> A few weeks ago I installed Gimp Win32 for my mom, she's a newspaper
> person who can use some good image editing software. I told her that its
> every bit as good as photoshop. But when I started it up for the first
> time she exclaimed "It looks terrible, its can't be as good as
> Photoshop!". Now she recanted after I showed her a few of the things that
> it can do, but I'm afraid that Gimp could be losing users because people
> are not used to things that don't really look bad but look *different*.
> Its not isolated either. I found this comment on /. a few minutes ago in
> reply to an article running right now about Gimp on OS X.
>
> "I don't think it will make much difference. If the GIMP people want to
> increase their market share they need to fix the UI, and make it (...)
Market-share does not seem very important to the GIMP-developers. But still
we are all human beings that would like to receive some credits for their
dedicated work. If The GIMP would be just a little more polished, it would
attract more users. That would do more justice to the hard development-work.
Or do you like "yeah, I just developed a great app and I am the only one
that can use it... isn't that cool..."
> My second suggestion is more technical, finding a way (and forgive me if
> there already is) to allow Gimp to have skins or something like that so
> that if someone wants it to *look* like Photoshop, they can. I defenately
> feel that some customizability is a key to a good UI. With the default
> being something that people are familiar with.
This will certainly give The GIMP far more possibilities...
The GIMP has a whole lot of power under its hood, but it has a steep
learning curve. I learned it just because it is free software, I felt what
was possible with it and I like to support it. But it's not for the average
user indeed (which is btw also stated on tml's GIMPwin-page).
> well, all you are telling us is that the UI needs to get better. We know
> this and we are working on it. Unless you tell us constructively what
> should be changed in your opinion the outcome might not be what you had
> in mind though.
>
> He's speaking of the Win32 version here which of course looks and feels
> different than the usual win32 application. This feeling will change as
> soon as more GTK+ apps are ported to Win32. I'm sure the people
> will start to like GTK+ looks especially since GTK+-2.0 will come with a
much nicer
> default look.
"I have a dream... one day all Windows-applications will have a
Linux-look..."
Well, someone said something similar before and we know how his life
ended...
If we want more people to use The GIMP on their native platform, then we
should bring The GIMP closer to them (also see below).
> > My second suggestion is more technical, finding a way (and forgive me if
> > there already is) to allow Gimp to have skins or something like that so
> > that if someone wants it to *look* like Photoshop, they can. I
> defenately
> > feel that some customizability is a key to a good UI. With the default
> > being something that people are familiar with.
>
> GTK+ supported skins (or themes) long before the Windows world had heard
> about this terms. If I'm informed correctly, GTK+ themes do even work on
> Win32.
The theme-support in the recent GIMPwin-builds is mostly broken. I had it
configured to use a theme and after installing the new release it only
partially used themes. However, TML said he focussed more on GIMPwin's
features than on its theme-support. And I agree with him on that. Themes are
nice-to-have, but features really make The GIMP what it is today. And I
honour tml for bringing The GIMP to those who are doomed to using Windows.
(Free-form) skins would give the skin-builder far more control, being able
to bring it closer to the native platform-look. But IMHO then someone should
add skin-support to GTK+ and that sounds like a hell of a job to me (to how
many platforms is GTK+ ported nowadays and what is the codebase that all
implementations do share ?).
> Win32, to start, is a MDI fanatic system. Gimp comes from X, where the
> user decides how windows are grouped (normaly with some kind of
> virtual desktop system). Also, you can play with Xnest. ;]
Well, I like the way The GIMP displays its windows anyway. It makes me think
I am not running a Windows-app and I like it. But it would ofcourse be nice
if that also could be themeable.
> I think the current CVS version already has a better user interface than
> 1.2 although there's a lot of unfinished stuff that needs to be polished.
> I'm certain that you will like 1.4, but it could become even better if
> you start writing proposals or, even better, code.
(...)
> Yes, Gimp has some UI problems, but one thing is fixing that, and
> another is just do a PS 100% clone.
(...)
> Maybe Gimp 2.0 with separation of UI and engine. But you will have to
> code a full UI, probably. Supposing we are not talking about the
> already working theme engines that make widgets look different. With
> them you can even make Gimp look like Aqua (and see how fast a lawyer
> writes a letter cos you are using something that looks like Apple
> widgets).
Hmm, this sounds pretty cool... I did not know that this was happening (new
to this list), but it really sounds promising...
> Let's add that the UI in the Win32 version is *BUGGY* (my mom runs it and
> there are some ugly glitches - and I'm not talking of the screwed-up
> support for tablets). So we should not take as "inadequate UI" what is
> actually bugs, pure and simple. We should be very careful with the Win32
> version since it may easily convey the wrong impression that Gimp, and
> free software in general, is buggy.
Considering what TML writes on his webpage I find GIMPwin (1.2 december
2000-release) quite stable. I use it almost on a daily basis for my
webgraphics-needs.
The current release-version BTW is not a good advertisement. There's been an
error while compiling somehow (which required some patches) and those
patches have not been implemented in the download. That means that if you
want GIMPwin 1.2 to not crash (e.g. when closing ScriptFU-generated images)
you need to download and install the updates on tml's GIMPwin-website.
BTW, to solve the tablet-problems one needs to start gimp.exe
with --ignoretab (if I remember correctly).
Greetings,
Martijn Weisbeek
http://weisbeek.cjb.net
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