Re: [Gimp-developer] [Gimp-web] Alexandre Prokoudine attacks on GIMP critics around the Web

[Alexandre Prokoudine <alexandre prokoudine gmail com>]

On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 2:09 AM Ryan Stark wrote:

> Gimp should be usable as a painting program just like Photoshop is.

We can have a nice long argument about that, because I can show you
artwork made with GIMP, and you wouldn't be able to tell if it was
done with GIMP, Krita, Painter, or Photoshop :)

> So many of Gimp's features seem unfinished. For example, look at the guides. There are horizontal and 
> vertical guides similar to Inkscape in operation yet no diagonal guides which would be an obvious addition.

It's on the roadmap. This is simply the question of having the manpower.

> Applying any dynamics to a brush causes Gimp to go at an absolute snail's pace. Why?

What brush size?

> And why on earth are all those hideous brushes, patterns etc still included in Gimp when there are other 
> better and free ones available?

Some of the "hideous brushes" come from the GIMP Paint Studio project
which people used to love with a capital L :) The others (from G-P-S)
haven't been merged, because the only person who decided to spend time
on this hasn't yet finished what he started -- for reasons I'm not
aware of (probably just busy).

This is really simple. If you want something improved, there are
basically three options: wait till someone does it, hire someone to do
it, or do it yourself.

Every single person in this project (including me) got involved with
GIMP in their respective roles because we wanted something that GIMP
didn't have, and waiting wasn't an option.

If you are interested in updating the default assets like patterns
(with free-as-in-speech licensed content), you are welcome to do
exactly that. We'll insist on keeping the bell pepper though, for
hysterical raisins :)

> You can't go from from single window mode to multiple without your layout being messed up.

I've just done exactly that to verify your statement, and nothing
broke. I'm on Ubuntu 18.10 and GNOME/Wayland, with GIMP from
up-to-date 'gimp-2-10' git branch (haven't seen anything like what you
described for as long as I can remember though). More details (with
screenshots) would be helpful, and possibly in the bug tracker.

> For example there is some kind of problem where certain actions with a mouse or pen causes docked tabs to 
> constantly break free without reason.

If this can be reproduced, it should be reported.

> The problem is that some people may be prepared for a few problems, report a few bugs etc but then it just 
> gets tedious and they move to another app. I believe many will do this with Gimp.

Yes, but we can't fix bugs we aren't told about.

> What are the solutions to these problems? I don't really know but i think once some bad design decisions 
> are made with an app it is very hard to fix things.

Undoing bad design decision was a major part of 2.10 development cycle
and continues to be in the master branch leading up to v3.0.

> The developers or at least some developer who has a vision on how to improve things is the most crucial 
> component. I think the problem with a lot of software is that the developers do not use the software 
> extensively or study how other programs do things.

End-users tend to expect developers to do all sorts of things, from
writing user manuals to making builds for every single possible Linux
flavor out there. While developers tend to lack the time to do actual
programming, let alone all those nice things you are talking about.
This is why we treasure good, sensible bug reports and feature
requests explaining why something is wrong and what are the options of
improving on that.

Alex