Have you read the Save&Export specification, especially the goals section?

@Grant I dont see how you can be ambivalent about it, what good does it achieve other than trying to force people to use XCF?

your waiting for actual features and instead they are wasting time making life harder for their users, with no options to turn it off!

I like the UI of 2.6 way better. I think you guys just don't like change.

The save/export thing is something I'm ambivalent about. I definitely don't see it as something to fret about, though. I mean, is that change going to be a major inconvenience? Nope.

There are a few things I keep waiting for: 16-bit editing, IWARP improvements, etc., just like anyone else and I'd like them to get more focus but that doesn't mean I have to hate on the stuff these guys are doing. I haven't seen any regressions as gimp has progressed, and I've seen a lot of nice and useful features.

What the hell is going on with GIMP lately, every time I 'upgrade' things get WORSE.

Save/export is such a stupid idea, why are you guys wasting time on things like this? Seriously, I have used gimp for years, I have managed to get many people to use it over that time but I am going to stop singing its praises because I don't know if its going to be usable in the coming years.

Save/Export makes everything so much slower!!!! What was wrong with having everything in save, what benefit does this give us???? I am simply amazed at how mad this 'feature' is, and there seems to be know way of turning it off.

Now there is more of this crazy talk regarding MDI being replaced with one window. Professional designers with large/multiple screens LOVE being able to place each element individually, an SDI would again ruin and slow down productivity.

Do some proper work and fix bugs or add features but stop making changes to the UI, its NOT BROKEN!!!

I am so angry about this, I really feel like forking, gimp devs seemed to have lost touch with reality. I am now going to have to waste my working time to uninstall 2.7 and get 2.6 back and christ knows how long I can avoid updating.

Interesting reading: Reactions on GIMP 2.7.0
http://www.chromecode.com/2009/09/reactions-on-gimp-270.html

I go for the 2.6 GUI too. BTW, why abuse the efforts of the developers by terms such as 'stupid'. As I see it, they are working towards improving and optimizing GIMP and doing a good job. And they are providing the open source community with an incredibly good graphics application. All power to them.

I like the 2.6 layout. I find it easy to use. I don't yet understand the export yet... is this because it will default to working on a .xcf and thus you must export out? That would be fine. Would be nice to have the export to file extension type chosen as that is easy for nerd types.

I find the 2.6 menu to be very clear and logical. Much more so then earlier versions.
Don't see what the problem of the empty window is. As soon as you start working with GIMP it will be replaced by your image window.

Don't really see the point of the export and save "feature".
I don't know anything about the reasoning behind it, but it seems to be addressing a non existent problem. As far as I'm concerned the save dialogues were fine as they were.

Hey, GIMP is free software, if you think you can design a better UI then go and post your idea, or keep the old gimp, anyway, the actual interface is very AWKWARD, GIMP team can make a better one so this is want they support(i completely disagree with you, a SDI is a lot better)

Anyway, Pigeon, unless you're going to contribute remember that you're not paying these guys, and they are doing their "job", that is creating a good interface that fits their product vision. That can benefit most users, not one.

And also there is not any Windows developers on the team, see it this way, works like a charm in any Linux distro! As far as i know, GIMP is the best free available software, you help it to get better, but saying that is simply "doesn't fit your needs" is no help at all. Better not to post that

The new Save/Export idea is very wisely done, you might think is a bad move, but overall, if you're making a image and you want to Quick save and don't loose any detail(example that you save it in jpeg, you lose your masks/layers etc...) so you can later export it to any other format, that's quite usefull for me, because i want to keep the details and i don't mind 2 more clicks lol

Documenting a bad idea does not make it any less of a bad idea.

I am not asking for "GIMP to stay the same and never [be] changed in any way". I am simply wanting it not to be changed in ways which make it worse. Reverting the UI to the 2.4 style would make it better: simpler, easier to use, no pointless overcomplication - even the overcomplex, hard-to-navigate menu layout in 2.6 is a backward step compared to 2.4 and deserves to be reverted in upcoming versions.

The save/export business is nothing but pointless confusion. All that is needed is a simple "save" dialogue with the option to choose what file format to save in... like it always has been. Introducing pointless distinctions does nothing but make it more awkward.

The business of having an empty window open all the time is simply retarded, and moreover has already attracted much complaint, but nobody is listening.

Well, everyone who wants GIMP to stay the same and never see it changed in any way will be in for more disappointment.

The product vision and the changes that have to be done to reach it are described in http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/GIMP_UI_Redesign.

For example, the new save & export is specified at http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Save_%2B_export_specification, and I hope that we will soon get the unified transform tool, too.

There will be no revert to the 2.4 UI.

@2: There is, but the trouble is that the passengers all want to go to different destinations. I also prefered the interface as it was (although I'm happy to see a move to complete SDI), but a lot of people want Gimp to become MDI.

I do find it mildly ironic that it's broken the most on Windows when it was Windows users that the changes are largely supposed to benefit. Hopefully the Windows bugs will be ironed out sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, I don't think there is much contribution from the Windows crowd.

I totally agree with Pigeon.
Annonced "enhancements" are tiny details, uninteresting or harmful; the save/export distintion is perfecty stupid, and will be a new source of errors, JPEG2000 is a pre-dying format (and a plugin already exists for those who use it). All "efforts" in order to simplify the interface have made it worse.
Is there a pilot in the plane?

I have looked carefully at the list of UI changes and see no mention of any reversion of the horrid mess that is Gimp 2.6 back to the much better UI of Gimp 2.4.

So many people complained about it and it is very disappointing to see nothing has been done.

To make matters worse there are stupid pointless changes announced mistakenly touted as "improvements". It says you can't simply save a file in any format any more, you have to mess about exporting it... That's not an improvement, that's just making things more awkward.

I urge the developers most strongly to:

1) Get rid of the stupid blank-window-open-all-the-time rubbish and make it all work from the toolbox window, same as 2.4.

2) Revert the over-complex and hard-to-use menu arrangement of 2.6 to the simple easy layout of 2.4.

3) By all means add new features to the program, but leave the UI alone. All the messing about with the UI is completely counterproductive. All it does is make the Gimp harder and more awkward to use - and what makes it even more annoying is that there is no good reason to do it in the first place. The 2.4 UI is spot on, leave it in that state.