7 ms·

GIMP Single-Window Mode Almost Ready, Hardware Acceleration Planned

111 points by Garbage 15y ago

mariuolo 15y ago
Duke Nukem Forever has already been released, just sayin'.
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  Wine reached 1.0, gmail got out of beta, Starcraft II released. Little risk of GNU Hurd shipping any time soon though...
  - Newky 15y ago
    I don't know, GNU Hurd was taken up for GSOC. We could see amazing things yet :)
struppi 15y ago
I think I might like a single window mode. I am not a "power user", but I regularily use Gimp when I do artwork for my homepage or climbing blog. I'll have to give it a try soon.
- keithpeter 15y ago
  Its useful (try the preview 2.7.3 version). Can't set it as an option yet.
  - keithpeter 15y ago
    Sorry I meant can't set single window as the start up option as yet, you get the three windows then have to select single window from the Tools menu
blub 15y ago
I have been using GIMP for 9 months and the UI is exasperating. It's not just multi-window mode, things like the way the windows are rendered and designed, focus issues, shortcuts, missing features and a lot of other annoyances. The most disappointing thing is that I'm not even doing intensive graphical work, just retouching some photos, moving things around, resizing, etc.
- struppi 15y ago
  Some aspects of Gimp are a little bit annoying (especially on a Mac), but you can do pretty cool things with it once you get used to it. I do some artwork for some web sites I created and Gimp is a good tool for this. Photoshop probably would be better, but for as little as I do me it is way too expensive.
  - nimrody 15y ago
    On OS X, you can try Seashore (http://seashore.sourceforge.net/The_Seashore_Project/About.html http://seashore.sourceforge.net/The_Seashore_Project/About.h...). Based on GIMP code but simplified and emphasizing usability.
    - tom9729 15y ago
      I like Seashore because it's a real Cocoa app, but I frequently find myself having to fallback to X11 Gimp for little things. YMMV.
- gst 15y ago
  The UI works quite well with a focus-follows-mouse policy - as it has been standard in Unix for decades. With today's click-to-focus window managers the UI is just horrible (but that's not Gimp's fault).
  - LawnGnome 15y ago
    To an extent it is Gimp's fault, though. It's not as though click-to-focus is a new fad that's sprung up and surprised everyone -- it's been the default way focus has worked in GNOME and KDE for as long as I can remember, and I've been using it for the best part of fifteen years on Linux. The fact that such a common use case (almost certainly the most common use case, not to mention Gimp-related irritation, for at least the past decade) has been ignored for so long is disappointing.
wakeup 15y ago
using gimp all the time. Nowadays Photoshops UI seems strange to me but I remember at first GIMP was kind of weird because of the multi windows. Anyways, looks good!
exDM69 15y ago
Am I the only one who actually likes GIMP's multi-window interface? It works great with multiple displays. I've seen people do amazing things with GIMP, using a combination of keyboard shortcuts and clever use of the toolbox - in the hands of a skilled craftsman, it's an excellent and fast tool to use. Of course I've been using GIMP since it was still in it's infancy and I've never used Photoshop, so I didn't have a trouble adjusting. It's still cool that they implement the single window mode, since it's been one of the prime source of complaints from photoshoppers and people migrating from other software.
- callahad 15y ago
  I've found that the multi-window mode feels best when you're using a Linux window manager that allows you to move a window by holding a modifier key and clicking anywhere on the window. But if you can's easily grab and move the floating palettes around, using the GIMP becomes more of an exercise in window positioning than in image manipulation.
  - stuaxo 15y ago
    On windows - AltDrag makes life easier in a lot of situations, couldn't live without it now!
whiterabbit 15y ago
God be praised.
jcromartie 15y ago
Hardware acceleration with OpenCL? That's not the kind of acceleration I expected.
- Ralith 15y ago
  What kind did you expect?
qusiba 15y ago
Everybody I know who knows GIMP thinks it's terrible. I'm getting used it so I guess I'm really a bit tougher than normal people.
mberning 15y ago
Finally. I know that this feature has been talked about for at least 3 years.
grandinj 15y ago
The gimp developers were initially strongly resistant to the idea of single-window mode, so it's not a surprise that it's taken this long.
sapphirecat 15y ago
I'v been eagerly awaiting this, since my major annoyances all have to do with the floating dialogs: Not hiding the palettes when the last gimp window was minimized. Minimize -> d'oh! -> unminimize -> secret key shortcut[1] -> minimize again. Older versions used to hide them with any image window being minimized, so it was minimize#1 -> sigh -> minimize#2 -> unminimize#2 back then. Placing the toolboxes at x,0 by default so they were underneath the taskbar/menubar. I keep my taskbar on top on Windows, and I'm glad I know about Alt+Space there. Not having the image window's keyboard shortcuts work when a tool window is focused, for which I know no workaround. Having the tool windows appear in the Alt+Tab list. Actually, I can think of one more that was remedied with 2.0: the menu used to be hidden. You could right-click the image or hit the ">" button at the corner of the rulers, but it took me a long time to figure out how to save my first image. [1] TAB. I think its action is finally available in the menus, and the shortcut displayed with it, in 2.7.x.
headbiznatch 15y ago
Love GIMP, but I really wish they would fix the issues with bit depth (precision in general) and IMHO, proper CMYK support.
CrLf 15y ago
Single-window mode has been one of the most requested features for GIMP. Fact: when it finally comes, no one will care (they never did). Actually, the multi-window interface is much better when you have virtual-desktops (everywhere but Windows) or multiple screens. Pixelmator on the Mac is a multi-window application (like most Mac apps are) and I don't see anyone complaining about it. The problems are: 1. GIMP isn't Photoshop; 2. When a window is clicked, all windows should come to the foreground (more precisely, all palettes). For 1. there's not much that can be done. Whatever the application, if it has to do with graphics, people will complain about this (everyone will complain that it is missing a certain Photoshop feature, up to the total of Photoshop features). At the same time, they will complain about Photoshop itself, and trying to be more like Photoshop isn't going to work, uncanny valley style. As for 2... It's a window manager problem actually. On the Mac, again, Pixelmator does this just fine and it works great.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- whiterabbit 15y ago
  That's funny; I use GIMP daily and I've always thought I was very much looking forward to the single-window interface on my multiple-screen non-virtual desktop environment. I guess I was wrong.
- jamesteow 15y ago
  I tend to agree. My background: I've been using Photoshop for about fifteen years nearly everyday. Just to be more informed, I decided to download Mac version of GIMP. What I like: - Feels much more nimble, lightweight - Seems like it has most of core tools I need What prevents me from using it: - The interface seems really unfinished. I think that's what I like about Pixelmator: it's polished and looks somewhat similar to Photoshop's layout - The shortcuts are all different. I'm not even sure I can customize the shortcuts in some of the contexts as even some of the ones in Photoshop are sort of built in. That alone would be a huge deterrent as I rarely click on any interfaces. - Layer effects and smart objects. I know they are in the Roadmap but without them, I can't re-use elements others or I have made from Photoshop and it does effect image creation. - Masking is a little kludgy. When I imported my PSDs with shape masking, they all disappeared. Does it support vector masking? - Doesn't seem to support importing vectors from Illustrator as it automatically outputs some of the elements as raster elements. - Lack of layer folders. The whole single-window mode? I think that wouldn't nearly entice me as it's not that much of a deterrent.

111 points by Garbage 15y ago

mariuolo 15y ago

Duke Nukem Forever has already been released, just sayin'.

InclinedPlane 15y ago
Wine reached 1.0, gmail got out of beta, Starcraft II released. Little risk of GNU Hurd shipping any time soon though...
- Newky 15y ago
  I don't know, GNU Hurd was taken up for GSOC. We could see amazing things yet :)

struppi 15y ago

I think I might like a single window mode. I am not a "power user", but I regularily use Gimp when I do artwork for my homepage or climbing blog. I'll have to give it a try soon.

keithpeter 15y ago
Its useful (try the preview 2.7.3 version). Can't set it as an option yet.
- keithpeter 15y ago
  Sorry I meant can't set single window as the start up option as yet, you get the three windows then have to select single window from the Tools menu

blub 15y ago

I have been using GIMP for 9 months and the UI is exasperating. It's not just multi-window mode, things like the way the windows are rendered and designed, focus issues, shortcuts, missing features and a lot of other annoyances. The most disappointing thing is that I'm not even doing intensive graphical work, just retouching some photos, moving things around, resizing, etc.

struppi 15y ago
Some aspects of Gimp are a little bit annoying (especially on a Mac), but you can do pretty cool things with it once you get used to it. I do some artwork for some web sites I created and Gimp is a good tool for this. Photoshop probably would be better, but for as little as I do me it is way too expensive.
- nimrody 15y ago
  On OS X, you can try Seashore (http://seashore.sourceforge.net/The_Seashore_Project/About.html http://seashore.sourceforge.net/The_Seashore_Project/About.h...). Based on GIMP code but simplified and emphasizing usability.
  - tom9729 15y ago
    I like Seashore because it's a real Cocoa app, but I frequently find myself having to fallback to X11 Gimp for little things. YMMV.
gst 15y ago
The UI works quite well with a focus-follows-mouse policy - as it has been standard in Unix for decades. With today's click-to-focus window managers the UI is just horrible (but that's not Gimp's fault).
- LawnGnome 15y ago
  To an extent it is Gimp's fault, though. It's not as though click-to-focus is a new fad that's sprung up and surprised everyone -- it's been the default way focus has worked in GNOME and KDE for as long as I can remember, and I've been using it for the best part of fifteen years on Linux. The fact that such a common use case (almost certainly the most common use case, not to mention Gimp-related irritation, for at least the past decade) has been ignored for so long is disappointing.

wakeup 15y ago

using gimp all the time. Nowadays Photoshops UI seems strange to me but I remember at first GIMP was kind of weird because of the multi windows. Anyways, looks good!

exDM69 15y ago

Am I the only one who actually likes GIMP's multi-window interface? It works great with multiple displays. I've seen people do amazing things with GIMP, using a combination of keyboard shortcuts and clever use of the toolbox - in the hands of a skilled craftsman, it's an excellent and fast tool to use. Of course I've been using GIMP since it was still in it's infancy and I've never used Photoshop, so I didn't have a trouble adjusting. It's still cool that they implement the single window mode, since it's been one of the prime source of complaints from photoshoppers and people migrating from other software.

callahad 15y ago
I've found that the multi-window mode feels best when you're using a Linux window manager that allows you to move a window by holding a modifier key and clicking anywhere on the window. But if you can's easily grab and move the floating palettes around, using the GIMP becomes more of an exercise in window positioning than in image manipulation.
- stuaxo 15y ago
  On windows - AltDrag makes life easier in a lot of situations, couldn't live without it now!

whiterabbit 15y ago

God be praised.

jcromartie 15y ago

Hardware acceleration with OpenCL? That's not the kind of acceleration I expected.

Ralith 15y ago
What kind did you expect?

qusiba 15y ago

Everybody I know who knows GIMP thinks it's terrible. I'm getting used it so I guess I'm really a bit tougher than normal people.

mberning 15y ago

Finally. I know that this feature has been talked about for at least 3 years.

grandinj 15y ago

The gimp developers were initially strongly resistant to the idea of single-window mode, so it's not a surprise that it's taken this long.

sapphirecat 15y ago

I'v been eagerly awaiting this, since my major annoyances all have to do with the floating dialogs: Not hiding the palettes when the last gimp window was minimized. Minimize -> d'oh! -> unminimize -> secret key shortcut[1] -> minimize again. Older versions used to hide them with any image window being minimized, so it was minimize#1 -> sigh -> minimize#2 -> unminimize#2 back then. Placing the toolboxes at x,0 by default so they were underneath the taskbar/menubar. I keep my taskbar on top on Windows, and I'm glad I know about Alt+Space there. Not having the image window's keyboard shortcuts work when a tool window is focused, for which I know no workaround. Having the tool windows appear in the Alt+Tab list. Actually, I can think of one more that was remedied with 2.0: the menu used to be hidden. You could right-click the image or hit the ">" button at the corner of the rulers, but it took me a long time to figure out how to save my first image. [1] TAB. I think its action is finally available in the menus, and the shortcut displayed with it, in 2.7.x.

headbiznatch 15y ago

Love GIMP, but I really wish they would fix the issues with bit depth (precision in general) and IMHO, proper CMYK support.

CrLf 15y ago

Single-window mode has been one of the most requested features for GIMP. Fact: when it finally comes, no one will care (they never did). Actually, the multi-window interface is much better when you have virtual-desktops (everywhere but Windows) or multiple screens. Pixelmator on the Mac is a multi-window application (like most Mac apps are) and I don't see anyone complaining about it. The problems are: 1. GIMP isn't Photoshop; 2. When a window is clicked, all windows should come to the foreground (more precisely, all palettes). For 1. there's not much that can be done. Whatever the application, if it has to do with graphics, people will complain about this (everyone will complain that it is missing a certain Photoshop feature, up to the total of Photoshop features). At the same time, they will complain about Photoshop itself, and trying to be more like Photoshop isn't going to work, uncanny valley style. As for 2... It's a window manager problem actually. On the Mac, again, Pixelmator does this just fine and it works great.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
whiterabbit 15y ago
That's funny; I use GIMP daily and I've always thought I was very much looking forward to the single-window interface on my multiple-screen non-virtual desktop environment. I guess I was wrong.
jamesteow 15y ago
I tend to agree. My background: I've been using Photoshop for about fifteen years nearly everyday. Just to be more informed, I decided to download Mac version of GIMP. What I like: - Feels much more nimble, lightweight - Seems like it has most of core tools I need What prevents me from using it: - The interface seems really unfinished. I think that's what I like about Pixelmator: it's polished and looks somewhat similar to Photoshop's layout - The shortcuts are all different. I'm not even sure I can customize the shortcuts in some of the contexts as even some of the ones in Photoshop are sort of built in. That alone would be a huge deterrent as I rarely click on any interfaces. - Layer effects and smart objects. I know they are in the Roadmap but without them, I can't re-use elements others or I have made from Photoshop and it does effect image creation. - Masking is a little kludgy. When I imported my PSDs with shape masking, they all disappeared. Does it support vector masking? - Doesn't seem to support importing vectors from Illustrator as it automatically outputs some of the elements as raster elements. - Lack of layer folders. The whole single-window mode? I think that wouldn't nearly entice me as it's not that much of a deterrent.