On Sat, Oct 23, 2004 at 10:31:40PM -0700, miriam clinton (iriXx) wrote:

I have some experience in designing pngs and graphics for GNU/Linux music applications, as I am also a musician and a member of linux-audio-dev and linux-audio-user - the same discussion arose on those lists, also for another important reason - if we are to convert people to using GNU/Linux, the GUIs need to be as attractive as those in Winblows or Mac OS.

welcome. thank you for your contribution to the gnu/linux world. it would be nice to see some examples of your work. we have a few artists involved with TheGIMP who have been using TheGIMP and the other GNUed applications to contribute this way for years. they would more than likely help you in any transition you are making from the other software environment to this one.

I'm sorry if this message treads on many toes. But from the point of view of a designer - GIMP is designed by programmers, and therefore thinks in the manner of a programmer - the tools are difficult to use for graphic designers who are visual-thinkers. The menu is obscure, and it takes a great deal of mastery to create the same effects that we could do quickly and simply in Photoshop (err, some of the effects are rather dated too - but then again, some of the effects in Photoshop are similiarly outdated). I'm well aware of the problems which we face in regard to patents - I've also closely followed the Adobe vs. Macromedia lawsuits.

no one will feel toes stepped on. it has been suggested for many many years that gimp tries to be photoshop or should be more like photoshop. i am not sure how long you have been using photoshop or what version you learned with. gimp-1.2 out-performed photoshop in ease of use in my experience with visual-thinkers. meaning, i watched a visual thinker try to make it work (photoshop) and couldnt.

i am reminded of a child i worked with a couple of years ago. i was very sorry he was spending his time learning how AOL worked. he could have been learning how to make his computer work. you, as well, learned how to make photoshop work. learn gimp and it is easy to step into photoshop and work circles around those users. i am very sorry you spent this time learning how to use photoshop; especially if you were interested in free software.

here is a secret about lawyers. they come in pairs; so if you dont get one, no one knows what to do with you.

But I would very much like to comment from an artist's point of view on any improvements that I could suggest that might make GIMP more attractive to designers (and preferably, more attractive than photoshop).

the developers have been working with artists since i started to watch them.

perhaps you could fill in some details. which version of photoshop did you learn on? did you ever try paint shop pro or other payfor or steal software?

I'm also interested to know if there is a port of an Adobe Illustrator-like application planned for the future. We need a good set of graphics tools, especially vector design and web design GUI-based tools such as the Macromedia suite to attract graphic designers - likewise there exists already an attractive and varied set of music applications which draw Winblows/Mac users to GNU/Linux. The desktop environments are extremely attractive - now we need to make the applications equally attractive, as many are frustrated by difficult-to-use applications, simply because of the GUI.

Inkscape, i think.

when asking developers a question, please do not assume they understand the software you were using. if you could describe the job that needs to be done and not the software you do not want to pay for any more it will be easier to get a response. this is something i learned from the new chix mail list. i am not sure how long you have been involved with free software, but perhaps you could join this mail list also so you can get a feel for the language and the way the developers communicate.

so if you need to know what sort of software will draw textured shapes in three dimensions, or whatever (i am not at this point sure myself what illustrator does, anymore) it lets people know that 1) you do know what you are doing and 2) you respect that they were making tools not software clones.

Again, apologies if this treads on toes - you're free to tell me to go shove it - but I'd very much like to comment and contribute as an artist and graphic designer.

no toes treaded on, i am sure. these are fairly old suggestions. i would also not like to step on your toes, however suggest two different things. 1) that if you learn how to make graphics the way gimp does, your idea of attractive might expand and 2) richard was flirting.

carol

ps, i think that TheGIMP is very very attractive from the icons right down to its core and i wish i had charged my photoshop friends for teaching them how to use their expensive thing.

Hi,

"miriam clinton (iriXx)" writes:

As part of our discussions, I raised the issue of why I find the GIMP difficult to use as a graphic designer. Although it is quite a formidable translation of many of the graphics tools, we graphic designers are visual thinkers and rely heavily on the GUI to produce our work. Several of my colleagues have tried GIMP but find it difficult to work with for this reason.

For what reason? You better tell us what exactly you find difficult to use. We are constantly working on improving the user interface so of course we are interested in feedback. Telling us that it is difficult to use (and not even telling us what version you have been using when you made that experience), is however not very helpful.

I'm sorry if this message treads on many toes.

How could your message thread on any toes? You didn't say anything yet.

Sven

Hi,

let me add another note just to make sure you don't get us wrong. Of course we appreciate your offer and I think that you could indeed help us. You could for example try to describe and to compare common workflows in GIMP, Photoshop or other image manipulation programs. Such a comparison is however only useful if it can be understood by someone who doesn't know the software involved.

Would you be interested in doing this? Perhaps the GIMP Wiki would be a good place for it?

Sven

The problem is that there are too many screens appearing in random positions - even if the layer menu is the only one open, it could appear

I think that most problems that you are describing are not present in the current version of the Gimp. Mandrake 9.2 includes, if i recall correctly, Gimp 1.2.5. Gimp 2.0 has greatly improved user interface. Try it.

Illustrator is a print design tool, on the level of GIMP. At the moment Fireworks is a vector design tool. Sodipodi is getting close, or aiming

if i recall correctly - and it is only few months since i quit job in a graphic studio, fireworks is more a raster editor than a vector tool. It comes bundled (when you buy whole Macromedia studio: Flash, Fireworks etc..) with Freehand, which is a vector tool.

Macromedia has Freehand which is like Adobe's Illustrator which is like Inkscape or Sodipodi in the free world. On the other hand Adobe's Photoshop is similar to Macromedia's Fireworks and free world's Gimp.

Flash is an absolute essential - we have no tools at all at present for

Flash is, to my best knowledge, closed proprietary format. So there is only a little hope we can make our own Flash creating application. SVG should be the replacement. But it is not comparable to Flash probably yet. I wonder about sounds and like? Is it possible with SVG?

Personally speaking, I'm just sad that I can't use Free software for my design work, and would love to be able to migrate entirely to GNU/Linux.

I am glad i can use free software for my graphic work. But it is true that i mostly need only raster editor.

Jakub Friedl

On Sun, Oct 24, 2004 at 12:12:46PM -0700, miriam clinton (iriXx) wrote:

thanks Sven and Carol for your answers... I'll get back to you with more details about the GUI, as i'm working on an art project at the moment, but to answer some immediate queries:

- I'm using Photoshop 7.0 - strangely enough, I find it, and all the other tools I use, highly intuitive - the essence of a tool that a graphic designer can use is its intuitiveness, rather than usability.

That's you. There are others who find photoshop highly unintuitive, and GIMP much easier to use.

Part of the problem is that many designers started out using photoshop, so the "intuitiveness" is not necessarily inherent in the application, but a mental byproduct of cultivating your nascent workflow using a specific app. This doesn't really validate photoshop's interface as "good", but rather "what photoshop trained designers are used to".

Merely copying photoshop blindly is a bad idea, since photoshop's interface has got its own weird quirks. Nevermind the interface differences between photoshop on Mac and on Windows.

So things really should be taken on a case by case basis. In some cases, photoshop may be better at some things, but in others, completely crack filled.

Perhaps in this case we should use graphic designers as testers, alongside bug-testers?

Do not discount the graphic designers who actually prefer gimp's interface to photoshop's.

-Yosh

Jakub Friedl, adresa do konferenci wrote:

Flash is an absolute essential - we have no tools at all at present for

Flash is, to my best knowledge, closed proprietary format. So there is only a little hope we can make our own Flash creating application.

Hi,

I've never looked at any of this stuff personally, but PHP suuports SWF: http://us2.php.net/ming

And I also have a libswf on my Debian machine. A quick apt-get search:

libming-dev - Library to generate SWF (Flash) Files (development files) libming-util - Library to generate SWF (Flash) Files - Utilities libswf-perl - Ming (SWF) module for Perl php4-ming - Ming (SWF) module for php4 python-ming - Ming (SWF) module for Python python2.2-ming - Ming (SWF) module for Python 2.2 gstreamer-swfdec - SWF (Macromedia Flash) decoder plugin for GStreamer libswfdec-dev - SWF (Macromedia Flash) decoder library libswfdec0 - SWF (Macromedia Flash) decoder library swf-player - SWF (Macromedia Flash) player libflash-dev - GPL Flash (SWF) Library - development files libflash-mozplugin - GPL Flash (SWF) Library - Mozilla-compatible plugin libflash-swfplayer - GPL Flash (SWF) Library - stand-alone player libflash0 - GPL Flash (SWF) Library - shared library libming - Library to generate SWF (Flash) Files libming-fonts-openoffice - Fonts for use with the Ming Library for SWF Creation

It appears that openoffice has some SWF support ...

rgds, Chris

Hi,

"miriam clinton (iriXx)" writes:

- I was using the GIMP supplied by Mandrake 9.2, but I'll download the latest version.

IIRC that would be gimp-1.2 then. You'd have to compare that to PS5.

Basically you are ignoring the last four years of GIMP development. Please udpate to GIMP 2.0.5 or even consider to try GIMP 2.1.7, the latest development snapshot. We are close to the 2.2 release, so that would give you the best impression on where we are. Though most of the issues you raised have been addressed with GIMP 2.0 already.

Sven

ccurtis@aet-usa.com (2004-10-24 at 1721.39 -0400):

And I also have a libswf on my Debian machine. A quick apt-get search:

[...]

It appears that openoffice has some SWF support ...

Based in ming library http://f4l.sourceforge.net/. It, and other interesting info is listed in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash.

GSR

but a good vector only tool is very important, with vector-to-web features... (like Fireworks)

i still cannot understand why you call fireworks a vector only tool. last tim e i used it was primarily a raster editor. and if i look at its homepage http://www.macromedia.com/software/fireworks/ it still seems to be capable raster graphic aplication (with vector functions)

if you can point me in the right direction for people who could design

what about http://www.sodipodi.com/ and http://www.inkscape.org/ ? those are free worlds vector apps

miriam clinton (iriXx) wrote:

i'm familiar with sodipodi - its close, but no banana... needs a lot of work, but i'd like to help there too... havent seen inkscape yet - is it new?

IIRC, inkscape started life as an off-shoot of sodipodi but it is now a separate project. The answer to the first question of the FAQ says in part: Inkscape was founded in 2003 by four Sodipodi developers, Bryce Harrington, MenTaLguY, Nathan Hurst, and Ted Gould, with the mission of creating a fully compliant SVG drawing tool written in C++ with a new, HIG-compliant interface and an open, community-oriented development process.

It is considered to be useful to users but not ready to replace commercial vector editors (yet). The other project worth looking at is Skencil (formerly known as sketch). You can find information about it at http://www.skencil.org/.

...and the reason behind that :

Q: Why the split from Sodipodi?

Mainly just differences in objectives and in development approach. Inkscape's objective is to be a fully compliant SVG editor, whereas for Sodipodi SVG is more a means-to-an-end of being a powerful vector illustration tool. Inkscape's development approach emphasizes open developer access to the codebase, as well as to use and contribute back to 3rd party libraries and standards such as HIG, CSS, etc. in preference to custom solutions.

On Sun, 24 Oct 2004, miriam clinton (iriXx) wrote:

Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 12:12:46 -0700 From: "miriam clinton (iriXx)"
To: gimp-developer@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] gimp GUI

thanks Sven and Carol for your answers... I'll get back to you with more details about the GUI, as i'm working on an art project at the moment, but to answer some immediate queries:

- I'm using Photoshop 7.0 - strangely enough, I find it, and all the other tools I use, highly intuitive - the essence of a tool that a graphic designer can use is its intuitiveness, rather than usability.

I try not to ever use the word intuitive because it is so easy not to realise your own biases.

However the market dominance of Photoshop and mindshare it has cannot easily be discounted. More graphics users are familiar with how it works than just about anything else (barring mspaint) and more resources and tutorials are available for it than anything else so has serious benifits (network effect) merely by being the defacto standard. It would be better when in doubt to copy Adobe Photoshop if possible than to do things differently with a very good specific reason not to.

Perhaps in this case we should use graphic designers as testers, alongside bug-testers?

It is difficult for users to identify the root of a problem provide feedback that is specific enough for developers to work with and conversly it is difficult for developer to know what to implement when the only have feature suggestions rather than a specific problem or task to make easier to do.

- I was using the GIMP supplied by Mandrake 9.2, but I'll download the latest version.

An upgrade is recommended, it might also improve your enjoyment of the gimp if you make sure to install the gimp-data-extras and gimp-gap (Animation packages) amongst others.

Try out as many of the different plug-ins as you can, you will find fammilar functionality under different names and place and I'm still finding out new things all the time and that is before you start lookign at plug-ins that are not included by default, see the plugin registry for more http://registry.gimp.org/

Dont ignore the "Tip of the Day" feature, read all of it if you have time. It was actually very carefully written unlike in most applictions because for a while it was the only documentation included with the gimp (or so I have been told).

- First thing I'd suggest is stacking the Layers / Brushes etc. screens which at present you have to open from the top left hand menu - Photoshop keeps these permanently in appearance, stacked at the right hand corner, although you can double-click on the top of these mini-screens

These screenshots of gimp 2 should give you a good idea of how thing have been changed to make it easier to manage windows http://gimp.org/screenshots/windowsxp_screenshot1.png http://gimp.org/screenshots/linux_screenshot2.png

- A Navigation tool for zooming would be essential - again, somewhere in these mini-screens.

There is a navigational tool, it can be found in the Dialogs menu. Also if you click on the cross arrows on the bottom right between the scrollbars there is another embedded overview widget. (both of these should be in the version you have).

- This might become a patent problem - but what i'm really suggesting is

user interface patents have not yet been inflicted on the rest of the world and it should be possible to produce similar but non-infringing functionality in many cases.

- Its pretty hard to find where the effects are, and to know you have to right-click on the image to produce these. But that in itself is elegant, and avoids patent issues...

gimp 2 includes a menubar, thank goodness!

there are other improvements too, however i think not having the tool options options palette docked directly under the menus makes a big difference and make it harder for users familiar with photoshop.

I think the essential problem with Effects is that its difficult to find out a) where they are located in the menu and b) what the heck do they do?... Also many of the effects are outdated or not as accurate as the Photoshop versions.

if you can provide specifics it might be helpful. in some cases the gimp Filters provide a lot more options than the photoshop equivalents (at least the ones included with photoshop 7 that I've used) but they are not always easy to find. Only the other day I found you could changed the algorithm used for resizing in the tool options for the scale tool, although it is not shown in the Resize dialog (Image, Resize...) the way Photoshop does.

- One thing i /LOVE/ about the GIMP is that you've now implemented layer effects (Multiply, Color Dodge, Color Burn etc.) - but these really need to be in a permanently open menu.

gimp is/was missing 'Exclusion' though

if you want to have a permanantly open menu the developers might be willing to add an extra tearoff if you asked nicely.

the layer menu stays in place, appearing below the layer menu. A navigator screen should be in place always - this is a feature I find essential, and makes it impossible for me to use the GIMP - while i can zoom in and out, its very difficult to drag the screen around to the place where I want to work.

if you have a wheel mouse or three button mouse you can middle click and drag/pan (although I still wish I could use Page Up and Page Down to navigate the page).

if you like how Adobe Photoshop does things you should definately take a look at the "psmenurc" which is a settings file to give the gimp keybindings similar to photoshop.

there is also an excellent plugin called pspi by Tor Lillqvist which allows you to use (some) Photoshop plugins with the gimp.

As for Illustrator / Fireworks / Dreamweaver / Flash: (my own 'essential' tools)

Illustrator is a print design tool, on the level of GIMP. At the moment

Try Inkscape, http://inkscape.org for print work people seem to be combining it with Scribus (Desktop Publishing Software)
http://www.scribus.net/

Fireworks is a vector design tool.

Although Fireworks acts very much like a vector design tool as it part of the family of Macromedia products but it claims to be Raster graphics. Perhaps you meant Freehand which is the Vector graphics tool from Macromedia which is equivalent to Adobe Illustrator and seems to be competing quite successfully.

an optimising screen for jpeg/gif (ewww, but essential). Fireworks allows you to slice the image and export the slices to HTML or simply to

there are some slice tools for the gimp, the first thing you should try is adding some guides and choosing "Image, Transform, Guillotine" but there are more ways.

Flash is an absolute essential - we have no tools at all at present for animation. Flash uses vector graphics as well as being able to import

There are some open source Flash tools available if you look hard enough but few are advanced enough to be included with most Linux distributions and you will very likely need to compile them for yourself if you want to try them out.

Macromedia did eventually make Flash a freely available standard that others can implement (but which they control) but open source tools have not caught up in that area yet but some people are certainly trying.

Personally speaking, I'm just sad that I can't use Free software for my design work, and would love to be able to migrate entirely to GNU/Linux.

If you are determined Wine might be an option to ease the migration http://winehq.com/
or if you have money you might buy VMWARE to run windows inside Linux.

A thought - the older SGI IRIX O/S had many of these tools - perhaps free ports of these may be easier to implement. 3D design is nicely taken care of by Blender, which has become an essential on Winblows machines also.

I'm surprised you have not mentioned Mac OS X which has much of the tools that graphic designers and desktop publishers love and has versions of free software like the gimp available for it (although not as perfectly beautiful native applications).

Hope this is of some help at least... I'll get back to you with more details, and feel free to ask.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/ Inkscape, Draw Freely http://inkscape.org Free SVG Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org

Hi,

"miriam clinton (iriXx)" writes:

Photoshop does have some vector tools... of course we have SVG which Illustrator also uses...

GIMP has a path tool which is essentially a vectors tool. It could need some other vector shapes though... of course we have SVG which is the standard format for storing paths in GIMP 2.0.

its the slicing for web that is vitally important too.... photoshop also has this...

GIMP also has this. There are Python and Perl scripts that do the slicing and also create HTML for you.

Sven

gimp 2 includes a menubar, thank goodness!

I like the menu but it would be even better to make some sort of scroll in the menu. What am I talking about?
Say I have a small image....the menu gets cut in half. If there was a way to make that menu scrollabe so everything can be seen, it would be nice.

--Gezim

_______________________________
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Photoshop does have some vector tools... of course we have SVG which Illustrator also uses...

GIMP has a path tool which is essentially a vectors tool. It could need some other vector shapes though... of course we have SVG which is the standard format for storing paths in GIMP 2.0.

its the slicing for web that is vitally important too.... photoshop also has this...

GIMP also has this. There are Python and Perl scripts that do the slicing and also create HTML for you.

Last week I learned there is also a scheme/script-fu version called 'webotine' which is great if you want to have the same version on both windows and linux. http://registry.gimp.org/plugin?id=2821

]
]> gimp 2 includes a menubar, thank goodness! ]I like the menu but it would be even better to make ]some sort of scroll in the menu. What am I talking ]about?
]Say I have a small image....the menu gets cut in half. ]If there was a way to make that menu scrollabe so ]everything can be seen, it would be nice.

A simple implementation of this might add a menu item like "..." to contain the missing items that would normally follow. (seems easier to implement and as intuitive as scrolling back and forth)

_-T

_________________

Hi,

Gezim Hoxha writes:

I like the menu but it would be even better to make some sort of scroll in the menu. What am I talking about?

Say I have a small image....the menu gets cut in half. If there was a way to make that menu scrollabe so everything can be seen, it would be nice.

That would be a GTK+ issue, but IIRC this has been suggested already and there's a bug report about it. Now someone just needs to fix it.

Sven