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.
>
> > > 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.
>
> -Raphaël
After a good night of sleep ("la nuit porte conseil" ;) ) I had of one more of my
stupid ideas that may solve the "default configuration" issue. When one launches gimp
for the first time (even on multiple user systems), there is this orange dialog which
asks you where you want the gimp config directory to be set, and what is the resolution
of the screen. Perhaps it could be asked there, together with an image illustrating it,
which of the "with" or "without" menu style the user wants. Of course, there would be a
mention that it can be changed afterwards in the preferences.
Regards,
Olivier.
