Hi,

On Sat, 2008-06-14 at 19:03 +0200, Ingo Ruhnke wrote:

It currently only supports a single toolbar and isn't customizable via the GUI, but only by editing "menus/image-toolbar.xml".

In my opinion this is useless as long as it is not configurable by the user. And editing XML files doesn't count as being configurable by the user.

One open question: Can menus/image-toolbar.xml currently be stored inside ~/.gimp directory, i.e. is there a way to customize those .xml files without messing around with the systemwide Gimp installation?

No, there isn't. I dount that this would be implementable at all, at least not without changes in GTK+.

Sven

Ingo Ruhnke wrote:

[1] I listed some other features that I have been missing for a while at: http://happypenguin.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=20741#20741 But no promise that I will implement them to, just public brainstream of stuff I miss.

Hi

I see that one of the items on your list is

* Overscroll - Bug #362915 :

and it is worth mentioning that this bug is one of the few bugs/enhancment requests that blocks a GIMP 2.6 release, so any help with it would be much appreciated.

Regards, Martin Nordholts

On Saturday 14 June 2008, Sven Neumann wrote:

Hi,

On Sat, 2008-06-14 at 19:03 +0200, Ingo Ruhnke wrote:

It currently only supports a single toolbar and isn't customizable via the GUI, but only by editing "menus/image-toolbar.xml".

In my opinion this is useless as long as it is not configurable by the user. And editing XML files doesn't count as being configurable by the user.

And in my opinion, this is a 80% done feature that should not be simply called "useless" and disregarded.

I myself had never missed such a toolbar, but as well, I am not a tablet user.

From where it is, it does not seen it will be to hard to implement

some drag and drop using the actions ("configure keyboard shortcuts") dialog.

I would agree that it imight be too late for consideration for 2.6, and of course we just can't just go bloating the UI, but I think shuch a toolbar would be highly praised and the UI team shoudl take a look at it. Moreover, once configurable, it could keep the most used tool icons, making the toolbox really optional, which is one of the ains of the whole set of UI large changes for 2.6.

js ->

One open question: Can menus/image-toolbar.xml currently be stored inside ~/.gimp directory, i.e. is there a way to customize those .xml files without messing around with the systemwide Gimp installation?

No, there isn't. I dount that this would be implementable at all, at least not without changes in GTK+.

Sven

On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 10:34 AM, Sven Neumann wrote:

One open question: Can menus/image-toolbar.xml currently be stored inside ~/.gimp directory, i.e. is there a way to customize those .xml files without messing around with the systemwide Gimp installation?

No, there isn't. I dount that this would be implementable at all, at least not without changes in GTK+.

I haven't tried this myself, but isn't this exactly the sort of thing that gtk_ui_manager_get_ui() is intended for? Or am I missing something?

-- Bill

On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 7:03 PM, Ingo Ruhnke wrote:

[1] I listed some other features that I have been missing for a while at: http://happypenguin.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=20741#20741 But no promise that I will implement them to, just public brainstream of stuff I miss.

The "Brush Folders" or better "Tagging of GIMP Resources" are one of the this years Google Summer of Code projects [1]. So we hope this will be better in the future.

Regards, Tobias

[1] http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gimp/about.html

Ingo Ruhnke wrote:

The patch adds a very simple standard Gtk toolbar to the Gimp image window:

http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/tmp/gimp-toolbar.png

sorry to dampen the enthusiasm here, but that is that last thing we need, in an application of this calibre.

Just because it can be programmed and does a good job in a mail program or a zip tool, does not mean it is sound UI design for GIMP.

As I outlined at the LGM: vertical space comes at a premium for GIMP. that is why all the controls are (rightly so) to the side of the image in GIMP.

Simply said: a toolbar like this does not fit the UI of GIMP.

--ps

founder + principal interaction architect man + machine interface works

http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture

On Monday 16 June 2008, peter sikking wrote:

Simply said: a toolbar like this does not fit the UI of GIMP.

What a lame excuse to exclude a time saver and great help to occasional users of the GIMP... Not everyone wants to cram his brain full of key shortcuts! Why not have the toolbar placeable at the side or top by simply dragging and dropping it at apropiate toolbar docks? That should be a simple task given that every good toolkit offers such functionality out of the box!

On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 2:10 PM, Karl Günter Wünsch wrote:

On Monday 16 June 2008, peter sikking wrote:

Simply said: a toolbar like this does not fit the UI of GIMP.

What a lame excuse to exclude a time saver and great help to occasional users of the GIMP...

http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/GIMP_UI_Redesign#product_vision

Make sure you pay enough attention to the "hi-end" word.

Alexandre

On Monday 16 June 2008, you wrote:

My "hi-end" definition boild down to "streamlined UI for professionals".

Much of the "streamlined UI for the professionals" can be had if the toolbar - as proposed - would be configurable in both position (there is no reason why it should not be vertically alignable at the left or right hand side of the window) and content. Then it would serve multiple purposes in that it allows quick access to often used functions (individually for the specific user) and allow for an easier learning curve (if preconfigured to have a set of common functions that a new user might want to have access to in the beginning). One thing bothers me even more now that you are insisting on this strealiming: Why isn't this applied to the whole set of plugins and tools? One thing I'd expect from any high quality software product is that settings I have chosen once are keeping their value even if the program restarted. In GIMP this only applies to a few tools but important things like all the filters are all falling back to their inadaequate presets every time the GIMP is started. Even if I have the option to save settings as default (such as in the JPEG save dialog) some settings of the set are excluded for reasons that are neither obvious nor in any way discoverable from the UI - in the case of the JPEG save dialog it's the comment field, most of the time I want to give a set of images the same or only slightly varying comments but I have to externally keep a copy of what I want to set in this propery around as even between images this contents isn't kept!

The proposed toolbar does not solve any real issue. I've been spending a lot of time talking to "graphics" software users of all levels (noob to pro) for past years and none of them ever requested it or had problems because of not having it (I explicitely asked them about it a number of time).

Because it isn't an option at the time of the initial contact with the program most users will not miss it and make do without. Offer something well designed from the beginning and it will be used and if you then remove it it will be sorely missed. At least that is my experience as a software developer who has made his living off his designs for more than 15 years... I have always been proven wrong when I had to resort to the lame excuse: "It's for the experienced in .... (insert field of expertise here that doesn't involve programming)"

This toolbar *might* be good for a classic MDI application. In CSDI application al it does is cluttering interface. And all the users I ever dealt with are very vocal about cluttered UI.

And for those there could be the simple option to switch this toolbar off. But I'd wager a bet that many would like to have this toolbar around reflecting their most used tools, filters and options.

On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 5:56 PM, Ingo Ruhnke wrote:

a) Todays screens are big enough

Hate to tell you, but this is plain wrong. Here is current (last month) statistics for my community web project:

1280x1024 - 39,11 % 1024x768 - 27,09 %
1280x800 - 11,77 %
1680x1050 - 5,26 %
1440x900 - 4,03 %
1600x1200 - 3,37 %
1152x864 - 2,55 %
1920x1200 - 1,81 %
1280x960 - 1,65 %
1400x1050 - 1,29 %

Note that these people come to talk about using application for doing real things with graphics.

Alexandre

On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 3:56 PM, Ingo Ruhnke wrote:

On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 12:05 PM, peter sikking wrote:

As I outlined at the LGM: vertical space comes at a premium for GIMP.

a) Todays screens are big enough

There is never enogth space if it comes to the work with big photos. And as photos are usully in 4:3 and a lot of modern monitors are 16:10 the vertical space
is more important.

The way I'd like to see it implemented is to be able to to add every menu entry into
the toolbox. If you then add a way to dock the toolbox to the image window we would
have a very nice solution.

Just my two Cent, Tobias

On Monday 16 June 2008, Tobias Jakobs wrote:

There is never enogth space if it comes to the work with big photos. And as photos are usully in 4:3 and a lot of modern monitors are 16:10 the vertical space
is more important.

You assume too much. In fact the majority of photos that professionals and quality conscious amateurs (which seem to be the intended target group of users) are working on are originating in 3:2 and 2:3 aspect ratio as this is the main aspect ratio that current DSLR are working with... But final results may well be in all sorts of aspect ratios. The important thing is that vertical space is truly at a premium but there is no rule that a toolbar needs to be placed horizontally when in fact a toolbar works equally well when placed at either side of the image.

If you then add a way to dock the toolbox to the image window we would have a very nice solution.

Having the toolbox docked is one of the things that would render a toolbar redundant. So yes, this is a working solution that I would look forward to.