[Gimp-developer] A fresh pair of eyes.
I first loaded up gimp 1.3.17 not long after my grocer and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that is had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead. This was the first chance I've had to spend quality time with gimp in several years. After this long separation from gimp, I feel that my eyes are pretty fresh. I hope my fresh perspective can spot some problems that may be overlooked due to over-familiarity by those who work on it every day, due to your over-familiarity. Since it would take far too long to write about all that is right with the new gimp I will only write about what I find wrong with it. Preferences-Interface-Tool Options- Default threshold: Why do we need this here? Just remember the last value I set in each tool. recommend removal Default Interpolation: Same as above. The transform tools ignore this one anyway. Perhaps we need to do something to make the interpolation options stand out more visually in the scale dialogs? recommend removal Brushes Pallet: It won't let you delete those useless brushes that ship with the gimp. I know you can edit the brushes path in the preferences dialog to get red of them, but most beginners will have no idea. Unfortunately changing the brush path will remove all the brushes even if there were a few you wanted to keep. (This goes for gradients and patterns also) RECOMMENDATION: gimp should copy (or ln -s?) the system brushes into the users folder when it is launched for the first time. Single user systems will never miss the meg or two this takes. On multiuser systems the admins can prune the system brush library. The round brushes shipped with gimp should be editable. RECOMMENDATION: recreate the round brushes as .vbr brushes. When previewing very large brushes the scaled down preview gets wonky. RECOMMENDATION: Find and fix bug in code. In the year 2003 why can't we scale pixmap brushes? RECOMMENDATION: Keep dreaming. Making .gbr (or gih) type brushes is non intuitive. It requires saving as a .gbr file into a hidden directory (how many people even know how to get into hidden directories in the gtk file dialog?) and then hitting refresh in the brush dialog. I just now noticed script-fu-selection-to-brush. Much better, but hard to find. RECOMMENDATION: Move aforementioned script-fu to the bottom the the main select menu. Do the same with to-pattern and to-image items? (Should probably rewrite the script-fus as native functions) (should the main select menu be renamed to selection???) When painting with large (400pixel+) soft .vbr type brushes banding can be seen. RECOMMENDATION: Do error diffusion dithering in brush mask calculation? Double check the code vbr code for precision errors. The banding could be coming from somewhere else, make sure we don't just cover up deeper problems. (I'll track this one down myself) When moving the mouse over an image window with a brush tool selected, the brush shaped cursor outline seems to jiggle around a little. RECOMMENDATION: Bow down and thank mitch for implementing the brush shaped cursor feature. Other Stuff Leopard and Brick patterns do not properly tile. RECOMMENDATION: get [EMAIL PROTECTED] to fix them. It requires two key presses (shift and =/+) to zoom-in which is one of the most common operations that gets used. (this is on US keyboards) RECOMMENDATION: accept '=' and '+' to zoom in. Additionally setup mouse button shortcuts for zooming in and out. Perhaps ctrl-middle for zoom in, and ctrl-shift-middle for zoom out. This will keep peoples left hand on left side of the keyboard and their right hand on the mouse which is exactly where they belong. (is it a pita to have multiple keyboard shortcuts for the same item?) Thats enough for now. I'll add the important stuff in here to bugzilla tomorrow. Jay Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] PS: I was skeptical at first, but I am happy with a 2.0 designation for the next release of gimp. ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] A fresh pair of eyes.
On 30 Jul 2003, Jay Cox wrote: This was the first chance I've had to spend quality time with gimp in several years. After this long separation from gimp, I feel that my eyes are pretty fresh. Whho! I think I speak for all of us old fogies when I say, Welcome back! Rockwalrus ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] A fresh pair of eyes.
Welcome back. On 30 Jul 2003, Jay Cox wrote: RECOMMENDATION: gimp should copy (or ln -s?) the system brushes into the users folder when it is launched for the first time. Single user systems will never miss the meg or two this takes. On multiuser systems the admins can prune the system brush library. You have a point, I dont much like the proposed solution though. The round brushes shipped with gimp should be editable. RECOMMENDATION: recreate the round brushes as .vbr brushes. New file formats to be discussed at Gimp Con [1], but recreating the Round brushes as standard brushes sounds good. While we are on brushes I am wondering what kind of information needs to be stored in a Brush file and why does it need a special file type of its own? RECOMMENDATION: Move aforementioned script-fu to the bottom the the main select menu. Do the same with to-pattern and to-image items? (Should probably rewrite the script-fus as native functions) (should the main select menu be renamed to selection???) Please dont. The Select Menu is for making a selection, not manipulating the contents of a selection. Once you have made a selection then the contents of a selection is an Object/Image/Layer and then actions get applied to it, the current image. It requires two key presses (shift and =/+) to zoom-in which is one of the most common operations that gets used. (this is on US keyboards) RECOMMENDATION: accept '=' and '+' to zoom in. http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94910 Both + and = should work, with + being the default label. Anything else is just a nightmare for international users. I would prefer if GIMP used Ctrl++ Zoom In and Ctrl+- as the default labelled keybindings in the menus, as well as the above keybindings. Additionally setup mouse button shortcuts for zooming in and out. Perhaps ctrl-middle for zoom in, and ctrl-shift-middle for zoom out. This will keep peoples left hand on left side of the keyboard and their right hand on the mouse which is exactly where they belong. (is it a pita to have multiple keyboard shortcuts for the same item?) I dont know about old Unix three button mice, I expect more users have Wheel Mice instead so I really hope any changes you make wont adversly affect them (and me). Zooming with a Wheel Mouse should definately Ctrl+Wheel (up down == Zoom in out) users already expect this from other applications. Wheel should scroll the page up and down, and Shift+Wheel should Scroll sideways. I know Paint Shop Pro uses the Middle Click of a Wheel Mouse to Zoom In but I never considered trying to use it with a Shift/Ctrl modifier. Thats enough for now. I'll add the important stuff in here to bugzilla tomorrow. PS: I was skeptical at first, but I am happy with a 2.0 designation for the next release of gimp. Sincerely Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/ [1] Snowballs chance in hell I'll be able to afford to go to GIMP Con, I only hope that people will take some notes and put up a short summary of some of what gets discussed. ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: (LONG) Problems with the GIMP (was: Re: [Gimp-developer]tentative GIMP 2.0 release plans)
Tor Lillqvist writes: There also seems to be some handle leak when GIMP is starting up and queries all the plug-ins. Also, something needs to be done to #98737 soon. (Perhaps related, I had to start GIMP at least four times before it got past all the plug-ins and wrote out the pluginrc file.) Done: 2003-07-30 Tor Lillqvist [EMAIL PROTECTED] * app/plug-in/plug-in.c (plug_in_close): [Win32] Plug handle leak, call CloseHandle(). and in GLib: 2003-07-31 Tor Lillqvist [EMAIL PROTECTED] * glib/gspawn-win32.c: When possible, manage without the helper process. (Part of the enhancements outlined in #98737.) Speeds up GIMP 1.3's first-time-run plug-in query phase a lot. Plug a file descriptor (and thus Win32 handle) leak: close the read end of the child error report pipe after use. Now I can start GIMP 1.3.17 from fresh and it successfullly queries all the plug-ins, quite fast even, with no handles leaked. Still need to add script support to gspawn-win32.c so that Hans's Python plug-ins work. --tml ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
