[Gimp-gui] UI also for nonexperts would be helpful

[Nick Levinson <nick_levinson yahoo com>]

Occasional users, not just newbies, are probably a large part of your user base. I'm an occasional user and it's frustrating to use GIMP 2.8.16 on openSuse 13.2 Linux (kept evergreen) for an hour and still get nothing done. Yet, I propose preserving all of the expert-level capabilities GIMP now offers.

--- I try to get a one-pixel brush or pencil but find out from Googling that you disabled that because only scripts should have single-pixel control, so that means I'd have to write a script and for that I'd have to learn a scripting language just to use GIMP, and that round of single-purpose learning probably means hours before I'm productive again.

--- There's no color picker (the kind that shows all of the colors so I can click on a colored pixel for exactly the color I want and maybe also see a numerical description of its components for future use) obvious in the user interface and I have to find and use some color feature that achieves the same thing but without seeing all of the colors even if the dialog offers a preview and the preview option is checkmarked on, and most color features apparently don't support choosing a color from anything like a fully-visual display. If I find it, the next time I need it I don't remember where it was and relying on the menus to tell me is hopeless. (The kind that shows only 3-6 solid patches and tells me to enter numbers for my desired shade is not much use unless I'm online using someone else's website to find possible choices.)

--- The color picker tool (the kind that looks like an eye-dipper) was, I thought, supposed to work from anywhere on the screen, but it doesn't work outside of the possible canvas/layer area, so I can't pick a gray from the GIMP icon on a visible desktop panel.

--- I wanted to change a background around black text from white to gray but the bucket and the pencil refused except within a selection, so I created a new layer, selected all of it, made it gray, and merged the layers, a kludgy workaround.

--- One of the commands for layers is in some menu other than the Layer menu, so anytime I want some kind of command that I don't see in the obvious place I probably search most of the menus for commands in unexpected menus. Many menu items are duplicated in a couple of menus, so that could be done with the unexpected layer command, if the non-layer menu is also appropriate for some reason.

--- Some features are available only through toolboxes and GIMP I think has several, but apparently no command opens all of them and they don't open by default.

--- I've given up on using the built-in help to refresh myself on basic concepts that would lead to menu items and instead have to Google, which means I likely can't use GIMP if I can't go online from some building or outside. I make kludges but don't always get the designs I want, only compromises. I wanted to make a picture frame as if lit from an angle, but settled on an unlit frame instead.

Granted that the user interface is going to be designed for efficiency for expert users and schools may have classes, but even most of the people who have reasons to eventually become experts are first either newbies or occasional users. The UI can be designed for both groups of users. This would expand the user base and that, in turn, would expand the developer base. While I have not attempted using GIMP's main proprietary competitor in years and that was version 3, what I see in operating systems is that the market dominator, despite its various problems, tends to be relatively friendlier to users and that probably helps with market share. I looked at Inkscape but, based on a brief time, it wasn't easier to learn and I installed Karbon but it didn't launch or appear when it should have, suggesting a technical problem. That means there's room for GIMP to be developed for nonexperts without sacrificing growth for highly skilled users. While some expert users would be annoyed to have the riff-raff or rabble able to use GIMP alongside experts (I've run into this with other software), GIMP need not be crippled by adding user-friendliness to its technical capacity.

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Nick