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

As for the value sliders in Gimp. There was no need to have that dual
slider or that awkward way of having the numerical input above those dual
sliders making selecting these things fiddly. One slider would have
sufficed with key commands to shift it in various increments.

On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 03:38, Ryan Stark <effluxion googlemail com> wrote:


Ofnuts. Some of the choices on Linux are fine like desktop environments
but when it comes to the actual programs, having competing programs is
damaging because there aren't enough developers as it is. If another open
source 3D app competed with Blender that would draw coders away. Competing
for business in the commercial world makes sense. For open source software,
collaboration should be the key. Mypaint is different from Gimp because
obviously the brush engine is unique but if Gimp was better Krita would not
be needed in my opinion. This is how audio programs gotdamaged on Linux.
Several competing projects. Developers didn't do a good job of designing
the apps and no amount of user suggestions were listened to. Ardour should
have been the open source DAW but will never ever compete now partly due to
the arrogant style of development ethos. Open source audio is now
completely dead because vastly superior commercial apps moved onto Linux.
There is absolutely no way now for an open source project to compete with
running for example Reaper on Linux.

There are only two seriously viable 2D graphics apps now on Linux in my
opinion. Mypaint and Inkscape because they are completely different from
other commercial software. Gimp tries to be Photoshop but is sadly failing
to achieve this. I hope things can be improved in Gimp but it needs to
become more unique.

As for doing artwork in Gimp compared to another programs, lets say Clip
Paint Studio or even Photoshop. You might be able to find some decent Gimp
work but it won't match that done in these other apps mainly because in
Gimp it would take you multiple times longer and hence not very creatively
inspiring. Clip Paint Studio and Photoshop have their own problems so I'm
no huge fan of either but they are usable. Of all the apps I have used for
any kind of drawing or painting work, there are three really good ones
because the design is generally good even if simple. Those are Mypaint,
Mischief and Procreate on an iPad. Procreate obviously has quite a few
tools now and has a powerful and fast brush engine but workflow has been
kept simple which is a key component of the design. Mypaint has a unique
brush engine and the new features being added are really great. Mischief is
another unique app in that it is vector. It has the most beautiful and
smooth pen feel of any program I ever used. Sadly development was
discontinued. Other programs are like working in a UI traffic jam and this
is not because many of them aren't centred around drawing or painting, it
is because they are just poorly designed.

Saying that a bezier tool is somehow a step further than a simple tool to
draw straight lines is the sort of crazy idea that is exactly the problem
with Gimp. In Photoshop and other apps you click a key command and draw a
single line or lots of lines anywhere without even seeing any tool on the
canvas. It seems that in Gimp such a simple idea wasn't thought of. The
shift command for drawing straight lines in Gimp doesn't achieve the same
very simple task.

On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 00:43, Simon Budig <simon budig de> wrote:


Hi Ryan.

Your collection of pet peeves is impressive. Yet I believe that your
generalization that they must affect everybody is blown way out of
proportion.

Ryan Stark via gimp-developer-list (gimp-developer-list gnome org) wrote:

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.


Why not go a step further? Have e.g. bezier shaped guides you could
manipulate freely? Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Wait, thats already there. Never mind. What was your point again?


Applying any dynamics to a brush causes Gimp to go at an absolute

snail's

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

available?

This makes Gimp look very poor to any new user.


Brushes and Patterns may get referenced by user scripts. We consider it
a bad thing to break compatibility for no good reason (and "someone
might not like this pattern" is not a good reason).

Suggestions for new good patterns with a clear and unambigous statement
about them being in the public domain are welcome.


The little sliders to
adjust values are not very good and text entry is horrible.


Please elaborate.


You can't go
from from single window mode to multiple without your layout being

messed

up.


Works for me. What window manager do you use?


Having a UI like this without being able to save your windows layouts
is crazy.


My window layout gets remembered. Again: What window manager do you
use?


I've encountered many bugs and a few crashes in Gimp 2.10 which
never used to happen. 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.


Gimp 2.10 is pretty much rock solid for me. No idea what you're
witnessing.


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.
As for any contribution I could make, that would only be with using

Gimp as

a painting app and the brushes because I've been through the brush

engines

of just about every app out there. This is why I like Mypaint and the

new

features. However, every time I try to use Gimp I end up in other

programs,

including Clip Paint Studio which I run in Wine. I would much rather use
Gimp.


But why don't you use the tool that works best for you? Why do you
insist on using Gimp if it is as bad as you claim it to be?

If Clip Paint Studio does everything you need, why switch?

And I do mean this: I stopped evangelizing in favor of Gimp ages ago. If
someone is happy with a tool there is nothing to gain to convince them
to use a different tool, it always results in frustration about the fact
that GIMP is different from the other tool.

And it also leads to a lot of frustration on the developer side, because
we then do get the pressure to align GIMP with the behaviour of the
random other tool, because that is the one true way (tm) on how certain
workflows have to work.


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. 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.


That is true and this matches our experience. We have a ton of bad
decisions in the GIMP codebase (Images are always 8-bit RGB, right?) and
their legacy haunts us to this very day, although a lot of progress has
been made in the last few years. As for not using our own tool
ourselves: we do know that we have that kind of blind spot, but then we
also have the dialog with our users.

And if the lack of diagonal guides would be as neck-breaking as you make
it sound then we'd have a ton of feedback from all kinds of users about
it. We do have tons of users and it is not very hard to find quite
positive reviews of GIMP. The lack of diagonal guides is not a common
talking point. Neither is the selection of default brushes or weird
behaviour of the gui window management.

I suspect that the problems you see as absolutely crucial are quite
irrelevant for others and easily compensated by the ton of other
features where Gimp works quite well for them. Please try to consider
that before claiming that GIMP is doomed because we do have bad default
brushes.

Thank you.
        Simon

--
              simon budig de              http://simon.budig.de/
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