Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

gimp.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 174 posts

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#11

Post by Rovanion »

nkkollaw wrote: post #6

Downvote all you want--I know open source can't handle criticism, but as much as I want to love GIMP, it's completely unusable. First, it's still in GTK2 so on my monitor it looks zoomed out at 50%. Then, the UI is the least intuitive thing I've ever seen. To resize and move a layer takes 4 times the steps compared to Pinta (or of course Photoshop). Shortcuts are the weirdest thing, completely different compared to a…

Maybe because its hard. Maybe because the core developers can be counted on one hand.

My knee jerk reaction to your knee jerk reaction is: If its so easy, go fix it!

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#12

Post by nkkollaw »

Rovanion wrote: post #11
nkkollaw wrote: post #6

Downvote all you want--I know open source can't handle criticism, but as much as I want to love GIMP, it's completely unusable. First, it's still in GTK2 so on my monitor it looks zoomed out at 50%. Then, the UI is the least intuitive thing I've ever seen. To resize and move a layer takes 4 times the steps compared to Pinta (or of course Photoshop). Shortcuts are the weirdest thing, completely different compared to a…

Maybe because its hard. Maybe because the core developers can be counted on one hand. My knee jerk reaction to your knee jerk reaction is: If its so easy, go fix it!

It's hard to develop the effects, not move buttons around.

As for the "go fix it", that's exactly the reaction I was expecting. Open source projects can't handle criticism because it's volonteers working on it, so "go fix it if you don't like it". Not very productive, uh?

Personally, I use Pinta or Photoshop via Wine. Pinta is very good though.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#13

Post by nkkollaw »

nol13 wrote: post #9
nkkollaw wrote: post #6

Downvote all you want--I know open source can't handle criticism, but as much as I want to love GIMP, it's completely unusable. First, it's still in GTK2 so on my monitor it looks zoomed out at 50%. Then, the UI is the least intuitive thing I've ever seen. To resize and move a layer takes 4 times the steps compared to Pinta (or of course Photoshop). Shortcuts are the weirdest thing, completely different compared to a…

Eh, not that I disagree with any specific point, but I've certainly been able to use it many times to do real work. Plus the Python-fu was awesome when I needed it. Thanks for release!

I don't know, I must be slow but many, many times I _forced_ myself to learn it, and there's just no way.

I've finally come to the conclusion that it isn't me, but it's the usability that is completely flawed.

Unfortunately, when one tries to say anything the response is "you go fix it then, asshole!" but I don't know how to develop desktop apps, so...

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#14

Post by damyyy »

bhaavan wrote: post #3

So still no GTK3? I think when GTK4 is released in a few months, it would be a good time to move to GTK3 as they can still be outdated. I know I am being a bit bitter for an open source project with less funding, but GIMP was supposed to be a poster boy GTK application in the first place.

This is just a myth. You make it sound like there was some purposeful intention to gimp and gtk. There was not. Gimp was created by some kids at berkeley who created gtk because at the time qt and motif had untenable cost and or licensing, or sucked. When the gnome project started years later gtk was chosen due to licensing considerations since ironically qt was “too free” ie pure gpl which limited its use in closed source software without licensing. At the time this was considered a major problem in unseating windows (back in 1998 when there was actually real vested interest that could be a thing)—- visual studio cost a little bit of money (but it was cheap) and you didn’t have to license anything to make closed source windows apps. You could write a GUI app in assembly and not pay ms a dime if you wanted. The Unix side of things was not so good. Motif was thousands of dollars.

Anyway, turns out maintaining a professional image editing program is a lot of work. While it is true many fanboys named gimp as some kind of foss and gtk showcase its not like most of them were actively contributing to either gtk or gimp.

There was never any longterm large scale commercial investment in gimp similar to how redhat threw massive resources into gnome and gtk.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#15

Post by GiorgioG »

nkkollaw wrote: post #6

Downvote all you want--I know open source can't handle criticism, but as much as I want to love GIMP, it's completely unusable. First, it's still in GTK2 so on my monitor it looks zoomed out at 50%. Then, the UI is the least intuitive thing I've ever seen. To resize and move a layer takes 4 times the steps compared to Pinta (or of course Photoshop). Shortcuts are the weirdest thing, completely different compared to a…

My guess is the reason they haven’t overhauled the UI is they build GIMP for themselves and their own mental model. Having used Photoshop forever, I can’t make the transition to GIMP because it feels unintuitive. Unless Linux is your desktop OS, there are plenty of other cheaper options (than Photoshop), for example Pixelmator (OS X) or Paint.NET (Windows) that feel way more familiar.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#16

Post by Joeboy »

Is this the development-hell branch that has exciting stuff like 16 bit colour and GEGL everywhere? If so then a release candidate is quite exciting. Hopefully getting this out of the door will make the roadmap a bit simpler and ease future development.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#17

Post by Rovanion »

nkkollaw wrote: post #12
Rovanion wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because its hard. Maybe because the core developers can be counted on one hand. My knee jerk reaction to your knee jerk reaction is: If its so easy, go fix it!

It's hard to develop the effects, not move buttons around. As for the "go fix it", that's exactly the reaction I was expecting. Open source projects can't handle criticism because it's volonteers working on it, so "go fix it if you don't like it". Not very productive, uh? Personally, I use Pinta or Photoshop via Wine. Pinta is very good though.

I'm sorry? There's a difference between constructive criticism and

> I really do want to love GIMP, but it's completely unusable.

And you speak of being productive...

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#19

Post by davidy123 »

nkkollaw wrote: post #6

Downvote all you want--I know open source can't handle criticism, but as much as I want to love GIMP, it's completely unusable. First, it's still in GTK2 so on my monitor it looks zoomed out at 50%. Then, the UI is the least intuitive thing I've ever seen. To resize and move a layer takes 4 times the steps compared to Pinta (or of course Photoshop). Shortcuts are the weirdest thing, completely different compared to a…

I agree with you, and it's disappointing people are downvoting you. I ended up having beers with several core GIMP developers a few years ago, and they outright stated that improving usability was not a goal for them, in fact they would rather not have the burden of users who expected it to be easier to use. Speaking for myself, I've found other graphics programs were very intuitive and helped me be very creative, yet I've tried to stick with GIMP over the years and have never felt comfortable with it. I think it's a shame it has been promoted as the go-to graphics package for the free software world (it's the one that's always mentioned). There are now better alternatives that should be promoted.

Re: GIMP 2.10.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

#20

Post by epidemian »

nkkollaw wrote: post #6

Downvote all you want--I know open source can't handle criticism, but as much as I want to love GIMP, it's completely unusable. First, it's still in GTK2 so on my monitor it looks zoomed out at 50%. Then, the UI is the least intuitive thing I've ever seen. To resize and move a layer takes 4 times the steps compared to Pinta (or of course Photoshop). Shortcuts are the weirdest thing, completely different compared to a…

Maybe i'm an outlier, but with zero prior experience in image editing software, i've found GIMP UI much more approachable than Photoshop. With PS i felt that the UI was much more tailored to experts or at least to people that knew what they were doing, whereas with GIMP i found the UI to be more beginner-friendly and discoverable.

So yeah, YMMV. What a shocker! :)

> Downvote all you want--I know open source can't handle criticism, but I really don't understand why they don't try to make it usable.

I'm intrigued by this. Do you genuinely think that the GIMP developers don't want or don't try to make it usable or to improve it as much as they can? What do you imagine? That they decide to spend their time contributing to a FOSS project and think "hey, today i'll try to make this thing that i love a bit more obscure and unusable!"?

I'm genuinely curious. I seems totally bizarre to me to think that way :S

Post reply on HN