Re: [Gimp-developer] Bring back normal handling of other file formats

[Jon Nordby <jononor gmail com>]

On 21 June 2012 10:48, Karl Günter Wünsch <kgw mineralien-verkauf de> wrote:
> On 21/06/12 10:20, Thorsten Wilms wrote:
>> You already mentioned habit. Having such an option would allow you to
>> keep what is now a bad habit (to not discern between saving the work and
>> exporting), instead of forming a new, productive one.
> IMHO the distinction between saving and exporting is an artificial one
> no one
> really should need to care about.

This is the goal to strive for. I think everyone agrees on that. This
is however not something we can achieve within a month or two.
Currently, and for the immediate future, there is a difference between
export and save in GIMP, due to the following facts:
[save]: only XCF can store all the information about the document
which you have produced. Not storing as XCF means you lose/destroy
data
[export]: there is a common need for exporting to PNG/TIFF etc. -
because XCF documents are not supported everywhere

With these current facts, I do not think we shall try to deceive the
user into thinking that save and export is the same. They are not and
the consequence for mixing them up can result in a loss of data. None
of these facts are unchangeable however.

We can improve the situation for [export] by identifying in which
work-flows people commonly use GIMP and export, and work to simply
eliminate the need to care about the PNG/JPEG/TIFF file. For example
the user might export to be able to view or work on the document in
another libre graphics application. A strategy to get rid of that
already exists, just make them support XCF:
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gegl-developer-list/2012-June/msg00003.html

Another common workflow might be to export a document to get it onto
the web. We can eliminate the problem here by creating "export
handler" that will let you upload directly, from within GIMP, to
online services like Wordpress, Picasa, Facebook and similar.

Considering the [save] situation, there is a technical specification
GEGL that can help things. Realizing it would make it possible for
GIMP to implement a workflow where saving explicitly is never needed.
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gegl-developer-list/2012-June/msg00004.html

I encourage everyone who wish to contribute to the future of GIMP to
find ways to help realize these or other strategies fix the
fundamental problems at hand. Arguing about the keyboard shortcut used
for export does nothing to positively improve the situation in any
significant way. In fact it kills the motivation of developers who are
putting sizable parts of their life into creating, maintaining and
improving GIMP. When you kill motivation in volunteer-driven project,
you are not just destroying someones hobby - the project will
eventually stagnate, wither and die.

I am done arguing. Lets work to make GIMP-based workflows that
currently include export/save inefficiencies better.

-- 
Jon Nordby - www.jonnor.com