Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The GIMP UI Redesign

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the new-coat-of-wax dept.

sekra writes "The GIMP UI Redesign Team has created a blog to collect ideas for a new design of the most popular image manipulation program. Everyone is free to submit suggestions to be published in the blog. Will a new GUI finally get more users to choose The GIMP as their program of choice?"

25 of 549 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmmm by thammoud · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the most popular image manipulation program
    1. Re:Hmmmm by jayminer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Should be the most popular OPEN SOURCE image manipulation program

  2. Most Popular?? by masdog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I thought the most popular image manipulation program was Photoshop??

    --
    My Sysadmin Blog
    1. Re:Most Popular?? by huha · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If a program wants to appeal to "the masses," it has to offer decent Windows support unless it's some obscure networking/analysis tool intended for the geek masses (they'll happily read the manpages and use the command line or really bad interfaces, as long as it gets the Job done well and is fast). Decent Windows support doesn't mean coding like "If Windows were better and adhered to the 'Linux UI standards,' this wouldn't be such a pain to use," but to look at the Windows Interface Guidelines and code accordingly.
      Windows works with one desktop, that's what MDI applications are for. Other Window managers have multiple desktops and don't need MDI, but Windows does, so if your application can profit from having multiple desktops with a dedicated desktop just for the program, don't try to stick to using SDI on a platform without multiple desktops where SDI is very, very uncommon, but try using MDI instead.
      MDI works well enough for Windows users, so just use it if there are loads of toolbars and floating windows.

    2. Re:Most Popular?? by NMerriam · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's no 16 or 32 bit channel support, no adjustment layers, no colorspaces aside from RGB and greyscale, no usable colour profile support. Those four things on their own eliminate Gimp as a usable high-end photography tool. The interface is not the problem. The underlying libraries are.


      it's funny because even a year or two ago when a GIMP article would come up, people would ask why it hasn't replaced Photoshop and I'd say that the primitive (well, it would have been state of the art in 1993) color support just kills it out of the box for anyone doing anything more advanced than web graphics. Of course, everyone would reply and say I was just a luser artist who was obviously just too stupid to possibly learn anything other than the Photoshop UI and that's why I secretly hated the GIMP, and no regular user will ever need to use anything other than 8-bit untagged RGB.

      And of course now consumer-level cameras -- point and shoot $500 models -- are shooting in RAW and saving 12-bit tagged images that the GIMP has no hope of dealing with in any usable way.

      If the GIMP developers had listened to the professionals back in say, 1999, when we told them their fundamental assumptions about color were hopelessly naive, they might have been able to do something about it. As it is, I don't imagine anything short of a Mozilla-style "throw out all the code and start over" will keep the GIMP from eventually fading away as more modern open-source apps port the GIMP's features onto a better foundation.
      --
      Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
    3. Re:Most Popular?? by Bluesman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Gotta agree with the grandparent on this one.

      Out of all of the ways to fit many windows onto one screen in a usable manner, properly done virtual desktops are the least bad.

      Personally I think "windows" are a horrible idea, but if you're going to have them, having a bunch of nested sub-windows inside a larger window is just awful.

      What I'd really like to see is the Gimp copy some of the old Amiga paint programs like Digi-Paint 3 or Deluxe Paint, which kicked so much ass it wasn't even funny.

      I'm gonna go suggest that.

      --
      If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
    4. Re:Most Popular?? by NMerriam · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But how much do usability experts charge for their services? And are they willing to allow their work to be distributed under a free license?


      There are plenty of professional UI & usability folks happy to help. Developers, by and large, don't want to hear from us. We can't program and provide them with a neat patch to merge into CVS, so that means all we can do is give them more work to do, and in the process criticize what they think was a good design of their own making.

      Also, many, many programmers have a clear disdain for anything as nontechnical and nonobvious as usability, since most usability research is experiential and similar to psychological research. I can't tell you the mathematical explanation for why people respond to particular elements or cues the way they do, all I know is that they do.

      Part of the developer contempt for usability/UI folks (as can be seen on any UI thread on slashdot) is that programmers generally can't differentiate between mere aesthetics and taste and actual usability or UI mechanics. Changing the color of an icon or making something "pretty" has nothing to do with usability or UI design, but those sorts of things are generally used as a way to dismiss any criticism of an UI. "We just updated the icons, what do you mean our UI isn't modern!??" or "The program kicks ass, anyone who needs pretty buttons to use it is obviously too dumb to understand what it does"
      --
      Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
    5. Re:Most Popular?? by smenor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Of course it's not the ONLY Linux app I've ever tried. Do you honestly believe that there are people out there who would (or even could) do that to themselves?

      You can call it biased and inflammatory if you want, but it's a perfect example of taking something beautiful and well engineered, copying it, and making something that's almost unusable.

      I couldn't believe how bad simple things like wheel acceleration and fonts were.

      I don't doubt that it was fun for you, but this is something for people who want to run Linux on their toaster. Once you remove the novelty of that, there's no there there.

      iPod Linux might be a particularly bad case, but it's typical of FOSS.

      If you're not happy with my iPod example, how about OpenMoko? It's like somebody went out of their way to make an iPhone clone that totally misses the point.

      To be fair - I haven't used the latest versions of Open Office, Gnome, KDE, so maybe things have changed dramatically in the last year or so, but my experience with iPod Linux was absolutely typical and representative of my experience with other open source software.

      Developers make shoddy, half-assed copies of closed source software and then bitch and moan when somebody points out that it's a poor imitation that totally misses the point. It's the user's fault! We're just biased against Linux!

      It's probably no coincidence that the one piece of open source software I have used (and actually continue to use on a daily basis) with a UI that doesn't suck is Eclipse. In addition to having solid commercial roots, I'm sure that its quality stems in no small part from the fact that it's used primarily by developers (and even then, it leaves some things to be desired).

      You say yourself that you're a longtime Linux user - well I'm sorry, but there's your problem. You're too close to this to see it clearly. You are by definition someone who is willing to put open source ahead of usability.

      This is why I like OS X.

      It's certainly not perfect but Apple has teams of people who sweat the small stuff. You can feel it - it permeates almost every aspect of the OS.

      In the interest of equal time, it's also why I like Microsoft's Office 2007 Ribbons.

      Somebody actually went out and did usability testing, and measured things like how long it takes a novice or expert to perform a given task. They moved things around, played with it, and spent a lot of time and effort on things that most of the FOSS community seems to think are hardly an afterthought.

      Just for emphasis - I'm not against open source.

      In fact, I would argue that by being realistic and pointing out things that can and should be fixed, I'm doing more to promote the use of FOSS than someone who turns a blind eye and pretends that it's all wine and roses.

    6. Re:Most Popular?? by NMerriam · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You have the 800 window problem if you're using another type of MDI anyway


      No, you don't. You don't have 800 items on your taskbar, you don't have 800 different items clogging your alt-tab hotswitch menu, you don't have multiple copies of the same basic OS menu, you don't have 800 different places for the focus to be. And most of all -- most insanely! -- you don't switch to another application, then switch back to the original app only to find that each window has to be brought to the foreground individually. Because after all, they are not windows of a single application, they're 800 separate applications!

      Sensible applications, built by people with UI experience, make toolbars and palettes behave like toolbars and palettes, not like completely separate applications. There are a number of different ways to approach this problem, all of which are superior in almost every manner to what the GIMP team has implemented.
      --
      Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
  3. This is exactly why I hate GUIs by nunyabid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They had better have a feature where the GUI looks exactly the same way it does now.

    I don't want to learn a new gui.

    1. Re:This is exactly why I hate GUIs by s4m7 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I hate GUIs too, and you can be sure I'll be lobbying for a command-line-only interface for the Gimp. It might have a steep learning curve, but can you imagine how powerful and efficient that would be? Now, that is absolute crazy talk, my friend.
      --
      This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
  4. Simple suggestion: multiple skins by jkrise · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To those who are moving in from Photoshop, and would like a similar looka and feel, provide a skin for them. For the true GIMP pros, assuming they exist - retain the existing stuff. And so on. Compared to the size and complexity of code handling images, the UI bit should be miniscule... atleast I suppose so.

    --
    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
  5. wxWidgets! by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nothing beats having a program use the same widgets you have on your operating system.

    1. Re:wxWidgets! by PolyDwarf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously.. Also, if you can't do the widgets, at least have the decency to track (separately) last directory used for opening projects and saving images and use those by default in file open and save dialogs (Like most other windows programs). I imagine I'm not along, in that I keep my project files deep in one tree, while the images that are output are deep in another tree.. it's a pain in the ass to always have to go between them.

      The only reason I use gimp is because it's free, not because I like it better. I've started putting the bug in my boss's ear about photoshop, because Gimp is just getting on my nerves.

  6. How about by LM741N · · Score: 5, Insightful

    a name redesign.

  7. How about a new name? by HangingChad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Every time I see The Gimp, I think about Pulp Fiction. How about a cooler name? I know it sounds like form over substance, but you'd be surprised how something so simple could slow adoption.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
    1. Re:How about a new name? by owlnation · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Agreed. I think Firefox's success is at least 50% attributable to the fact that it sounds exciting.

      "Gimp" on the other hand sounds like an insult, something inferior, and It rhymes with pimp -- and not in a good way. I have no desire to ever speak that word to anyone. They will never get word of mouth marketing from me.

      This is by no means the only drawback that gimp faces, but it is a pretty major one. A great first step towards increased usage would be to change the name along with the UI redesign.

  8. stupidest key combo decision ever by Annymouse+Cowherd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How about making delete be Delete instead of ctrl+K

  9. Will a new GUI finally get more users by Vadim+Makarov · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The only thing that will get more users for GIMP is strict enforcement of software licensing (specifically, that of Adobe Photoshop). Which ain't happening.

    --
    17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
  10. krita by javilon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This days krita is a very good (if not better, as it supports colorspaces) OSS alternative to the GIMP, without the user interface problems the GIMP has.

    --


    When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
  11. GIMP UI improvements by metamatic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I love the way the GIMP has two completely different File menus with different contents. That cracks me up every time.

    --
    GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
  12. Re:I second that... by jguthrie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know, for years I've been listening to people complain that the Free Software and Open Source communities don't ever invent anything on their own. That they simply re-implement other peoples' ideas. I think it's kind of ironic that the number one suggestion for the future of the GIMP is that it be changed such that it simply re-implements other peoples' ideas.

  13. Re:Umm...no by j-pimp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My recommendation is to run gentoo before saying things like that.
    gtk is no walk in the park to compile, time-wise, but I guarantee you qt is a flipping nightmare to compile, such that I go out of my way to disable the qt* useflags. (Oh, yeah, and this is not a slow system, being a 2.4 GHz single core K8.)

    This says qt is full of bloat relative to gtk. Why does gimp need so much cruft just to expose a window and some buttons? What gimp really needs isn't so much a UI redesign so much as native 16-bit component support (or dare we even ask for HDR?) now that everyone and his brother has RAW support on his camera.

    Maybe its just full of useful classes? Assuming those classes are broken up into enough separate static and shared libraries, that does not translate into bloat for the qt programs.

    Also GTK is only a graphics library. As opposed to QT, which has APIs for networking, database connections, etc. You can write conole programs in QT. Its about as easy as java or .NET, except you have to dofree whatever you new. So yes it will take longer to compile QT than GTK, but the real measure of bloat is would be if you wrote a simple text editor in QT and one in GTK, and made them both static executables, which executable would be bigger. Then you have to say which one was quicker to develop.

    --
    --- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
  14. Have you tried to *USE* Krita? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I manage a small but successful wedding photography company. We use almost exclusively open source software including DigiKam, ShowFoto and of course, the Gimp.

    I wanted people to switch to Krita for the deeper color support and integration with DigiKam and ShowFoto, but the thing is unusable! There (currently) aren't nearly as many editing tools while and the UI may look more like Photoshop, it's sure doesn't behave like it.

    After about 2 weeks of trying to use it, I had to go back to Gimp and put Krita off for futher evaluation in a year or two.

    Some things Gimp has going for it:

    1) It works pretty well (not great, not all the features that Photoshop has, but good enough for many uses)
    2) The new 2.4 version is a huge improvement in usability (All color items in their own menu? Yes!, All special effects scripts in one place? , Yes!)
    3) The extensive set of plugins http://registry.gimp.org/ which allow for added (and usually tested) functionality
    4) Enough people use it that most major bugs are squashed before a release is made

  15. Re:I second that... by nine-times · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know, for years I've been listening to people complain that the Free Software and Open Source communities don't ever invent anything on their own. That they simply re-implement other peoples' ideas. I think it's kind of ironic that the number one suggestion for the future of the GIMP is that it be changed such that it simply re-implements other peoples' ideas.

    I think you're hearing from two different sorts of people. The people who vaguely insist that free software to do something new and inventive, without having any idea of what that "inventive" thing might be, are probably developers who don't use the software. There seems to be a lot of OSS developers who think that the most important thing for software to do is something "cool" and "inventive", which is usually geeky.

    The people who use the software, on the other hand, usually just want the software to work in easy, predictable, and efficient ways. They want the software to have all the features they need, and have it be simple to use those features in their own workflows without needing some kind of specialized knowledge for that software.

    When "Free" and "Open" software succeeds in that, you'll usually find that people start using it.