Am I the only one who actually likes GIMP's multi-window interface? It works great with multiple displays. I've seen people do amazing things with GIMP, using a combination of keyboard shortcuts and clever use of the toolbox - in the hands of a skilled craftsman, it's an excellent and fast tool to use.
Of course I've been using GIMP since it was still in it's infancy and I've never used Photoshop, so I didn't have a trouble adjusting.
It's still cool that they implement the single window mode, since it's been one of the prime source of complaints from photoshoppers and people migrating from other software.
I've found that the multi-window mode feels best when you're using a Linux window manager that allows you to move a window by holding a modifier key and clicking anywhere on the window.
But if you can's easily grab and move the floating palettes around, using the GIMP becomes more of an exercise in window positioning than in image manipulation.
Single-window mode has been one of the most requested features for GIMP. Fact: when it finally comes, no one will care (they never did).
Actually, the multi-window interface is much better when you have virtual-desktops (everywhere but Windows) or multiple screens.
Pixelmator on the Mac is a multi-window application (like most Mac apps are) and I don't see anyone complaining about it.
The problems are:
1. GIMP isn't Photoshop;
2. When a window is clicked, all windows should come to the foreground (more precisely, all palettes).
For 1. there's not much that can be done. Whatever the application, if it has to do with graphics, people will complain about this (everyone will complain that it is missing a certain Photoshop feature, up to the total of Photoshop features). At the same time, they will complain about Photoshop itself, and trying to be more like Photoshop isn't going to work, uncanny valley style.
As for 2... It's a window manager problem actually. On the Mac, again, Pixelmator does this just fine and it works great.
That's funny; I use GIMP daily and I've always thought I was very much looking forward to the single-window interface on my multiple-screen non-virtual desktop environment. I guess I was wrong.
My background: I've been using Photoshop for about fifteen years nearly everyday.
Just to be more informed, I decided to download Mac version of GIMP.
What I like:
- Feels much more nimble, lightweight
- Seems like it has most of core tools I need
What prevents me from using it:
- The interface seems really unfinished. I think that's what I like about Pixelmator: it's polished and looks somewhat similar to Photoshop's layout
- The shortcuts are all different. I'm not even sure I can customize the shortcuts in some of the contexts as even some of the ones in Photoshop are sort of built in. That alone would be a huge deterrent as I rarely click on any interfaces.
- Layer effects and smart objects. I know they are in the Roadmap but without them, I can't re-use elements others or I have made from Photoshop and it does effect image creation.
- Masking is a little kludgy. When I imported my PSDs with shape masking, they all disappeared. Does it support vector masking?
- Doesn't seem to support importing vectors from Illustrator as it automatically outputs some of the elements as raster elements.
- Lack of layer folders.
The whole single-window mode? I think that wouldn't nearly entice me as it's not that much of a deterrent.
I agree with all those points, but especially vector smart objects and vector masks/paths; it's insane how useful they are. Those features alone are worth paying for Photoshop.
I have been using GIMP for 9 months and the UI is exasperating.
It's not just multi-window mode, things like the way the windows are rendered and designed, focus issues, shortcuts, missing features and a lot of other annoyances.
The most disappointing thing is that I'm not even doing intensive graphical work, just retouching some photos, moving things around, resizing, etc.
The UI works quite well with a focus-follows-mouse policy - as it has been standard in Unix for decades. With today's click-to-focus window managers the UI is just horrible (but that's not Gimp's fault).
To an extent it is Gimp's fault, though. It's not as though click-to-focus is a new fad that's sprung up and surprised everyone -- it's been the default way focus has worked in GNOME and KDE for as long as I can remember, and I've been using it for the best part of fifteen years on Linux.
The fact that such a common use case (almost certainly the most common use case, not to mention Gimp-related irritation, for at least the past decade) has been ignored for so long is disappointing.
The most common use case... except among the kind of people whose idea of a fun evening is developing a Free image editor on a Free operating system.
I'm not one of those people, but I have a similar background, and GIMP has suited me pretty well for the photo-retouching and website-graphics work I've done.
> almost certainly the most common use case [click-to-focus]
Most common only if you are coming from a ms-windows background. Click-to-focus is only a relatively recent newcomer to the Unix/X-Windows system in the scheme of how long X-Windows has existed.
And if you ever break out of your ms-windows mindset and actually give focus follows mouse a try, focus follows mouse is actually the more powerful method.
And if you ever break out of your ms-windows mindset and actually give focus follows mouse a try, focus follows mouse is actually the more powerful method.
Not this again. Focus-follows-mouse is different, not more powerful. It provides a different way of working that not everyone agrees with and not everyone wants to use.
All the power in the world doesn't matter if it's not what the user wants or expects.
Which gets right to the core of GIMP's marketing problems. For years, users wanted a cheap Photoshop clone ... they got GIMP. Because it's not a near-clone of PS, it hasn't caught on as well outside a small group.
Just as an FYI, Windows actually supports focus follows mouse with a registry hack [0]. There are a couple of quirks mostly to do with things like tooltips, but I've found it usable.
The new window managers are a hybrid. Mouse events are focus follows mouse, while keyboard events are focus follows click. This allows you to highlight a bit of text and middle click on another window to paste, but leave the focus on the first window and continue typing, for instance. It also allows you to code in an editor while scrolling a documentation window.
Citation please. I love focus-follows-mouse but this sounds downright confusing. Do windows have different highlights to show where mouse and keyboard events will go?
Citation? Sorry, but it's been in Ubuntu for ages, and that's what I use.
As for the visual cues, it looks a lot like OS X. Currently focused windows has a highlighted top bar and pronounced shadows and is in front of other windows. As for where the keyboard and mouse events... keyboarrd goes to focused window, mouse goes to where you click. It makes sense.
I'm using FFM in Ubuntu classic (non-Unity) right now. Mouse and keyboard events go to the highlighted window and the highlight follows the mouse (with a few minor exceptions which is why some people call it sloppy focus). Clicking doesn't affect where the events go.
Not sure what you're talking about...? Maybe plain old click-to-raise like Mac and Windows?
I'm using default Ubuntu classic behaviour currently, and I almost agree with windsurfer's description. (I'm currently using 11.04, dist-upgraded from a 10.10 clean install, but it's been this way in every Ubuntu I've used over the past four years.)
If I mouse to a different window, focus does not follow (like MS). However... if I use the mousewheel, it applies to whatever window is under the mouse. As windsurfer says, this is cool because I can navigate around in one window while keeping my editor typing in another.
However, in disagreement with windsurfer's claim, my middle-click DOES change focus, as with my left- or right-click.
Anyway, I hate full-on sloppy focus, but I sure love this sloppy-mousewheel-focus.
So that's the justification? That the GIMP expects WM settings that were only the default on TWM and the like over 15 years ago?
Well, I must say that I haven't seen any other application of its size take the "NO WARRANTY" shouting of the GPL so seriously.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
But the program did start as a showcase for some graphics manipulation algorithms that the authors made. Maybe the fault is with the people with the high hopes that it was actually meant for them to use and edit their photos.
It seems rather inaccurate to claim that focus-follows-mouse is "standard in Unix".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but focus-follows-mouse hasn't been the standard in Unix for quite some time. I don't think it's ever been the default in Gnome or KDE. Is it the default on anything that isn't antiquated and/or super-niche (like FVWM or TWM, etc.)?
Haven't seen a default configuration of focus-follows-mouse for quite a while on any "big" Linux desktops. I always turn it on manually the first thing I touch a new system so it's not a big problem. However, a bigger problem is that finding a strict focus-follows-mouse is getting more difficult: for example Metacity can't do it, only sloppy focus-follows-mouse.
But the strict one would be the real focus-follows-mouse: with that you never lose the focus unintentionally since the focus is always under the mouse cursor. With sloppy focus, a newly opened window might of might not steal the focus regardless of the mouse position, and I quite often find myself typing into the wrong window after that.
No, the version that I'm using doesn't seem to support this so I duplicate the layer and work on the copy.
As for slowness, it depends on what kind of retouching you are doing. I'm retouching mobile graphics assets, which are small enough and I haven't seen any lags.
I image that things are very different when working with high quality photos...
The biggest problem I have with GIMP is that it's not intuitive. Every time I open it I have to stop and think how I am supposed to do what I am trying to do, my work never flows.
This has such an impact on my productivity that I'm desperately looking for alternatives that don't involve purchasing Photoshop - now looking at Pixelmator. Other members of the team have switched to Paint.NET or other simple editors, but they are too simple for me.
Another problem that I have is with focus - sometimes the picture window loses input focus to one of the tool windows and then the keyboard shortcuts stop working. I have to click on the window and then use the shortcut, but when clicking the current tool will execute its action (such as paint a black blob in the middle of the layer), so I have to click outside the picture area (might be hard to do) or hunt for the title bar.
Furthermore, when the tool windows have focus they control some of the widgets in the tool window, popping up subwindows or changing settings by accident.
Yet another issue is text editing and selection. GIMP does not allow me to do live text-editing, instead it pops up a dialog box and I have to adjust the actual text rect in the background. Every time I click the text rect to adjust it the tool windows flicker into view for 0.5 seconds, very annoying. Selections are significantly harder to control compared to Photoshop, where you can do pretty much anything to a selection just by using the mouse and one or two keys.
General UI problems:
* dialogs that are too small
* dialogs popping up over other dialogs
* many dialogs that cover the image when shown and I have to move them out of the way
* dialogs that sometimes remember their position, sometimes show up at apparently random locations
* tool windows exiting the screen
* tool fields that just look like they were thrown together without any thought to spacing, grouping and alignment (check out the rectangle select or the almost invisible spinner arrows for the layer transparency)
* the layers tool window is especially difficult to use with a mouse (dragging & dropping, ordering, linking)
* tools that reset their settings (e.g: move tool rests to pick a layer to move instead of move active)
* general disregard for UI design that makes the UI look crowded (e.g layers tab icons)
* the design choice of clipping layers to the visible image area, forcing you to resize the canvas and the layers unnecessarily
I could go on and on and on. I can't remember using GIMP even once without being annoyed by something in the UI that breaks my work flow.
The features I miss the most are adjustments layers, layer grouping (this is so painful when working with a lot of layers).
Great! A list of problems with a description of _why_ it's a problem. Can I ask if you have put this list anywhere near the GIMP developers - mailing lists or bugzilla?
Totally agree. I would like to add one think that is bugging me: layer size. It sucks. Move a layer 50 pix. to the right and suddenly you can't draw in the left 50 pixels because the layer has moved.
But perhaps some issues are they because of patents. I can image they cannot copy every part of Photoshop. But infinite layer size would be nice.
thanks - I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. GIMP completly breaks your photoshop habits, because it's so similar yet makes tiny little differences along the way. either embrace the photoshop design philosophy fully - or build your own, distinct and intuitive GUI - now it's just confusing to the point of being useless, whenever I have to quickly edit a picture on linux.
I understand what you mean, since i feel the same way every time i use gimp. However, I don't think you can blame it for breaking your photoshop habits. It is, after all, not photoshop.
The problem I've had (and the most common one I've seen) is that people use gimp 15% of the time and don't learn it's flow, then get frustrated because it's not photoshop's flow.
I've done full-time in both gimp and photoshop and decided, for now, to stick with photoshop. Too many niggly UI issues (like the GP mentioned) in gimp (not that photoshop is great, but it is at least reasonably consistent). Same reason I'm on a Mac instead of Linux (after doing full-time Linux, too).
Some aspects of Gimp are a little bit annoying (especially on a Mac), but you can do pretty cool things with it once you get used to it. I do some artwork for some web sites I created and Gimp is a good tool for this. Photoshop probably would be better, but for as little as I do me it is way too expensive.
If you're on a Mac or Linux, it's easy to switch to a click-through model where you don't have to click a window before selecting a tool. It renders GIMP usable on a Mac if you do this.
Personally, I just haven't managed to get into Pixelmator, I always try, then end up running back to GIMP, and I'm not a heavy user of the program by any means, though I did do all the FemCal art in it.
The biggest fix to GIMP right now should be to get 16-bit color depth working. 12-bit isn't a huge problem for me, but I can understand it holding people back who are doing lots of photo manipulation.
I'v been eagerly awaiting this, since my major annoyances all have to do with the floating dialogs:
Not hiding the palettes when the last gimp window was minimized. Minimize -> d'oh! -> unminimize -> secret key shortcut[1] -> minimize again. Older versions used to hide them with any image window being minimized, so it was minimize#1 -> sigh -> minimize#2 -> unminimize#2 back then.
Placing the toolboxes at x,0 by default so they were underneath the taskbar/menubar. I keep my taskbar on top on Windows, and I'm glad I know about Alt+Space there.
Not having the image window's keyboard shortcuts work when a tool window is focused, for which I know no workaround.
Having the tool windows appear in the Alt+Tab list.
Actually, I can think of one more that was remedied with 2.0: the menu used to be hidden. You could right-click the image or hit the ">" button at the corner of the rulers, but it took me a long time to figure out how to save my first image.
[1] TAB. I think its action is finally available in the menus, and the shortcut displayed with it, in 2.7.x.
I think I might like a single window mode. I am not a "power user", but I regularily use Gimp when I do artwork for my homepage or climbing blog. I'll have to give it a try soon.
Of course I've been using GIMP since it was still in it's infancy and I've never used Photoshop, so I didn't have a trouble adjusting.
It's still cool that they implement the single window mode, since it's been one of the prime source of complaints from photoshoppers and people migrating from other software.