Re: [Gimp-user] HATE the new save vs. export behavior

[Daniel Jensen <jensend iname com>]

First off, I'll say that I understand the rationale for the newer 
save/export behavior, and even if it needed to be tweaked a little to 
provide a better user experience it's best for devs to see how people 
adjust and look at how feedback develops over the next months rather 
than simply giving up on their vision and reverting immediately because 
of a few naysayers.

(Someone could argue that the GIMP could identify times when other 
formats will serve just as well as xcf and then allow for saving. For 
instance, if you load a png, do a bunch of editing, and arrive at 
something that has only one layer, "saving" as png might seem 
appropriate. OpenRaster especially would usually do fine as a "save" 
format. But this might lead to complications, esp. because allowing 
saves to "weaker" lossless formats whenever you aren't using things that 
format is missing would mean whether you can save in your original 
format could change a lot during the course of editing an image.)

My main reason for writing here is to warn about the elitist attitude 
starting to show itself, which would harm the project in the long run. 
It's fine to target high-end use, but acting as though uses fall into 
two sharply distinct categories of "high-end" and "casual" and that one 
kind of user always uses it in "high-end" ways while others always use 
it in "casual" ways is totally farcical and counterproductive. The truth 
of the matter is that there is no sharp distinction. It's a continuum, 
both among uses and among users. Even a professional user may often want 
to use their favorite image editor to take care of some work that 
doesn't really require "high-end" capabilities. Appeal to the most 
technical professional users isn't a dominating reason for Photoshop's 
huge success or for whatever popularity the GIMP now enjoys. That 
success is at least as much because they give users whose needs could 
usually have been satisfied by something simpler an app with room to 
grow -- and the confidence that if something they're working on proves 
to be more demanding they won't be suddenly crashing against the 
limitations of their software.

Saying "Look, your use case means you might not understand the reasons 
behind our design decision right now" is perfectly fine. But some posts 
here have gotten way too close to "You're not 'high-end' enough to be a 
gimp user, so go away" which is destructive.