I am not a developer but a translator nevertheless I feel that I can answer to some of the questions here.

On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 01:07:06PM +0000, yang junjie via gimp-user-list wrote:

Dear GIMP developer, Hello, I am an amateur designer who loves GIMP very much, I used to think that adobe photoshop was irreplaceable until I came across GIMP, however, over time I am a bit disappointed with the current development of GIMP, which may make you angry, but I still feel the need to say something, please forgive the offense. Here are a few points I'd like to make about my expectations and views on GIMP

Ok

First of all, GIMP is no worse than Photoshop in terms of image processing,

good to hear that!

but in terms of memory footprint and speed, it's a lot worse, and I understand that, so I'm not complaining too much about it, but I think it can be optimized.

yes, and I am confident that it will improve over time...

Secondly, from what I understand, GIMP is almost two decades old, which results in extremely old code, so many new features can be very difficult to add, especially non-destructive edits and multi-selected layers, which should be in the underlying layer.

GIMP devs did a great deal of rebuild in the last 5 years or so, therefore they already did what you are suggesting to do here. The devs was sooooo able to maintain the good old look and feel but really, GIMP is a new beast now!

So, I think GIMP developers, you can really try to rebuild GIMP again, because his code is so old, and as far as I know migrating from GTK2.0 to GTK3.0 is no less difficult than a rewrite.

In my understanding, the non-destructive edit is a very ground floor thing, he's like the foundation of a house, and the current GIMP is the equivalent of a house already built, but the foundation is very shaky because he lacks the most core of functional non-destructive edits!

I think non-destructive editing is essential for image processing because no one wants their workflow to be a destructive one, the same goes for layer multi-selection, there is a lot of logic to GIMP's work that is beyond my comprehension, and there is a deep meaning to it, but he does cause me great distress in my day-to-day experiences, such as the floating selection feature, where a new layer pops up a new window, and I think these are all things that can greatly consume the time we spend working.

As I said above, devs already did what you are suggesting. Guess what? One of the goals of this overhaul is to enable non-destructive edit in GIMP!

So re-build one and refine these features as an underlying layer so that you can better refine this great software! The refactoring doesn't mean it kills the software, I think it means the rebirth of the software, and you can see how much BLENDER is refreshed after the refactoring, as I think GIMP can do!

... there are some news coming soon, I don't want to spoil the surprise but, stay tuned!

[...]

--

Saluton, Marco Ciampa

On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 4:07 PM yang junjie wrote:

Dear GIMP developer,...

Hello,

What if I told you that the foundation of GIMP is not shaky and ready for non-destructive editing?

What if I told you that multi-layer selection is already done for the most part and will be released as an experimental feature in the first unstable version leading up to v3.0?

What if I told you that GIMP has been undergoing refactoring one way or another for at least 15 years?

What if I told you that we don't keep any of that a secret and frequently write about it on the website as well as on Facebook and Twitter?

I think this is a great learning opportunity to me personally because clearly a number of people expect to be told about all that stuff on some communication channel that we don't cover yet, and I would very much like to know what that channel is :)

Alex

On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 05:54:26PM +0300, Alexandre Prokoudine via gimp-user-list wrote:

On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 4:07 PM yang junjie wrote:

[...]

I think this is a great learning opportunity to me personally because clearly a number of people expect to be told about all that stuff on some communication channel that we don't cover yet, and I would very much like to know what that channel is :)

I guess: a non-English-speaking channel?

just my 2 euro cents:

what if the gimp.org site was translatable as it is done with the program and the docs?

I would volunteer for the Italian translation, for a start ... ;-)

--

Saluton, Marco Ciampa

It is translatable though. Talk to Pat David :)

Alex

On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 6:10 PM Marco Ciampa via gimp-user-list wrote:

On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 05:54:26PM +0300, Alexandre Prokoudine via gimp-user-list wrote:

On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 4:07 PM yang junjie wrote:

[...]

I think this is a great learning opportunity to me personally because clearly a number of people expect to be told about all that stuff on some communication channel that we don't cover yet, and I would very much like to know what that channel is :)

I guess: a non-English-speaking channel?

just my 2 euro cents:

what if the gimp.org site was translatable as it is done with the program and the docs?

I would volunteer for the Italian translation, for a start ... ;-)

--

Saluton, Marco Ciampa
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On 2020-05-28 10:54 a.m., Alexandre Prokoudine via gimp-user-list wrote:

What if I told you that we don't keep any of that a secret and frequently write about it on the website as well as on Facebook and Twitter?

I think you forgot to include the mailing list(s) as another source of the information posted to the three locations you mention. I know I rarely look at the website and I don't use Facebook or Twitter. The information should be going out on the developer mailing list and occasionally on the user list. Not all the (early) information would be of interest to the user community at large.

Cheers!

Kevin.

http://www.ve3syb.ca/               | "Nerds make the shiny things that
https://www.patreon.com/KevinCozens | distract the mouth-breathers, and
                                     | that's why we're powerful"
Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172          |
#include      |             --Chris Hardwick

On 2020-05-28 10:54 a.m., Alexandre Prokoudine via gimp-user-list wrote:

What if I told you that we don't keep any of that a secret and frequently write about it on the website as well as on Facebook and Twitter?

Kevin Cozens writes:

I think you forgot to include the mailing list(s) as another source of the information posted to the three locations you mention. I know I rarely look at the website and I don't use Facebook or Twitter. The information should be going out on the developer mailing list and occasionally on the user list.

That's a good point. I subscribe to the gimp.org RSS, so I see the announcements of major releases and all the cool new features ... and they always take me by surprise because I've usually not heard about any of it, even though I read the developer mailing list and am on IRC a lot too (but apparently not during hours when cool new features are most often being discussed).

I'm definitely not criticizing: Alex does a great job of getting the word out, and I do see the release announcements in RSS, on the mailing list, and sometimes on Twitter. And I'd rather see developers spending time working on cool new features than worrying about writing posts describing what they're doing. Still, it would be pretty great to hear a little on the mailing list about what's in progress, if anyone has the time to do that ... and it might even whip up enthusiasm from potential contributors (wow, they're working on THAT now? That's a feature I really care about, maybe I can help!)

...Akkana

On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 6:44 PM Kevin Cozens wrote:

What if I told you that we don't keep any of that a secret and frequently write about it on the website as well as on Facebook and Twitter?

I think you forgot to include the mailing list(s) as another source of the information posted to the three locations you mention.

I didn't exactly forget this. The last time I asked, which was, admittedly, a few years ago, each of the two popular mailing lists had 1K subscribers tops. That might sound like a lot but it really pales by comparison to the reach we regularly get on social networks. For the record, our top tweets within any single month regularly get ca. 35K impressions and we got 800+ new subscribers just in May (so far). So it's more of a priority concern.

Besides, I tend to use rich media (screenshots, videos) to illustrate new stuff. This does not play well with mailing lists at all.

That said, if you think list subscribers should be notified of new changes and ongoing work, I'll definitely make a mental note of sending text announcements to lists as well. That should not take long at all.

The information should
be going out on the developer mailing list and occasionally on the user list. Not all the (early) information would be of interest to the user community at large.

I'm not sure I understand this. What information do you have in mind for the developer mailing list?

Alex