

First Pictures Of Single Window Gimp - AjJi
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/10/first-pictures-of-single-window-gimp.html

======
NathanKP
Finally the day I have been waiting for! I can't stand the multiple windows,
especially on the Mac OS X version in which one initial click is required to
focus the window and a second to click a button or begin using a tool.

~~~
jpf
There is a fix for the unnecessary double click issue:

<http://darwingimp.sourceforge.net/guides/install_leopard/>

(scroll to the bottom)

~~~
Flow
And the menu is is the wrong place.

And Ctrl is used instead of Cmd.

It's a weird app for us on Mac.

------
SwellJoe
Isn't it interesting how the many-windows paradigm has come and gone? Desktop
software for the first ~15 years of personal computing was full screen, single
"window" for any given task. And then, for the past fifteen years or so, we've
been dealing with the increased complexity of many-windowed interfaces. Seems
strange that nobody noticed that some of the changes that windowing systems
brought were negative until a whole new generation of developers came along
and reinvented the single window model.

~~~
niels_olson
I'm not so sure multi-windowing is quite dead when it comes to drawing and CAD
programs. From a practical perspective, the paradigm of being able to move
your palettes around, and pick which ones are displayed, is rather valuable
regardless of how big your display is.

~~~
chancho
But having to position them manually is just tedium. Let me choose which
palettes to display and which side of the window to display them on, and then
let the application take care of the rest. If I'm running at fullscreen then I
don't want anything covering up the document/image/model. Otherwise, I only
want to have to move/resize one window.

~~~
yummyfajitas
This issue is solved fairly easily with a superior window manager.

[http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Image:Screen-ohmega-tab-
gnome...](http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Image:Screen-ohmega-tab-gnome-
twopane.jpg)

~~~
monos
hm, my xmonad shows gimp with multi windows free floating. wich makes more
sense for the current gimp.

~~~
yummyfajitas
By default gimp is floating. It's not hard to change the defaults.

<http://nathanhowell.net/2009/03/08/xmonad-and-the-gimp/>

------
jpcx01
This? <http://bit.ly/1Yl9Su> This looks amazing? Really?

It looks fine... but maybe the linux dudes have standards lowered a bit?

~~~
hughprime
I assume "it looks AMAZING" is perfectly within the usual editorial standards
of "omgbuntu", but wouldn't mind seeing a different headline here.

How about "it looks REASONABLY GOOD" or "it looks ABOUT LIKE YOU MIGHT
EXPECT"?

~~~
NathanKP
Sadly this is perhaps a measure of how desperate us GIMP users are. I'm just
happy that GIMP is all going to be in one window. Its amazing that they
finally decided to leave the old standard interface.

But relief and anticipation aside I have to agree with you that as far as
aesthetics and design it is rather mediocre.

~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
At the very least it is a start. Now that the maintainers are allowing the
single-window mode to be created the onward march of open-source progress will
keep improving it. It may not approach the elegance that Apple's designers
deliver but we can sure as hell beat Adobe.

Edit: Did all of my downvote arrows disappear? I don't want to downvote anyone
in particular here but that seems odd.

------
nazgulnarsil
I can't stand single windows for graphics stuff. ideal is to have the image
take up one whole monitor and all the pallets and tools take up another.

~~~
alex_c
That's why it's going to be optional. I, for one, can't stand multi-window
interfaces (after almost a year of using a Mac, I still find parts of the
interface annoying).

~~~
elblanco
The multi-window aspect of Macs makes them _almost_ unusable IMHO.

I can't conceive of a particular reason to have some completely unrelated
program showing up in the same visual space as the one I'm currently working
with.

~~~
bonaldi
What about related ones? If I'm designing a page, I might want my image
browser in sight so I can choose and then drag and drop images. Or if I'm
writing an article and it takes a lot of research, I'll want a web browser to
share the screen equally with the word processor.

The multi-window aspects of Macs makes them _more_ usable imo, especially
because of the deep support for drag-and-drop interoperation. In the physical
world, I mix and match media as suits the task, and the Mac mimics that. I
don't fill my desk up with a notepad, then hide it and take out a calculator,
then hide it and set up my easel.

~~~
gloob
_In the physical world, I mix and match media as suits the task, and the Mac
mimics that. I don't fill my desk up with a notepad, then hide it and take out
a calculator, then hide it and set up my easel._

Rather than taking out/hiding away your various tools and implements in your
desk, I believe the idiomatic Linux strategy is to have nine desks, each with
a single tool on it.

~~~
GeneralMaximus
OS X has Spaces for that. You can even bind apps to spaces.

I have the following set up: Firefox and entertainment apps on Space 1, IRC on
Space 2, XCode and MacVim on Space 3. I don't bind anything to the remaining 3
spaces. The combination of Spaces and Exposé makes for great window
management.

And yes, I _love_ the multi-window aspect of OS X. Document-based applications
are not only easier to use, they are easier to write, too.

------
imd
I'm glad people are being so critical. Back when I started using The GIMP
(v1.x), when people (including me) said Photoshop (v4) had a superior
interface, people rushed to The GIMP's defense. The GIMP has gotten more
Photoshop-like since then, and no one's complained, so apparently the
defenders were blind apologists. Not everything should be like Photoshop, but
I think doing it Photoshop's way would be better than this way.

~~~
jcl
From the minutes of a GIMP developer conference meeting not too long ago:

 _The user scenarios would be written down in advance. These scenarios should
not be changed afterwards because it would lead to too much discussion. The
goal is to cut down all this discussion. The product vision is to be used as a
filter. For example: If someone comes with the request that the UI of GIMP
should be like Photoshop, we can simply state: We are not trying to be like
Photoshop, because we have a different product vision._

<http://developer.gimp.org/gimpcon/2006/index.html>

I think defining their software in terms of "not being Photoshop" hurts their
software. Photoshop is free to add any features which they think will help
users edit images, while the Gimp limits itself to the features that Photoshop
has not already chosen.

------
yason
I actually loved the floating windows: that's what window managers are for,
right?

However, since transitioning to StumpWM the multi-window approach just doesn't
cut it. Now it's a trade-off between logging in with Metacity and doing
gimpwork, or keeping StumpWM running and avoiding gimpwork. If Gimp 2.8 has
this, then I can start spending more time with that peculiar but beloved
graphics suite again.

------
tocomment
I used Gimp a few weeks ago to resize a picture .. I'm still finding Gimp
windows on screen ...

thanks folks, I'll be here all week!

------
elblanco
Wow. It's about time. Have no idea what the holdout was.

------
ars
You can almost do that now, by just arranging your pallets.

But I like the tabs for images though - that's a big plus.

------
Anon84
Amazing? Hardly!

------
TrevorJ
This looks good. It's worth noting that on the mac at least, even PS can have
a windowless UI. It's actually nice when using multiple monitors and a tablet.
A single window won't make full use of 2 screens of differing vertical
resolutions.

------
Janzert
The follow up also has a short how to on getting and building the new version
[http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/10/gimp-single-window-
instal...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/10/gimp-single-window-install.html)

------
agnokapathetic
"First Pictures Of Single Window Gimp - It Looks Vaguely like Photoshop."

FTFY.

~~~
anigbrowl
Shoulda used a picture of all the dollar bills remaining after not buying
Photoshop :) GIMP's pretty good for a free project, but using their own logo
as the example picture makes it look like it's only good for editing sprites.

~~~
jcl
That's a clever idea for another reason, too: Photoshop will not allow certain
operations on pictures of money, highlighting a disadvantage of closed-source
software.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Bank_Counterfeit_Deterr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Bank_Counterfeit_Deterrence_Group)

------
tybris
Awful, why didn't they do that 10 years earlier? I thought I just didn't
understand the power of having dozens of tiny windows. Now I feel scammed.

------
spot
I don't care how many windows there are, I just want cut and paste to work in
a reasonably intuitive way. In the GIMP it does not.

------
zokier
Is there MS Windows build of 2.8 GIMP floating somewhere? I only found 2.7
which apparently doesn't have single windows goodness.

------
antidaily
"Bring out the gimp."

~~~
kirubakaran
Looks like the Gimp is _not_ sleeping.

------
ori_b
First thought: Well, that looks rather painful to use.

------
firefoxman1
Cool, but doesn't GIMPShop already do this?

~~~
kentosi
The main purpose of GIMPShop was to adjust the GIMP hotkeys to work like
Photoshop's. That's what it was when I used it years ago.

It's gotten a long way since, and yes it does allow you to work in a single
window (MDI) mode - but only in Windows.

<http://www.gimpshop.com/>

------
kierank
Thanks for correcting that title.

------
axod
Wow that looks brilliantly usable. Why did they resist this for so long?

------
cookiecaper
Well this is a bummer. I quite like having multiple windows. I hope they
haven't completely gutted the multi-window layout.

~~~
jcl
From the blog post linked in the article:

 _The news also revealed an interesting but previously rather anonymous group
of people: multi-window zealots despising the idea of a single-window mode in
their beloved multi-window application. I suspect they don't realize that
single-window mode is going to be optional..._

------
antirez
there is an hint for statups in this thing: to blindly copy from the "best on
the market" is not a good idea.

~~~
jcl
I take it you don't like this new development? It is perhaps the most
requested GIMP feature. Are you saying startups shouldn't listen to user
feedback?

~~~
antirez
No I mean, when the first version if gimp was created to copy photoshop was
not a good idea. And actually is not natural at all to split an application
into multiple windows. To just do the obvious (single window) was a better
alternative even when they started :) but sometimes it's hard to follow your
own ideas if you see that the absolute leader (photoshop) is doing something
different.

