Re: [Gimp-user] Close buttons and Single Window mode

[Jehan Pagès <jehan marmottard gmail com>]

Hi,

On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 9:37 AM, Liam R E Quin <liam holoweb net> wrote:
> On Tue, 2013-12-10 at 10:56 -0800, Richard wrote:
>
> > I noticed this recently, too, that in SWM when you hit the Close
> > button on the application window it issues a Quit command (Ctrl+Q)
> > when previously it issued a Close (Ctrl+W) command.
> >
> > In some cases this is useful behavior but in others it is not. :(
>
> In particular it's now harder to close the last image without quitting
> gimp - you have to remember to use File->close, not click on the [x].
>
> I think of the current SWM as being an experiment with some major flaws.

Well, maybe that's why it is still not the default in GIMP. The
default is still the good old Multi-Window mode legacy. :-)

> E.g. you can't have multiple views of the same image displayed at the
> same time, a significant loss in functionality especially when doing
> colour proofing.

Yes, this is a known feature request.
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=622625
Our main UI designer has some idea about this, what he calls
"polaroid" in this blog post:
http://blog.mmiworks.net/2009/09/gimp-single-mode.html

> There are some oddities - e.g. after exporting as jpeg, gimp goes back
> to the wrong image in the case that your image has layers or
> transparency and you enabled image preview in the jpeg export dialogue -
> and confusion between close view and close image and close application.

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you are saying. Are you saying
that in some cases, after an export, the foreground image is not the
one which was just exported but another one? If so, that looks like a
bug, and I would advise to open a bug report with accurate
reproduction steps (you seem to have one).

> For me the ability to have the toolbox docked to the image is a major
> win.
>
> Because I tend to have two or three projects active at the same time,
> I'd really like to have two or three separate gimp windows, each with
> their own current directory for save/import/export, but running multiple
> instances of gimp seems to mean things like the xsane plugin (can only
> have one active) and the recent image folder become problematic.

I think there must be a feature request somewhere about something like
this too. I agree that would be nice.

> This is all a wordy way of saying I think SWM needs a bit of a rethink,
> both in the implementation and in the actual spec. The implementation
> was very incomplete but gave us enough practical experience to see some
> areas where the spec could be improved upon and made even better :)

There is definitely place for improvement. Now what we need is more
developers. :-)

> Introducing the concept of a Project might be a lot of work, but has the
> potential to clear up a lot of save/export confusion too - a project
> being a collection of zero or more images, with associated settings,
> resources, preferences. But I don't know that's where GIMP wants to
> go :-)

I never heard of such an idea, but I don't know the full list of ideas
that came in GIMP history. If this idea has been raised, maybe you can
find it on the brainstorm blog: http://gimp-brainstorm.blogspot.co.nz/
Or the GUI wiki: http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/GIMP_UI_Redesign

They were not very active lately, but they may come to be again.

> In the short term, reverting the change on the close button might be
> nice.

As explained in my previous email, I doubt we would change it. At
least, I definitely won't be the one to push such a change. The
"close" button (usually a small cross) has a specific meaning, which
is the same accross absolutely all platforms, and the exact reason why
you even call it *close* button: it is meant to close a window
(optionally after intermediary steps, like asking you if you want to
save your image or anything else which may risk data loss, which is
application-specific).

The fact that it was only and "sometimes" closing a single tab before
was a bug of the very recent single window mode, even though users may
have gotten used to it while it existed. This is inconsistent
behavior, and this is not because users get used to bugs that they
should suddenly become features. This is my opinion on the matter.

Regards,

Jehan

> Liam
>
> --
> Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
> Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
> Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml
>
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