Cursed Silicon
CursedSilicon@social.restless.systems
I think graphics people would get a lot more done if they stopped grudgingly admitting "I pay for photoshop"
A more positive affirmation would be "I pay not to use GIMP"
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Cursed Silicon
CursedSilicon@social.restless.systemsAlso this isn't a defense of Adobe
It's a condemnation of the GIMP developers
"NO. THE USER IS STUPID. JUST READ THE MANUAL, STUPID!"
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Cursed Silicon
CursedSilicon@social.restless.systems(Okay they didn't literally call the user stupid but "IF YOU JUST READ THE MAAAANUAAAL")
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🍵 
Is Krita a good replacement? The new GTK CSD dialog boxes are hideous to me. :P
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@rl_dane I've honestly no idea about Krita. The guy who did my Mastodon banner uses it so I assume it's...fine?
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Charlotte/Cinny 
charlotte
@CursedSilicon they remade their whole ui for gimp 3 yet creating text with an outline is still several hidden menu options that appear to have absolutely no relation to what you are trying to accomplish
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Charlotte/Cinny
charlotte
@CursedSilicon because obviously
- select text layer
- layer -> text to path
- selection -> path to selection
- selection -> grow (the size of the outline)
- switch to a layer behind the text
- paint bucket tools
- adjust the fill color as appropriate
- set fill type to whole selection
there is also a variant where you mess around with a drop shadow
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Charlotte/Cinny
charlotte
@CursedSilicon i wonder if they fixed the annoyance yet if you change text settings in the floating rich text controls that they reset your text formatting because there is absolutely no reason for you to ever re-write an entire text object without also resetting its style to the tool default
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poleguy looking for lost tools
poleguy@mastodon.social
@CursedSilicon I've moved to #krita for almost everything because I've spent too many years fighting gimp doing things in ways that, even after reading the manual, don't work in a smooth way.
Krita just works.
Gimp has not progressed away from these busted patterns in the decades I have used it.
I don't know who Tantacrul might be, but I'm about to find out.
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@poleguy Tantacrul is the guy who absolutely mercilessly tore apart the poor design of several music authoring tools
And also is leading the charge on MuseScore and Audacity's UI revamps
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Cursed Silicon
CursedSilicon@social.restless.systems@poleguy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-3wEC6Fj_8
He's got a bunch of these but they're absolutely *fascinating* even as someone who is nowhere near the field of music
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poleguy looking for lost tools
poleguy@mastodon.social@CursedSilicon I've used MuseScore a few years back. And I use audacity pretty frequently.
I've also used older iterations of similar software. The notation software I've used would be pretty easy to rip in to.
It is great that this software is getting attention. I worry a bit about potential conflicts of interest and monetization schemes when anyone with money comes in to a foss project, but maybe I'm just a bit paranoid.
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@poleguy Afaik he's a volunteer on both projects. He just has a history of absolutely obliterating notation apps (Dorico, Finale, MuseScore and Sibelius)
MuseScore to their credit took *everything* he said and actively started working to fix things. So he started submitting design documents and then just...joined the project!
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@CursedSilicon
If I understand it correctly, the dev is responding to the headline which mentions that a random feature should really be improved?
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@HugeGameArtGD It's from an (extremely satirical) critique of GIMP by Tantacrul. Who has a history of absolutely *eviscerating* bad software UI design
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@CursedSilicon
Yes, I don't get why the response by Quiet-Protection is not helpful
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@HugeGameArtGD Because "read the manual harder!" Is not an excuse for bad design
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@CursedSilicon @poleguy
Wait, the person talking about bad user interfaces in random FOSS projects is a developer hired by the MuseScore company which tries to monetize Audacity since the acquisition in 2021?
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues/1213
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/932
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835
Did tantacrul ever contribute fixes to GIMP?
The GitHub profile looks quite empty
https://github.com/Tantacrul
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@HugeGameArtGD @poleguy Sorry. Where do I go buy Audacity? I must've missed that part reading the "privacy policy"
And ah. The classic Linux "Gotcha"
"You can't complain because you never submitted fixes!"
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@CursedSilicon
Manuals are quite common for old graphical user interfaces with a compact design for small resolutions, before smartphones were being manufactured. Nowadays icons are quite standardized. Most users would probably try to create a new brush anyway if the presets can't be edited so one question might be if the highlighting colors of the edit menu make sense at all.
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@HugeGameArtGD Sorry. How many projects have you lead the user interface or experience design on?
It's weird how you keep jumping from goalpost to goalpost by the way
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@CursedSilicon @poleguy
In GIMP 1.x the app launched multiple windows for the canvas, layers and other menus so I think it's a bit better now.
It's a known issue that the UI is counterintuitive for beginners
https://www.reddit.com/r/GIMP/comments/yluqnj/i_love_gimp_but_why_is_the_interface_so/
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@HugeGameArtGD @poleguy So that was 3 years ago
GIMP 3.0 which released in March of 2025 and was considered a "complete overhaul that took 7 years" (Wikipedia)
And yet as of...7 days ago (adjusting for when I posted those screenshots) users still find it laughably bad
So essentially GIMP's developers spent 7 years and accomplished very little in terms of UI/UX improvements
And yet you think it's reasonable to say "well they should just read the manual still"
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@CursedSilicon @poleguy
"So essentially GIMP's developers spent 7 years and accomplished very little in terms of UI/UX improvements"
They probably fixed other technical bugs as time might be limited in a small team. They don't have the budget like Photoshop, Gnome, Microsoft or the Muse Group with 200+ employees
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@HugeGameArtGD @poleguy The Muse group that...Tantacrul joined AFTER they started taking his feedback?
Also MuseScore stands in contrast to Finale, Dorico, and Sibelius that all have full-time paid development staff
And Audacity that has a team of something like...five people
Does GIMP have less than 5 people working on it?
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@CursedSilicon @poleguy
Yes, currently they only have two maintainers I think
https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@HugeGameArtGD/115516611682786309
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@HugeGameArtGD @poleguy While throwing more developers at a project does not necessarily make it "go faster"
It's saddening that GIMP hasn't gotten a UI/UX person with clear, consistent direction for almost 30 years. But it's hardly unique in FOSS
None of this, of course, detracts from the fact that telling a user "RTFM!" or "you didn't write patches so you can't talk!" is a terrible response to their criticisms
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@CursedSilicon @poleguy
The user was just replying to the comment from the reposted review video on Reddit, there was no one specifically asking for support with a GIMP feature that doesn't seem to work.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GIMP/comments/1olbyea/comment/nmi2ocn/?context=3
"You could argue that the edit button should be disabled for built-in brushes."
There are probably other UX issues as well but the suggested fix on Reddit should already improve it.
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@HugeGameArtGD @poleguy This is getting tedious. Goodbye
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