"they want a decent intuitive UI (anyone that claims the Gimp has this is either a fantatic, a troll, or has the pleasure nodes in his or brain switched with the pain ones)"
Ah so everybody who disagrees with you is automatically a troll/fanatic? Gimp's GUI is usable. Anybody that claims it's not is a zealot, troll, or has the pleasure nodes in his brain switched with the pain ones.
I'm also a non-native English speaker. Before the massive whining on Slashdot about the name, I didn't know "gimp" has a meaning. I didn't even know you can pronounce it any other way than "jimp"!
"The reason you get that type of backlash though is because so many in the Slashdot community are convinced that it's a perfect replacement for Photoshop *now*"
And where are those people? Almost every single post flames Gimp down for being a "toy" or "totally unusable". Once in a blue moon there are one or two posts saying that Gimp is just as good as Photoshop, but all of them are followed by 200 posts flaming them and Gimp down.
I do use it for serious work. But your "serious" isn't my "serious". You need 16-bit/CMYK/etc, good for you. But 90% of the world doesn't. If you're already happily using Photoshop then why do you care about Gimp? A friend of mine was completely baffled when he saw that so many people waste their time complaining about a FREE program! Heck, it seems everybody but Slashdotters agree that complaining about free programs is a waste of time.
"Fixing" Gimp's interface is a matter of improving the window manager, so that it behaves more like the Mac. The end result will be a system that works better than the window-in-window hack on Win32.
And you know what else is retarded? Whenever someone points out a weakness with a commercial application, people immediately start to attack open source apps!
"GIMP toolbars? It's the same as Photoshop but people don't complain about it! Poor installers? Windows has poor installers too, you know!"
Both of them are very valid arguments. People complain about open source but not about commercial apps? That just shows that they're nothing more than a bunch of whiners who are completely blind against any criticism towards non-open source apps, which means they're automatically disqualified.
"heesh, man, how are you ever going to make the product BETTER"
And it what way does whining about the product and mentally trying to destroy developers, who are already very busy but still invest their free time into a free application, instead of helping, make the product any better? In what way does ranting about "all developers must be BANNED from UI design" help the product?
"if you always use the other product's weaknesses as a scapegoat?"
Ask the Slashdotters who always attack open source whenver someone criticises commercial software.
"A problem is a problem, whether or not it exists in competing products."
Then be honest about it and stop pretending like the problem only exists in open source software. Until Slashdotters realize that, they will never be taken seriously.
Newsflash: if you send a hate mail full of insults and name calling to a company, they will delete your email without reading it, no matter how valid your "criticism" is.
And why should they? The market already has Photoshop. The Photoshop zealots are not going away any time soon. Even when Gimp has all the features Photoshop has, people will STILL whine about Photoshop being better and Gimp being nothing more than a toy. If Photoshop already exists, why bother trying to conquer the market instead of doing whatever you want to do?
So by your reasoning, Linux GUIs should just emulate Windows. Yet when GNOME or KDE does that, people massively whine about looking too much like Windows.
No, I don't want window-in-window. I want things to be exactly like it is now, with one exception: if I minimize one Gimp window, then all Gimp windows should be minimized too. If I bring one Gimp window to front, then the others must be brought to front too, etc.
MDI is Multiple Document Interface. So tabs are also considered MDI. That's why I call it window-in-window, not MDI.
I know about Ctrl+Tab, but it behaves totally different from Alt+Tab: instead of switching between to windows, Ctrl+Tab only goes forward in the list. Ctrl+Tab sucks. It's just an alias for Ctrl+F6. And even with this, I STILL have to click twice to switch between document windows, because there is no task list.
"Don't blame the tools for your lack of understanding of how to use them."
If someone says the same thing about Gimp, or any open source software, people will immediately attack him for being "an open source zealot" and that "that attitude is exactly why open source usability sucks". All of those attack posts get modded up to +5 Insightful. So blaming Photoshop is bad, while blaming Gimp for the same thing is good?
And of course, his post will get modded up, while your post will not. Slashdot is not pro-open source - I'd say it's the opposite. You can throw all the junk you want at Gimp, and still get modded up, but if you do the same thing to Microsoft or Photoshop, nothing happens, while the people who accuse you of being an "anti-MS OSS zealot" get modded up.
No they don't. You're either living in a cave or you're trolling. Only VERY few people say that Gimp is just as capable, and EVERY SINGLE of them get modded down! On the other hand, people who flame down Gimp saying it's a piece of junk ALWAYS get modded up to +5 Insightful.
Slashdot Mirror
To save a file in Photoshop:
File->Save
To save a file in Gimp:
File->Save
To draw a line in Photoshop:
Use the Brush tool.
To draw a line in Gimp:
Use the Brush tool.
To copy & paste something in Photoshop:
Click the selection tool, select, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.
To copy & paste something in Photoshop:
Click the selection tool, select, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.
Steep learning curve?
"they want a decent intuitive UI (anyone that claims the Gimp has this is either a fantatic, a troll, or has the pleasure nodes in his or brain switched with the pain ones)"
Ah so everybody who disagrees with you is automatically a troll/fanatic?
Gimp's GUI is usable. Anybody that claims it's not is a zealot, troll, or has the pleasure nodes in his brain switched with the pain ones.
There, your own non-reasoning backfired at you.
I'm also a non-native English speaker. Before the massive whining on Slashdot about the name, I didn't know "gimp" has a meaning. I didn't even know you can pronounce it any other way than "jimp"!
And Slackware is not a distribution officially supported by Red Hat.
Doesn't FreeBSD use large parts of the GNU toolchain?
Then by your reasoning, we should kill democracy because having two ore more different milk manufacturers is bad.
"The reason you get that type of backlash though is because so many in the Slashdot community are convinced that it's a perfect replacement for Photoshop *now*"
And where are those people? Almost every single post flames Gimp down for being a "toy" or "totally unusable". Once in a blue moon there are one or two posts saying that Gimp is just as good as Photoshop, but all of them are followed by 200 posts flaming them and Gimp down.
I do use it for serious work. But your "serious" isn't my "serious". You need 16-bit/CMYK/etc, good for you. But 90% of the world doesn't. If you're already happily using Photoshop then why do you care about Gimp? A friend of mine was completely baffled when he saw that so many people waste their time complaining about a FREE program! Heck, it seems everybody but Slashdotters agree that complaining about free programs is a waste of time.
"Fixing" Gimp's interface is a matter of improving the window manager, so that it behaves more like the Mac. The end result will be a system that works better than the window-in-window hack on Win32.
Both of them are very valid arguments. People complain about open source but not about commercial apps? That just shows that they're nothing more than a bunch of whiners who are completely blind against any criticism towards non-open source apps, which means they're automatically disqualified.
And it what way does whining about the product and mentally trying to destroy developers, who are already very busy but still invest their free time into a free application, instead of helping, make the product any better? In what way does ranting about "all developers must be BANNED from UI design" help the product?
Ask the Slashdotters who always attack open source whenver someone criticises commercial software.
Then be honest about it and stop pretending like the problem only exists in open source software. Until Slashdotters realize that, they will never be taken seriously.
Newsflash: if you send a hate mail full of insults and name calling to a company, they will delete your email without reading it, no matter how valid your "criticism" is.
And why should they? The market already has Photoshop. The Photoshop zealots are not going away any time soon. Even when Gimp has all the features Photoshop has, people will STILL whine about Photoshop being better and Gimp being nothing more than a toy. If Photoshop already exists, why bother trying to conquer the market instead of doing whatever you want to do?
So what? I don't need color management or 16bit support, and I couldn't care less about pre-press printing features.
So by your reasoning, Linux GUIs should just emulate Windows. Yet when GNOME or KDE does that, people massively whine about looking too much like Windows.
Have you tried explaining it to a user who has never used a computer before? He most likely doesn't even know what a toolbar is.
Because Microsoft is a monopoly, and Linux is not. Such is the law. End of story.
I occasionally work in Gimp for about 4 hours a day. And no, the interface is not plain horrible.
Because there is no ONE good way. As with almost anything: the "best" depends on you.
Microsoft-defending post:1 30 379&cid=10880664
"Oh I forgot, if all else fails blame Microsoft." - +5 Insightful
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=
And this is just one example.
Nope.
1 30 379&cid=10880664
Microsoft-defending post:
"Oh I forgot, if all else fails blame Microsoft." - +5 Insightful
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=
Bam, there goes YOUR theory.
And this is just one example.
No, I don't want window-in-window. I want things to be exactly like it is now, with one exception: if I minimize one Gimp window, then all Gimp windows should be minimized too. If I bring one Gimp window to front, then the others must be brought to front too, etc.
But the anti-open source pro-MS moderators are in much larger quantities.
MDI is Multiple Document Interface. So tabs are also considered MDI. That's why I call it window-in-window, not MDI.
I know about Ctrl+Tab, but it behaves totally different from Alt+Tab: instead of switching between to windows, Ctrl+Tab only goes forward in the list. Ctrl+Tab sucks. It's just an alias for Ctrl+F6. And even with this, I STILL have to click twice to switch between document windows, because there is no task list.
"Don't blame the tools for your lack of understanding of how to use them."
If someone says the same thing about Gimp, or any open source software, people will immediately attack him for being "an open source zealot" and that "that attitude is exactly why open source usability sucks". All of those attack posts get modded up to +5 Insightful.
So blaming Photoshop is bad, while blaming Gimp for the same thing is good?
And of course, his post will get modded up, while your post will not. Slashdot is not pro-open source - I'd say it's the opposite. You can throw all the junk you want at Gimp, and still get modded up, but if you do the same thing to Microsoft or Photoshop, nothing happens, while the people who accuse you of being an "anti-MS OSS zealot" get modded up.
No they don't. You're either living in a cave or you're trolling. Only VERY few people say that Gimp is just as capable, and EVERY SINGLE of them get modded down! On the other hand, people who flame down Gimp saying it's a piece of junk ALWAYS get modded up to +5 Insightful.
Why do people keep pretending like Gimp is totally unusable without (pre)press features, while 95% of the world doesn't even need it?