RE: [gimp-developer] UI Stuff
Martijn Weisbeek writes: > The current release-version BTW is not a good advertisement. Well, luckily I don't have to worry about market share... > There's been an error while compiling somehow (which required some > patches) and those patches have not been implemented in the > download. Actually, I wouldn't mind at all if there appeared a "competing" installer of GIMP for Windows, with more frequent releases. All the pieces are available. (There is an alternative installer package targetted at Japanese users, BTW.) I would have built a new one by now, but unfortunately (and unexpectedly) lost Internet access from home when moving in April... (Oh well, so I have spent more time with my family, books, and outdoors instead.) --tml ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] UI Stuff
Hi, On Thu, Jun 07, 2001 at 10:28:04AM +0200, Sven Neumann wrote: > > Additionaly I seriously doubt that it would be possible to make > > The Gimp look more potato shop like by simply giving it another > > 'skin'. > besides of that: it is not and has never been our goal to make gimp > look or feel like potato shop. Thank god, it's not a goal. Potato shop feels horrible. You actually have to wait for an operation to complete before you can continue to work. I hate hour glasses. > Gimp Is More than Photoshop. Yes, fortunately it is. :-) Bye, Tino. -- * LINUX - Where do you want to be tomorrow? * http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/linux/tag/ ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] UI Stuff
Hi, Hans Breuer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Additionaly I seriously doubt that it would be possible to make > The Gimp look more potato shop like by simply giving it another > 'skin'. besides of that: it is not and has never been our goal to make gimp look or feel like potato shop. Actually a lot of gimp developers don't even have a version of potato shop at hand to check how it looks and feels like. We make our decisions based on our own and experiences and based on suggestions made by our users. Gimp Is More than Photoshop. Salut, Sven ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] UI Stuff
On Wed, 6 Jun 2001, Hans Breuer wrote: > What do you suggest? Stopping the distribution of gtk/win32 apps ?? Maybe add an explicit message in the installer that the Win32 version is highly experimental compared to the Linux version. > And as a reply to your next mail: If I would want my mom use > The Gimp, I would have run the installation for her, so all > the optimizations for the one time used appears rather wasted > to me. I don't see your point. Yes, I did install Gimp for my mother. So? The point is that not everybody has a "computer wizard" on hand just to install a graphics program one wants to test. Gimp is some kind of flagship for "free software for the end user", so it would be nice to have it installable by the end user. Anyway, it's my 0.02 euro. Don't take it as inflammatory! :-( David Monniauxhttp://www.di.ens.fr/~monniaux Laboratoire d'informatique de l'École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
RE: [gimp-developer] UI Stuff
At 21:25 06.06.01 +0200, Martijn Weisbeek wrote: >At 10:24 06.06.01 +0200, David Monniaux wrote: >> [... removed lot's of stuff I don't want to comment (anymore) ...] >> >> 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. Which is IMHO the current official release for win32 ... >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. What vesion are you refering to? Current CVS ? 1.2.1.tar.gz ? >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). > Doesn't this disable the tablet support ? Have Fun, Hans Hans "at" Breuer "dot" Org --- Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it.-- Dilbert ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] UI Stuff
At 23:08 05.06.01 +0200, Sven Neumann wrote: >Chris Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> > [..., removed becuase I totally agree to the points Sven made] > >> 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. > AFAIK the win32 Gtk theme support has silently vanished, because there was no one to put in the extra efford to keep it working. Additionaly I seriously doubt that it would be possible to make The Gimp look more potato shop like by simply giving it another 'skin'. And: last time I looked at the PS port to win32 it doesn't behave like a native win32 app, but like one which is used to run on an old single task os ... Hans Hans "at" Breuer "dot" Org --- Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it.-- Dilbert ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] UI Stuff
At 10:24 06.06.01 +0200, David Monniaux wrote: >On 5 Jun 2001, Sven Neumann wrote: > >> 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 > >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. > What do you suggest? Stopping the distribution of gtk/win32 apps ?? Yeah, the UI is a little buggy and it would be nice if there would have been the possibility/manpower to do some more polishing to get a better working Gtk+-1.4 version (Gtk/win32 "production" is based on Gtk-1.3 from March 2000), but IMHO it was dropped to get the world leading Gnome 2.0 desktop, which would render all win32 stuff useless anyway :-) Until that happens I'll continue to try my best to keep Gtk working even on win32. IMHO the (bad) "looks and feels" reported from win32 users are mostly not related to 'glitches' introduced by the port, but cross platform issues like context menus nested up to a fourth level or a rather visually un-appealing file io dialog, at least if it is not compared to the old Motif dialogs, but decent ones ... And as a reply to your next mail: If I would want my mom use The Gimp, I would have run the installation for her, so all the optimizations for the one time used appears rather wasted to me. Hans Hans "at" Breuer "dot" Org --- Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it.-- Dilbert ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
RE: [gimp-developer] UI Stuff
> 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 ma
Re: [Gimp-developer] UI Stuff
On 5 Jun 2001, at 23:08, Sven Neumann wrote: > > To many people, it won't matter whether it's free, or whether it > > supports the same features of a commercial product from Adobe that > > is far more polished. > > Well, those people should stay with their commercial products then. > This is free software. We don't care about market share. We want to > have fun developing our software and of course we want it to be as > good as possible. I have heard this argument before, and I do not entirely agree with it. Yes, one part of developing free software is scratching that itch. But after that, some of us want recognition too. I know I do. And market share is a pretty good form of recognition. If the GIMP were only used by its developers, we would not see nice e-mails coming from CNN thanking us. Also, if anything, market share can be an indication (one of the many) that we are on the right track. Unfortunately, just having a good product does not guarantee a good market share. If the market were completely free that would be the case, but unfortunately it is not. People who have to decide what tool to use, have a limited time to make that decision. The GIMP first has to grab the attention of possible users. Then, it has to make clear that it is the best tool for the job. I think that, unfortunately, the question users will ask themselves for instance is 'does it look and function like Photoshop?' If the answer is no, they will move on. For me personally, the price (free), is definitely an option. Heck, I even would pay Tor some money if he put more work into releasing stabler Windows versions, and releasing them more often. However, most people copy their software. I do not know one single person who paid for their Photoshop. So the end of the story is that, given the choice between a tool that is widely (if sometimes erroneously) regarded as the best in the field and the GIMP, people will choose the former. The upshot of this all is (I feel): better marketing. The choices we made in the Look&Feel (and the rest of the UI) are ours. Can we sell them? Can we tell people "Yes, other tools do it that way, but we do it our way and here's why"? Is there a document that outlines our philosophy and where we want to go, and does that not just to programmers, but to the average user (who is not interested in a separation of UI and program, just in what it means to her or him) as well? Ah well, this is all IMNSHO, of course. :-' -- branko collin [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] UI Stuff
On 5 Jun 2001, at 15:43, Chris Brown wrote: [how to improve the GIMP Look&Feel] > 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. I would just like to note that there seems to be the idea that improving the looks of a UI automatically improves the UI (you use even stronger language, you call it the key to a good UI). I think this is a fallacy, although I would be hard pressed to find literature to back me up. However, if you think it true, you will soon realize that the functionality of a UI plays a part too. Looks belong to the part of interface design (AFAIK) that have to do with the user experience. Users may think that a certain skin is cooler, but will it actually help them to perform their tasks better? This is a complex area, which is (one reasion) why UIs get user tested before release. I do not think any of us have the resources to test the way users interact with the GIMP, although I would love to do such a study one day. (Hey, maybe we can ask a school or university to do such a study for us! Are there people here who think that that is a good idea?) Only seeing what users do and how users use a tool will help you understand the consequences of your choices in presenting a UI. -- branko collin [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] UI Stuff
On 5 Jun 2001, Sven Neumann wrote: > 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 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. -- David ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] UI Stuff
Hi, Chris Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I don't post much, just like to watch the Gimp development. I absolutely > love the program but since I've seen a few things about UI stuff lately I > thought I might pose a few questions. As someone posted earlier it is > impossible to make everyone happy, but I think that it would be good at > least to find a majority. 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. 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. > 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 > feel like a native app. 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. > To many people, it won't matter whether it's free, or whether it supports > the same features of a commercial product from Adobe that is far more > polished. Well, those people should stay with their commercial products then. This is free software. We don't care about market share. We want to have fun developing our software and of course we want it to be as good as possible. > 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. Salut, Sven ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
