This is not a forum, it's a bridge to a traditional mailing list that can be found here:

https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list

Or you can use the archives to see threaded conversations:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

This website is _not_ run by the official GIMP team - that can be found at https://wwe.gimp.org.

I suggest you have a look at the official website and check out the user documentation (help) and tutorials there. On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 8:01 AM Boxman wrote:

Man, I'm having trouble understanding the layout of this website and forums, as
well as the design philosophy behind GIMP user interface. For starters, on the home page its hard to tell what the content is when so much
of it looks like advertisements. Then, on the forums, only bits and pieces of
them are shown. I don't see any display of the overall listing of posts and responses as we get with other forums. Although I found a longer list of just
post topics, most of them were labled as awaiting moderator approval. Not much
help.

Even in making this post, I got confused at the lack of a "post" button. Instead, there is a captcha box that looks like an ad directly above a real ad
that has
TWO captcha words in it. Which one am I to use? Took me 4 tries to get it right,
not knowing whether they were case sensitive. Then, outside the box, in tiny
letters is a button "create discussion,"

What I am saying is that it is so radically different that I find it very hard
to use. There must be some point behind the design of layout, but I'm not getting it. Like GIMP itself, I don't understand why the developers would want
to create something so different from what we are familiar with, and have invested huge amounts of time learning, so that to use GIMP we now have to relearn everything we thought we knew. This situation is really giving me second thoughts about whether I want to go through with this steep re-education
curve unless there is some great benefit here that I fail to understand.

While I appreciate the huge voluntary effort that made in creating a free app,
and it is not my intention to take anything away from that, I just can't comprehend why it was done the way it was. It seems to me its radical differences won't do much to attract new users.

-- Boxman (via www.gimpusers.com/forums) _______________________________________________ gimp-user-list mailing list
List address: gimp-user-list@gnome.org List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list List archives: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

Pat David
GPG: 66D1 7CA6 8088 4874 946D  18BD 67C7 6219 89E9 57AC

Typo in the URL: https://www.gimp.org On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 8:05 AM Pat David wrote:

This is not a forum, it's a bridge to a traditional mailing list that can be found here:

https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list

Or you can use the archives to see threaded conversations:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

This website is _not_ run by the official GIMP team - that can be found at https://wwe.gimp.org.

I suggest you have a look at the official website and check out the user documentation (help) and tutorials there. On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 8:01 AM Boxman wrote:

Man, I'm having trouble understanding the layout of this website and forums, as
well as the design philosophy behind GIMP user interface. For starters, on the home page its hard to tell what the content is when so much
of it looks like advertisements. Then, on the forums, only bits and pieces of
them are shown. I don't see any display of the overall listing of posts and responses as we get with other forums. Although I found a longer list of just
post topics, most of them were labled as awaiting moderator approval. Not much
help.

Even in making this post, I got confused at the lack of a "post" button. Instead, there is a captcha box that looks like an ad directly above a real ad
that has
TWO captcha words in it. Which one am I to use? Took me 4 tries to get it right,
not knowing whether they were case sensitive. Then, outside the box, in tiny
letters is a button "create discussion,"

What I am saying is that it is so radically different that I find it very hard
to use. There must be some point behind the design of layout, but I'm not getting it. Like GIMP itself, I don't understand why the developers would want
to create something so different from what we are familiar with, and have invested huge amounts of time learning, so that to use GIMP we now have to relearn everything we thought we knew. This situation is really giving me second thoughts about whether I want to go through with this steep re-education
curve unless there is some great benefit here that I fail to understand.

While I appreciate the huge voluntary effort that made in creating a free app,
and it is not my intention to take anything away from that, I just can't comprehend why it was done the way it was. It seems to me its radical differences won't do much to attract new users.

-- Boxman (via www.gimpusers.com/forums) _______________________________________________ gimp-user-list mailing list
List address: gimp-user-list@gnome.org List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list List archives: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

-- Pat David
GPG: 66D1 7CA6 8088 4874 946D 18BD 67C7 6219 89E9 57AC

Pat David
GPG: 66D1 7CA6 8088 4874 946D  18BD 67C7 6219 89E9 57AC

Boxman (forums@gimpusers.com) wrote:

For starters, on the home page its hard to tell what the content is when so much of it looks like advertisements. Then, on the forums, only bits and pieces of them are shown.

gimpusers.com is not an official gimp forum. In fact on our official web site there is no forum.

This situation is really giving me second thoughts about whether I want to go through with this steep re-education curve unless there is some great benefit here that I fail to understand.

Please feel free to stick to your previous solution. If using GIMP is too much effort for you, then don't. It really is that simple.

Gimp has a long and convoluted history, and it most certainly is not designed to be a clone of some other tool - since that would be quite boring for us developers. I consider it good to have different approachas to the same problem.

And no, that does not mean that we don't want you as a new user - but we certainly won't force you into unhappiness.

Bye, Simon

simon@budig.de              http://simon.budig.de/

On 02/11/2017 09:05 AM, Pat David wrote:

This is not a forum, it's a bridge to a traditional mailing list that can be found here:

https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list

Or you can use the archives to see threaded conversations:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

Pat, do you know who actually owns/runs gimpusers.com? There doesn't seem to be an "about" link anywhere (or else I missed it). Same question and comment applies to gimpchat.com - I don't see an "about" link.

It would be nice if these (and similar) sites would supply a little clarifying information including a statement about their official or unofficial relationship with GIMP.

Best, Elle

On 02/11/2017 08:58 AM, Boxman wrote:

Like GIMP itself, I don't understand why the developers would want to create something so different from what we are familiar with, and have invested huge amounts of time learning, so that to use GIMP we now have to relearn everything we thought we knew.

I used PhotoShop for several years. When I switched to Linux and started using GIMP, to me the GIMP UI seemed "just like PhotoShop".

I've heard people say that the Krita UI seems "just like PhotoShop". Personally I disagree - I do use Krita as well as GIMP, but it was a long rocky road to get used to the Krita interface.

I know a few other people who think the Krita UI is very different from the PhotoShop UI. These same people think the GIMP UI is very similar to the PhotoShop UI.

Does anyone have any possible explanations for why different people with a background using PhotoShop have such wildly diverse reactions to the GIMP and Krita User Interfaces?

I'm wondering if people's reactions are linked to GIMP's default Multi-Window Mode vs Krita's default Single-Window Mode.

I always had PhotoShop configured with the main window as small as possible, and with a lot of free-floating dockers. So to me GIMP's default Multi-Window Mode is very comfortable to use (and I don't like Single Window Mode at all).

Elle

Elle,

Pat, do you know who actually owns/runs gimpusers.com? There doesn't seem to be an "about" link anywhere (or else I missed it). Same question and comment applies to gimpchat.com - I don't see an "about" link.

I don't know who runs gimpusers.com, and gmipchat.com recently changed owners.

It would be nice if these (and similar) sites would supply a little clarifying information including a statement about their official or unofficial relationship with GIMP.

I agree 100%. This has been a point of contention in various ways for a while now but I'm not sure what the best solution would be.

I have some ideas, but I'll need some time a little later to collect them into something more cohesive...

pat

Pat David
GPG: 66D1 7CA6 8088 4874 946D  18BD 67C7 6219 89E9 57AC

On 11/02/17 14:58, Boxman wrote:

Man, I'm having trouble understanding the layout of this website and forums, as well as the design philosophy behind GIMP user interface. For starters, on the home page its hard to tell what the content is when so much of it looks like advertisements. Then, on the forums, only bits and pieces of them are shown. I don't see any display of the overall listing of posts and responses as we get with other forums. Although I found a longer list of just post topics, most of them were labled as awaiting moderator approval. Not much help.

Even in making this post, I got confused at the lack of a "post" button. Instead, there is a captcha box that looks like an ad directly above a real ad that has
TWO captcha words in it. Which one am I to use? Took me 4 tries to get it right, not knowing whether they were case sensitive. Then, outside the box, in tiny letters is a button "create discussion,"

What I am saying is that it is so radically different that I find it very hard to use. There must be some point behind the design of layout, but I'm not getting it. Like GIMP itself, I don't understand why the developers would want to create something so different from what we are familiar with, and have invested huge amounts of time learning, so that to use GIMP we now have to relearn everything we thought we knew. This situation is really giving me second thoughts about whether I want to go through with this steep re-education curve unless there is some great benefit here that I fail to understand.

While I appreciate the huge voluntary effort that made in creating a free app, and it is not my intention to take anything away from that, I just can't comprehend why it was done the way it was. It seems to me its radical differences won't do much to attract new users.

Shameless plug: if you are looking for a more "traditional" Gimp-related forum, try: http://gimp-forum.net

On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 11:46 PM, Elle Stone wrote:

[...]
Does anyone have any possible explanations for why different people with a background using PhotoShop have such wildly diverse reactions to the GIMP and Krita User Interfaces?

version of Photoshop? OS platform?

in addition to user preferences, as you mention.

I'm wondering if people's reactions are linked to GIMP's default Multi-Window Mode vs Krita's default Single-Window Mode.

in some cases, probably.

I always had PhotoShop configured with the main window as small as possible, and with a lot of free-floating dockers. So to me GIMP's default Multi-Window Mode is very comfortable to use (and I don't like Single Window Mode at all).

Users have a tendency to think the subsection of the UI that they use most is the app.

Joel Rees

I'm imagining I'm a novelist:
http://reiisi.blogspot.jp/p/novels-i-am-writing.html

They're ALL weird, even Photoshop's latest incarnation.

But at least GIMP has a very helpful list of knowledgeable users that we can easily access. No extra charge.

Rick S.

-----Original Message----- From: Joel Rees
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 1:02 AM To: gimp-user-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] Weird forum and layout

On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 11:46 PM, Elle Stone wrote:

[...]
Does anyone have any possible explanations for why different people with a background using PhotoShop have such wildly diverse reactions to the GIMP and Krita User Interfaces?

version of Photoshop? OS platform?

in addition to user preferences, as you mention.

I'm wondering if people's reactions are linked to GIMP's default Multi-Window Mode vs Krita's default Single-Window Mode.

in some cases, probably.

I always had PhotoShop configured with the main window as small as possible,
and with a lot of free-floating dockers. So to me GIMP's default Multi-Window Mode is very comfortable to use (and I don't like Single Window
Mode at all).

Users have a tendency to think the subsection of the UI that they use most is the app.

Joel Rees

I'm imagining I'm a novelist:
http://reiisi.blogspot.jp/p/novels-i-am-writing.html

On 02/12/2017 01:02 AM, Joel Rees wrote:

On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 11:46 PM, Elle Stone wrote:

[...]
Does anyone have any possible explanations for why different people with a background using PhotoShop have such wildly diverse reactions to the GIMP and Krita User Interfaces?

version of Photoshop? OS platform?

Good point -whether a user thinks Krita or GIMP is "more like PhotoShop" might depend on which version of Photoshop they've used. I'm only familiar with one version of PhotoShop, and that's CS2 on Windows. Maybe PhotoShop on Mac has a substantially different UI, and maybe CC looks substantially different than CS2.

in addition to user preferences, as you mention.

I'm wondering if people's reactions are linked to GIMP's default Multi-Window Mode vs Krita's default Single-Window Mode.

in some cases, probably.

I always had PhotoShop configured with the main window as small as possible, and with a lot of free-floating dockers. So to me GIMP's default Multi-Window Mode is very comfortable to use (and I don't like Single Window Mode at all).

Users have a tendency to think the subsection of the UI that they use most is the app.

Another good point. On Photoshop I only ever edited photographs, mostly starting from a raw file, and never tried to paint using PhotoShop. Maybe Krita's paint tools resemble PhotoShop's paint tools.

Elle

You say that you are not trying to unduly critical of gimp. By that I take it to mean that you are trying to be duly critical of gimp. That is the way that you are coming across. Have you considered the possibility that the answers to your questions is: because that's the way it is. Gimp is not photoshop. Any expectation for it to look like or act like photoshop is unrealistic. The internet is not a hardware store where all that is available is one product. If you don't like what you see move on to something else.

If the casual user picks up gimp because he or she doesn't want to shell out hundreds of dollars for a program that she or he may use once in a blue moon, it is safe to assume that the person in question is not an experienced photoshop user. Therefore, there would be no unlearning curve as the person got used to using gimp after having become proficient in photoshop. If that person is proficient in photoshop such that they need to unlearn things to use gimp then they probably are not a casual user of photoshop. Thus, new users to gimp (in your words "casual users"), who are using it for the reason you give, probably don't expect it to perform like photoshop. They simply expect it to perform as it performs because that's all they know.

Photoshop is not the gold standard by which all other programs are to be evaluated. One could just as legitimately ask why photoshop's UI is not like gimp's and what the underlying rationale is for their UI. Gimp is not nor ever was and never will be a "free version of photoshop."

I hope that you are feeling better.

On 2/17/2017 2:56 PM, Boxman wrote:

Good point -whether a user thinks Krita or GIMP is "more like PhotoShop"
might depend on which version of Photoshop they've used. I'm only familiar with one version of PhotoShop, and that's CS2 on Windows. Maybe
PhotoShop on Mac has a substantially different UI, and maybe CC looks substantially different than CS2.
Another good point. On Photoshop I only ever edited photographs, mostly
starting from a raw file, and never tried to paint using PhotoShop. Maybe Krita's paint tools resemble PhotoShop's paint tools.

Elle

Shortly after I posted last week, I had a medical crisis and ended up in hospital, so that's the reason I haven't responded to any of these posts over the last week. As I said, I'm not looking to be unduely critical OF gimp, just looking for some answers. And no, I'm not saying that I think GIMP should be more like P'shop. No, I merely expected a similarity of tools that worked in more or less the same ways. That, I don't think, is unreasonable. Its like as if you went to the hardware store to buy a hammer but all they had were hammers with curved handles and thus you had to relearn hammering nails anew. Not something one would want to be forced to do. The lack of a general purpose cursor, to my way of thinking, is just that basic and it really threw me for a loop.

WHY do new users expect expect similarity with P'shop? My guess is that more users than not are casual users who use it far less than professionals. Indeed, that is the major attraction of free software; we don't want to pay $600 + for something used only infrequently and thus we are frustrated to find such a steep learning curve since money doesn't constitute the only form of investment - there's the matter of invested time.

I was hoping that there was some sort of basic design philosophy that I was missing that would, upon learning of it, would ease the transition. Apparently not. GIMP is merely different not by any conceptual means. I don't see any reasons for the differences but the reality is that I just have to be patience and take the time to relearn.

While I wouldn’t consider myself “proficient” in Photoshop, except for the things I did most often, I wasn’t a casual user, either. So I’m sort of in the middle.

No, I merely expected a similarity of tools that worked in more or less the same ways. That, I don't think, is unreasonable.

Actually, it is understandable, but it is not reasonable—from the perspective of the GIMP weltanshauung. It is understandable because of the similarities in the tools and even their icons: this is the paintbrush tool, so it must be similar to the paintbrush tool in GIMP. Similar, yes, the same, no. Let me give you an analogy.

I was once, long ago, fluent in Latin. Romanian is the closest modern equivalent, closer than Spanish. When dealing with written Romanian, Latin was a help, but it by no means made the language clear with little effort. I had to study to understand the (sometimes critical) differences. It was worse with Spanish—I gave up. %-{

Easier to learn the “language” as an original, occasionally helped by an unexpected close similarity. So it is with the language of GIMP. Once I stopped thinking, “This must be similar to Photoshop,” things got much easier. It has been the same with every graphics program I’ve ever used, starting with “MacPaint,” followed by “Superpaint,” and Deneba’s “Canvas," and finally "PhotoShop” As soon as I started treating then as separate “languages," things got much easier.

Versteh? հասկանալ? સમજવું? เข้าใจ? سمجھنے? (Get my drift?)

=^D

Ross

On Feb 17, 2017, at 6:45 PM, Mark Morin wrote:

You say that you are not trying to unduly critical of gimp. By that I take it to mean that you are trying to be duly critical of gimp. That is the way that you are coming across. Have you considered the possibility that the answers to your questions is: because that's the way it is. Gimp is not photoshop. Any expectation for it to look like or act like photoshop is unrealistic. The internet is not a hardware store where all that is available is one product. If you don't like what you see move on to something else.

If the casual user picks up gimp because he or she doesn't want to shell out hundreds of dollars for a program that she or he may use once in a blue moon, it is safe to assume that the person in question is not an experienced photoshop user. Therefore, there would be no unlearning curve as the person got used to using gimp after having become proficient in photoshop. If that person is proficient in photoshop such that they need to unlearn things to use gimp then they probably are not a casual user of photoshop. Thus, new users to gimp (in your words "casual users"), who are using it for the reason you give, probably don't expect it to perform like photoshop. They simply expect it to perform as it performs because that's all they know.

Photoshop is not the gold standard by which all other programs are to be evaluated. One could just as legitimately ask why photoshop's UI is not like gimp's and what the underlying rationale is for their UI. Gimp is not nor ever was and never will be a "free version of photoshop."

I hope that you are feeling better.

On 2/17/2017 2:56 PM, Boxman wrote:

Good point -whether a user thinks Krita or GIMP is "more like PhotoShop"
might depend on which version of Photoshop they've used. I'm only familiar with one version of PhotoShop, and that's CS2 on Windows. Maybe
PhotoShop on Mac has a substantially different UI, and maybe CC looks substantially different than CS2.
Another good point. On Photoshop I only ever edited photographs, mostly
starting from a raw file, and never tried to paint using PhotoShop. Maybe Krita's paint tools resemble PhotoShop's paint tools.

Elle

Shortly after I posted last week, I had a medical crisis and ended up in hospital, so that's the reason I haven't responded to any of these posts over the last week. As I said, I'm not looking to be unduely critical OF gimp, just looking for some answers. And no, I'm not saying that I think GIMP should be more like P'shop. No, I merely expected a similarity of tools that worked in more or less the same ways. That, I don't think, is unreasonable. Its like as if you went to the hardware store to buy a hammer but all they had were hammers with curved handles and thus you had to relearn hammering nails anew. Not something one would want to be forced to do. The lack of a general purpose cursor, to my way of thinking, is just that basic and it really threw me for a loop.

WHY do new users expect expect similarity with P'shop? My guess is that more users than not are casual users who use it far less than professionals. Indeed, that is the major attraction of free software; we don't want to pay $600 + for something used only infrequently and thus we are frustrated to find such a steep learning curve since money doesn't constitute the only form of investment - there's the matter of invested time.

I was hoping that there was some sort of basic design philosophy that I was missing that would, upon learning of it, would ease the transition. Apparently not. GIMP is merely different not by any conceptual means. I don't see any reasons for the differences but the reality is that I just have to be patience and take the time to relearn.

_______________________________________________ gimp-user-list mailing list
List address: gimp-user-list@gnome.org List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list List archives: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

On Sat, Feb 18, 2017 at 3:45 AM, Mark Morin wrote:

Photoshop is not the gold standard by which all other programs are to be evaluated.

It is. Sadly so.

One could just as legitimately ask why photoshop's UI is not like gimp's

1. Photoshop predates GIMP by 10+ years 2. GIMP contributors specifically copied some of its features in the past.

Would you like to reconsider your point? :)

Gimp is not nor ever was and never will be a "free version of photoshop."

True.

Alex

On Sat, Feb 18, 2017 at 11:12 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

On Sat, Feb 18, 2017 at 3:45 AM, Mark Morin wrote:

Photoshop is not the gold standard by which all other programs are to be evaluated.

It is. Sadly so.

Speaking without metaphor:

Gold standards only exist in the minds of those who think gold standards exist.

Speaking in metaphor:

For those willing to use a different currency, gold is just another metal with some really useful properties that is harder to get access to because people want to use it for something it is not.

One could just as legitimately ask why photoshop's UI is not like gimp's

1. Photoshop predates GIMP by 10+ years

For real graphics artists, Adobe is a latecomer and still an outsider.

2. GIMP contributors specifically copied some of its features in the past.

Most of those features well predate Adobe and the software they built Photoshop's original version on top of.

Would you like to reconsider your point? :)

Gimp is not nor ever was and never will be a "free version of photoshop."

True.

Alex

:-)

Joel Rees

I'm imagining I'm a novelist:
http://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2017/01/soc500-00-00-toc.html
More of my delusions:
http://reiisi.blogspot.jp/p/novels-i-am-writing.html