[Gimp-user] User experience: texttool and drawing circles

[Wouter Meijer <oerwouter telfort nl>]

Hi,

It's not completely clear to me where to go with my user-experience; I 
hope to contribute to make Gimp better with it, but not sure if the 
developer list is for that, so thats why I post it here. I really like 
Gimp and Open Source, greatly appreciate the work thats been done and I 
also made a donation. But there are some things that I just don't 
understand why it works like it does. So I've taken the time to describe 
my findings with the way the texttool works in Gimp and also drawing 
circles. Some things may be solvable by working through the manual, but 
I think basic stuff like this should be intuitive in software to attract 
new users (I am not a dev but I do have a lot of experience in training 
end-users in software). I described my actions as precise as possible 
and they should be recreatable by anyone. I used Gimp version 2.8.14 on 
a W7 64 system.

Hope it helps,
Kind regards,
Wouter

--

TEXTTOOL
I create a new 800x800 image. I select the text tool. I type text 
"Example". Now I want to set my fontsize bigger so I use the fontsize 
box in the semitransparent text toolbox to set it to 84.
At this moment I expect the text in the box to get bigger, I did not 
select any text, so the most common thing a user wants at this point is 
to enlarge all text in the box. Maybe sometimes the user only wants the 
typed text after enlargement to get larger, but this is quite uncommon. 
I think in 95% of the cases people don't use different fonts/fontsize in 
one textbox, but use separate textboxes for different text.
So, ok, I select all text and THEN change the fontsize.
Now I want to change the font (current font is Sans), text is still 
selected. I click in the fontname (in the semitransparent text toolbox) 
and I expect a list of fonts to appear, but the only thing that happens 
is I get a blinking cursor in the name of the font (why? does the 
software thinks I want to edit the fontname?). So I have to use 
backspace and delete to remove the fontname Sans but also then no other 
fonts appear. I start to type the letter H and now fonts with the letter 
H appear (yes I could do this faster by doubleclicking and typing H but 
if the fontname has more words, even doubleclicking doesn't work because 
it selects just one word). So I see the H fonts but it's impossible to 
scroll through the fonts with starting with other letters! So I go to 
the Tool Options panel and if I click on the font button I can scroll 
through all the fonts. I click one e.g. Tempus Sans ITC, but the text in 
the box stays in font Sans! Also the fontsize in the Tool Options panel 
still shows fontsize 18 while I already enlarged the text to 84. Other 
controls like alignment do effect the text.
Because I've used Gimp before, I know how to deal with these issues, but 
still it's quite irritating, why make it so complicated?

What I would love is...:
- When I have typed text and didn't make any selection, all the controls 
effect all of the text in the box (fontsize, font, kerning etc)
- If there appears an additional toolbox close to the text, it is 
synchone to the Tool Options I see on the left of my screen, so same 
font, fontsize etc.
- When I click in the fontbox, a list with fonts appears, and when I 
hover anyone of these fonts, I see the typed text change to that font so 
I scan very quickly which font I like the best for my text. Even if I 
selected my text, while I am hovering fonts the highlighting of the 
selected text temporarily disappears so I can see how it looks like with 
the colors I set, as highlighting changes the color of the text and the 
background. Also, the list of  fonts should not cover my typed text, so 
I can see the effect. (like it is now, it takes ages to find the best 
font in Gimp)
- When I use the handles in the corner of the textbox, I would expect an 
option to let the fontsize change while I change the size of the box, 
either while holding Control or Shift. In that way it's would be very 
easy to change fontsize and see the results.

DRAWING CIRCLES
I am always fighting with drawing a simple circle in Gimp...

So I create a new 800x800 image. I select the Ellipse tool. I start 
selecting in the image, then hold Shift (havent moved the mouse yet), 
and now I should get a circle if I start moving the mouse. But it 
doesn't, I can make a 235x217 ellipse. The next time I try to make a 
circle, it appears that the shape is fixed to the first ellipse I 
created, in the sense that the ratio is the same but I can change the 
size; no circle.
This doesn't always happen like this, sometimes I can draw circles, 
sometimes any shape, sometimes a fixed ratio ellipse but not a circle. 
Very confusing, still haven't figured it out and I used Gimp quite some 
time now. Imagine how it is for new users.

I would really love it when this behaviour of the Ellipse tool is always 
the same. If you click, then hold shift (or maybe better: first hold 
shift and then start selecting) it always makes a circle.

OTHER COMMENT
As I went to look up how to draw a circle via Help F1, I couldn't find 
it because there's no search option in de Help section. Also I ctrl-F-ed 
"circle" but no results. Via the context help, Ellipse-tool I could find 
it, but it would be nice if you can search the manual easily.