I agree with you, also the other stuff related to creation(button, etc) should go somewhere else in gimp.

I too didn´t even know gimp had scanner support

On Wed, 2010-08-25 at 13:39 -0300, Luiz Felipe Moraes Pereira wrote:

I agree with you, also the other stuff related to creation(button, etc) should go somewhere else in gimp.

"somewhere else" is not a very intuitive place either. We've had a longer discussion when these items were moved to File->Create and no one came up with a better solution. So unless someone comes up with a very good idea this time, things will stay as they are.

And no, just adding yet another sub-menu to the File menu is not a very good options. That menu is pretty much overloaded already.

Sven

On Tue, 2010-08-24 at 23:23 -0700, Jim Michaels wrote:

newbies who are using GIMP are always asking where is the scanner support.
why? because they can't find it.

Most probably they ask this because you need to install a third-party plug-in in order to have scanner access from within GIMP.

File->Acquire would be more appropriate. maybe even File->Scanners if you want to be obvious (which is even better!).

but I can tell you from a thought process and human usability standpoint that grouping it under File->Create makes no rational, reasoning sense.

at least keep the scanner stuff separate and make it obvious that it's for scanners.

Scanner plug-ins are supposed to register in "/File/Create/Acquire". "Acquire" is a menu group inside the File/Create sub-menu. So scanners are already grouped separately from the other plug-ins that create a new image.

Sven

On Wed, 2010-08-25 at 20:55 +0200, Sven Neumann wrote:

[...]

. So unless someone comes up with a very good idea this time, things will stay as they are.

I complained when we had two File->New menu items, and it did get changed, but really I still think there should only be one menu.

The options really seem to be * file->new to make a blank new file * file->new to use a template to fill in default options * use file->open-as-layers to base a new image on an existing file * use file->open to edit an existing file * use file->open to open a non-blank template (e.g. with guides) * use file->create->screenshot to capture the screen * use file->create->epkowa:usb:003:003 to scan from an Epson scanner (say)
* use file->create->Patterns to use script-fu to make an image

All of these bring up dialogue boxes or file choosers.

Plus of course you can also drag from the desktop or elsewhere.

Since there's going to be a dialogue box, what if File->New brought up a single unified box with the choices (and maybe with a drop area so you can drag and drop a file to be used as a basis for a new image)?

Liam

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 2:55 PM, Sven Neumann wrote:

"somewhere else" is not a very intuitive place either. We've had a longer discussion when these items were moved to File->Create and no one came up with a better solution.

I find the 'Create' label non-obvious as well. It makes sense for the logo scripts, but I'd suggest considering:

File -v- New ->
From Template... [Ctrl+N]
From Clipboard [Shift+Ctrl+V] Scanned Image...
Screenshot...
Create ->
Buttons ->
[etc]

I don't think that adding an extra click to File->New would be terribly flow-impacting, and "File->New->Screenshot" flows well in my head, whereas Create->Screenshot does not (how is that creative?).

"File->New->From Template" may be a bit non-obvious, but should be fixable with some wordsmithing if so.

Chris

I personally think

File > Import > Scan

or

File > Import from Device > Scanner

would make the most sense. 'Acquire' isn't really a common word that I hear being used in association with images, graphics, typesetting, etc. Not in the U.S.A. anyway (for the U.S. perspective on word choice, if anyone cares). 'Acquire' is certainly used regularly over here, but not in this context in my experience.

I was a little thrown off by the use of 'Create' in the Gimp menu myself, as a professional graphic designer. It took me a bit to figure it out. 'Create' to me suggests that the children of that menu all refer to making new documents.

Using Photoshop every day for 15 years has perhaps tainted the validity of my opinion.

-Jason Simanek

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 1:23 AM, Jim Michaels wrote:

newbies who are using GIMP are always asking where is the scanner support. why? because they can't find it.
File->Create is not intuitive, nor does it imply anything about scanners.

File->Acquire would be more appropriate.  maybe even File->Scanners if you want to be obvious (which is even better!).

but I can tell you from a thought process and human usability standpoint that grouping it under File->Create makes no rational, reasoning sense.

at least keep the scanner stuff separate and make it obvious that it's for scanners.

scanners are I think a very important part of any imaging tool, and deserve direct access, and even warrant a button.

------------ Jim Michaels
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On 08/25/2010 08:55 PM, Sven Neumann wrote:

On Wed, 2010-08-25 at 13:39 -0300, Luiz Felipe Moraes Pereira wrote:

I agree with you, also the other stuff related to creation(button, etc) should go somewhere else in gimp.

"somewhere else" is not a very intuitive place either. We've had a longer discussion when these items were moved to File->Create and no one came up with a better solution. So unless someone comes up with a very good idea this time, things will stay as they are.

And no, just adding yet another sub-menu to the File menu is not a very good options. That menu is pretty much overloaded already.

I could live with having Acquire as a separate sub menu under File because:

* We have had it once, so it is not an alien thing to do. (We should not use another term, like 'Import', as someone suggested.) * Things under Acquire would be conceptually different from things under Create, namely images are (potentially, in the case of 'From Clipboard') created from an external source * We can remove File->Create altogether in GIMP 3.0. IMO none of the things there fits our product vision. The ones that do should be under Filter and not create a new image * We can also remove File->Send by Email in GIMP 3.0, we shouldn't deal with mails at all, decreasing number of toplevel items in File even more
* We have to face that people regularly don't even find 'From screenshot' in the Create menu, and I think resurrecting Acquire would solve this problem

Btw, I couldn't find any old discussion about this on gimp-developer, was it discussed there or at LGM or something?

/ Martin

On 27.08.2010 08:47, Martin Nordholts wrote:

* We can remove File->Create altogether in GIMP 3.0. IMO none of the things there fits our product vision. The ones that do should be under Filter and not create a new image

For 3.0, i think we also can dispose 'New from Clipboard' and move the screenshot functionality somewhere else *).

The standard user interface to the clipboard is Edit->Copy/Paste. So why does the 'New from Clipboard' shortcut exist at all?

It's just because the image size has to be known at the time the new image gets created.

Now the product vision explicitly covers the creation of collages, where one in general *cannot* know the image size until the composition is finished. Specifying an image size upfront amounts to manual memory management here. So i think in GIMP 3.0 a new composition's size should grow as the bounding box of its contents grows -- until the size gets explicitely specified via Image->'Canvas Size' or on export.

That yields (like in Inkscape):

File->New->Default (CTRL-N) a fast action withouth a dialog template1
template2

*) But where to put the screenshot function? While the File menu by convention bundles all interfacing with the outside world (other than the clipboard), the sceenshot function actually gets impaired by mandatorily creating a new image. If the screenshot is planned to become part of an existing composition it really sucks to earn a nag-screen on closing the superfluously created image. I think it should simply paste into the current layer.

Perhaps Tools->Screenshot Maker... or Extras->Screenshot...
or even Edit->Paste Screenshot... ?!?

regards, yahvuu

On 08/27/2010 04:08 PM, yahvuu wrote:

On 27.08.2010 08:47, Martin Nordholts wrote:

* We can remove File->Create altogether in GIMP 3.0. IMO none of the things there fits our product vision. The ones that do should be under Filter and not create a new image

For 3.0, i think we also can dispose 'New from Clipboard' and move the screenshot functionality somewhere else *).

Do you suggest that we won't need File->Acquire, or just that it should have fewer items in it?

In general I think what you propose makes sense.

/ Martin

Hi,

after some more thinking, here's my take for 2.8:

File->New... File->Acquire->Scan from Device xy... Scan from Device yz...

Nice extra: if there's only one device connected, the whole 'File->Acquire' submenu can be replaced by 'File->Aquire Scan from Device xy...'. That should maximize scanner discoverability.

File->Create can be removed alltogether -- if the legacy scripts are kept, they should be moved to Filter->Render. The Screenshot action should be one of Edit->Paste Screenshot... (paste into current layer) Extras->Screenshot... (create new image as before) Tools->Screenshot...

If 'Acquire' is not good enough a name, possibly 'Capture' might do the job. But then my english is not that great..

Last not least the reasoning, backing up what has been said previously:

- 'Create' and 'New' have the very same meaning -- the tooltip for 'New' even reads: 'Create new image'. It's not desirable to have two distinct entries with the same meaning.

- The reason why the legacy scripts have been bundled below the 'Create' sub-menu is assumedly the common behaviour to create new images -- which is an implementation artifact.

In contrast, the most important aspect of e.g. a pattern generating script is that it generates, well, a pattern. Consequently all pattern creators should be discoverable in one place -- wether they deliver images, layers or selection masks. The established place for that is Filters->Render->Pattern. Analogous considerations apply to the other scripts, i think.

Admittedly, having a 'Filter' create new images feels like overstretching the filter concept, but -- as has already been pointed out -- creating new images is deprecated behaviour.

Anyway, why can't these scripts be removed from core as soon as in GIMP 2.8?

- 'File->Create->from Clipboard' is a duplicate of 'Edit->Paste as->New Image'. There can be only one -- and the clear winnner is the latter one, since the Edit menu is the standard interface to the clipboard.

- Screenshot functionality isn't covered by the product vision. So if it is tolerated in core GIMP, it is surely not allowed to complicate the UI. And it is the last remaining entry from the File->Create menu which hinders the scanner-friendly File->Acquire style as described at the beginning. Hence it has to move somewhere else.

- 'Create->New Brush from Text' does not seem to fit anywhere: ideally, its settings should be available from within the brush editor. 2nd best: Extras->New Brush from Text... Tools->Text Brush Creator...

regards, yahvuu

On Wed, 2010-09-01 at 12:22 +0200, yahvuu wrote:

after some more thinking, here's my take for 2.8:

File->New... File->Acquire->Scan from Device xy... Scan from Device yz...

Nice extra: if there's only one device connected, the whole 'File->Acquire' submenu can be replaced by 'File->Aquire Scan from Device xy...'. That should maximize scanner discoverability.

That's actually not implementable as the scanner entries are created by plug-ins. All a plug-in can do is to register entries in a menu.

As far as I can tell not all scanner plug-ins register a menu entry per device. Actually it's even a rather bad idea to do that since that means that the plug-in needs to be run at every GIMP startup in order to query for scanner devices. Actually it would even have to keep runnning to make hot-plug of scanners work. It's a much better idea to just have a "Scan" menu entry and do the device discovery at the moment the plug-in is invoked. If there are multiple scanners connected, the plug-in can present a device selection. For a single scanner it can skip this.

It will also be a pain to persuade the authors of scanner plug-ins to change their menu registration based on the GIMP version. We can work-around that to some extent by mapping menu paths to a different place. That functionality is already in place for menu paths that have been moved over the last GIMP versions. I guess most scanner plug-ins even still register in /File/Acquire and are being mapped to /File/Create/Acquire

Sven