together, which leads app to replicate alot of functionality in the application itself and become extremely bloated.

      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)

      • The problem with it is that window manager has no clue what tabs to create, in what order... The same with auto-hide and arrangements. So expect some applications behaving "strange".
        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)

          by BrokenHalo ( 565198 )
          Err... Am I the only one here who actually likes the GIMP UI? (And yes, I do use the GIMP almost every day.)

          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

        • The problem with it is that window manager has no clue what tabs to create, in what order... The same with auto-hide and arrangements. So expect some applications behaving "strange".

          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?

          Another is that at different platforms/WMs the same application will behave differently. That's not very good.

          Application kno

      • 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.

        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)

        by John_Booty ( 149925 )
        (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
      • 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.

        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
    • Put GIMP in a separate virtual desktop and use a grey wallpaper.

  • I'm not a GIMP developer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nocomment ( 239368 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @06:56PM (#11186997) Homepage Journal
    And I kinda like the GIMP UI. :-)

    • Re:I'm not a GIMP developer (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dn15 ( 735502 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @07:04PM (#11187042)
      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.
      • From the ReadMe on GIMP.app:

        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.

  • Photoshop (Score:4, Interesting)

    by timothv ( 730957 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @07:02PM (#11187030)
    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.
    • Call it "PhotoShop Masque for GIMP".

      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.
      • I completely agree. I'd also like to see them replicate the functions/filters available on the layers style buttons. One reason I tend to use PS more than GIMP is I can't get proper bordering to work under GIMP (Yes, I know it's under Script-Fu->Decor->Bevel.) Script-fu seems to lack that nice Preview option, which really turns me off when I'm doing serious work.

        I always state "replicate, then improve" when developing UI's. Take what works and make it better. Having a few themes/masques for GIMP

        • Script-fu seems to lack that nice Preview option

          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

  • survival of the gimpiest (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Open it up... provide an API to the backend and allow anyone to code their own interface.
    • well, it is open source so everything you need is already there, so I guess you're just saying to make it easier. Not a bad idea. If the gimp people focused on the algorithms and other designers could easily make their own front end, then I think gimp would progress a lot faster than it currently does.

      • Re:survival of the gimpiest (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dr.badass ( 25287 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @12:00AM (#11188920) Homepage
        well, it is open source so everything you need is already there

        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.

        • 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 sourc

  • What's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 26, 2004 @07:18PM (#11187141)

    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)

      by leonbrooks ( 8043 ) <SentByMSBlast-No ... .brooks.fdns.net> on Sunday December 26, 2004 @07:51PM (#11187430) Homepage
      You can tack together the free-floating tool windows and make them one if you like. Admittedly, this should be one of the first startup tips and isn't.

      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)

        by dr.badass ( 25287 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @12:16AM (#11188979) Homepage
        It could also be stated with much fairness that PhotoShop users form a disproportionate population of those complaining about same.

        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)

        by Sentry21 ( 8183 ) on Monday December 27, 2004 @01:19AM (#11189285) Journal
        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.

        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?
        • ...where I propose a PS personality module. Wouldn't hurt to do an MS-Paint PM either. (-:
      • It's also relatively trivial in most WMs to make those floating windows always-on-toppish like the PS ones (only more flexible).

        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

  • This kinda reminds me of Blender (Score:5, Interesting)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Sunday December 26, 2004 @07:20PM (#11187152) Homepage Journal
    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?
    • 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 li
    • Blender is really really nice. It's main design concept is to use two hands, one on a multi-button mouse or trackball and the other on the keyboard. The numeric keypad is used to change the view, all other major functions are keyboard letter key commands (usually just one key press).

      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

  • innovation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @07:21PM (#11187160) Homepage
    As much as I'd like for the GIMP team to be innovative in their UI design, I believe that they will find that impossible, as the GMIP's feature-set has come to resemble that of Photoshop so closely that the two UIs will be VERY similar.

    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

    • 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)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Every single time I hear "The GIMP", this [blogspot.com] is what comes to mind.

        A terrible, terrible, terrible name for a program. Almost as bad as "OmniGraffle" (which remindes me of 'scrapple', 'scapie', and other horrible things).

        • It always brings a picture of Zed from Pulp Fiction to mind saying "bring out the gimp"

        • 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.)

    • 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.

    • Re:innovation (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @08:17PM (#11187682) Homepage
      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.

      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.

    • 2.2 has Guillotine right there in the menus (Image, Transform Guillotine).

      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
    • Rename the program.
      FreeTouchUp hints at what you can do with it, sounds vaguely like PhotoShop, and you can be sure that lots of idiots will download "FreeFeelUp" before the difference sinks in. (-:

      I s'pose we could try for something witty like "Frees Frame" or FLIP, for "Free/Libre Image Processor".

  • Text (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chapium ( 550445 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @07:31PM (#11187247)
    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

  • 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.

    • There's nothing to change. It's fine as it is.

      < 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.
      • unique = bad when talking about a software interface and the gimp interface is unique.

        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.
      • in early Gimp version's right clicking for every menu item really sucked.

        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
    • But it WORKS on the Mac -- in the application switcher-menu-thingy (what is it called, anyway?) there is ONE entry for each application -- select Photoshop and ALL of the Photoshop windows surface to the top.

      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

      • 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)

    by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @07:56PM (#11187480) Homepage
    This is simply not true. It's the same old effect that only those who really dislike a feature have the motivation to speak out about it, while those who have no problems with it have better things to do than to post about how they haven't had any problems with it today either.

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 26, 2004 @07:57PM (#11187489)
    The best thing they can do is simplify, simplify, simplify. Get rid of all those confusing filters or figure out how to combine them into one.

    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)

    by leonbrooks ( 8043 ) <SentByMSBlast-No ... .brooks.fdns.net> on Sunday December 26, 2004 @08:05PM (#11187571) Homepage
    • 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.
    • ...put a text-box on the File Open dialog where you can type to choose a file (e.g. hidden files/directories) or give the navigator hints.

      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.
      • You'll never win. After years of taking well-deserved flack from everyone for the mind-blowing lameness of the file selector, the great minds of the Gtk project sat down and came up with what you're looking at. Yep, thats right, after years of being repeatedly shown what a crappy file selector was, this was what they decided was perfect. Cretins.

  • Just as it is (Score:5, Insightful)

    by metaphor ( 120934 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @08:06PM (#11187581)
    Well I for one think The GIMP's UI is fine just how it is. Then again, I learned its UI when I was 13 or so, around the time I got addicted to sloppy/strict mouseover focus. Being able to point at a window and save its document by just striking Control-S is very efficient.

    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 :)
    • 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.

      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)

    by danboy ( 48146 ) *
    I would like to see the document window keep focus, the only problem i've had with the interface is when i forget to click on the document window after selecting a different tool.

    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.

  • Here's my vote. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ruis ( 21357 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @08:13PM (#11187648)
    These guys [newbreedsoftware.com] seem to have a pretty nice gui for a graphic editing program.

  • I know it's not directly GIMP-related (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PinkX ( 607183 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @08:33PM (#11187830) Homepage
    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.

  • allow it to be skinned, to allow a FULL pshop L/F (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheGratefulNet ( 143330 ) on Sunday December 26, 2004 @09:16PM (#11188057)
    since its either illegal or financially unfeasable to create a complete look/feel clone of photoshop, allow the _ability_ to skin it and let 3rd parties (torrents, anyone?) create an exact look/feel of photoshop. gimp guys can't be sued and yet we'd still be able to have a feel-alike photoshop on unix.

    detach legal responsibility this way (like an .so that does 'bad' things yet the framework doesn't, so the framework guys can't be sued) and you have all kinds of new power possible.

    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.
    • You have plugins/script-fu/python-fu, why not take out the main UI, and do everything using GIMP's built-in scripting/plugin engine?

  • My Wish? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 26, 2004 @09:32PM (#11188135)
    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.
  • ..MATTERS.

    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)

    by lezerno ( 775940 )
    A good user interface should allow people to do the job they want to do. I think the interface should be so simple that everyone can use it. I have been designing user interfaces for building energy programs that are so easy to use you don't even have to know anything about buildings or energy to use them. Maybe that is a bad thing?
    <URL:http://www.archiphysics.com/>
  • Or rather, an easy-to-learn version rather than something with as steep of a learning curve as the GIMP or photoshop.

    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.

  • Add colour management and 16-bit depth *now*.
    • 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32... the user shouldn't have to care.

      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, as always.

    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
    • What you don't mention is that the GIMP interface is a lot like that of Photoshop for Mac.

      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.
  • Simplifications are welcome, but please do not suggest stuff like window in window or the like.
  • 1) Single outer window with a single menubar and docking toolbars. (No, Deweirdifyer is not good enough.)

    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.
  • I like to do up the best of my holiday photos in one big all-nighter and put them on the web, or send a CD to those who want it.

    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
  • I'm going to refer to aspects of Paint Shop Pro 7 in this.

    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

  • To all those here suggesting that the name of the program be changed: It ain't gonna happen. The devs love "GIMP" for all the reasons you hate it.

    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

  • All I want is to be able to pick three pixels, and watch the colour value (ie, numbers) change as I do other operations, like curve manipulation. As it is I have to write the numbers down and re-check them, which is kind of nuts.

    Now, if this is doable some other way, then let me know how... but the eyedropper tool replaces the colour and never updates it.

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