On Tuesday 18 March 2008 14:39:07 David G. wrote:

. I don't know if this
GIMP FX Foundry is managed by one of the developers here, but it would be good to have some official releases with this common 'effects' for the general public who doesn't have knowledge about sourceforge, script-fus and technical stuff.

Gimp FX Foundry was started and is maintained by me. There are releases to the public, new one is around the corner, I'm hoping to finalize it next weekend. This one will come with docs and single script download option.

I do not think gimp needs to come with extra stuff by default. There is more than enough already... What gimp needs is a quick drag-and-drop way to "install" extras in packs. I have a script that I haven't put into release because it needs certain patterns to be installed too... And theres no way I can make that happen without some pain to users.

Best, Alexia

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 7:43 AM, David G. wrote:

Alexia Death-2 wrote:
>
>
> I do not think gimp needs to come with extra stuff by default. There is > more
> than enough already... What gimp needs is a quick drag-and-drop way > to "install" extras in packs. I have a script that I haven't put into > release
> because it needs certain patterns to be installed too... And theres no way > I
> can make that happen without some pain to users. >
>

Sorry but I don't agree with that. I think GIMP should be more of a 'out of a box' term than just worrying about sizes and things that could be taken care of fast. I'm not saying that GIMP developers should choose the whole

GIMP already has too much stuff; I've been using it for years, I like to experiment, and 50% of the filters I still don't use, ever.. not because they're not useful, but because it is too difficult to choose from the vast array of filters.
Adding more filters would just increase my confusion. First we need a better way to organize filters..
GEGL can help with that (it has a concept of 'operation categories', essentially like tags.)

project and integrate the scripts because that would make a big mess, but common things like Inner Glow , gradient overlay and so on are things that are used pretty much in every graphic.

I have to say: 'gradient map' is the only one of those 'layer effects' I'm likely to ever use personally.

Although, now I was looking at gegl and wonder if this should be implemented there instead of using it as a script.

This is a smarter idea.. with GEGL, disabling or enabling individual ops would be far more natural and straightforward, which allows a person to choose from a reasonable subset of available filters.

Another smart way of accessing filters, is seen in the GEGL editor, where you can get autocompletion for operation names. If this was more like a 'particle search' (like, when you type foo, the matching of candidates is based on *foo* so foo can appear anywhere in the candidate name)

There is of course a lot of things GIMP comes with, and there isn't much a 'propaganda' about the use of plugins and script-fus. It really worries me because I don't think its fair that new users who don't know anything about open source software, linux and so on--will just have to sit down and wait and see if it happens.

www.gimptalk.com has a number of tutorials, they could cover more things, I think they do a good job.
In the help, we should link to these sorts of sites if we do not already... And it would be smart to approach the authors of mature tutorials about including their work in the GIMP manual. Eventually we could have a number of tutorials incorporated which cover common tasks.

I really admire the effors you have put into GIMP FX Foundry, but as long as the general public remains unaware of these things it will lead more users having the wrong opinion of the GIMP.

I think we could make it easier to install these things, and that's where to start. With a little app that provides a DnD area for brushes, gradients, plugins, patterns, scripts, and allows either a ZIP of the relevant resource type to be dropped there or just a single item of the appropriate type. Clicking on each button should show the contents (recursively, like an archive manager does) and allow you to remove them.

Easy installation of resources has been an issue on the table with the GIMP team for some time, They can't work out everything, so if you want to promote GIMP's capabilities, writing such an app, with input from the GIMP team, would be a good place to start

Wow, didn't notice I was repeating Alexia. Sorry, Alexia :) Although that makes me think -- something like python's easy_install would be terribly handy for resources.. If you're not familiar with it, basic usage is : 'easy_install foo' installs the latest version of foo.
This would require a centralized repository (the resources needn't be stored there, metadata would need to be.) Would be a nice backend for a DnD app.

Also,.. On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 7:43 AM, David G. wrote:

Sorry but I don't agree with that. I think GIMP should be more of a 'out of a box' term than just worrying about sizes and things that could be taken

?? worrying about sizes ??
Oh, you mean distribution size. This is undoubtedly an issue, it is less of a concern than simple cumbersomeness: the amount of files in the GIMP distribution is too much already.. for a sample, look at the plug-ins/common directory in a GIMP source tree. Approximately, each C file produces a plugin, there are a lot of plugins there.. (120+ IIRC); similarly I think we have too many gradients by default, too many palettes, and too many patterns. This is partly because there isn't a 'filtered/tagged' view, so that we only need to consider relevant resources. Also, GIMP developers are required to manage this multiplicity of resources, which becomes harder the more resources there are in the distribution.

(there is infrastructure for tagging, and no UI or I/O for tagging, IIRC. I think it might take quite a bit of work to get the tagging UI right.)

Hi,

On Tue, 2008-03-18 at 14:13 -0700, David G. wrote:

I'm not saying that GIMP developers should choose the whole project and integrate the scripts because that would make a big mess, but common things like Inner Glow , gradient overlay and so on are things that are used pretty much in every graphic.

I am all for adding some scripts and plug-ins that are important for many users. At the same time we should probably drop some not-so-important plug-ins and scripts.

Perhaps we should make this a goal for the next development cycle. It would be good to have some well-defined process where plug-ins and scripts are proposed for removal and inclusion. There should be a time-frame for this, at the beginning of each development cycle. At the end of the proposal time we would discuss and decide what is added and what is removed. After that we should still have enough time to polish the new plug-ins and scripts for the next stable release.

Sven

>I do not think gimp needs to come with extra stuff by default. There is > more
> than enough already.

well there are more then enough complex and seldom used features.. but then some basic simple basic features are missed

2 examples of missed function available with extra script and plugin that in my user opinion should be adopted

1 what is ps is called " Apply to image"(=copy visible+paste +add new layer) ( available for gimp but not in gimp-out-of-the-box )

2 export layer(s )as (to replace it i use GAP "split image into frames" and i suppose "split image into frames" may be adapted to be a Gimp plugin instead then a GAP plugin...and renamed as "export layer(s) as"

3 "Filter all layer" and "filterMacro" Is available only installing GAP but why? Is quite useful in gimp also for users that have no any specific interest in Animation....same for "Filtermacro" also only in GAP

Note that users have no way to install 2 and 3 if not installing the whole GAP package

Alexia Death-2 wrote: .. What gimp needs is a quick drag-and-drop way > to "install" extras in packs. I have a script that I haven't put into > release
> because it needs certain patterns to be installed too... And theres no way > I
> can make that happen without some pain to users.

Well it is already possible and is very simple, but the problem is that many users at least on windows are not aware of it

1 suppose you have a pack of scripts, and the script requires some extras as extra gradient, pattern , even extra Gimpimpressionist preset

2 well is just needed put everything in folders with same name of related folders in usr/gimp as "script""gradient""pattern" "Gimpimpressionist",and inside "Gimp inpressionist a folder called " preset"and you zip everything

then the user wil have only to uncompress the zip in there as in C:/Document and setting/username/.gimp-2.4 to get everything in place

Problem is that 1 users are used to unzip the script in the script folder, they may overlook that in this case they must point the unzipper to "C:/Document and setting/username/.gimp-2.4 " instead then to C:/Document and setting/username/.gimp-2.4 /script"

2 Unzipper may have different defaults ,with some default ( as "do not overwrite files") this will no work

But the concept work if a compressed folder script contain a gimp-24 folder and inside" script" "pattern " "brush" subfolder, if uncompressed in C:/Document and setting/username/.gimp-2.4 will put everything in the right place...and with just 1 click

Maybe is possible automatize this step (unzip in), because from user point is very simple but also a bit tricky

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