On 18 Mar 2003, at 22:04, Raphaël Quinet wrote: > On Tue, 18 Mar 2003 17:48:32 +0100, Olivier Ripoll > <olivier.ripoll@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > MArk Finlay wrote: > > 1. Everyone > loves a good splash screen, but now Gnome has > > startup-notification > which kinda makes them superflous. [...] > > I want the splash screen! > ;) I've seen Jimmac has done a new (or updated) one > in the changelog > for today, and already look forward to see it! > > Besides, not everyone is running the GIMP under GNOME. I use GNOME on > all of my Linux boxes, but none of my Solaris boxes have GNOME > installed so the startup notification would not work there. Well, something could be written that notices if you're running a GNOME system and, if so, asks you at start-up if next time you want to see the splash window. GNOME users could deselect that option there and then or in the preferences. > > > 2. To a lot of new users the way Gimp works is quite alien. A lot > > > of users just get used to it, but some find it too weird. One of > > > the hardest things to get used to is right clicking on an image to > > > access the menus. [...] For users who want to use the rightclick > > > menu, the menubar is un-obtrusive and can be turned off if they > > > really hate having it there, and for a lot of users this will be > > > invaluable. I know the option is there already, but it's the > > > defaults that matter. Newbies are not going to go looking for a > > > menubar that they don't know exists. > > I agree with this. As an experienced user, I would not use the menu > on top of the image windows because I can work faster with the > right-click menu, but it should be enabled by default so that new > users do not feel lost for the first time they use the GIMP. I would > go as far as suggesting that the default should be to have a WiW MDI > model (at least for the Windows version, maybe even for other > platforms) because this would allow the GIMP to be more similar to > other image editing programs. Cross-application consistency is more > important than the efficiency of any single application, for those who > do not use this application frequently. The majority of GIMP users do > not use it frequently. > > So I think that the default configuration of the GIMP should have the > menubar in the image window or even use a full MDI model. There could > be a "tip of the day" suggesting to disable this menubar and to use > only the right-click menu in order to save space and to work faster. > The default mode should focus on cross-application consistency. If people want to check out how GIMP with MDI would work, Cinepaint (formerly known as Film Gimp--notice the capitalized 'GIMP' :-)) uses an MDI model on what the screenshots suggest all supported systems. The Windows version also comes with a nice mouse pointer the size of the current brush. Doesn't quite seem to work yet, but very handy. See <http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net> if you're interested. -- branko collin collin@xxxxxxxxx
