GIMP Not Enough for Linux Users?

nursegirl writes "Novell has been running a survey about apps that people need in order to convert their data centers or desktops to Linux. The online survey has been running since Jan 13, and Adobe Photoshop was at the top of the list as of February 1. Desktoplinux.com has an interesting article about why the existence of the GIMP isn't enough for many professionals."

Comments

GUI perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

(dons flame resistant suit of anonymity)

Maybe this is because GIMP has one of the most god-awful GUIs known to man. I mean seriously, it seems to be designed to hide functions and impede work, not t'other way round.

Re:GUI perhaps?

[slashdotnickname]

Also the name sucks. At best its confusing, at worst its offensive.

How's it offensive?

I was born with a left club foot. Fortunately, it was braced and reset before I can remember. Even though I've always walked with a slight (almost unoticeable) limp, I've never considered myself inferior in any way. The word gimp has never crossed my mind as being offensive. What I find offensive though, is when people try to tell me that I should be offended by. Gimp (in one of its definitions) is just a descriptive word for someone with a limp, so I'm a gimp, big fricking deal...

Re:GUI perhaps?

[TekPolitik]

The right-click-on-photo part that brings up every command?

That sucks. It should only bring up stuff relevant to manipulating bits of the image. The right-click menu is also known as the context menu - if I'm right-clicking on pixels I want something that relates to pixels. Some things that definitely should not be there: File, View, Image, and then most of the things on the sub-menus (which are also arranged in terms of GIMP internals rather than in terms of user-oriented categories).

The pull down menu above the photo that brings up every command?

It's not so much the menu as the fact that everything is impossible to find in the menu because it was apparently arranged by a seriously deranged individual bent on avoiding natural categories. Even when you can find something it takes 3-4 non-obvious menu options in sequence to do something that is one menu option in other drawing software. The floating toolbox that brings up every command?

The customizable tab box which permits instant access to your most important subset of commands?

Sensible defaults are better than telling people to customise what is out of the box the Worst... Interface... Ever.

That near every subset of commands can be 'torn off' as a floating toolbar?

What the hell does this have to do with anything? Actually, now that I think of it, it does have something to do with the problem since these floating toolbars don't - they sink right to bloody bottom of the window stack and you have to go hunting for the bastards (this doesn't happen in an MDI interface by the way).

Or the part that doesn't look like Photoshop's unique boxes-in-boxes interface, a GUI style last universally popular in the Windows 3.x days?

And yet a style that is retained in every serious image editor*... but nooo, the GIMP people are right and everybody else is wrong.

GIMP's user interface really is a festering pile of crap. Go ahead, GIMP-fans, do your worst to my karma - I have plenty.

* Yes I know GIMP doesn't have it. I meant what I said.

Re:GUI perhaps?

[Imsdal]

It seems to me that if it hasn't been changed in six years then it's not that great of a problem for most users.

Oh My God. Oh My God.

That is the single least insightful thing I have ever read at /.. Could there possibly be another reason for things not changing? If Microsoft has kept something crummy for six years, would it be reasonable for you to state that it's not a problem for most users, and thus nothing to complain about?

My suggestion to all the people bitching about how GIMP sucks (...) is to become a part of the community.

This is so typical of what is wrong with the open source movement. In real life (which was what TFA was about) most people can't afford to "become part of the community" because they have real, actual work to do. I use at least ten applications on a very regular basis. I most certainly can't afford to "be part of the community" for all of those. In the real world, what counts is how well stuff actually works right now, not how good they could possibly become in the future if everybody would just help out. Sorry, but that's the way it is.

I think it's a little unseemly to bash people who give you something for free.

TFA is about why people don't use the free stuff. That makes this comment a bit disingenious, don't you think?

It doesn't make sense to be oblivious to real user needs and, simultaneously, to bash real users for not using specific stuff. I know I'm Captain Obvious for spelling this out, but it seems to be needed.

Re:GUI perhaps?

[Imsdal]

If you're pissed off (...)

Well, I'm not pissed off, but I am disappointed.

First of all, for the record it should be noted that I never use either GIMP or PS. I'm talking about the open source community and their attitudes in general. I do feel very strongly that the thoughts dicussed in the post I replied to applies to most, if not all, free software projects. That's my opinion, not a verifiable fact. If you differ, fine, but please be aware that just having a different opinion won't make me use alternative software. Nor will it convince many others.

Closed source companies in general, and Microsoft in particular, are incredibly much better at building applications that are usable for regular, professional users. By professional I mean users who use the software for work and who, accordingly, are prepared to pay for the service of using the software. I do not mean "super power users".

Too many people in the open source community dismisses these people as morons or worse. That's fine, I suppose. It's not like the "morons" care on way or the other. The problem is that a lot of pepople really want to affect lasting change, making users switch from MS to free stuff. And if one wants that, that attitude simply won't cut it.

This thread explains why perfectly clearly, but too many people here refuses to acknowledge that. To me, that is disappointing, because it means that Excel will continue to be better than the alternatives. So will SQL Server, Visio and Photoshop. It doesn't *have* to be that way, because usability isn't that difficult. But it requires a completely different mindset than what is currently prevailing.

Finally, good usability requires huge amounts of humility. Isn't it ironic (in the English sense of the word) that in this particular case Microsoft has that humility, whereas the open source community lacks it?

Huh?

[Otter]

>99% of business desktops don't have Photoshop, let alone whatever a "datacenter" involves. If Photoshop is at the top of Novell's list, all it shows is that if you have an open web survey and ask Teh Community for responses, you get replies from 15-year-olds.

Re:They have a point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Being that there is a UNIX version of Photoshop (OS X) it should not be too difficult to wrap the inners with an X GUI outers.

I don't understand why people find this so impossible to understand -- the MacOS APIs (Carbon and Cocoa) do not exist on other platforms. You can can compile vanilla Unix applications on MacOS X, but you can't trivially recompile (or wrap) a Cocoa app on Linux.

Gimp would get a lot more popular if...

[foxwitt]

If Adobe figured out some way to lock down Photoshop so that it couldn't be pirated as commonly as it is currently. I know tons of people who use Photoshop and praise it to the heavens, but not a single one of them actually put the money down on it. I work in a university environment, so there're lots of legal copies of Photoshop around, but a lot of people work with their own hardware, so many copies that get used for preparing images for publication aren't legitimate.

I use the GIMP for the same tasks, and get results that are just as good, though. I think that for most image processing, the GIMP does everything the average user needs it to do, and more. I'm not denying that it doesn't meet the needs of certain professionals. However, if people weren't able to get pirated copies of Photoshop readily, they'd find that the GIMP does the job they need it to do.

Underrated point

[tyler_larson]

First of all, Photoshop -- on either Mac OS X or Windows -- is the default photographic and prepress program for serious graphics firms.... Photoshop is simply "The" application that professionals use.

This really is the key. GIMP will never have more than a marginal user base because they don't understand their users. Their users--nearly all of them--are Photoshop users (or potentially ex-Photoshop users).

Good user interface design means not just creating an inteface that "makes sense," it's also creating an interface that works the way the user expects it to work. If over 90% of your users are used to the way Photoshop does function X, then you sure as hell better implement function X the way Photoshop does. Not because that way is better or makes more sense, but because that's what the user expects you to do, and any deviation from those expections means your app is "broken" in their eyes.

Competing on features in this sort of market is futile. Your program may be able to give me the moon on a stick; but if I can't easily make it work, it might as well do nothing at all. The success stories--those projects that have managed to supplant a deeply-entrenched competitive offering--have always acknowledged this fact and have modified the behavior of their own product to compensate. The failures in this arena (GIMP being the most famous) always refuse to acknowledge the effect on their users' expectations caused by their competitor's dominance. For projects like the GIMP, it seems a matter of pride to not be influenced by such an unworthy competitor.

Re:They have a point...

[complete loony]

So perhaps someone should start a project similar to WINE, to add Carbon and Cocoa API compatibility.

Re:How can we take this seriously...

[Theatetus]

Bluefish is sort of a programmer's editor with extra features for HTML, not a web site design tool like Dreamweaver. The user shouldn't have to look at HTML source much, if at all.

*blink*

A web designer shouldn't have to look at HTML source much?

Re:How can we take this seriously...

[Jekler]

I must say, well said. I don't agree with much of it, but you make your point well. I think the failings are in Linux and OSS and not in society. People often better themselves, the problem is that time is a limited resource, and which topic they choose to better themselves with is frequently an exclusive option. Given a 4 hour time block, a typical artist might have a choice... they can dive into one of their projects, add shadows, retouch some photographs... or they can spend it learning a new application. Most people will choose to better themselves by refining their ability to do what they already do well. Maybe using the GIMP would be a marvelous idea that enables them to surpass their wildest creative dreams. But there's really no way to know that before doing it. A person is just as likely to spend hours a day for a few weeks learning a new program only to discover it doesn't offer some core functionality they already had in an existing program.

People aren't stupid. The elitests who believe the average user, and average person, is a gibbering idiot is usually just as dumb when they are confronted with tasks outside their element. A Linux guru might wonder why everyone else is just too dumb to use all the wonderful CLI tools and scripting capabilities, yet when confronted with an automechanical problem, the mechanic is chuckling to himself about how Mr. Linux Guru is too dumb to even perform basic maintenance on his own car.

Like I said, time is a limited resource. Everyone can't spend all their time being an expert at everything.

Re:They have a point...

[dido]

Well, for Cocoa anyway, there's GNUstep, as, if I'm not mistaken, it's an implementation of the OpenStep specification that was created for NeXT and is still used today for MacOS X as Cocoa. Once GNUstep is reasonably completed, it would in theory be possible to have a certain amount of source-compatibility between any platform with GNUstep and Cocoa. Carbon, now that's a different story...