Hi Ellen,

Ellen Reitmayr wrote:

Roman and I wrote the report of the usability tests we conducted in may. It includes descriptions of problems the users were faced while interacting with the software, as well as possible solutions.

As the wiki is still down, please read the full report on

http://www.relevantive.de/gimp/report/results_usabilitytest_05.04.html

I had a quick look through this, and it looks great. I'm sure that I'll have more comments later, I just wanted to thank yourself & Roman for all your work, and I hope that we can get many of your reccommendations into the GIMP soon.

Cheers,
Dave.

ellen.reitmayr@relevantive.de (2004-06-04 at 1337.31 +0200):

http://www.relevantive.de/gimp/report/results_usabilitytest_05.04.html - Clearly mark the current layer

I do not understand what does that mean, it seems to be marked, and the name shown too in the default config for status bar string. Take for example:

http://www.gimp.org/screenshots/linux_screenshot2.png http://www.gimp.org/screenshots/windowsxp_screenshot3.png http://www.gimp.org/screenshots/macosx_screenshot1.png

Or is this a problem of translating the report?

GSR

On Fri, Jun 04, 2004 at 02:59:37PM +0200, GSR - FR wrote:

ellen.reitmayr@relevantive.de (2004-06-04 at 1337.31 +0200):

http://www.relevantive.de/gimp/report/results_usabilitytest_05.04.html - Clearly mark the current layer

Or is this a problem of translating the report?

No - this seems to be an issue of the default SuSE theme. The tests were made on a SuSE distribution with an installed GIMP 2.0. They're using QT and GTK+ themes together and it seems, that something is broken there.

Greetings,

Hi,

GSR - FR writes:

- Clearly mark the current layer

I do not understand what does that mean, it seems to be marked, and the name shown too in the default config for status bar string. Take for example:

http://www.gimp.org/screenshots/linux_screenshot2.png http://www.gimp.org/screenshots/windowsxp_screenshot3.png http://www.gimp.org/screenshots/macosx_screenshot1.png

Or is this a problem of translating the report?

It is a problem of the GTK+ theme that has been used. Someone needs to seriously kick SuSE's ass to have them fix the theme they ship by default. Of course with such a broken theme GIMP is hardly usable at all.

Sven

Ellen Reitmayr (ellen.reitmayr@relevantive.de) wrote:

6. Path tool
- The modes make the usage cumbersome

I (naturally :-) have some comments about the path section in the test.

You suggest to : Re-organise the three modes 'Design', 'Edit', 'Move': 'Design' stays : the same (adds points, forms the shapes), 'Edit' is renamed to 'Remove' : (removes points, corresponds to the delete key or 'shift'), 'Move' stays : the same (corresponds to the 'alt' key). Apply buttons for each mode, : and add tooltips that communicate the shortcuts.

The "Edit" mode is not only about deleting, thats why it was hard for me to come up with a proper name, that is distinct enough from "Design".

In the Edit mode you can *add* points on a segment. You can *add* a segment to the path when a single endpoint is selected and you click on the other one (this btw. is the same as connecting start- and endpoints, which you wrongly describe in the report as "Design mode + CTRL", when looking at the tool options you'll realize that CTRL is a shortcut for switching into the Edit mode)

Pressing SHIFT in the Edit mode changes it from *add*ing to *deleting*, i.e. deleting nodes works by SHIFT clicking on the nodes (you can use SHIFT+CTRL to switch to the edit mode temporarily when you are in design mode), deleting segments (i.e. splitting up a path) works by SHIFT-clicking on the segment in question.

Thats why it is not really an option to rename the Edit mode to "Remove" mode, that simply isn't the reality.

I agree that the discoverability of the path tool has to be enhanced, but I am unsure how.

You go on: : Allow the delete key to delete points.

Thats indeed a wish I have as well, but this is not possible with the current tool infrastructure (tools only know about modifiers and cursor keys, all other keys are not available to the tools right now).

: Provide a hint in the status bar 'To connect start and end point, : press CTRL'.

When exactly should this displayed? Currently the Statusbar gives hints what will happen when the user clicks now. It will give the hint "click to connect the anchor with the selected endpoint", when the user is in Edit mode and hovers over an anchor.

Displaying such a message to any other time will break this scheme. I am not sure what messages to sacrifice in favor of the suggested message.

: Add a'Selection from Path' button to the tool option dialog.

Whats wrong with the existing "Create selection from Path" that is there? Actually I am a bit confused about this...

I'll appreciate some clarification from you on the suggestions quoted above.

Thanks for the test.

Bye, Simon

On 04.06.2004, at 13:37, Ellen Reitmayr wrote:

7. German translation
- Some words are misleading

We've had many iterations through the translation already and in many cases (I at least) were not quite sure how to translate some phrases.

If you could come up with some suggestions I'd certainly appreciate that.

Servus,
Daniel

On Fri, Jun 04, 2004 at 03:15:00PM +0200, Roman Joost wrote:

On Fri, Jun 04, 2004 at 02:59:37PM +0200, GSR - FR wrote:

ellen.reitmayr@relevantive.de (2004-06-04 at 1337.31 +0200):

http://www.relevantive.de/gimp/report/results_usabilitytest_05.04.html - Clearly mark the current layer

Or is this a problem of translating the report?

No - this seems to be an issue of the default SuSE theme. The tests were made on a SuSE distribution with an installed GIMP 2.0. They're using QT and GTK+ themes together and it seems, that something is broken there.

this is the type of thing i was worried about when the usability tests were being conducted by people who dont know linux or gimp and only know windows and photoshop.

had there been someone present at the tests who had any experience with helping people with the gimp, there would have been someone there who knew how many of the gimp's "problems" are actually the problem of the distribution.

when will the day come that linux users can test other software and have their opinions mean so much?

carol

On Fri, Jun 04, 2004 at 03:33:02PM +0200, Daniel Egger wrote:

On 04.06.2004, at 13:37, Ellen Reitmayr wrote:

7. German translation
- Some words are misleading

We've had many iterations through the translation already and in many cases (I at least) were not quite sure how to translate some phrases.

If you could come up with some suggestions I'd certainly appreciate that.

okay, how does photoshop translate their stuff into german?

carol

Hi,

let me comment on some sections of the useability report (a very nice document, btw.)...

2. Zooming
2.1 Issue: Handling of the Zoom-Function

Both, the menu 'View Zoom' and the keyboard shortcuts are intuitive and easy to use.

Yeah, you tested this on german keyboards where Ctrl-+ does work without an additional modifier ;)

One testperson tried to use the mouse wheel and expected to zoom in and out by that means.

You can zoom in/out using a wheel mouse by pressing a modifier (Ctrl if I remember correctly).

As this did not work, he used the zoom function in the toolbox. He tried the keyboard shortcut CTRL which worked fine, and stated that there used to be a problem with this in the GIMP 1.2. Only, it did not become clear what 'Threshold' meant in that context.?

Suggestions:

1. Provide a short tooltip text to explain the 'Threshold' option. 2. Provide a context sensitive help (F1) to explain the function of the 'Threshold' option in that context.

IMHO the threshold option should be completely removed. It can be made an option in the Preferences instead (if that's needed at all).

One user (Photoshop expert) had severe problems to make a free selection as the fixed ratio option was still enabled from the last session (as all settings, the selection modes are saved after a session).

We should probably disable auto-saving of the tool options. It seems to be more confusing than useful.

Provide the opportunity to manipulate the size of a selection: When the mouse pointer reaches the edges of a selection, the user can increase and decrease the size by simply dragging the edge. Provide visual feedback next to the mouse pointer (corresponding to the 'crop' tool). In case of elliptic selection, the size is changed at the edges of the reference rectangle.

This is non-trivial because the selection is actually a grayscale mask. If we wanted to solve this generally, we'd have to transform the grayscale mask that represents the selection. This would lead to ugly artefacts at the corner of the selection. I see no simple solution for this problem but to add vector-based selections.

Another issue is that the user-defined aspect ratio is overwritten by the size of the recent selection as soon as the 'fixed aspect ratio' mode is left. As the two Photoshop users often changed the modes while they explored the GIMP's functionality, they were really annoyed by that behaviour. Other than the mode itself, this option is not an operation mode, but a user-defined setting. Therefore, it should be saved.

Yes, we should probably change that. While it is convenient to see the size of the selection being displayed in the tool options this info is also available in the statusbar. So it would probably be better to leave the entries untouched.

When the anchor is shown next to the mouse pointer, it must always be possible to anchor the selection.

I haven't been able to reproduce that problem. Of course the cursor feedback needs to match what happens. Can you give details on how to reproduce this brokeness?

The GIMP 1.2 user missed the former dialog which showed the colour channels and provided a slider to set the threshold of the selection. The dialog provided some kind of preview of the actual selection, as in a complex image, it is quite hard to determine which parts are selected and which are not.

This dialog is still available but it isn't any longer bound to the "By Color Select" Tool. Choose "Selection Editor" from the Dialogs menu.

Move the 'Fill' and 'Stroke' functions to the 'Selection' menu.

I don't think these belong there since they do not manipulate the Selection. Where do other apps put "Fill"? IMHO it belongs into the "Edit" menu and I am surprised that the users didn't look for it there.

So much for my comments. Thanks for the usability testing. As soon as we have collected more feedback here, someone could sit down and put the results into Bugzilla enhancement requests. I think we should then be able to improve usability in GIMP 2.2 based on these reports.

Sven

On Fri, 2004-06-04 at 17:05 +0200, Ellen Reitmayr wrote:

- Design (== new point + Edit Point; default) - Add (== add point or segment; CTRL) - Remove (== delete point or segment; SHIFT) - Move All (ALT)

What do you think?

Shift is commonly used for adding to selection. It should remain consistent with everything else. The "cumbersome" shortcut of Ctrl+Shift is quite handy for delete since you hardly hit it by accident.

I understand there is quite a learning curve involved with the path tool. On the other hand, compare the tool to what sodipodi implements. They have clear buttons for every action yet completing the same task means kilometers of mouse movement and millions of clicks.

The delete key (and backspace) functionality would be a great addition. I also agree some better feedback on what to expect from the tool is due. I am thinking with better cursors a lot can be improved. However the chosen _modifiers_ and tool behaviour was very natural to get used to in my opinion and something I would love to see in one of the free vector editors.

cheers

Hi,

Jakub Steiner writes:

Very interesting read. Hopefully we'll see some of the issues addressed in future.

reading about the difficulties to move a text layer made me do the following change immidiately:

2004-06-04 Sven Neumann

* app/tools/gimptexttool.c (gimp_text_tool_class_init): allow to move a text layer using the cursor keys.

Since it was just a single line of code to add I have also merged this little new feature into the stable tree.

Now I'd like to add moving text layers using the mouse to the HEAD branch but I am not sure how the tool should behave. At the moment it does the following:

- If the user clicks on a text layer the text tool is activated and connected to the text layer. This means that you can then manipulate the text layer by changing the text tool options.

- If the user clicks on the text layer that the text tool is already active for, the text editor is opened.

- If the user clicks outside a text layer a new text is created and the text editor is opened.

I am not at all happy with the current behaviour and I don't know how moving the layer would fit into this. Perhaps someone has an idea on how to improve this?

In the long run the text tool is supposed to allow editing of a text box. The user should be able to resize the text layer interactively with the text flowing in that box. It would probably be good to keep that in mind when thinking about a better text tool behaviour.

Sven

On 04.06.2004, at 17:05, Ellen Reitmayr wrote:

uuuiiii, that's a translation problem! in english the button says: 'Create Selection from Path' in german it says: 'Pfad aus Auswahl' (Create Path from Selection) I think Daniel Egger is the right one to tell that, no?

Any German speaker is welcome to touch the German catalog as far as I am concerned. Bugs like this are a no brainer but many strings should be handled with care, not only because they're mentioned in several books but also because this could make things worse and even break the application[1].

However I'd prefer if you could come up with a list of all unsuitable items or those which are subject for discussion so we can properly fix them altogether in both branches at once.

[1] Although the checks done by gettext are much better now than back in the good old days where GIMP would only crash in the Italian version but nowhere else... :)

Servus, Daniel

On Fri, 2004-06-04 at 13:37 +0200, Ellen Reitmayr wrote:

Hi!

Roman and I wrote the report of the usability tests we conducted in may. It includes descriptions of problems the users were faced while interacting with the software, as well as possible solutions.

As the wiki is still down, please read the full report on

http://www.relevantive.de/gimp/report/results_usabilitytest_05.04.html

or

http://www.kuhcampus.de/~roman/report/

I would also like to thank you for executing the tests. I also appreciate some of the proposed solutions focused on providing an aid in figuring out the behaviour rather than trying to mimic Photoshop's functionality (since mostly it was the Photoshop users who were having problems).

Selections
----------

I've had a little bit of a problem understanding the issues with modifier keys and selections:

"Consider carefully if 'centered selection' should be the default when using shortcuts. According to this test, a non- centered selection is more convenient (but as the number of subjects was very low it is not possibl to make a general suggestion).
However, if non-centered selection becomes the default, provide both, a checkbox in the options dialog, and a shortcut (e.g. pressing 'c' concurrently) for centered selection."

Cenetered selection surely isn't the defaut, one needs to press Ctrl modifier.

"Provide consistent behaviour: When keeping the key pressed while dragging the mouse, make the selections squared in all modes."

This again sounds dodgy because the tools behave exactly as you describe they should.

Select By Color
---------------

I disagree with your proposed solutions to the select by color tool. We should be aiming to remove unnecersary popup dialogs rather than bringing them in. I wish the crop tool got the same treatment as the select by color tool actually. Also I don't agree a description of the aparatus of certain functionality bhaves in the UI. Only the basic behaviour description does. The rest should go to the help pages and manual. The remark about additional sliders was suggesting additional functionality like selecting by value or brightness? With RGB sliders you suggest using a non-interactive mode where the user specifies arbitrary color instead of using the image canvas?

Measure Tool ------------

"Three out of four users did not see the info in the status line, and therefore first had to search where the information is displayed."

That sort of scares me, because even you suggest putting explanations of other tool behaviour in the status bar...

Transform Tools ---------------

I wish the dialog went away completely an all the settings went to tool preferences rather than popping it up after selecting the tool as you suggest.

Path Tool
---------

I've already expressedmy comments in another email.

Very interesting read. Hopefully we'll see some of the issues addressed in future.

cheers

On 04.06.2004, at 16:20, Carol Spears wrote:

If you could come up with some suggestions I'd certainly appreciate that.

okay, how does photoshop translate their stuff into german?

I expect they have a highly paid team of artists and professional translators.

Or do you mean that we should copy their translation by visual comparison of the English and German version?

Servus, Daniel

Hi,

Daniel Egger writes:

Any German speaker is welcome to touch the German catalog as far as I am concerned. Bugs like this are a no brainer but many strings should be handled with care, not only because they're mentioned in several books but also because this could make things worse and even break the application[1].

However I'd prefer if you could come up with a list of all unsuitable items or those which are subject for discussion so we can properly fix them altogether in both branches at once.

Well, the very first thing that should be done is to update the german script-fu translation. It hasn't been updated after the mnemonics were added to the menu paths. So since then all Script-Fu menu entries aren't localized in the german version. That's a shame since it will probably only need about an hour to fix this.

Sven

On Fri, Jun 04, 2004 at 09:07:24PM +0200, Daniel Egger wrote:

On 04.06.2004, at 16:20, Carol Spears wrote:

If you could come up with some suggestions I'd certainly appreciate that.

okay, how does photoshop translate their stuff into german?

I expect they have a highly paid team of artists and professional translators.

Or do you mean that we should copy their translation by visual comparison of the English and German version?

i could google, but i actually suspected that they did not have a german translation. the photoshop users i know are button pushers.

i tend to agree with Sven that these translation problems are troublesome but at the same time a no brainer. especially when you look at what it costs to get a fully loaded gimp with continually growing translation base.

one thing that a volunteer effort gets is a lot of volunteers and a lot of people who are free to have an opinion about this. as soon as i dump a bunch of money on some software, i would tend to be as happy as i can with my decision and start making it work regardless.

and i still wonder if there is a way to complain directly to the photoshop and coral and all the rest developers about the stuff the people they paid did.

most germans i know would enjoy a good typo, especially if it is a no brainer like the example that was given.

carol

This dialog is still available but it isn't any longer bound to the "By Color Select" Tool. Choose "Selection Editor" from the Dialogs menu.

Move the 'Fill' and 'Stroke' functions to the 'Selection' menu.

I don't think these belong there since they do not manipulate the Selection. Where do other apps put "Fill"? IMHO it belongs into the "Edit" menu and I am surprised that the users didn't look for it there.

Fill and Stroke definately don't belong in the Selection menu (you could be filling or stroking a Path not just a selection). The Select menu keeps the selection options nicely seperate from manipulating the image (or drawable ie the contents of the selection).

Although there was a problem adding things to Select menu does not seem like the right solution and it was one of the few suggestions in the report I strong disagreed with.
The suggestions to provide much more information in the status bar (like the way Inkscape does) sounded like a good idea but would probably be rather time consuming work.

Adobe Illustrator uses Edit, Stroke and Edit, Fill... (just one item for Fill which pops up a dialog with lots of options and fill types of all kinds). Photoshop also has "Layer, Filled Layer" (or similar) which allows you to choose a texture/pattern and inserts a new layer with that fill.

I dont recall Jasc having any extra fill options besides using the bucket tool (and I double checked by looking at various sites including this one http://moonsdesigns.com/tutorials/psp8/tools.html )

Sincerely

Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

[warning, long mail ahead]

Ellen Reitmayr (ellen.reitmayr@relevantive.de) wrote:

In the Edit mode you can *add* points on a segment. You can *add* a segment to the path when a single endpoint is selected and you click on the other one (this btw. is the same as connecting start- and endpoints, which you wrongly describe in the report as "Design mode + CTRL", when looking at the tool options you'll realize that CTRL is a shortcut for switching into the Edit mode)

Hm, here again, the shortcuts are not clearly communicated. As the tool is quite complex, it is not so easy to understand the whole functionality of a single shortcut (-> even the GIMP 1.2 user who attended some workshops thought that CTRL would connect start and end points only).

Visually pressing down CTRL or ALT is immediately visible in the tool options: The mode switch will switch accordingly. What else would you suggest to communicate this more clearly?

[...]Thats why it is not really an option to rename the Edit mode to "Remove" mode, that simply isn't the reality.

Yes, I see.
But I had one more look on the path tool as implemented in GIMP 1.2. There, you had four modes:
- New Point
- Add Point
- Remove Point
- Edit Point

Is it so, that 'new point' and 'edit point' are 'Design' now, while 'add point' and 'remove point' are 'Edit'?

Basically it is impossible to really compare the path tool in 1.2 and the path tool in 2.0. I have rewritten the Path tool from scratch, removing arbitrary limitations and implementing some new ideas.

(Just out of curiosity: Did you ever try to use the 1.2 path tool? I always found it counter-intuitive: it consistently destroyed my existing path, even after years of gimp usage..., the need to move to the buttons to switch the mode was constantly annoying)

I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to re-implement those modes (a bit modified): Currently, the 'remove' function is not accessible from the Design-Mode, as the keyboard shortcut does not work. Even in the edit mode is does not become clear, how to delete a point (status message not clear as it only says 'try shift'). I would propose the following modes (each accessible via keyboard shortcuts):

- Design (== new point + Edit Point; default) - Add (== add point or segment; CTRL) - Remove (== delete point or segment; SHIFT) - Move All (ALT)

What do you think?

In this way it is impossible, because SHIFT is used as a modifier in all three currently existing modes. In Design mode you can a) use SHIFT to select multiple points on a path and move them together, b) when dragging control handles SHIFT makes the opposite handle move symmetrically and c) pressing SHIFT while creating a new node forces the creation of a new component, not connected to the previous.

The Edit mode uses SHIFT for the add vs. delete thingie as discussed earlier and the Move mode uses Shift to move all components of a path simultaneously.

Given the prerequisite, that the whole tool should be usable without having to move the mouse back and forth to a buttonbar (jimmac already wrote about this) and the need for a modifier (SHIFT) we have two modifiers left, which lead to the three modes of the existing tool. In theory we could use CTRL+ALT for a fourth mode, but this would require the user of the tool to be quite a finger acrobat and is probably not really a good idea.

: Provide a hint in the status bar 'To connect start and end point, : press CTRL'.

When exactly should this displayed? Currently the Statusbar gives hints what will happen when the user clicks now. It will give the hint "click to connect the anchor with the selected endpoint", when the user is in Edit mode and hovers over an anchor.

the problem is that this is not clear in 'Design' mode. Maybe it is possible to display this message in Design mode only for the start and the end point, but not for comprised points?

There are two problems: first: the room in the statusbar is quite limited, there is no way to describe two different actions simultaneously, I tried it, but had to settle to the "(try SHIFT)" encouragement to enable the user to discover more functionality.

The other problem is quite profane: The help text depends heavily on the currently selected internal function (there are 16 of these internal functions), and which of these internal functions is selected depends (in decreasing priority)
* on the currently active mode,
* the item the cursor is positioned over, * the SHIFT-modifier state and
* some extra conditions.

If a path is closeable depends on an extra condition (only one endpoint currently selected *and* hovering over a different endpoint). Now assuming I had determined that I can click-drag the anchor the pointer is hovering over I'd have to also check if it would be possible to close a path: When you look at the priorities above you'll notice that this is a completely different path of descisions. It might sound like an excuse, but I simply cannot put in the logic to not only determine the current function, but also the logic to determine the current function if I were in the other modes. It is already a highly complex logic, and everything else would most probably make my brain explode.

if you're curious you're welcome to look at gimp_vector_tool_oper_update in app/tools/gimpvectortool.c, where the logic to select the internal function is implemented.

I hope you understand that I am not trying to generally avoid changes to the tool or even make you go away. The point is, that this tool is a beast of complexity and I literally spent weeks to figure out how this should behave in a sane way.

I admit that I did not focus on the newbie who just did his first gimp start. I intentionally focussed on people who use the tool on a regular basis and are willing to invest some time to study it. I tried hard to find some compromises to make the tool more discoverable and this is what I came up with, and - sorry - I don't see how your proposed solutions will help here, they maybe would make it easier to close a path, but they also would make the rest a lot more inconsistent.

So, currently my answer to these problems is: Read the docs, although I admit that the definitive path documentation is not yet written (there are some nice introductory tutorials written by scizzo that should give an introduction to the basic features), I guess I should put up a page describing the path tool in detail.

How do we proceed from here? Actually I am not sure. I can introduce a fourth mode in the tool but a major blocker is a mapping to the modifiers here:

We have to assign these functions: - add anchor
- add anchor, starting a new stroke - move anchors
- move multiple anchors
- move handles
- move handles symmetrically
- move curve
- move curve symmetrically
- drag handles out of an anchor
- delete a handle (i.e. move it back to the anchor) - add an anchor on a segment
- delete an anchor
- connect two components
- delete a segment (i.e. creating two open strokes) - move a stroke
- move the path

You can click on a) anchors, b) handles, c) segments and d) canvas. Assuming we want four modes (No modifer, SHIFT, CTRL, ALT), we have 4 * 4 = 16 possible combinations, which - from a naive point of view - would match the 16 functions above, but it is pretty clear that some of these functions are bound to specific elements and so this is bound to fail. Thats why I've gone for three modes (No modifier, CTRL, ALT) plus a modifier (SHIFT), giving me the opportunity to juggle a bit more: Now I have 3 * 2 * 4 = 24 slots to assign the functions mentioned above. The result of this is currently visible in the GIMP.

So, if you propose to add a fourth mode please also propose a way to get out of the dilemma explained above. I hope you can understand, why I am a bit skeptical about your suggestion.

Huh, complicated stuff... :-)

Bye, Simon

Hi,

Ellen Reitmayr writes:

When the anchor is shown next to the mouse pointer, it must always be possible to anchor the selection.

I haven't been able to reproduce that problem. Of course the cursor feedback needs to match what happens. Can you give details on how to reproduce this brokeness?

Maybe it's also a SuSE problem? It usually happens after scaling/transforming a selection. If the user selects the rectangular selection tool after having finished the transformation, there is an anchor displayed next to the mouse pointer. However, anchoring does only work by selecting the corresponding menu item.

I have tried with GIMP 2.0 and 2.1 and still cannot reproduce this. On the other hand I don't see how this behaviour could in any way be dependant on the environment GIMP is running in.

Sven

Hi,

Ellen Reitmayr writes:

Yes, but actually CTRL is the shortcut for subtraction, SHIFT-CTRL for intersection. Both provide centered selection, while SHIFT (=add) does not. Therefore, CTRL and SHIFT-CTRL mix two options into one shortcut (which is not convenient for the user), and are inconsistent with the 'add' option.

I get the impression that you did not understand how the key modifiers of the selection tools work. I admit that it's not obvious but it's a very powerful concept that I would hate to loose. You need to understand that there's a difference between the modifiers pressed when you start to create the selection and the modifiers you press while adjusting the selection. The former determines if the selection is added/subtracted/intersected, the latter whether it's centered or square. Try releasing the modifier keys after you started to create a selection, then play with the modifier keys while keeping the mouse button pressed. You should understand it then.

I disagree with your proposed solutions to the select by color tool. We should be aiming to remove unnecersary popup dialogs rather than bringing them in.

One could provide it as an optional dialog that can be activated from within the tool options dialog (alike the info dialog for the measure tool).

The Selection Editor is the dialog you are looking for. It is not at all specific to the By-Color-Select tool but can be useful with all selection tools. For that reason it is a separate dockable.

I wish the dialog went away completely an all the settings went to tool preferences rather than popping it up after selecting the tool as you suggest.

Hm, I'm not so sure.... the advantage of the dialog is that it refers clearly to one image. Therefore, if you go to another image while the dialog is open, its settings are not lost. If it was in the tool options dialog, it would have to adjust to the currently active image, no?

If you go to another image the tool is resetted, the dialog is closed and a new dialog is opened so your argument doesn't hold up.

Sven

On Sun, 2004-06-06 at 12:36 +0200, Ellen Reitmayr wrote:

Selections
----------

Cenetered selection surely isn't the defaut, one needs to press Ctrl modifier.

Yes, but actually CTRL is the shortcut for subtraction, SHIFT-CTRL for intersection. Both provide centered selection, while SHIFT (=add) does not. Therefore, CTRL and SHIFT-CTRL mix two options into one shortcut (which is not convenient for the user), and are inconsistent with the 'add' option.

I believe GIMP's concept of having a single modifier affect two things depending on WHEN the action is happening (as Sven describes in his reply) comes from Photoshop. I'm surprised the Photoshop users were confused too. The first evaluation happens before the click and the other after the click. I don't have a copy of Photoshop, so I cannot check at the moment.

I'm not sure about how to help the newcomers understand this interface. The statusbar holds quite crucial information during the definition of the area, so I'm not sure appending hints on the keyboard modifiers would be a good thing (will not fit, visual noise). Adding different key modifiers sounds like a big price to pay for the experienced users (having to look for a different key during the action).

Transform Tools
---------------

I wish the dialog went away completely an all the settings went to tool preferences rather than popping it up after selecting the tool as you suggest.

Hm, I'm not so sure.... the advantage of the dialog is that it refers clearly to one image. Therefore, if you go to another image while the dialog is open, its settings are not lost. If it was in the tool options dialog, it would have to adjust to the currently active image, no?

As soon as you start using the tool on another image, the settings do get lost. There are many other docks that relate to a particular image (Histogram, Layers, Channels ...). The reason why I don't like the popup window is that it usually comes up obstructing your area of interest. Luckily unlike in 1.2 it remebers its position now, but it's still obtrusive since the area of interest may change and you're forced to move it away one more time.

Thanks for the clarification on the other points.

cheers

Hi,

Ellen Reitmayr writes:

But another reason why I think it is better to keep the dialogs for transformation is that it is uncommon to have confirmation/cancel buttons in the tool options dialog. I'm not sure, but as much as I'm concerned there is no tool that makes actual changes to the image in the tool options. Mostly, you can define settings/options there (as indicated by the label), but to change the image you have to interactively click into the image. And providing the transformation parameters in the tool options without offering confirm/reset would surely result in numerous errors.

Right, the idea is that you have to click into the image to perform the transformation. You don't need an extra dialog for that.

Sven

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 06:15:15PM +0200, Ellen Reitmayr wrote:

Hi Simon,

Visually pressing down CTRL or ALT is immediately visible in the tool options: The mode switch will switch accordingly. What else would you suggest to communicate this more clearly?

When users are concentrated on drawing a path (and at the same time are exploring different keyboard shortcuts) they will pay few attention to changes in the tool options. Instead, they will give their attention to the image area, here especially to cursor feedback (and hopefully the status line!).

The major problem I see here is that when pressing CTRL (Design mode) while the mouse is not located over the path, there is no interaction possible (which is shown by the concerning icon). But there is no hint in the status bar WHY interaction is not possible. I'm not sure about the actual text, but maybe something like 'Move the mouse pointer over the path to edit it'(?) would be helpful and support exploration.

i am a long time gimp user. this new path tool confused me when it first arrived into the app, and i had watched the development and the formation of the logic. i also was never much into using gimp with the keys as the point that i started back up with computers, the gimp had buttons for most things. i learned the key changes back then for the few things that absolutely needed them.

it took me about two or three times making actual paths (actually using the app, not testing it). the logic is there and i actually grew to like the function. perhaps i am not in as much need of editing the points i place as others, but the simple tool option change makes sense very quickly with actual use. especially when you understand how the gimp used and .

you might be surprised yourself if you were to work with gimp on an actual project rather than with "usability tests" how quickly this will make sense. there is a point in software development where you might need to give it up and give the new logic a try -- especially when the concerns might cause de-evolution in a well thought out plan like simon accomplished here.

the points are not a problem, the crappy libart2 backing is a problem. this is the sort of opinion you get from actual use of the program.

also, i might add that if you were a piece of software and the gimp developers were testing you for usability, you might be failing them right now.

good thing that humans are not software and do not get treated or tested this way, dont you think?

( /me edits this opinion to prove her point)

Basically it is impossible to really compare the path tool in 1.2 and the path tool in 2.0. I have rewritten the Path tool from scratch, removing arbitrary limitations and implementing some new ideas.

Yes, I know it's completely built from the scratch - and I think it's really very good! I tried the 1.2 path tool, and was not happy with it. Nevertheless, on the first look, four modes seem to be more intuitive than three, as they hide les information from the users. Four buttons, combined with simple keyboard shortcuts for a quick navigation, are very easy to learn. But when I read this mail, I just realised that the tool is way more complex than it seemed to be on the first look, and that simple keyboard shortcuts are not realisable.

it is a difficult balance to have full functionality available to professional image manipulation and yet be simple enough for new users.

i would like it if there was a way to have everyone with an opinion give as much thought to the logic of the pathtool design as the author. even one tenth of the time thinking through it as simon did.

(it would also be nice if simon thought about his opinions as much as he did the path tool, but the path tool parts that he wrote are excellent and the best place to apply logic if you only have so much to spare)

Given the prerequisite, that the whole tool should be usable without having to move the mouse back and forth to a buttonbar (jimmac already wrote about this) and the need for a modifier (SHIFT) we have two modifiers left, which lead to the three modes of the existing tool. In theory we could use CTRL+ALT for a fourth mode, but this would require the user of the tool to be quite a finger acrobat and is probably not really a good idea.

That's true. I just didn't realise that there is such a lot of functionality. Further below, you said that the path tool is not for newbies, but for people who will use it on a regular basis and willing to invest some effort to study it. I know it's a bit sobering, but studies on help/manual usage showed that only very very few people actually read manuals. That's why an intuitive and easy to learn interaction design is so important!

I admit that my suggestions were short-sighted, I just did not know about the whole complexity! but still I think that especially users who are not image manipulation experts need a bit more support with respect to the path tool. Especially, a hint on how to remove path segments and points is missing. Maybe at least provide a tooltip text for the three modes (Design: 'Create new anchors and shape the path', Edit: 'Add [Ctrl] and remove [Ctrl-shift] elements' - rough wording).

see here, you are slowly and logically being rewritten the way they rewrote the gimp.

eventually you might pass their usability tests.

So, if you propose to add a fourth mode please also propose a way to get out of the dilemma explained above. I hope you can understand, why I am a bit skeptical about your suggestion.

Yes, I understand now - really complicated stuff.... 8-) But nevertheless, I hope you don't mind if I think of it some more, talk to some colleagues... not to change the conception of the tool, but maybe to find some very small and simple solutions to facilitate the learning.

thanks for spending the time testing gimp for usability. i am curious to know if you have any personal things you used gimp for and if you could share them with this community.

carol

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 06:16:47PM +0200, Ellen Reitmayr wrote:

Hi,

[this is a response to both jimmac and sven]

Selection shortcuts: --------------------

No, I didn't know that there is a difference between the modifiers pressed when you start to create the selection and the modifiers you press while adjusting the selection - it's really very powerful and should not be lost.

However, it's hard to learn... As I wrote in response to Simon, studies have shown that only few users actually read the docs - especially if it's about something that seems to be simple, such as selection modes. For such users, it is likely to happen that they will not understand the concept without any hints (just as me and the users I tested 8-)), and we/they should be supported in a way!

my friend got photoshop7. the documentation was difficult to find. i was not able to make it work like TheGIMP. the web site did not help nor did the photoshop tutorials i was able to find.

my friend also needed me to do all the things gimp-1.0 could do.

if you need an application designed for people who do not need documentation, i dont know if TheGIMP is the best application to use or if functionality should be lost for these people. other people spending actual money for less dont get it.

is there an example of a software application that is as simple as you are needing that also has this functionality?

my gimp-1.2 only cost me about $55 for two excellent books (that were both available freely online -- almost) and was actually able to out perform photoshop from the get go in fullfilling simple users needs.

it seems like a comparison in ease of actual fullfilling of users needs is more informative.

also, i am very sorry that suse's need for a "pretty desktop" interfered with gimps functionality. if you actually use this app, the desktop takes second place in the list of importance. suse had fairly limited people involved with actual gimp experience. and even those people failed some ease of use tests, in my opinion.

thanks again for taking all of this time to review TheGIMP. once again i am curious about samples personal projects of yours that you used TheGIMP for. having actual ideas and needs for graphics tends to make the gimp make more sense, in my experience.

carol

Hi,

thanks again for taking all of this time to review TheGIMP. once again i am curious about samples personal projects of yours that you used TheGIMP for. having actual ideas and needs for graphics tends to make the gimp make more sense, in my experience.

Carol, can you please stop this. There is no point in asking Ellen about personal experience with The GIMP. A usability test as it was performed here is about testing how (new) users get along with the software. It can help to identify problems with the user interface that no gimp developer or long-time gimp user will ever be able to see. It also doesn't really matter if the person leading the tests and summarizing the results has any experience with the software being tested.

I hope that more such tests can be done in the future. We will certainly try to use the results to improve The GIMP. Since GIMP is a very powerful tool and is supposed to stay one, we will of course take care that no useful feature is dropped only because it might be confusing for someone who uses GIMP for the first time. There will always be a learning curve, but usability tests can help to make it less steep.

Sven

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 08:20:32PM +0200, Sven Neumann wrote:

Hi,

thanks again for taking all of this time to review TheGIMP. once again i am curious about samples personal projects of yours that you used TheGIMP for. having actual ideas and needs for graphics tends to make the gimp make more sense, in my experience.

Carol, can you please stop this. There is no point in asking Ellen about personal experience with The GIMP. A usability test as it was performed here is about testing how (new) users get along with the software. It can help to identify problems with the user interface that no gimp developer or long-time gimp user will ever be able to see. It also doesn't really matter if the person leading the tests and summarizing the results has any experience with the software being tested.

I hope that more such tests can be done in the future. We will certainly try to use the results to improve The GIMP. Since GIMP is a very powerful tool and is supposed to stay one, we will of course take care that no useful feature is dropped only because it might be confusing for someone who uses GIMP for the first time. There will always be a learning curve, but usability tests can help to make it less steep.

in the united states, there exists a condition where people are being educated for a test. teachers that do not teach the content for the test are removed.

i think this sort of thing is being introduced to gimp development. i think it is very good to have the testers show what their purposes were before much of the good developers time is taken. especially when you are dealing with such high quality developers and free software.

show what you the human being wanted the gimp to do is a very very good question.

i'm questioning the testers use of YOUR time, dude. relax.

carol

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 08:20:32PM +0200, Sven Neumann wrote:

Hi,

thanks again for taking all of this time to review TheGIMP. once again i am curious about samples personal projects of yours that you used TheGIMP for. having actual ideas and needs for graphics tends to make the gimp make more sense, in my experience.

Carol, can you please stop this. There is no point in asking Ellen about personal experience with The GIMP. A usability test as it was performed here is about testing how (new) users get along with the software. It can help to identify problems with the user interface that no gimp developer or long-time gimp user will ever be able to see. It also doesn't really matter if the person leading the tests and summarizing the results has any experience with the software being tested.

ah, another thing you forget is how attractive i found the linux developers with their "rtfm" approach and sound logic and their willingness to express this and provide examples in a very direct fashion.

so please, did you not have some good ideas for making the texttool better. i read the first three words of each of those sentences and was quite excited to see you make the app work again and not answer questions from a tester with no real purpose for the gimp.

i have this memory of a developer who only wasted time with things that made sense and one of the nice things about the gimp is having to learn how graphics and computers work to make it work. there is nothing wrong with an application that is able to do what you are asking it to do.

and someone who through things through enough to say "rtfm" because everything you need is there and well written and not wasting time typing blather to explain how gimp works is more fun.

let dave neary answer this, inventing answers is a good thing for a tester with no real goals.

carol

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 12:09:49PM -0700, Carol Spears wrote:

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 08:20:32PM +0200, Sven Neumann wrote:

and someone who through things through enough to say "rtfm" because

"and someone who thought things through enough to say "rtfm" because", even

carol

Carol Spears wrote:

in the united states, there exists a condition where people are being educated for a test. teachers that do not teach the content for the test are removed.

For usability tests? I doubt that this is the case, though it might explain the usability of the software produced by a very large company in the US...

i think this sort of thing is being introduced to gimp development. i think it is very good to have the testers show what their purposes were before much of the good developers time is taken. especially when you are dealing with such high quality developers and free software.

Hm, I think that I'm at least partly able to understand what you're trying to say - if someone want to do something with GIMP, he should ask for advice before he demands GIMP to be changed. Or at least that he should learn and shut up if he is told the correct way afterwards.

Good advice for anyone on a mailing list or on irc, but not in a rather controlled usability test.

show what you the human being wanted the gimp to do is a very very good question.

Hm? Not sure if I understand correctly, but are you thinking of questions like "What is the best way to...?". I always wanted to start a wiki page about this - finding the absolutely fastest way to perform a task in GIMP - but couldn't find a real catching name for this page. Any suggestions?

HTH,
Michael

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 09:26:39PM +0200, Michael Schumacher wrote:

Carol Spears wrote:

in the united states, there exists a condition where people are being educated for a test. teachers that do not teach the content for the test are removed.

For usability tests? I doubt that this is the case, though it might explain the usability of the software produced by a very large company in the US...

i think this sort of thing is being introduced to gimp development. i think it is very good to have the testers show what their purposes were before much of the good developers time is taken. especially when you are dealing with such high quality developers and free software.

Hm, I think that I'm at least partly able to understand what you're trying to say - if someone want to do something with GIMP, he should ask for advice before he demands GIMP to be changed. Or at least that he should learn and shut up if he is told the correct way afterwards.

Good advice for anyone on a mailing list or on irc, but not in a rather controlled usability test.

no, i really meant what i said. i am actually very nervous about this because i had in real life a roman who failed a test that was made for testing purposes. this was one of the most intelligent, well read and roundly educated human male beings i had ever encountered. too young to date but just one of those kids you wished you had recognized when you were younger, a world changer and one of the right ones to do it. because he failed a test like this in the money world he lost some good cash that he could have used in college and the money was rewarded to a little creep, whose intelligence i also recognized. but without the good heart.

then there is gimp, where our roman has volunteered for somethings i cannot support. i want to keep roman and get rid of the stuff that screwed things up for this other roman.

if you were to tell me that this roman is being paid for using that crappy docbook set up and spending time with crappy tests i certainly would feel better about these developers spending their time with the test results.

roman did really good work within a very bad set up. this is the sort of thing you should be paid for.

i am still under the idea that this is free software and i am dealing with volunteers.

this is not a test for volunteer work.

show what you the human being wanted the gimp to do is a very very good question.

Hm? Not sure if I understand correctly, but are you thinking of questions like "What is the best way to...?". I always wanted to start a wiki page about this - finding the absolutely fastest way to perform a task in GIMP - but couldn't find a real catching name for this page. Any suggestions?

well like find someone who has just started to use linux and the gimp who has a photo they would like to cut the background from. see how long it takes them to do this.

you have to actually want to use the gimp for an actual outcome. it is made for production. then you see how well it goes.

"how easy is it to use" i hope we would fail this. "how well does it complete actual tasks". we won this with gimp-0.54 i think. long before i started to use it.

carol

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 12:49:50PM -0700, Carol Spears wrote:

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 09:26:39PM +0200, Michael Schumacher wrote:

no, i really meant what i said. i am actually very nervous about this because i had in real life a roman who failed a test that was made for testing purposes. this was one of the most intelligent, well read and roundly educated human male beings i had ever encountered. too young to date but just one of those kids you wished you had recognized when you were younger, a world changer and one of the right ones to do it. because he failed a test like this in the money world he lost some good cash that he could have used in college and the money was rewarded to a little creep, whose intelligence i also recognized. but without the good heart.

then there is gimp, where our roman has volunteered for somethings i cannot support. i want to keep roman and get rid of the stuff that screwed things up for this other roman.

in the real life situation, i have this way of not wanting minors to drink alcohol.

and i really dont.

it did not appear to me that the real life roman needed any help or to change the way you do things.

this roman IS using things he shouldnt be. tests and software.

carol

On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 10:23:14AM +0200, Ellen Reitmayr wrote:

hi carol,

of course I have personal things to use the GIMP for (and use the GIMP only) - otherwise I wouldn't have spent any time and effort in this! I somehow got the impression that you think I came here to 'humiliate' the GIMP. That's absolutely not the case!!

actually no. i was fairly direct about my concern. i do not like testing for testing sake. can i type this more clearly?

I've been using the GIMP (under SuSE/Linux) for four years now, but not on a regular basis (between 0 and 2 hours a week). Usually, I utilise it for image manipulation, and to create prototypes/screenshots of software conceptions. As every user of any complex software I'm sometimes faced problems, e.g do not find a certain function, do not understand an option or the like. In order to identify and prioritise such problems, it is important to observe other users while interacting with the software (to identify if it's only a personal problem, or if others have the same difficulties). After a while, a developer or heavy user will no longer recognise the problems she/he encountered when first using the software, because she/he got used to it. But imagine occasional users: It is very hard to them to remember all the shortcuts, functions, etc., especially when they are complex. Sometimes it's really astonishing for developers to watch 'real' users interacting with their software!

excellent news. you understand then how important documentation is. i am curious if suse and qt have always been messing your ability to use the gimp up.

i am trying to determine if we can use your usability tests, please be patient. i could determine this better if i could see samples of your use of gimp. nice to know that you are a user also.

i am trying to get you to take my usability test. will you not allow me to test you? it is good to see the actual product the tester and test produce. i would like to see some of your personal work with gimp. can you pass my usability test?

The GIMP is a great tool, and I think it sould not be the goal of the GIMP to make it a software for professionals only. I never wanted to change the concepts of the GIMP or anything like that - each of you has spent way more time and effort in thinking of the best solutions! But sometimes you can facilitate the entry point to learn a software by quite small things (such as providing hints and tooltips, and a intuitive menu structure). And that was the intention of the test.

gimp was written to work freely and well. most of the professionals i see and know hold onto photoshop for dear life. i watched gimp being made for linux users who also learn about graphics at the same time.

thank you for thinking it was made for professionals. this is not the case.

intuitition for what? intuition does not exist if the user has no real purpose for gimp other than to test.

i am testing your menu options right now. so far, not so intuitive ....

gimp was made for users, not professional testers. this is intuitive when you use it. what sort of professional are you worried about?

I hope you understand my intentions a bit better right now!

a better way to help me to understand your intentions would be to show me what you as a human have done with gimp.

forgive me if i feel a very intuitive need to protect these people from professional testing.

do you have a menu entry that says "show personal work". so far, you are failing in the intuitive use area.

nothing personal. it is a test for a tester only.

carol

On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 08:44 -0700, Carol Spears wrote:

thank you for thinking it was made for professionals. this is not the case.

We have been using GIMP professionaly for about three years or more.

On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 06:51:45PM +0200, Jakub Steiner wrote:

On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 08:44 -0700, Carol Spears wrote:

thank you for thinking it was made for professionals. this is not the case.

We have been using GIMP professionaly for about three years or more.

i have been using GIMP for 5 years now, you can hardly call me a professional.

carol

On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 06:33:49PM +0200, Dave Neary wrote:

Hi Carol,
Quoting Carol Spears :

actually no. i was fairly direct about my concern. i do not like testing for testing sake. can i type this more clearly?

Improving the GIMP for newer users is a great thing to do. Usability testing which shows the places where we've made nmistakes is a great thing to happen.

Ellen's spent a lot of time with Roman doing these tests, then writing about them.

Please try not to be unpleasant with people who are doing things like this in good faith.

well, i really wanted to look at some work. the best gimp stuff came from friends sharing photos and such.

mr. neary, can you define unpleasant?

carol

On Sun, 6 Jun 2004, Ellen Reitmayr wrote:

I understand there is quite a learning curve involved with the path tool. On the other hand, compare the tool to what sodipodi implements. They have clear buttons for every action yet completing the same task means kilometers of mouse movement and millions of clicks.

Of course keyboard shortcuts are very important for quick interaction with the tool! Nevertheless, not every user is a image manipulation expert, possibly does not know the concept of path tools at all. For such user, the learning should be facilitated, by supporting the exploration with simple shortcuts and the like.

How about buttons for every mode, with a one-key shortcut to switch between modes?

Rockwalrus

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004, Carol Spears wrote:

in the united states, there exists a condition where people are being educated for a test. teachers that do not teach the content for the test are removed.

i think this sort of thing is being introduced to gimp development. i think it is very good to have the testers show what their purposes were before much of the good developers time is taken. especially when you are dealing with such high quality developers and free software.

show what you the human being wanted the gimp to do is a very very good question.

i'm questioning the testers use of YOUR time, dude. relax.

It's easier to improve the user interface of gimp than it is to improve the gimp interface of all current and potential users. :)

Rockwalrus

From: Sven Neumann
Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer]

I get the impression that you did not understand how the key modifiers of the selection tools work. I admit that it's not obvious but it's a very powerful concept that I would hate to loose.

Multiple selection tools. There is always room for an alternative way to make selections. There is no need to modify existing tools if they are good. Just copy the code of an existing tool and modify it.

Just a reminder: I would need that unirectangle selection tool.

If you go to another image the tool is resetted, the dialog is closed and a new dialog is opened so your argument doesn't hold up.

That is very annoying because the new dialog window pops up at the pointer. Unless in GIMP 2.0 new dialogs goes automatically to a dock.

Sometimes closing the old one and opening a new one is totally not wanted: it would be impossible to compare the color levels of two images if only one level dialog can be open at a time.

I'm still using GIMP 1.2.3 but those problems could still be present in GIMP 2.0 -- please verify yourself, I cannot do it.

-*-

About the path tool: could Shift (or any) be used to cycle between modes? Would that reduce button-modifier-overloading? The modes could sort theirself to the most-recently-used order, in which case cycling starts always at the top mode. Cycling would stop when modes has been selected for, e.g., 2 seconds and would stop when user does something else than press the Shift.

Regards, Juhana

Hi,

Juhana Sadeharju writes:

I'm still using GIMP 1.2.3 but those problems could still be present in GIMP 2.0 -- please verify yourself, I cannot do it.

If you are still using GIMP 1.2.3 then we don't want to hear from you on the gimp-developer list. Update to 2.0 (at least) or keep quiet.

Sven

From: Sven Neumann

If you are still using GIMP 1.2.3 then we don't want to hear from you on the gimp-developer list. Update to 2.0 (at least) or keep quiet.

Hey, I just wanted to point out what usability problems we users have.

Those who are willing to check it. Open two images. Open color levels dialogs for both images. What do you have?

-*-

Can GIMP be scripted to automatically open images, test out tools, move pointer, draw, and take screenshots about that all? I would then check out from screenshots how the tools work without having to take a look at the code or to make always difficult installations at every turn (I get new GIMP when I install new Linux dist).

Such script could be generated by recording actions. When new tools are coded, their usage is recorded to the script. The script could also be used to verify that the installations went ok.

Juhana

Juhana Sadeharju writes:

From: Sven Neumann

If you are still using GIMP 1.2.3 then we don't want to hear from you on the gimp-developer list. Update to 2.0 (at least) or keep quiet.

Hey, I just wanted to point out what usability problems we users have.

As Sven pointed out, describing your problems with GIMP 1.2.3 serves no purpose whatsoever.

Those who are willing to check it. Open two images. Open color levels dialogs for both images. What do you have?

You are supposed to check that yourself. Wild guessing doesn't help a bit.

Get GIMP 2.0 and come back.

ciao, --mitch

Carol Spears wrote:

mr. neary, can you define unpleasant?

I have been on this list only a very short time, yet I can define unpleasant...

Unpleasant (noun) See "Carol Spears"

I hate to start a personal attack on a public list, especially against one who has apparently been involved with the project for a long time. However, it is immediately apparent to me that you have a penchant for being negative, highly opinionated and feel victimized by everyone else.

And you seem to prefer to conduct your tirades in public, so no doubt your prefer that I send my message this way.

You need a big attitude adjustment, or perhaps should find something more productive to do with your valuable time and superior skills. Participating in a group the way you do is counterproductive, and serves mostly to intimidate people who otherwise could benefit from the positive volunteer activities of so many generous people.

Greg Rundlett Gimp User
Free Software advocate

On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 08:57:34PM -0400, Greg Rundlett wrote:

Carol Spears wrote:

mr. neary, can you define unpleasant?

I have been on this list only a very short time, yet I can define unpleasant...

Unpleasant (noun) See "Carol Spears"

i googled and found this url for a definition: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=unpleasant

Not pleasing; disagreeable.

dave neary can be very pleasing. some of the facts disappear to make himself "pleasant".

if you try not to lie and are fighting one or two people to maintain decisions made by a very impressive group of people, you might become less pleasant. i sure did.

i took on a project that no one wanted to do for the gimp. everyone whose opinions i was representing near to the end of this project were more important to me than the one or two people who destroyed it.

my project was destroyed (the gimp web site for the users) by a man making decisions about what information users need who has, to the best of my knowledge, not even on the gimp-user mail list.

when i am very angry about this and unable to get my friends to change their ways, there is a good chance that i am unpleasant.

the price you pay for knowing who you are trying to help and the reasons for this.

it also happens when you have a human being who does not want to spread false facts. telling people what they want to hear is usually the most pleasant option.

this letter from you is very unpleasant, for instance.

perhaps if you reseached the issues, asked some of the original developers what the deal is you would write something both unpleasant and factual about me.

until then, you are being unpleasant and unfactual.

carol

I hate to start a personal attack on a public list, especially against one who has apparently been involved with the project for a long time. However, it is immediately apparent to me that you have a penchant for being negative, highly opinionated and feel victimized by everyone else.

And you seem to prefer to conduct your tirades in public, so no doubt your prefer that I send my message this way.

You need a big attitude adjustment, or perhaps should find something more productive to do with your valuable time and superior skills. Participating in a group the way you do is counterproductive, and serves mostly to intimidate people who otherwise could benefit from the positive volunteer activities of so many generous people.

Greg Rundlett Gimp User
Free Software advocate

I was very thankful for Greg writing somethink like I self could have written (allthough with less good and nice wording), therfor I want to show some support.

On Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 07:41:49AM -0700, Carol Spears wrote:

i took on a project that no one wanted to do for the gimp. everyone whose opinions i was representing near to the end of this project were more important to me than the one or two people who destroyed it.

my project was destroyed (the gimp web site for the users) by a man making decisions about what information users need who has, to the best of my knowledge, not even on the gimp-user mail list.

I don't see the connection to your recent posts. What gives you the right to write such negative, troublemaking, prtly irrational posts (that are extremely hard to parse btw) on a public list?

And you wrote about protecting some people. I wonder who's going to protect people from you?

perhaps if you reseached the issues, asked some of the original developers what the deal is you would write something both unpleasant and factual about me.

Most people wnat to be understood (even by broader audience). But you require research?

until then, you are being unpleasant and unfactual.

Unpleasant and in some way even unfactual was limited to posts from you Carol, IMHO.

---
Thorsten Wilms

PLEASE,

has this still anything to do with the original subject? I've got a suggestion :

when offended by a mail/comment whatever, don't reply immediatly. Go to a window (not gimp) open it Yell as hard as you can. Take five minutes and repeat if necessary. Then go back to your mail write it, send i t first to yourself and read it. If You still feel that what you've written is completely OK and not over the top send it to the mailing list.

PS: don't go looking for a dictionary English isn't my native language.

Geert

On Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 05:13:42PM +0200, Thorsten Wilms wrote:

I was very thankful for Greg writing somethink like I self could have written (allthough with less good and nice wording), therfor I want to show some support.

On Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 07:41:49AM -0700, Carol Spears wrote:

i took on a project that no one wanted to do for the gimp. everyone whose opinions i was representing near to the end of this project were more important to me than the one or two people who destroyed it.

my project was destroyed (the gimp web site for the users) by a man making decisions about what information users need who has, to the best of my knowledge, not even on the gimp-user mail list.

I don't see the connection to your recent posts. What gives you the right to write such negative, troublemaking, prtly irrational posts (that are extremely hard to parse btw) on a public list?

And you wrote about protecting some people. I wonder who's going to protect people from you?

well, these developers have demonstrated that they will not protect me. continuing to play with them makes you constantly review the facts and what you are doing.

my mom perhaps led me astray when she taught me that always doing the best that you can to produce the best results and trying to not interfer with others doing the same was the best way to live.

i am still bitter about the web site project. it is the first time i saw these guys doing stupid things. doing these stupid things with joy and glee even.

the fact that i know i had the good opinion of the people running things, the people who got things going to begin with and the people seriously trying to use the app makes me a little crazy when stupid things start to occur.

this "public list" is for developers. show me your contribution, i will show you more respect. i might even go out of my way to protect you.

also, you can give me a break some what. i am answering mail from a person who thinks that the gimp will be more popular once it installs for him. i find this to be more funny than anything and the actual developers on this list also feel this way.

perhaps if you reseached the issues, asked some of the original developers what the deal is you would write something both unpleasant and factual about me.

Most people wnat to be understood (even by broader audience). But you require research?

yep. this is a developer list.

perhaps you could provide some examples of email sent on lists for the propietary developers. if you are running a company, you want the developers to spend their time well. some of the developers who read this list are gah, worth so much on the open market.

they have me to babble on like this when idiots send mail on the developer list. hopefully our more valuable ass-ets are out having some fun this weekend and leaving me to do this stuff.

the best developer mail is full of opinionated assholes and weirdos slapping and punching it out. this stuff we get now is so boring and silly.

how many different ways can you explain to fix your distribution and still be what? nice?

yes, some research please. these guys time is very valuable and should be spent on real problems.

until then, you are being unpleasant and unfactual.

Unpleasant and in some way even unfactual was limited to posts from you Carol, IMHO.

okay, lord knows, not all my facts are correct. if you can paste something i said that is clearly wrong, i will apologize and do what i can to fix it.

if you find my interactions unpleasant, okay. i have a list of people responsible for this starting with my mom and dad. they taught me right from wrong in many ways. i dont know if going to the origins of this unpleasantness will help me now, but it has been around a very long time.

does the actual app work for you?

carol

---
Thorsten Wilms

Hi,

Thorsten Wilms writes:

I don't see the connection to your recent posts. What gives you the right to write such negative, troublemaking, prtly irrational posts (that are extremely hard to parse btw) on a public list?

Probably the amount of contributions that Carol made to the GIMP project and in particular the GIMP website.

Sven

On Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 09:09:26AM -0700, Carol Spears wrote:

I don't care for your stress and bitterness, especialy since you show no understanding for other people in your recent posts at all.

I'm not interested in your respect.

I do not have to show contributions, because it's you who keeps making noise. Besides devs on many lists have an open ear for suggestions and not previously answered questions without asking for contributions.
Those that do the actual work, AFAIK, are pretty relaxed, while you are radiating pure negativity.

RTFM, remember volunteer work, ignorance is all ok with me. But even just following the list is not exactly fun, because of what you pulled of with Ellen, and are continuing in some way here.

And how many people have to ask you to change your ways? (Even Sven asked you to stop regarding Ellen)

You keep making negative remarks about devs, are disrespectful to anyone else.

If you see it as your job to keep people you aparently think of as idiots busy, then I know what I have to do now. You are the very first person I will filter out from mail (you are already the first person receiving something personal from me on a list).

Sorry to anyone else, I will shut up now.

On Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 07:14:49PM +0200, Thorsten Wilms wrote:

On Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 09:09:26AM -0700, Carol Spears wrote: now. You are the very first person I will filter out from mail (you are already the first person receiving something personal from me on a list).

this list has been designed that it be handled exactly this way. i have been the "first" in many really cool places. i am honored to be the first to show you how to use a developers list properly.

i have oodles of respect for people who know how to use their software like this.

thanks,

carol