“Semantic issues” tend to be difficult. “Save as” in most applications I’ve 
used, is essentially both for saving as a file with a different name, and 
saving as a different type of file. GIMP breaks this into two (actually three, 
with the “overwrite” command) separate commands, which makes logical sense. 
Renaming “Open” to “Open/import” may well reduce the confusion for new users. 
(Yes, I know. But who RTFM before starting to use the program? I suspect most 
start using the program, referring to the manual when something doesn’t work as 
they expected. Considering what I’ve recently read about the state of GIMP 
documentation, the name change seems a good, simple “fix” for what is mostly a 
perceptual problem.

Ross


> On Nov 16, 2018, at 4:11 PM, Liam R E Quin <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 2018-11-16 at 14:41 -0500, Steve Kinney wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Ultimately, Save vs. Export is just a semantic issue:
>> 
>> The GIMP "saves" image editing projects as XCF files, with all
>> layers,
>> channels, paths, etc. intact.  XCF is the GIMP's native file format.
>> 
>> The GIMP "exports" images from editing projects into flat file
>> formats
>> intended for display or print only, typically with some loss of
>> resolution compared to their XCF 'master' files.
> 
> i think one reason it's a problem is that it's asymmetric - you can
> "open" a JPEG or PNG file, rather than "import"ing one. Maybe renaming
> Open to Open/Import" would reduce the confusion, i'm not sure.
> 
> ankh
> 
> 
> -- 
> Liam Quin - web slave for https://www.fromoldbooks.org/
> with fabulous vintage art and fascinating texts to read.
> Click here to have the slave beaten.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gimp-user-list mailing list
> List address:    [email protected]
> List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
> List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

_______________________________________________
gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:    [email protected]
List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

Reply via email to