5 ms·

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, foc

by 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.
  - thristian 15y ago
    The most common use case... except among the kind of people whose idea of a fun evening is developing a Free image editor on a Free operating system. I'm not one of those people, but I have a similar background, and GIMP has suited me pretty well for the photo-retouching and website-graphics work I've done.
  - pwg 15y ago
    > almost certainly the most common use case [click-to-focus] Most common only if you are coming from a ms-windows background. Click-to-focus is only a relatively recent newcomer to the Unix/X-Windows system in the scheme of how long X-Windows has existed. And if you ever break out of your ms-windows mindset and actually give focus follows mouse a try, focus follows mouse is actually the more powerful method.
    - 5l 15y ago
      Just as an FYI, Windows actually supports focus follows mouse with a registry hack [0]. There are a couple of quirks mostly to do with things like tooltips, but I've found it usable. [0] http://sinewalker.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/ms-windows-focus-follows-mouse-registry-hacks/ http://sinewalker.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/ms-windows-focus-...
      - seabee 15y ago
        I remember getting a Windows 95 PowerToy for it; I didn't see the point of it, previously being an Amiga user which had click-to-focus also.
- BDFL_Xenu 15y ago
  So that's the justification? That the GIMP expects WM settings that were only the default on TWM and the like over 15 years ago? Well, I must say that I haven't seen any other application of its size take the "NO WARRANTY" shouting of the GPL so seriously. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. But the program did start as a showcase for some graphics manipulation algorithms that the authors made. Maybe the fault is with the people with the high hopes that it was actually meant for them to use and edit their photos.
  - rat 15y ago
    I'm fairly sure most closed source applications also Include something of a "NO Waranty as much to the degree allowed by law".
- theBobMcCormick 15y ago
  It seems rather inaccurate to claim that focus-follows-mouse is "standard in Unix". Correct me if I'm wrong, but focus-follows-mouse hasn't been the standard in Unix for quite some time. I don't think it's ever been the default in Gnome or KDE. Is it the default on anything that isn't antiquated and/or super-niche (like FVWM or TWM, etc.)?
- yason 15y ago
  Haven't seen a default configuration of focus-follows-mouse for quite a while on any "big" Linux desktops. I always turn it on manually the first thing I touch a new system so it's not a big problem. However, a bigger problem is that finding a strict focus-follows-mouse is getting more difficult: for example Metacity can't do it, only sloppy focus-follows-mouse. But the strict one would be the real focus-follows-mouse: with that you never lose the focus unintentionally since the focus is always under the mouse cursor. With sloppy focus, a newly opened window might of might not steal the focus regardless of the mouse position, and I quite often find myself typing into the wrong window after that.
nimrody 15y ago
I haven't been tracking GIMP development for quite a while and couldn't find the information online. Does the current version of GIMP finally support non-destructive editing (adjustment layers)? Is GIMP still too slow for photo retouching?
- blub 15y ago
  No, the version that I'm using doesn't seem to support this so I duplicate the layer and work on the copy. As for slowness, it depends on what kind of retouching you are doing. I'm retouching mobile graphics assets, which are small enough and I haven't seen any lags. I image that things are very different when working with high quality photos...
- wcoenen 15y ago
  > Does the current version of GIMP finally support non-destructive editing (adjustment layers)? Layer effects are planned for Gimp 3.2. http://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap http://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap It will be achieved by integrating the GEGL library (http://www.gegl.org/ http://www.gegl.org/) which enables the use of OpenCL acceleration (http://www.khronos.org/opencl/ http://www.khronos.org/opencl/).
nodata 15y ago
Can you name some of these things that have been bothering you for the past nine months?
- blub 15y ago
  The biggest problem I have with GIMP is that it's not intuitive. Every time I open it I have to stop and think how I am supposed to do what I am trying to do, my work never flows. This has such an impact on my productivity that I'm desperately looking for alternatives that don't involve purchasing Photoshop - now looking at Pixelmator. Other members of the team have switched to Paint.NET or other simple editors, but they are too simple for me. Another problem that I have is with focus - sometimes the picture window loses input focus to one of the tool windows and then the keyboard shortcuts stop working. I have to click on the window and then use the shortcut, but when clicking the current tool will execute its action (such as paint a black blob in the middle of the layer), so I have to click outside the picture area (might be hard to do) or hunt for the title bar. Furthermore, when the tool windows have focus they control some of the widgets in the tool window, popping up subwindows or changing settings by accident. Yet another issue is text editing and selection. GIMP does not allow me to do live text-editing, instead it pops up a dialog box and I have to adjust the actual text rect in the background. Every time I click the text rect to adjust it the tool windows flicker into view for 0.5 seconds, very annoying. Selections are significantly harder to control compared to Photoshop, where you can do pretty much anything to a selection just by using the mouse and one or two keys. General UI problems: * dialogs that are too small * dialogs popping up over other dialogs * many dialogs that cover the image when shown and I have to move them out of the way * dialogs that sometimes remember their position, sometimes show up at apparently random locations * tool windows exiting the screen * tool fields that just look like they were thrown together without any thought to spacing, grouping and alignment (check out the rectangle select or the almost invisible spinner arrows for the layer transparency) * the layers tool window is especially difficult to use with a mouse (dragging & dropping, ordering, linking) * tools that reset their settings (e.g: move tool rests to pick a layer to move instead of move active) * general disregard for UI design that makes the UI look crowded (e.g layers tab icons) * the design choice of clipping layers to the visible image area, forcing you to resize the canvas and the layers unnecessarily I could go on and on and on. I can't remember using GIMP even once without being annoyed by something in the UI that breaks my work flow. The features I miss the most are adjustments layers, layer grouping (this is so painful when working with a lot of layers).
watmough 15y ago
If you're on a Mac or Linux, it's easy to switch to a click-through model where you don't have to click a window before selecting a tool. It renders GIMP usable on a Mac if you do this. Personally, I just haven't managed to get into Pixelmator, I always try, then end up running back to GIMP, and I'm not a heavy user of the program by any means, though I did do all the FemCal art in it. The biggest fix to GIMP right now should be to get 16-bit color depth working. 12-bit isn't a huge problem for me, but I can understand it holding people back who are doing lots of photo manipulation.

by blub 15y ago

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.
- thristian 15y ago
  The most common use case... except among the kind of people whose idea of a fun evening is developing a Free image editor on a Free operating system. I'm not one of those people, but I have a similar background, and GIMP has suited me pretty well for the photo-retouching and website-graphics work I've done.
- pwg 15y ago
  > almost certainly the most common use case [click-to-focus] Most common only if you are coming from a ms-windows background. Click-to-focus is only a relatively recent newcomer to the Unix/X-Windows system in the scheme of how long X-Windows has existed. And if you ever break out of your ms-windows mindset and actually give focus follows mouse a try, focus follows mouse is actually the more powerful method.
  - 5l 15y ago
    Just as an FYI, Windows actually supports focus follows mouse with a registry hack [0]. There are a couple of quirks mostly to do with things like tooltips, but I've found it usable. [0] http://sinewalker.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/ms-windows-focus-follows-mouse-registry-hacks/ http://sinewalker.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/ms-windows-focus-...
    - seabee 15y ago
      I remember getting a Windows 95 PowerToy for it; I didn't see the point of it, previously being an Amiga user which had click-to-focus also.
BDFL_Xenu 15y ago
So that's the justification? That the GIMP expects WM settings that were only the default on TWM and the like over 15 years ago? Well, I must say that I haven't seen any other application of its size take the "NO WARRANTY" shouting of the GPL so seriously. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. But the program did start as a showcase for some graphics manipulation algorithms that the authors made. Maybe the fault is with the people with the high hopes that it was actually meant for them to use and edit their photos.
- rat 15y ago
  I'm fairly sure most closed source applications also Include something of a "NO Waranty as much to the degree allowed by law".
theBobMcCormick 15y ago
It seems rather inaccurate to claim that focus-follows-mouse is "standard in Unix". Correct me if I'm wrong, but focus-follows-mouse hasn't been the standard in Unix for quite some time. I don't think it's ever been the default in Gnome or KDE. Is it the default on anything that isn't antiquated and/or super-niche (like FVWM or TWM, etc.)?
yason 15y ago
Haven't seen a default configuration of focus-follows-mouse for quite a while on any "big" Linux desktops. I always turn it on manually the first thing I touch a new system so it's not a big problem. However, a bigger problem is that finding a strict focus-follows-mouse is getting more difficult: for example Metacity can't do it, only sloppy focus-follows-mouse. But the strict one would be the real focus-follows-mouse: with that you never lose the focus unintentionally since the focus is always under the mouse cursor. With sloppy focus, a newly opened window might of might not steal the focus regardless of the mouse position, and I quite often find myself typing into the wrong window after that.

nimrody 15y ago

I haven't been tracking GIMP development for quite a while and couldn't find the information online. Does the current version of GIMP finally support non-destructive editing (adjustment layers)? Is GIMP still too slow for photo retouching?

blub 15y ago
No, the version that I'm using doesn't seem to support this so I duplicate the layer and work on the copy. As for slowness, it depends on what kind of retouching you are doing. I'm retouching mobile graphics assets, which are small enough and I haven't seen any lags. I image that things are very different when working with high quality photos...
wcoenen 15y ago
> Does the current version of GIMP finally support non-destructive editing (adjustment layers)? Layer effects are planned for Gimp 3.2. http://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap http://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap It will be achieved by integrating the GEGL library (http://www.gegl.org/ http://www.gegl.org/) which enables the use of OpenCL acceleration (http://www.khronos.org/opencl/ http://www.khronos.org/opencl/).

nodata 15y ago

Can you name some of these things that have been bothering you for the past nine months?

blub 15y ago
The biggest problem I have with GIMP is that it's not intuitive. Every time I open it I have to stop and think how I am supposed to do what I am trying to do, my work never flows. This has such an impact on my productivity that I'm desperately looking for alternatives that don't involve purchasing Photoshop - now looking at Pixelmator. Other members of the team have switched to Paint.NET or other simple editors, but they are too simple for me. Another problem that I have is with focus - sometimes the picture window loses input focus to one of the tool windows and then the keyboard shortcuts stop working. I have to click on the window and then use the shortcut, but when clicking the current tool will execute its action (such as paint a black blob in the middle of the layer), so I have to click outside the picture area (might be hard to do) or hunt for the title bar. Furthermore, when the tool windows have focus they control some of the widgets in the tool window, popping up subwindows or changing settings by accident. Yet another issue is text editing and selection. GIMP does not allow me to do live text-editing, instead it pops up a dialog box and I have to adjust the actual text rect in the background. Every time I click the text rect to adjust it the tool windows flicker into view for 0.5 seconds, very annoying. Selections are significantly harder to control compared to Photoshop, where you can do pretty much anything to a selection just by using the mouse and one or two keys. General UI problems: * dialogs that are too small * dialogs popping up over other dialogs * many dialogs that cover the image when shown and I have to move them out of the way * dialogs that sometimes remember their position, sometimes show up at apparently random locations * tool windows exiting the screen * tool fields that just look like they were thrown together without any thought to spacing, grouping and alignment (check out the rectangle select or the almost invisible spinner arrows for the layer transparency) * the layers tool window is especially difficult to use with a mouse (dragging & dropping, ordering, linking) * tools that reset their settings (e.g: move tool rests to pick a layer to move instead of move active) * general disregard for UI design that makes the UI look crowded (e.g layers tab icons) * the design choice of clipping layers to the visible image area, forcing you to resize the canvas and the layers unnecessarily I could go on and on and on. I can't remember using GIMP even once without being annoyed by something in the UI that breaks my work flow. The features I miss the most are adjustments layers, layer grouping (this is so painful when working with a lot of layers).

watmough 15y ago

If you're on a Mac or Linux, it's easy to switch to a click-through model where you don't have to click a window before selecting a tool. It renders GIMP usable on a Mac if you do this. Personally, I just haven't managed to get into Pixelmator, I always try, then end up running back to GIMP, and I'm not a heavy user of the program by any means, though I did do all the FemCal art in it. The biggest fix to GIMP right now should be to get 16-bit color depth working. 12-bit isn't a huge problem for me, but I can understand it holding people back who are doing lots of photo manipulation.