"Gary Pikula" 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

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

On Fri, 30 Nov 2007 01:10:37 -0500, "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.

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 programs. We are not trying to do that. If you want Photoshop, then by all means get Photoshop, not a pale copy. Parts of the product vision for Photoshop and GIMP may be similar, but this does not mean that we should design things in the same way or even offer the same features.

That being said, the developers know that GIMP is lagging behind other programs (not just Photoshop or Corel) regarding support for higher bit depths, color spaces, adjustment layers, layer groups and user interface. We are trying to improve that, but it takes time...

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.

The developers are certainly aware of that. This is not only a problem outside the GIMP community, but also inside: many experienced GIMP users would also like some improvements in the user interface. This is probably the oldest and most discussed GIMP bug. And this is not only a problem for Windows users: several Mac OS users or Linux users (who already have a better window manager with multiple workspaces) would also like a better way to group GIMP windows instead of being forced to dedicate a separate screen or workspace for GIMP.

Some progress has been made recently for Mac OS, which has an experimental feature allowing a single menu bar. But this is only a small step in the right direction and it will take a while (and a lot of work) until we have a better user interface for all platforms (maybe as an option, because some users prefer to have multiple windows anyway).

It is really unfair to imply that the GIMP developers are not aware of this most frequently reported problem. There is some disagreement about how it should be solved and we all know that it will take a lot of work to build a better user interface, but we are fully aware of the problem and we are working on it. If you are a programmer or you know someone who has some experience with GTK+ and who is willing to work as a volunteer for several months on improving the user interface and redesigning it together with the UI team, then we would be very happy to hear 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.

Well, GIMP is not trying to be a replacement for Photoshop, so that's fine. Regarding "getting in touch with users", I think that most GIMP developers are well aware of what is needed. And contrary to what you imply, I think that there is a good feedback cycle between the users and developers.

But we could also look at it from a different point of view: you are requesting some changes in GIMP and telling developers what they should do. But what can you offer in exchange? Are you volunteering for improving the code, the documentation or the web site? Did you read the "Get Involved" page? How are you planning to contribute? Your arguments and your requests about what should be changed would have much more weight if you had something to offer.

-Raphaël

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 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.

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.

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.

Von: Daniel Falk

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

Michael Schumacher wrote:

Von: Daniel Falk

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.

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.

On Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:30:56 -0500, 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 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 am rather happy with Sylpheed or Sylpheed-Claws (now Claws-Mail). It is relatively small and fast (faster than Evolution), shows a threaded view of the messages and has lots of keyboard shortcuts for fast navigation.

Another nice thing is that the default "reply" button does the right thing: if the message was sent to a mailing list, it replies to the mailing list by default, even if no "Reply-To" header was added by the mailing list software. This is very useful for the GIMP lists (and is alas not the default behavior for most other mail clients).

-Raphaël

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 .

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.

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!

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.

Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:42:49 -0500 From: 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!)

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 restriction, to redistribute it (in the case of GIMP, under exactly the same terms as the original) with or without modification, and so forth. But with that freedom comes the responsibility to help the project along if you can, or at least to understand that if you're not going to actively help your ideas along that nobody else has the responsibility to do it for you.

On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 20:35 -0500, Robert Krawitz wrote:

Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:42:49 -0500 From: 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!)

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 -- 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 you either misunderstood me or misdirected your reply. I agree with you. I really like gimp's system.

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 restriction, to redistribute it (in the case of GIMP, under exactly the same terms as the original) with or without modification, and so forth. But with that freedom comes the responsibility to help the project along if you can, or at least to understand that if you're not going to actively help your ideas along that nobody else has the responsibility to do it for you.

What you said here seems right. I'm missing how it is a response to my statement though.

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.

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

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