Re: [Gimp-user] Gimp interface sucks

[Steve Kinney <admin pilobilus net>]

On 12/19/2013 08:22 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 4:50 AM, Steve Kinney wrote:
>
> > To change the brush size during tablet use, it should be possible to
> > set up any unassigned keyboard shortcut to do the same thing in
> > whatever size steps suit the user's needs.  Caveat:  I have not done
> > this myself so I am only "presuming" it's an available option.
>
> To the best of my knowledge (that is, from what I see in the
> LinuxInput dialog in front of me), you can't combine keyboard buttons
> and LinuxInput (e.g. Wacom) events.

Humm, how about independent of tablet events?  I seem to recall that
when I was setting up alt-wheel events to increase and decrease
brush size, I was re-mapping existing keyboard shortcuts not
referencing any other input device.  I could be wrong...

[...]

> Simply put, many existing user interaction decisions in GIMP appear to
> be based on the obsolete idea that dialogs are a great UI for
> anything. But the world has moved on since then, and on-canvas
> controls have been the new norm for quite a while. E.g. if you ever
> used on-canvas gradient fill tool in Inkscape and then tried editing a
> gradient in GIMP, I bet you said a few words you'd be ashamed to
> repeat in front of children :)

I always did find the GIMP gradient editor somewhat anti-intuitive
and suck-ish around the edges.  I would probably use it more often
if it was not so...

> GIMP is getting there -- with new on-canvas progress indicator and a
> new text tool in 2.8, with Unified Transform tool and Warp Transform
> tool (which substitutes iWarp filter) in 2.10 etc. But it's going to
> take to become relevant again -- in terms of state-of-the-art UX
> solutions. Feathering of selections is just another example of
> on-canvas interaction clearly missing.

It would be great if the 2.8 text tool worked, but it still has some
deficiencies.  For example, selecting all active text then changing
the font in the tool dialog has no effect on the selected text.
(All GIMP 2.8.x'es so far on Mint in Cinnamon or Xfce desktop
sessions.)  That annoys me quite often of late.

Also, tear off menus do not seem to work on Cinnamon, Gnome and
Xfce; they tear off OK but to make a selection do anything, click to
highlight then press the space bar to actually issue the command.
Better users than I have reported great relief on discovering that
the space bar makes tear off windows useable.

There's always going to be lots of room for improvement, and
controversy, in anything as complex as the GIMP user interface.  But
on the whole I remain a happy camper.

:o)

Steve