3 ms·

GIMP is great software with sometimes less-than-great UX. I wonder if a project that replaces the "chrome" of GIMP with a different UX would be viable. Imagine

by nine_k 2y ago

GIMP is great software with sometimes less-than-great UX. I wonder if a project that replaces the "chrome" of GIMP with a different UX would be viable. Imagine a reworked menu / shortcut / dialog system that controls the unchanged core. Even better, imagine UI and UX to be live-tweakable, written in Python / Lua / Guile / you name it. That would make discovering better UI layouts and better UX flows absurdly easier. (Yes, as an Emacs user, I want more software to be like Emacs.)

nomilk 2y ago
I like your first idea (new UX layer over unchanged core) more than the second (fully customisable), although they're not mutually exclusive. An understated benefit of a consistent UI is if the user gets stuck and searches how to do XYZ, often an LLM or search engine will give an accurate answer as it's been answered before in forums etc. But if the UI changes every few months, there's often no answer.
- nine_k 2y ago
  It's always the same trade-off between having a uniform experience and the ability to fix unfortunate decisions more easily. The UI default shipped should not materially (if any) change every few months. But power users should be able to tweak the UI and UX even more, and publish their tweaks. Some sets of tweaks might become popular among other power users, and the best finds could find their way upstream. What I strive to achieve is speeding up the process of UI evolution, of finding better approaches to UI and UX. This may be enabled by an ability to tweak UI/UX without recompiling the whole thing, and by not having to write the UI/UX in a low-level footgun-ridden language which is C. Even now GIMP allows for quite a bit of customization within its built-in UX. The untweaked, vanilla experience should be good enough, stable, and the norm for non-advanced users, very much like the current UX. For a battle-tested example, look at MS Office. You can tweak its UI in rather drastic ways; I've seen VBA apps that make Excel barely recognizable, while harnessing its power. But most users never ever alter a single button on a single toolbar, and are fine following video guides showing where to click.
- wruza 2y ago
  For the latter you make a special “dialog” that has all the features in a single list. You make it anyway, because it’s a part of ui customization menu, but this one is separate, for search uses.
  - nine_k 2y ago
    Have you tried pressing the "/" key, BTW? It's an easier way to search.
    - wruza 2y ago
      Pressing where, in gimp? I was talking about an average app with customizable ui. But in general, search can’t replace a list because search is not discoverable. You can only search for what you know and remember and you may not remember e.g. “Morphology…” until you see it in that section, how was it again. More generally, and just as a tangential sentiment, I don’t understand the last decade trends of dumbing down apps and removing (/not adding) features because X is enough. Back in the day we had full dialogs called by a shortcut and having searches, menu builders, etc. Nowadays everyone tries to sell only a shortcut, or only a filter, or only nothing. But why-y? Humans have multiple mechanisms of memory and orientation (and these may heavily vary across population) and people are throwing it away deliberately.
Elv13 2y ago
It was tried before (gimpshop)
- nine_k 2y ago
  I remember Gimpshop, and I think it was a good experiment. I also think that the effort to create such experiments should be made lower: supported, reasonably future-proof code that runs within the host application, instead of a laboriously maintained fork.
imhoguy 2y ago
There is PhotoGIMP https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP patch intended to make GIMP UX mimic Photoshop's.
- therein 2y ago
  I wish that had an OSX build.
- irrational 2y ago
  That sounds perfect, but it looks like it only supports linux and windows. I'm on a macbook.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- raffraffraff 2y ago
  Reminds me of Gimpshop. I just checked to see if that's still maintained, and now I feel old...
emporas 2y ago
With script-fu or python-fu you can make menus sub-menus and similar UX adjustments. I also make a command, and just run it using slash: /command. Better than clicking around but not live-tweakable, you have to refresh scripts first. In case of some plugin errors, sometimes Gimp just dies, which is a problem when trying to develop the plugin. Script-fu plugin experience is definitely not great, but it has the potential to customize stuff. Script-fu however it totally limited, it cannot access files, it cannot do anything outside of Gimp in contrast to Elisp. I wonder why that is, security reasons, as a protection from malicious plugins? Python-fu is another option, I haven't used it but i want try it at some point. When i find some simple examples of python-fu code to learn from, I want dive into it a little bit.
- Vinnl 2y ago
  I don't think the UX can be fixed by only adding things.
  - emporas 2y ago
    Indeed, but you can get used to navigating around different functionality using default shortcuts and custom commands. Not everything can be automated, but some things can, and that's the point.
whywhywhywhy 2y ago
Just start from scratch at that point, is there much of value in the core of GIMP? It’s all pretty antiquated and very 90s-00s level in terms of capabilities. Not even talking AI more talking text editing and non-destructive processes and GPU acceleration. I know 3.0 aims to address some of this but it’s too little too late and you wouldn’t get much benefit being downstream from a low output team.
- nine_k 2y ago
  I think there is a lot of valuable things in the engine part: data presentation, tools, filters, non-destructive editing, etc. I wish GIMP had a "narrow waist" at this level, like games are usually split between levels and scripts and the engine, or compilers are split between parsing / syntax / high-level concerns and code generation at the intermediate language representation (the part "below waist" is often LLVM).
  - whywhywhywhy 2y ago
    > filters, non-destructive editing It just isn't the foundation you'd build on if you valued these things, they only added non-destructive recently it's not like it was core from the start, there's many other projects you could build upon that have this at their core. Krita or honestly even Blenders shader graph would be a better and more modern starting point if that's what you wanted and you'd have a more active base where you're going to get value downstream in optimizations and more filters on a timeline that isn't multiple decades.
ParetoOptimal 2y ago
Something for gimp like organic maps does for osmand would be great.
hallarempt 2y ago
That was first tried in 1998, at the Linux Kongress, in the KImp presentation. All links to that seem to have died in the 27 years since then.

by nine_k 2y ago

nomilk 2y ago

I like your first idea (new UX layer over unchanged core) more than the second (fully customisable), although they're not mutually exclusive. An understated benefit of a consistent UI is if the user gets stuck and searches how to do XYZ, often an LLM or search engine will give an accurate answer as it's been answered before in forums etc. But if the UI changes every few months, there's often no answer.

nine_k 2y ago
It's always the same trade-off between having a uniform experience and the ability to fix unfortunate decisions more easily. The UI default shipped should not materially (if any) change every few months. But power users should be able to tweak the UI and UX even more, and publish their tweaks. Some sets of tweaks might become popular among other power users, and the best finds could find their way upstream. What I strive to achieve is speeding up the process of UI evolution, of finding better approaches to UI and UX. This may be enabled by an ability to tweak UI/UX without recompiling the whole thing, and by not having to write the UI/UX in a low-level footgun-ridden language which is C. Even now GIMP allows for quite a bit of customization within its built-in UX. The untweaked, vanilla experience should be good enough, stable, and the norm for non-advanced users, very much like the current UX. For a battle-tested example, look at MS Office. You can tweak its UI in rather drastic ways; I've seen VBA apps that make Excel barely recognizable, while harnessing its power. But most users never ever alter a single button on a single toolbar, and are fine following video guides showing where to click.
wruza 2y ago
For the latter you make a special “dialog” that has all the features in a single list. You make it anyway, because it’s a part of ui customization menu, but this one is separate, for search uses.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Have you tried pressing the "/" key, BTW? It's an easier way to search.
  - wruza 2y ago
    Pressing where, in gimp? I was talking about an average app with customizable ui. But in general, search can’t replace a list because search is not discoverable. You can only search for what you know and remember and you may not remember e.g. “Morphology…” until you see it in that section, how was it again. More generally, and just as a tangential sentiment, I don’t understand the last decade trends of dumbing down apps and removing (/not adding) features because X is enough. Back in the day we had full dialogs called by a shortcut and having searches, menu builders, etc. Nowadays everyone tries to sell only a shortcut, or only a filter, or only nothing. But why-y? Humans have multiple mechanisms of memory and orientation (and these may heavily vary across population) and people are throwing it away deliberately.

Elv13 2y ago

It was tried before (gimpshop)

nine_k 2y ago
I remember Gimpshop, and I think it was a good experiment. I also think that the effort to create such experiments should be made lower: supported, reasonably future-proof code that runs within the host application, instead of a laboriously maintained fork.

imhoguy 2y ago

There is PhotoGIMP https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP patch intended to make GIMP UX mimic Photoshop's.

therein 2y ago
I wish that had an OSX build.
irrational 2y ago
That sounds perfect, but it looks like it only supports linux and windows. I'm on a macbook.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
raffraffraff 2y ago
Reminds me of Gimpshop. I just checked to see if that's still maintained, and now I feel old...

emporas 2y ago

With script-fu or python-fu you can make menus sub-menus and similar UX adjustments. I also make a command, and just run it using slash: /command. Better than clicking around but not live-tweakable, you have to refresh scripts first. In case of some plugin errors, sometimes Gimp just dies, which is a problem when trying to develop the plugin. Script-fu plugin experience is definitely not great, but it has the potential to customize stuff. Script-fu however it totally limited, it cannot access files, it cannot do anything outside of Gimp in contrast to Elisp. I wonder why that is, security reasons, as a protection from malicious plugins? Python-fu is another option, I haven't used it but i want try it at some point. When i find some simple examples of python-fu code to learn from, I want dive into it a little bit.

Vinnl 2y ago
I don't think the UX can be fixed by only adding things.
- emporas 2y ago
  Indeed, but you can get used to navigating around different functionality using default shortcuts and custom commands. Not everything can be automated, but some things can, and that's the point.

whywhywhywhy 2y ago

Just start from scratch at that point, is there much of value in the core of GIMP? It’s all pretty antiquated and very 90s-00s level in terms of capabilities. Not even talking AI more talking text editing and non-destructive processes and GPU acceleration. I know 3.0 aims to address some of this but it’s too little too late and you wouldn’t get much benefit being downstream from a low output team.

nine_k 2y ago
I think there is a lot of valuable things in the engine part: data presentation, tools, filters, non-destructive editing, etc. I wish GIMP had a "narrow waist" at this level, like games are usually split between levels and scripts and the engine, or compilers are split between parsing / syntax / high-level concerns and code generation at the intermediate language representation (the part "below waist" is often LLVM).
- whywhywhywhy 2y ago
  > filters, non-destructive editing It just isn't the foundation you'd build on if you valued these things, they only added non-destructive recently it's not like it was core from the start, there's many other projects you could build upon that have this at their core. Krita or honestly even Blenders shader graph would be a better and more modern starting point if that's what you wanted and you'd have a more active base where you're going to get value downstream in optimizations and more filters on a timeline that isn't multiple decades.

ParetoOptimal 2y ago

Something for gimp like organic maps does for osmand would be great.

hallarempt 2y ago

That was first tried in 1998, at the Linux Kongress, in the KImp presentation. All links to that seem to have died in the 27 years since then.