Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Alexandre Prokoudine]

On Nov 30, 2007 3:13 PM, Raphaël Quinet wrote:

> designed for team collaboration.  The best choice would probably be TWiki
> (http://twiki.org/) but it is heavier than both MoinMoin and MediaWiki so I
> doubt that we would switch to that soon.

By the way, I'm just back from Open Translation Tools 2007 conference
in Zagreb where I spoke with Adam Hyde, who is founder of FLOSS
Manuals (http://flossmanuals.net/). FLOSS manuals uses twiki which
allows storing multilingual content in a sane way and outputting PDF,
HTML (zipped by request) and does a lot more stuff. But this is
probably a story for gimp-docs list.

Alexandre
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Alexandre Prokoudine]

On Nov 30, 2007 9:10 AM, Gary Pikula wrote:

> Example 1: Gimp wiki (Wilbur's wiki) This wiki uses your own software, while
> the common user is used to mediawiki software.

The common user isn't. While mediawiki is quite popular indeed (mainly
because of wikipedia), there is a fair number of wiki engines that are
widely used (e.g. dokuwiki). And being administrator of two mediawiki
installations I can tell you that mediawiki sucks in so many ways that
I would be the very first person to object using it for GIMP's
website. I can argue about it till I'm blue in the face, but you
probably wouldn't want to see that happening in this mailing list or
anywhere at all. I wouldn't, for my part :)

> It is largely the same story with the gimp user group forums.

Since when does GIMP has just ONE user forum? I know several ones.

> Everyone is used to phpbb forums

Who is that "everyone"? Also, popular != good. PhpBB has a long
history of being insecure.

> The average user has never used a mailing list before as well and feels
> uncomfortable with them, take that into more consideration.

I'd like to finally see a document that states that you are granted
rights to provide such vague statements.

> This has created 2 major problems.
>
> 1. TheGimp is no longer comparable to photoshop or corel.

Totally unrelated

> I recommend putting together an extremely detailed feature list of both 
> products

You are free to start it, if you care so much about competition. From
what I remember, GIMP developers are not interested in competing with
anyone. You are probably missing the whole point of open source
software development.

Alexandre
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Renan Birck]

Daniel Falk wrote:

> I prefer to work efficiently with a gui actually (Don't laugh!).  
> Anybody know of a good gui option?

I enjoy Thunderbird, but of course, YMMV.


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Daniel Falk]

On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 20:35 -0500, Robert Krawitz wrote:
> Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:42:49 -0500
>From: Daniel Falk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
>>> Please do something to get in touch with users, I could never
>>> honestly ever say theGimp could be a replacement for photoshop
>>> ever if this continues.
> 
>> Gimp may or may not be a Photoshop replacement. That depends on
>> the user.  For me, it's a replacement because since I'm using it
>> I'm not using Photoshop. But certain people want to keep using
>> Photoshop. If your plan is using Photoshop for free, then Gimp
>> it's not for you. If you need an image manipulation program, be
>> welcome.  If you want Photoshop for Linux, which is a valid
>> desire, you should start asking Adobe to port it, not Gimp coders
>> to create a feature by feature clone.
>>
>> Anyway, I also think that a better communication between existing
>> coders and users would be nice for certain situations.  But
>> non-users-wanting-photoshop aren't gimp users. And I understand
>> when a coder pisses off if one of these guys say "Gimp sucks
>> because it hasn't X feature" and threatens not using Gimp if the
>> coders don't do what he wants.
> 
>I understand such things can piss off the people who are devoting
>their own time to the project.  But if I'm understanding you right,
>you're suggesting that users shouldn't hope for gimp to be as
>feature-filled as photoshop.  But why not?  As a believer in
>open-source, I want gimp to be the best it can be and I'm willing
>to submit feature requests and bug reports to help get it that way.
>I'd rather spend my time doing that than getting a proprietary
>software package ported to linux by Adobe (not gonna happen!)
> 
> Don't confuse feature counts (my product has 101 features and yours
> has 100, so mine's better) or specific individual features that might
> or might not matter to a few people with overall product utility.  In
> particular, just because GIMP and Photoshop do some things differently
> doesn't make one better or worse than the other, just "different".
> 
> The GIMP developers aren't (at least for the most part) interested in
> building a Photoshop clone.  Nothing's stopping someone else from
> taking the code base and doing just that, but the GIMP team has its
> own vision.

Totally agree.  When I say as feature-filled, I'm not suggesting that
those features be implemented the same way.  That's what I would see as
a clone.  But if photoshop has useful features that solve a certain
problem, then I think the gimp team should want to solve the problem as
well, so long as it fits within the scope of the project.  Of course the
gimp team may have a totally different idea on how to solve that
problem.  That's where it stops being a clone.

> 
> Submitting feature requests by itself isn't usually a very productive
> endeavor for most projects.  There's no shortage of people with ideas;
> what's needed are people who can and will realize those ideas.  That
> doesn't mean that participating in discussions isn't useful, but if
> you want to help GIMP move along, you need to find more active ways of
> doing so -- programming is only one such way.

That's true.  There's probably not a shortage of people with ideas, but
I think there is often a shortage of people who have ideas that are good
and are practical.  But otherwise, I know what you mean.  Coming up with
the ideas is faster than programming those ideas, especially when no
work is done to actually to refine the idea.

> 
> Finally, to address more specifically your point about nested-window
> MDI (aka "window in window"): that paradigm may work on Windows
> (although it quickly grew tedious a dozen years ago when I used
> Pagemaker), but on Linux/UNIX it doesn't work.  One reason why that is
> specific to X (the X window system) is that the windows inside the
> parent window can't (at least at present) be managed by the window
> manager running under X: they have to be managed by the application
> itself.
> 
> There are a lot of different window managers available, and most of
> those window managers can be customized almost endlessly, and there is
> no one standard.  Not just decorations -- basic window behavior can be
> varied.  Not everyone likes "click to focus and raise" (i. e. you have
> to explicitly select a window, which raises it to the top).  For
> example, I use its polar opposite, focus strictly follows mouse with
> no raising of windows except on my explicit request (i. e. whatever
> window the mouse is in is the one that's active, even if it's
> partially buried under other windows).  What all this means is that
> the windows inside the container may behave very differently from what
> the user is accustomed to, which is very distracting (try using the
> newest version of acroread with multiple PDF files using focus follows
> mouse, and you'll see what I mean -- 

Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Robert Krawitz]

   Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:42:49 -0500
   From: Daniel Falk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

   >> Please do something to get in touch with users, I could never
   >> honestly ever say theGimp could be a replacement for photoshop
   >> ever if this continues.

   > Gimp may or may not be a Photoshop replacement. That depends on
   > the user.  For me, it's a replacement because since I'm using it
   > I'm not using Photoshop. But certain people want to keep using
   > Photoshop. If your plan is using Photoshop for free, then Gimp
   > it's not for you. If you need an image manipulation program, be
   > welcome.  If you want Photoshop for Linux, which is a valid
   > desire, you should start asking Adobe to port it, not Gimp coders
   > to create a feature by feature clone.
   >
   > Anyway, I also think that a better communication between existing
   > coders and users would be nice for certain situations.  But
   > non-users-wanting-photoshop aren't gimp users. And I understand
   > when a coder pisses off if one of these guys say "Gimp sucks
   > because it hasn't X feature" and threatens not using Gimp if the
   > coders don't do what he wants.

   I understand such things can piss off the people who are devoting
   their own time to the project.  But if I'm understanding you right,
   you're suggesting that users shouldn't hope for gimp to be as
   feature-filled as photoshop.  But why not?  As a believer in
   open-source, I want gimp to be the best it can be and I'm willing
   to submit feature requests and bug reports to help get it that way.
   I'd rather spend my time doing that than getting a proprietary
   software package ported to linux by Adobe (not gonna happen!)

Don't confuse feature counts (my product has 101 features and yours
has 100, so mine's better) or specific individual features that might
or might not matter to a few people with overall product utility.  In
particular, just because GIMP and Photoshop do some things differently
doesn't make one better or worse than the other, just "different".

The GIMP developers aren't (at least for the most part) interested in
building a Photoshop clone.  Nothing's stopping someone else from
taking the code base and doing just that, but the GIMP team has its
own vision.

Submitting feature requests by itself isn't usually a very productive
endeavor for most projects.  There's no shortage of people with ideas;
what's needed are people who can and will realize those ideas.  That
doesn't mean that participating in discussions isn't useful, but if
you want to help GIMP move along, you need to find more active ways of
doing so -- programming is only one such way.

Finally, to address more specifically your point about nested-window
MDI (aka "window in window"): that paradigm may work on Windows
(although it quickly grew tedious a dozen years ago when I used
Pagemaker), but on Linux/UNIX it doesn't work.  One reason why that is
specific to X (the X window system) is that the windows inside the
parent window can't (at least at present) be managed by the window
manager running under X: they have to be managed by the application
itself.

There are a lot of different window managers available, and most of
those window managers can be customized almost endlessly, and there is
no one standard.  Not just decorations -- basic window behavior can be
varied.  Not everyone likes "click to focus and raise" (i. e. you have
to explicitly select a window, which raises it to the top).  For
example, I use its polar opposite, focus strictly follows mouse with
no raising of windows except on my explicit request (i. e. whatever
window the mouse is in is the one that's active, even if it's
partially buried under other windows).  What all this means is that
the windows inside the container may behave very differently from what
the user is accustomed to, which is very distracting (try using the
newest version of acroread with multiple PDF files using focus follows
mouse, and you'll see what I mean -- and yes, I know how to turn that
off, but I've simply switched to kpdf instead).

Nested windows are also a pain to use if you want to have multiple
applications in use simultaneously, because the big container hides
all the other windows.  I prefer to either just live with the mess or
use multiple virtual desktops.  But if you want to implement nested
windows, go ahead -- if the GIMP folks don't want to accept the patch,
you can distribute it yourself.

   I think it is important to open source projects that they value
   their users and reach out to potential users.  It's good for a
   project to have many people interested in it, even if those people
   don't code.  I'm not saying that the GIMP doesn't value and reach
   out.  I just want to establish the point that those are actually
   good things to do in the first place.

Well, free software or open source isn't simply about freedom without
responsibility.  You certainly have the freedom to use and modify the
software without rest

Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Daniel Hornung]

> To the people who like mailing lists: what mail client do you like to
> use that handles mailing lists well?  I would like to use one that lets
> me watch or ignore threads at least.  That's probably the biggest gripe
> with them at the moment.

Kmail has all that:
It can mark whole threads as Important, Read, Unread, put them on watch lists 
and ignore them.


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Guillermo Espertino]

>
> But if I'm understanding you right, you're 
> suggesting that users shouldn't hope for gimp to be as feature-filled as 
> photoshop.  But why not?
No, I'm not suggesting that. But ranting publicly and saying "Gimp 
sucks" won't make new features appear.
It more likely will piss people off and will generate more reticence to 
the requested features.
I'm not against features, but demanding for other program's features 
just because the other program has them and without providing an 
explaination on why it should be added (common usage references, things 
that cannot be done without that tool, etc.) won't drag the developers 
attention.
People seem to put the "you can't compare with photoshop if x feature 
isn't there" argument before the real need.
Most of the requested features have a workaround. May be more convenient 
or faster using the PS technique, but they are already possible in Gimp 
using an alternative workflow. People say our workflow sucks and PS' 
rock, and start complaining that Gimp will never be Photoshop.
And that doesn't help.
Anyway, I'm not saying you can't compare. There are positive 
comparations that aim to illustrate convenient ways to address a 
problem. But don't tell developers "do it that way". Try to show why a 
method is better than the existing (and meanwhile, try to get used to 
the alternative method to realize if it really is worst or it's just 
that you aren't used to it).

> I'd rather spend my time doing that 
> than getting a proprietary software package ported to linux by Adobe 
> (not gonna happen!)
I think it will happen eventually. There's a wrong perception that 
professional software will never be ported to linux because Adobe 
haven't showed *yet* any intentions to port its software to linux.
But pro software isn't just Adobe. You have Maya, Houdini, XSI, Nuke, 
Fusion and Shake that already run natively on Linux. Those are 
professional packages and it seems it made sense to them to port their 
software. And Adobe will do the same sooner or later.
So it's not a crazy dream to brag for the port if you're interested. It 
may work.

But if you prefer to stick with free software and try to get more 
developers interested in Gimp, great!


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[jernej]

On Friday, November 30, 2007, 15:30:56, Daniel Falk wrote:

> Not on forums that are administered well.  I've seen forums that have 
> strict rules against such things and that works surprisingly well.  They
> also put sticky topics in the forums that appear on top that have 
> frequently repeated questions. 

On a forum I frequent, we call the sticky topics "the invisibles",
since it appears that once something gets stickied, pretty much
everybody seems to ignore it.

-- 
< Jernej Simončič ><><><><>< http://deepthought.ena.si/ >

Of two possible events, only the undesired one will occur.
   -- Dude's Law of Duality

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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[jernej]

On Friday, November 30, 2007, 14:34:51, Daniel Falk wrote:

> To the people who like mailing lists: what mail client do you like to 
> use that handles mailing lists well?  I would like to use one that lets
> me watch or ignore threads at least.  That's probably the biggest gripe
> with them at the moment.

I would suggest you try a newsreader - either through a special
mailbox for the mailing list, or through gmane .

-- 
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The new hardware will break down as soon as the old is disconnected and out.
   -- Goodin's Law of Conversions

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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Gary Pikula]

I know the photoshop stuff will probably never make it into the gimp. and
open source works only if a developer chooses to work on something. I
realize developers like irc and mailing lists more as well. I like how the
ReactOS project handles this. They have forums on their site, and the
developers hang out in irc. Naturally a few of the developers read through
the forums and alert the developers in irc when they should read a forum
post.

I understand that the project is short on developers as well. Is there
anyone trying to attract more developers though? It could be a project goal
to get some more.
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Daniel Falk]

>> Please do something to get in touch with users, I could never honestly ever
>> say theGimp could be a replacement for photoshop ever if this continues.
>> 
> Gimp may or may not be a Photoshop replacement. That depends on the user.
> For me, it's a replacement because since I'm using it I'm not using 
> Photoshop. But certain people want to keep using Photoshop. If your plan 
> is using Photoshop for free, then Gimp it's not for you. If you need an 
> image manipulation program, be welcome.
> If you want Photoshop for Linux, which is a valid desire, you should 
> start asking Adobe to port it, not Gimp coders to create a feature by 
> feature clone.
>
> Anyway, I also think that a better communication between existing coders 
> and users would be nice for certain situations.
> But non-users-wanting-photoshop aren't gimp users. And I understand when 
> a coder pisses off if one of these guys say "Gimp sucks because it 
> hasn't X feature" and threatens not using Gimp if  the coders don't do 
> what he wants.
>   
I understand such things can piss off the people who are devoting their 
own time to the project.  But if I'm understanding you right, you're 
suggesting that users shouldn't hope for gimp to be as feature-filled as 
photoshop.  But why not?  As a believer in open-source, I want gimp to 
be the best it can be and I'm willing to submit feature requests and bug 
reports to help get it that way.  I'd rather spend my time doing that 
than getting a proprietary software package ported to linux by Adobe 
(not gonna happen!)

I think it is important to open source projects that they value their 
users and reach out to potential users.  It's good for a project to have 
many people interested in it, even if those people don't code.  I'm not 
saying that the GIMP doesn't value and reach out.  I just want to 
establish the point that those are actually good things to do in the 
first place.


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Daniel Falk]

Michael Schumacher wrote:
>> Von: Daniel Falk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> 
>> Also, if you are a user with a 1 time issue or question, 
>> subscribing to a mailing list is overkill, whereas signing up for a 
>> forum is easier and you don't get the mail volume.
>> 
>
> ... and this is the reason why so many questions are asked multiple times on 
> forums.
>   
Not on forums that are administered well.  I've seen forums that have 
strict rules against such things and that works surprisingly well.  They 
also put sticky topics in the forums that appear on top that have 
frequently repeated questions.  Even so, it's the ones who answer the 
questions who are most annoyed by seeing the same questions over again.  
For the user, the friendliest thing is to allow such questions, not that 
I'm advocating it.  My point is that what works for the developers seems 
to be different from what works for the users.

>> To the people who like mailing lists: what mail client do you like to 
>> use that handles mailing lists well?  I would like to use one that lets 
>> me watch or ignore threads at least.  That's probably the biggest gripe 
>> with them at the moment.
>> 
>
> I do assume that you should start looking for console-based ones, they are 
> more likely to be used and influenced by people who prefer to work 
> efficiently. mutt, maybe?
>
>   
I prefer to work efficiently with a gui actually (Don't laugh!).  
Anybody know of a good gui option?

 I might look at mutt for mailing lists though and see how it turns 
out.  Thanks for the suggestion.

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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Michael Schumacher]

> Von: Daniel Falk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> Also, if you are a user with a 1 time issue or question, 
> subscribing to a mailing list is overkill, whereas signing up for a 
> forum is easier and you don't get the mail volume.

... and this is the reason why so many questions are asked multiple times on 
forums.

> To the people who like mailing lists: what mail client do you like to 
> use that handles mailing lists well?  I would like to use one that lets 
> me watch or ignore threads at least.  That's probably the biggest gripe 
> with them at the moment.

I do assume that you should start looking for console-based ones, they are more 
likely to be used and influenced by people who prefer to work efficiently. 
mutt, maybe?


HTH,
Michael
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Guillermo Espertino]

>
> 1. TheGimp is no longer comparable to photoshop or corel.
That's very subjective. I'm a professional designer and I'm using Gimp 
for my everyday work.
I'd say it really IS comparable to Photoshop or Photopaint, but it 
really isn't the point.
And if comparison is the plan, Photoshop isn't comparable to Photopaint. 
I'd bet you could find the same number of differences between Photoshop 
and Photopaint than the ones you find when you compare them to Gimp.

Gimp has some rough edges, but as Martin said, the problem is that there 
are few developers and they can't address them all.

> 2. Multi-window interface:
Preferences aside, this is a longstanding request and once again, no 
coder seems to be interested in providing a solution.
Current layout is usable and has a lot of advantages. You find it out 
when you start using it and stop complaining (at least that was my case).
I wonder why if it's a so important issue nobody volunteered yet to 
change it. Maybe it is an issue for users who want to use Photoshop and 
not Gimp, but not such a problem for users who got used to the way Gimp 
works.
Don't get me wrong. It's ok for me if somebody codes an option to switch 
between multi window and window in window UI, but if it doesn't happen, 
Gimp is still a usable application.
Just change your desktop background to neutral gray and keep the icons 
in the menu instead of moving them to the desktop, and you will have the 
same you have in photoshop.
The icons-on-desktop way is the Windows way, and windows applications 
have those gray containers for hiding the desktop. You got used to that, 
so you think it's impossible to work without a gray container.
It's funny but multi window interface is considered a big problem by 
non-users, while Gimp users don't seem to be very worried about it.

> Please do something to get in touch with users, I could never honestly ever
> say theGimp could be a replacement for photoshop ever if this continues.
Gimp may or may not be a Photoshop replacement. That depends on the user.
For me, it's a replacement because since I'm using it I'm not using 
Photoshop. But certain people want to keep using Photoshop. If your plan 
is using Photoshop for free, then Gimp it's not for you. If you need an 
image manipulation program, be welcome.
If you want Photoshop for Linux, which is a valid desire, you should 
start asking Adobe to port it, not Gimp coders to create a feature by 
feature clone.

Anyway, I also think that a better communication between existing coders 
and users would be nice for certain situations.
But non-users-wanting-photoshop aren't gimp users. And I understand when 
a coder pisses off if one of these guys say "Gimp sucks because it 
hasn't X feature" and threatens not using Gimp if  the coders don't do 
what he wants.

Gez.


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Daniel Falk]

Gary Pikula wrote:
> It is largely the same story with the gimp user group forums. Everyone 
> is used to phpbb forums and the software in use seems incomplete. 
> (generic error messages for any registration error, inability to edit 
> previous posts, etc...) I recommend changing to phpbb as it is pretty 
> much industry standard for open source projects. In usual cases the 
> developers also participate in forums with users on the main site, so 
> move the forums to the main site.
>
> The average user has never used a mailing list before as well and 
> feels uncomfortable with them, take that into more consideration.
While I agree that average users probably would prefer a forum, I wonder 
how many of the developers would prefer it.  If they don't like forums, 
they aren't likely to view them very often, and if not, then all you 
have is a bunch of users whining to each other.  It is in many ways best 
to meet developers on their own ground.  Especially if they are strapped 
for time as it is.  It might not be bad to have a user-to-user forum 
however where simple support questions can be asked or answered.  I 
personally find mailing lists a pain, and I agree that most people on 
the user end find them to be so.  I have joined some mailing lists and 
gotten spam right away (not this list, fortunately, but you never know 
before you join it).  I know because I use a different address for each 
mailing list.  Also, if you are a user with a 1 time issue or question, 
subscribing to a mailing list is overkill, whereas signing up for a 
forum is easier and you don't get the mail volume.

To the people who like mailing lists: what mail client do you like to 
use that handles mailing lists well?  I would like to use one that lets 
me watch or ignore threads at least.  That's probably the biggest gripe 
with them at the moment.

> This has created 2 major problems.
>
> 1. TheGimp is no longer comparable to photoshop or corel. I recommend 
> putting together an extremely detailed feature list of both products 
> and comparing them and how often they are used. For example there 
> seems to be no equivalent for photoshop's brush selection tool, and 
> other tools in that same category. It seems this problem was created 
> from not taking in information from people that are used to photoshop.
GIMP is not photoshop and doesn't have to have direct equivalents, 
although I think that the team could do a better job of learning the 
strengths of photoshop and figuring out what those capabilities could 
look like in the GIMP.  Not blaming anyone here...I think all previous 
replies have it right.  There simply aren't enough knowledgeable 
developers to go around.
>
> 2. Multi-window interface: If you haven't noticed the UI team has 
> gotten a significant amount of theGimp mock ups with just one window. 
> I have heard it is possible to change the gimp into one window, but it 
> doesn't seem possible on Windows. Outside of the Gimp community this 
> is by far the most complained about thing since with something like a 
> browser window being open makes the user have to manually bring all of 
> the windows to the foreground.
>
> Please do something to get in touch with users, I could never honestly 
> ever say theGimp could be a replacement for photoshop ever if this 
> continues.
I like the multi-window interface.  Doesn't work too well on windows, 
but then, I never found the gimp experience to fit too well into 
windows.  Works much better under linux window managers.  I think that 
the developers along with the UI team will work out a good solution 
anyway, so why bring this up?  It may not be good now but work is underway.

By the way...I think users want to know that the developers see 
eye-to-eye with the users about the current shortcomings of the GIMP.  
If the users think there's something that needs to be resolved, they 
don't necessarily need developers to drop everything and start coding 
it.  I think they just want to see someone agree with them and that it 
will get addressed when the time is right.

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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[David Gowers]

You have no clue. Read Raphael's reply, and get one.

What do I have to say? You are equating the average user with
yourself. This is a very common practice, and a complete fallacy. Stop
it. okay?

On Nov 30, 2007 4:40 PM, Gary Pikula <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> When I looked at this project I couldn't could be more amazed at how
> terrible it is for users. So I closely examined what is plaguing this
> project. The main thing it always comes down to is that the users can not
> easily get in touch with the developers.
>
> Example 1: Gimp wiki (Wilbur's wiki) This wiki uses your own software, while
> the common user is used to mediawiki software. As the majority of people are
> used to Wikipedia type editing this should be changed asap.
>
> It is largely the same story with the gimp user group forums. Everyone is
> used to phpbb forums and the software in use seems incomplete. (generic
> error messages for any registration error, inability to edit previous posts,
> etc...) I recommend changing to phpbb as it is pretty much industry standard
> for open source projects. In usual cases the developers also participate in
> forums with users on the main site, so move the forums to the main site.
>
> The average user has never used a mailing list before as well and feels
> uncomfortable with them, take that into more consideration.
>
> This has created 2 major problems.
>
> 1. TheGimp is no longer comparable to photoshop or corel. I recommend
> putting together an extremely detailed feature list of both products and
> comparing them and how often they are used. For example there seems to be no
> equivalent for photoshop's brush selection tool, and other tools in that
> same category. It seems this problem was created from not taking in
> information from people that are used to photoshop.
>
> 2. Multi-window interface: If you haven't noticed the UI team has gotten a
> significant amount of theGimp mock ups with just one window. I have heard it
> is possible to change the gimp into one window, but it doesn't seem possible
> on Windows. Outside of the Gimp community this is by far the most complained
> about thing since with something like a browser window being open makes the
> user have to manually bring all of the windows to the foreground.
>
> Please do something to get in touch with users, I could never honestly ever
> say theGimp could be a replacement for photoshop ever if this continues.
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>
>
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Raphaël Quinet]

On Fri, 30 Nov 2007 01:10:37 -0500, "Gary Pikula" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> When I looked at this project I couldn't could be more amazed at how
> terrible it is for users. So I closely examined what is plaguing this
> project. The main thing it always comes down to is that the users can not
> easily get in touch with the developers.

Thanks for telling us that we are incompetent. ;-)  Before replying to the
core of the problems that you mention, I cannot help but point out some
details in your message that make me doubt your level of expertise (since
you claim to speak for the "common user" or the "average user").  I hope that
I do not sound too patronizing, but here are some examples:
- You mention "Wilbur's wiki" but the GIMP mascot is called Wilber, not Wilbur.
- With some inconsistency, you write "TheGimp", "theGimp" or "the gimp" but you
  never use the correct name, which is just "GIMP" without "the".
- You mention the wiki and the mailing list, but apparently you have not seen
  the parts of the web site describing the IRC channels (which happen to be one
  of the main communication channels used by developers), the various blogs and
  planets, the newsgroup comp.graphics.apps.gimp and the many other web sites
  and forums that have their own communities of GIMP users.

> Example 1: Gimp wiki (Wilbur's wiki) This wiki uses your own software, while
> the common user is used to mediawiki software. As the majority of people are
> used to Wikipedia type editing this should be changed asap.

Wrong.  wiki.gimp.org uses (an old version of) MoinMoin wiki, which is among
the most popular wiki engines.  MediaWiki is well known because of Wikipedia,
but it is primarily designed for a "flat namespace" such as an encyclopedia or
a dictionary.  Other wiki engines are more suited for project collaboration
because they allow more structure (hierarchy of pages) and other features
designed for team collaboration.  The best choice would probably be TWiki
(http://twiki.org/) but it is heavier than both MoinMoin and MediaWiki so I
doubt that we would switch to that soon.  However, we could consider it if you
volunteer for setting it up and migrating all the existing content.

> It is largely the same story with the gimp user group forums. Everyone is
> used to phpbb forums and the software in use seems incomplete. (generic
> error messages for any registration error, inability to edit previous posts,
> etc...) I recommend changing to phpbb as it is pretty much industry standard
> for open source projects. In usual cases the developers also participate in
> forums with users on the main site, so move the forums to the main site.

The GIMP User Group (GUG) web site was set up by some volunteers who were not
associated with the developers.  They set up a nice set of tutorials and
forums that the main GIMP developers did not have the time to manage, so we
decided to link to their site as they were building up a strong community of
GIMP users.  I would not claim that the GUG forum is perfect, but on the
other hand I am not sure that phpbb would be much better.  Phpbb also has its
own problems and some people hate this software.  I do not care that much, but
if you want the current forum to be improved, then I suggest that you offer
your help to the GUG maintainers and see if you can work together and set up a
better forum.

Regarding moving the forum to the main GIMP web site, this would be very
difficult for the moment due to technical reasons.  But even if the gimp.org
servers were upgraded and could easily host the forums, I am not sure that we
should do that.  The GUG community is strong and I am afraid that it would be
harmed by a move to the gimp.org servers.  Also, there is currently less than
a handful of volunteers who maintain the web site.  It would not be wise to
run a discussion forum on our own servers if there is no volunteer who has
enough spare time to maintain it.

> The average user has never used a mailing list before as well and feels
> uncomfortable with them, take that into more consideration.

I am seriously wondering what you consider to be the "average user".  I think
that the "average GIMP user" is more familiar with mailing lists than the
"average web user".  I am aware of some studies showing that younger users
tend to prefer instant messaging and interactive forums while older users
prefer e-mail.  Well, maybe this means that the GIMP developers are too old?

I think that many GIMP developers do not like spending too much time on some
discussion forums and prefer to use some other ways of communication that
allow them to be more efficient: mailing lists, IRC and Bugzilla, etc.  If
the volunteers who work on the GIMP code are not interested in using
web-based forums, then setting up new ones would not be very useful.

> This has created 2 major problems.
> 
> 1. TheGimp is no longer comparable to photoshop or corel. [...]

So what?  This would only be a problem if we were trying to copy these

Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Martin Nordholts]

Gary Pikula wrote:
> When I looked at this project I couldn't could be more amazed at how
> terrible it is for users. So I closely examined what is plaguing this
> project. The main thing it always comes down to is that the users can
> not easily get in touch with the developers.
> 
> Example 1: Gimp wiki (Wilbur's wiki) This wiki uses your own software,
> while the common user is used to mediawiki software. As the majority of
> people are used to Wikipedia type editing this should be changed asap.
> 
> It is largely the same story with the gimp user group forums. Everyone
> is used to phpbb forums and the software in use seems incomplete.
> (generic error messages for any registration error, inability to edit
> previous posts, etc...) I recommend changing to phpbb as it is pretty
> much industry standard for open source projects. In usual cases the
> developers also participate in forums with users on the main site, so
> move the forums to the main site.
> 
> The average user has never used a mailing list before as well and feels
> uncomfortable with them, take that into more consideration.
> 
> This has created 2 major problems.
> 
> 1. TheGimp is no longer comparable to photoshop or corel. I recommend
> putting together an extremely detailed feature list of both products and
> comparing them and how often they are used. For example there seems to
> be no equivalent for photoshop's brush selection tool, and other tools
> in that same category. It seems this problem was created from not taking
> in information from people that are used to photoshop.
> 
> 2. Multi-window interface: If you haven't noticed the UI team has gotten
> a significant amount of theGimp mock ups with just one window. I have
> heard it is possible to change the gimp into one window, but it doesn't
> seem possible on Windows. Outside of the Gimp community this is by far
> the most complained about thing since with something like a browser
> window being open makes the user have to manually bring all of the
> windows to the foreground.
> 
> Please do something to get in touch with users, I could never honestly
> ever say theGimp could be a replacement for photoshop ever if this
> continues.
> 

Hi Gary

The GIMP developers are fully aware of GIMP's shortcomings and the
problem is not that we do not listen to input from users, the problem is
lack of developers.

The absolute worst thing you can do in an attempt to contribute to GIMP
is to tell us that we suck.

The proper way to contribute is to help us.

Looking forward to your contributions,

Best regards,
Martin Nordholts
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[buralex]

 "Gary Pikula" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said on Nov 30, 2007 1:10 -0500 
(in part):


It is largely the same story with the gimp user group forums. 
*Everyone* is
used to phpbb forums and the software in use seems incomplete.  ... 
 ...

The *average user* has never used a mailing list before as well and feels
uncomfortable with them, take that into more consideration.

"... Everyone" ... "average user" ...

From past discussions about forums vs newsgroups (eg. yahoo-groups) in 
other groups my feeling is its much closer to 50-50. My personal 
preference is for mailing lists (or forums only if they can provide all 
postings to me as separate emails). FWIW: If setting up a new discussion 
group I'd probably lean to doing it with Google Groups.


Regards ... Alec -- buralex-gmail
--

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[Gimp-developer] Developer-User Disconnect

[Gary Pikula]

When I looked at this project I couldn't could be more amazed at how
terrible it is for users. So I closely examined what is plaguing this
project. The main thing it always comes down to is that the users can not
easily get in touch with the developers.

Example 1: Gimp wiki (Wilbur's wiki) This wiki uses your own software, while
the common user is used to mediawiki software. As the majority of people are
used to Wikipedia type editing this should be changed asap.

It is largely the same story with the gimp user group forums. Everyone is
used to phpbb forums and the software in use seems incomplete. (generic
error messages for any registration error, inability to edit previous posts,
etc...) I recommend changing to phpbb as it is pretty much industry standard
for open source projects. In usual cases the developers also participate in
forums with users on the main site, so move the forums to the main site.

The average user has never used a mailing list before as well and feels
uncomfortable with them, take that into more consideration.

This has created 2 major problems.

1. TheGimp is no longer comparable to photoshop or corel. I recommend
putting together an extremely detailed feature list of both products and
comparing them and how often they are used. For example there seems to be no
equivalent for photoshop's brush selection tool, and other tools in that
same category. It seems this problem was created from not taking in
information from people that are used to photoshop.

2. Multi-window interface: If you haven't noticed the UI team has gotten a
significant amount of theGimp mock ups with just one window. I have heard it
is possible to change the gimp into one window, but it doesn't seem possible
on Windows. Outside of the Gimp community this is by far the most complained
about thing since with something like a browser window being open makes the
user have to manually bring all of the windows to the foreground.

Please do something to get in touch with users, I could never honestly ever
say theGimp could be a replacement for photoshop ever if this continues.
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