Hi,

"miriam clinton (iriXx)" writes:

The Rect Select Options though is a feature that few designers need in a menu - it would be better to use a custom Color swatch tool - which is invaluable.

I don't understand. Would you mind to elaborate on this?

The Colormap utterly baffles me.

Sorry?

Erm.... how do you add a layer mask? I usually add a layer mask simply by selecting Layer mask while i'm working with a layer - no need to select it with the Move tool or the Selector tool. This one baffles me

Huh? Go to the Layers menu, choose "Add Layer Mask". Also available from the right-click menu in the Layers dialog.

I'm actually (sadly) testing the ;atest Winblows version (Win ME) - at the moment there's not enough room on my laptop to run both GNU/Linux and winblows - and I have to use Flash and Fireworks for my work. But perhaps thats a good thing - there are a few bugs. I had a crash on my first go... it had to do with TTF fonts, but I wasnt using the Font tool, and all my fonts are ttf except those installed by Adobe Illustrator - so it should have read them in correctly. The message was **WARNING (recursed)**. Couldn't load font "MS Sans Serif 8" falling back to "Sans 8" aborting...

This is a known problem. GIMP isn't crashing, it just pops up a message dialog because of a bug in the GTK+ theme. This is explained in the FAQ at the place you downloaded GIMP for windows and it has been taken care of. The next version shouldn't have these popup windows.

Speaking of which - there's no option for CMYK color when starting a new file, although you can up the resolution to print levels (300dpi - 600dpi). CMYK is the only format used for print - which would be the only case where you'd need 300dpi - so I don't understand why this option is there, without CMYK color.

GIMP doesn't have CMYK support except some rudimentary things like a color selector that allows you to select colors in CMYK notation. You can however very well design or edit material for print in RGB so it makes a lot of sense to work in RGB mode in high resolutions. What was your background again?

Default opening tool should be set to the 'move/select' tool - opening with the selector tool can often cause dangerous mistakes, moving sections when you dont want to!

The default tool in 2.2 will be the paintbrush.

One feature I'd love to see is drag and drop from one image to another. I use this frequently, rather than cutting and pasting layers.

You can drag and drop from the layers dialog, even between two layer dialogs. There's a lot to drag and drop in GIMP and also between GIMP and other applications. GIMP 2.2 will also improve clipboard support.

Sven

only case where you'd need 300dpi - so I don't understand why this option is there, without CMYK color.

AFAIK, the CMYK and support for other colour spaces is under development. The keyword is GEGL library. You are right, this is really something current versions lack a lot. But working with high DPI values is of course useful in the RGB colourspace too. In prepress, CMYK is needed in the last stages of workflow, but you can start with RGB images (and you have to start with them - no digital camera works in CMYK for example). So you can do your graphics in RGB but proper resolution in dpi (of course you can just compute sizes in pixels and not think about dpi at all, but it is little inconvenient) and then send it to a prepress studio. They will convert it to CMYK themselves, they do it a thousand times a day anyway.

> > I'm actually (sadly) testing the ;atest Winblows version (Win ME)

Eek. If you have to use Windows, please at least test it on a Windows version that is a "real" operating system. I mean Windows 2000 or XP. There are many limitations in Windows Me. It might be a bit better that Windows 98, but only superficially. Do the commercial tool vendors really still support Windows Me?

The developers of the Windows GTK backend and GIMP on Windows don't even test on Windows 98 or Me, or do it rarely. In fact, I would be much tempted to drop support for these inferior Windows versions sooner than later. Many things could be done in a cleaner way in the code if one wouldn't have to consider the obsolete Windows versions.

> You can drag and drop from the layers dialog, even between two layer > dialogs. There's a lot to drag and drop in GIMP and also between GIMP > and other applications. GIMP 2.2 will also improve clipboard support.

Unfortunately, on Windows, drag-and-drop between GIMP and other applications is severely limited. This might change at some point. But currently it certainly works much better on Linux, or even Unix in general.

--tml

One of the tools that I absolutely love is the "dynamic" shortcut tool. If you set this in the preferences, then go to one menu highlight a tool then just press a letter, this letter will become the new shortcut of the tool and it's sweet :) (I should say that it took a while to discover this nice thing).

And I haven't really used photoshop since 5.5 and the other day I see this guy makes a selection and then the selection gets some handles on it...he just drags the handles and makes it how big he wants it to be....that was really amazing to see, had never seen it before...so if gimp were to implement this I would love it.

--- "miriam clinton (iriXx)" wrote:

ok... i have to retract a lot of what i said - theres stackable and
snapped menus - although it'd be preferable if they were a little
smaller (for those of us using 1024x768 - theres not a lot of room to
drag and drop other menus underneath (although most features are covered
by tabs). The problem is that both appear on the left hand side, and
they are very large - it'd be nice to have a feature to minimise the tab
to just its menu-top. I use this a lot when adding new menus. I like
that feature very much - that you can add /any/ menu = in that sense
it's better than Photoshop!

The Rect Select Options though is a feature that few designers need in a
menu - it would be better to use a custom Color swatch tool - which is
invaluable.

The Colormap utterly baffles me.

But in general, this version is /much/ much more intuitive.

Erm.... how do you add a layer mask? I usually add a layer mask simply
by selecting Layer mask while i'm working with a layer - no need to
select it with the Move tool or the Selector tool. This one baffles me -
and will annoy designers.

I'm glad to see a menu across the top of the image as well - this was a
big problem for designers before. I actually prefer one element of the
GIMP to Photoshop: that there is no background to the GUI - this gets in
the way of designing and i often minimise Photoshop to avoid it
(although if you have a nice desktop image it can be distracting - I
often set it to a plain color when working in any case.

I'm actually (sadly) testing the ;atest Winblows version (Win ME) - at
the moment there's not enough room on my laptop to run both GNU/Linux
and winblows - and I have to use Flash and Fireworks for my work. But
perhaps thats a good thing - there are a few bugs. I had a crash on my
first go... it had to do with TTF fonts, but I wasnt using the Font
tool, and all my fonts are ttf except those installed by Adobe
Illustrator - so it should have read them in correctly. The message was
**WARNING (recursed)**. Couldn't load font "MS Sans Serif 8" falling
back to "Sans 8" aborting... - yet i was trying to move a layer down.
Can you move a layer underneath the background? This is what caused it....

Perhaps a font selection tool might be helpful - although in GNU/Linux
Mandrake you can do this through the Drake wizard - but that usually
crashes too ;P.

Perhaps this occured because Ghostscript isnt ported to Winblows? I have
to use Illustrator at present - and I'll have to in the future, to be
compatible with other designers and for export to print. I also have to
be /very/ careful with my fonts - if one corrupts then my other work is
destroyed (although I back up my collection of around 1000+ fonts).

Speaking of which - there's no option for CMYK color when starting a new
file, although you can up the resolution to print levels (300dpi -
600dpi). CMYK is the only format used for print - which would be the
only case where you'd need 300dpi - so I don't understand why this
option is there, without CMYK color.

Default opening tool should be set to the 'move/select' tool - opening
with the selector tool can often cause dangerous mistakes, moving
sections when you dont want to!

One feature I'd love to see is drag and drop from one image to another.
I use this frequently, rather than cutting and pasting layers. I also
couldnt layer two images together and then add a layer on top, which I
paint white and then move underneath so I can see what the layer effects
are doing. Yes, there's been layer effects since 1.2, and those are
lovely. They form a major part of my work.

This is just a first impression - unfortunately with the crashes I
couldnt get any further with what I wanted to do... but I'll keep trying.

Best,

Miriam.

One of the tools that I absolutely love is the "dynamic" shortcut tool. If you set this in the

I agree. This function boosts productivity by 1000%. And certainly the function I miss most when forced to work with Photoshop.

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004, Gezim Hoxha wrote:

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 13:36:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Gezim Hoxha
To: iriXx@iriXx.org, gimp dev
Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] first impressions of GIMP 2.0

One of the tools that I absolutely love is the "dynamic" shortcut tool. If you set this in the preferences, then go to one menu highlight a tool then just press a letter, this letter will become the new shortcut of the tool and it's sweet :) (I should say that it took a while to discover this nice thing).

And I haven't really used photoshop since 5.5 and the other day I see this guy makes a selection and then the selection gets some handles on it...he just drags the handles and makes it how big he wants it to be....that was really amazing to see, had never seen it before...so if gimp were to implement this I would love it.

Try the scale tool in the toolbox, it allows you to do something very close to what you are describing. (In Gimp 2 it is between the rotate tool and the shear tool, I find the icons confusingly similar but look carefully and you will see it is available).

- Alan H.

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004, Sven Neumann wrote:

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 21:04:57 +0200 From: Sven Neumann
To: iriXx@iriXx.org
Cc: gimp-developer@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] first impressions of GIMP 2.0

Hi,

"miriam clinton (iriXx)" writes:

The Rect Select Options though is a feature that few designers need in a menu - it would be better to use a custom Color swatch tool - which is invaluable.

I don't understand. Would you mind to elaborate on this?

The Colormap utterly baffles me.

Do you mean the colour picker tool? There is lots of functionality there, I suppose I can see how it might be confusing.

Sorry?

Erm.... how do you add a layer mask? I usually add a layer mask simply by selecting Layer mask while i'm working with a layer - no need to select it with the Move tool or the Selector tool. This one baffles me

Huh? Go to the Layers menu, choose "Add Layer Mask". Also available from the right-click menu in the Layers dialog.

Specifically:
Layer, Mask, Add Layer Mask.

(As Sven has pointed out) There is also a context menu hidden in the Layers dialog (if you right click on the Layer Preview part of the Layers dialog) although it is not something I'd expect a new user to find without being told it was there.

Is this very different from how it is done in Adobe Photoshop?

I'm actually (sadly) testing the ;atest Winblows version (Win ME) - at

(Windows ME is possibley the worst version of Windows ever, windows 98 and Windows 2000 are far less unpleasant than that nasty hybrid.)

the moment there's not enough room on my laptop to run both GNU/Linux and winblows - and I have to use Flash and Fireworks for my work. But

If you have a CD Rom drive a bootable Live CD version of Linux might be a good choice for you.

Default opening tool should be set to the 'move/select' tool - opening with the selector tool can often cause dangerous mistakes, moving sections when you dont want to!

The mistakes are not dangerous as gimp has a working Undo system. I find "File, Revert" to be very useful too.

One feature I'd love to see is drag and drop from one image to another. I use this frequently, rather than cutting and pasting layers.

You can drag and drop from the layers dialog, even between two layer dialogs. There's a lot to drag and drop in GIMP and also between GIMP and other applications. GIMP 2.2 will also improve clipboard support.

Gimp is definately very good when it comes to drag and drop.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/ Inkscape, Draw Freely http://inkscape.org Free SVG Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org

(As Sven has pointed out) There is also a context menu hidden in the
Layers dialog (if you right click on the Layer Preview part of the Layers
dialog) although it is not something I'd expect a new user to find
without being told it was there.

Speaking of a context menu there should be a contect menu for everything. I mean now when you right click on the image you're working on, you get the "menubar"....as soon as someone fixes the GTK+ problem of scrolling menu....then a context menu could be very useful.

P.S.: And someone should make the default "reply" address the gimp-dev address instead of the person who last replied.

Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

Hi,

Gezim Hoxha writes:

Speaking of a context menu there should be a contect menu for everything. I mean now when you right click on the image you're working on, you get the "menubar"....as soon as someone fixes the GTK+ problem of scrolling menu....then a context menu could be very useful.

I don't think a lot of people would prefer a scrolling menubar over the ability to always reach the image menu using the right mouse button.

Sven

I don't think a lot of people would prefer a scrolling menubar over the ability to always reach the image menu using the right mouse button.

Those who are new wouldn't know to right-click, and their voice is not heard here. If we want GIMP to gain popularity, it has to appeal to users on their first encounter. (That's why I fuss about trivial things like the clone tool not doing anything when you just click, IMO it should pick a spot on the first click after the tool is selected, since it can't do anything else useful with that click)

There should be an obvious way to get to the menu items that don't fit, whether it's done by wrapping the menubar, or by adding a menu item that lets you get more, etc. I actually prefer something that would attempt to keep "File" on the left and "Help" on the right, where everybody looks for them, rather than scrolling them off. Additional items could be replaced by a menu button with a symbol that drops down the hidden items... or maybe another copy of the triangle button could be placed before "Help" when items are missing, where it's more apparent that it's part of the menu.

_-T

_________________

Speaking of a context menu there should be a contect menu for everything. I mean now when you right click on the image you're working on, you get the "menubar"....as soon as someone fixes the GTK+ problem of scrolling menu....then a context menu could be very useful.

oh my goddess please never ever remove the menu from the right mouse button. i dont use the menubar in the image window and will never use it. the right mouse button is much better for many experienced users. (although it is good that the menubar is option and turned on by default for beginners).
it is good to be nice to beginners, but do not forget experienced and long time users

Kyknos

Hi,

"shaneyfelt@juno.com" writes:

Those who are new wouldn't know to right-click, and their voice is not heard here. If we want GIMP to gain popularity, it has to appeal to users on their first encounter. (That's why I fuss about trivial things like the clone tool not doing anything when you just click, IMO it should pick a spot on the first click after the tool is selected, since it can't do anything else useful with that click)

Adding completely off-topic remarks doesn't really help and I'd like to ask you to avoid doing that. Nevertheless, the clone tool thing is of course a known problem.

There should be an obvious way to get to the menu items that don't fit, whether it's done by wrapping the menubar, or by adding a menu item that lets you get more, etc. I actually prefer something that would attempt to keep "File" on the left and "Help" on the right, where everybody looks for them, rather than scrolling them off. Additional items could be replaced by a menu button with a symbol that drops down the hidden items... or maybe another copy of the triangle button could be placed before "Help" when items are missing, where it's more apparent that it's part of the menu.

Did you look at the relevant GTK+ bug report?

Sven

Hi,

"miriam clinton (iriXx)" writes:

The Rect Select Options though is a feature that few designers need in a menu - it would be better to use a custom Color swatch tool - which is invaluable.

I don't understand. Would you mind to elaborate on this?

Its a valuable tool, but something that, in Photoshop, only appears when the Pen tool is selected.

Hhmm, so you didn't even change a tool yet in GIMP? Otherwise you would have noticed that the tool options change with the active tool.

A visual Navigation (zoom in-out) tool or a Color Swatch tool (CMYK /and/ RGB) would be far more valueable in the left hand floating palette.

Feel free to add these to your docks. There are lots of dialogs to choose from and GIMP will remember the setup across sessions. Please configure GIMP to your needs.

There is a tool called Colormap. I presume it is used for making swatches - I selected it from the right-click menu. I would love to be able to make swatches - I rely on custom swatches for my print work. But I can't seem to get it to even recognise the current selected colors -
it just appears to be a black and grey grid like an empty layer.

If you want to create or edit palettes, perhaps you should start from the Palettes dialog instead of using Colormap which is about editing the colormap of indexed images such as GIF images.

Huh? Go to the Layers menu, choose "Add Layer Mask". Also available from the right-click menu in the Layers dialog.

I couldnt actually access this - it was greyed out completely.

You can't add a layer mask to a layer that doesn't have an alpha channel. This is one of the things that is explained in the Tips of the Day. You certainly missed it accidentally.

It wasnt a popup window as such but a complete crash. I'm testing under windows as I dont have room for GNU/Linux on my laptop, but also as this will (hopefully) also be a default environment as many use Photoshop under Windows. Unfortunately I dont have a Mac, but I would suspect porting would be easier to OS X.

No, it was just a popup window. The annoying fact is just that you must not close this window since it's the terminal that actually runs the GIMP process. Closing it will quit GIMP. Needless to discuss this any further though since this behaviour has been changed recently.

Again - this is a problem for designers - GIMP requires a lot of reading of documentation to find out how the hell you're supposed to do something (especially applying layer masks!). Designers don't like reading docs - in fact, a lot of us are dyslexic (myself included) - dyslexia is a common trait among artists, writers, dancers and musicians. If you're interested in the science, it lives in the temporal lobe of the brain alongside the artistic capabilities.

I am sure you didn't read any documentation when you started working with Photoshop and you certainly found your way instantly...

Miriam, I think this thread is not helping anyone. Well, perhaps it helps you to make your first steps in GIMP with first-class support but it would better be moved to the gimp-user list then. There are many people there who will help you with your newbie questions. I hope that after making yourself familiar with GIMP you will return here and perhaps contribute some workflow comparisons. That would really help us to determine where the user interface or our tools and plug-ins need improvements.

I am not trying to say that we don't need to make GIMP easier for beginnners but of course these problems are all known to us and will be addressed when developer time permits.

Sven

shaneyfelt@juno.com wrote:

I don't think a lot of people would prefer a scrolling menubar over the ability to always reach the image menu using the right mouse button.

Those who are new wouldn't know to right-click, and their voice is not heard here. If we want GIMP to gain popularity, it has to appeal to users on their first encounter.

My logic detector must be broken. You are complaining that people who do not know they can right click will be disappointed because if they ever do right click they are going to get a menu instead of something they were never going to get because they didn't know to right click?

The original implication was that by somehow making the menu bar 'scrollable' that the right click menu could be something else.

Chris

No, I'm not suggesting that we dispose of the context menu. I'm saying the menu at the top is also important, and it is important that it is completely there even when the image is small, especially the "help", which is the first menu item to disappear for small images.

My point is that we can do a lot of trivial things to make GIMP simpler for first time users and gain some respect if we don't flame everyone who tries to tell us these things. Rather than just thinking about how easy it is for us to use the GIMP, think about how easy it is to introduce new users to it and get them excited about it!

We can be a bit kinder in how we handle people who are trying to be helpful. Just saying, "Thanks for the input, but please get the new version before posting, as many of your concerns have been fixed or are in the queue. In the meantime, please continue this discussion on the gimp-user mailing list" or something to that effect.

We can choose take this as an opportunity to improve, or we can take it as yet another newbie trying to get technical support from the developer mailing list (I don't remember any request for support, just providing info. about first impressions)

Mahalo,

_-T

_________________

[Adding a layer mask]

Huh? Go to the Layers menu, choose "Add Layer Mask". Also available from the right-click menu in the Layers dialog.

I couldnt actually access this - it was greyed out completely.

You can't add a layer mask to a layer that doesn't have an alpha channel.

Hmm - perhaps the best interface here would be to always have the "Add Layer Mask" menu option available, but if there's no alpha channel then popup a dialog saying something like "Adding a layer mask requires the image to have an alpha channel. Would you like me to add one? Yes: / No" (default yes, tickbox (unchecked) for "don't ask me again").

This is similar in spirit to the file export dialogs that automatically convert your image into something the file save plugin can handle (ie flatten etc). It's the DWIM (Do What I Mean) school of UI design, where you try and guess what the user is actually trying to do :)

Austin

Hi,

"Austin Donnelly" writes:

Hmm - perhaps the best interface here would be to always have the "Add Layer Mask" menu option available, but if there's no alpha channel then popup a dialog saying something like "Adding a layer mask requires the image to have an alpha channel. Would you like me to add one? Yes: / No" (default yes, tickbox (unchecked) for "don't ask me again").

Sure, that' what should be done and I remember that we agreed that graying out menus is a bad idea. Now we just need someone to actually do it.

Sven

0

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Austin Donnelly wrote:

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 09:23:32 +0100 From: Austin Donnelly
To: 'Sven Neumann'
Cc: gimp-developer@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: RE: [Gimp-developer] first impressions of GIMP 2.0

[Adding a layer mask]

Huh? Go to the Layers menu, choose "Add Layer Mask". Also available from the right-click menu in the Layers dialog.

I couldnt actually access this - it was greyed out completely.

You can't add a layer mask to a layer that doesn't have an alpha channel.

Hmm - perhaps the best interface here would be to always have the "Add Layer Mask" menu option available, but if there's no alpha channel then popup a dialog saying something like "Adding a layer mask requires the image to have an alpha channel. Would you like me to add one? Yes: / No" (default yes, tickbox (unchecked) for "don't ask me again").

This is similar in spirit to the file export dialogs that automatically convert your image into something the file save plugin can handle (ie flatten etc). It's the DWIM (Do What I Mean) school of UI design, where you try and guess what the user is actually trying to do :)

Austin, thanks for filing the bug report and thanks Sven for fixing it so quickly. http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=156676

I was hoping you would file more general bug report to capture the idea you mentioned of "Do what I mean" (I cannot think of any other way to describe it, sorry) and see if there were other areas where similar problems were occuring. There might be other areas were it would be better to do something rather than do nothing.

There is a case that I think is similar: if you are moving a layer down the stack and the background layer has no alpha channel you get the message
Layer 'Background' has no Alpha. Layer was placed above it. [ OK ]

the way I see it there are a few possible improvements 1) just add the Alpha Channel as in bug 156676 2) dont use a message dialog, explain using a less obtrusive status bar message
3) change from a message to a dialog something like this

Layer 'Background' has no Alpha. Would you like to Add Alpha? [ Close ] [ Add Alpha]

I looked at a few other greyed out menu items that could potentially be reenabled:
"Select Invert" when there is no selection; Engrave plug-in seems to be disabled on layers that do not have an alpha channel.

Maybe there is not any need to create a tracker bug for these loosely related idea but should I file bug reports or try and group these and others together as part of one big idea?

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/ Inkscape, Draw Freely http://inkscape.org Free SVG Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org