On 21 June 2012 10:48, Karl Günter Wünsch <kgw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 21/06/12 10:20, Thorsten Wilms wrote: >> You already mentioned habit. Having such an option would allow you to >> keep what is now a bad habit (to not discern between saving the work and >> exporting), instead of forming a new, productive one. > IMHO the distinction between saving and exporting is an artificial one > no one > really should need to care about. This is the goal to strive for. I think everyone agrees on that. This is however not something we can achieve within a month or two. Currently, and for the immediate future, there is a difference between export and save in GIMP, due to the following facts: [save]: only XCF can store all the information about the document which you have produced. Not storing as XCF means you lose/destroy data [export]: there is a common need for exporting to PNG/TIFF etc. - because XCF documents are not supported everywhere With these current facts, I do not think we shall try to deceive the user into thinking that save and export is the same. They are not and the consequence for mixing them up can result in a loss of data. None of these facts are unchangeable however. We can improve the situation for [export] by identifying in which work-flows people commonly use GIMP and export, and work to simply eliminate the need to care about the PNG/JPEG/TIFF file. For example the user might export to be able to view or work on the document in another libre graphics application. A strategy to get rid of that already exists, just make them support XCF: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gegl-developer-list/2012-June/msg00003.html Another common workflow might be to export a document to get it onto the web. We can eliminate the problem here by creating "export handler" that will let you upload directly, from within GIMP, to online services like Wordpress, Picasa, Facebook and similar. Considering the [save] situation, there is a technical specification GEGL that can help things. Realizing it would make it possible for GIMP to implement a workflow where saving explicitly is never needed. https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gegl-developer-list/2012-June/msg00004.html I encourage everyone who wish to contribute to the future of GIMP to find ways to help realize these or other strategies fix the fundamental problems at hand. Arguing about the keyboard shortcut used for export does nothing to positively improve the situation in any significant way. In fact it kills the motivation of developers who are putting sizable parts of their life into creating, maintaining and improving GIMP. When you kill motivation in volunteer-driven project, you are not just destroying someones hobby - the project will eventually stagnate, wither and die. I am done arguing. Lets work to make GIMP-based workflows that currently include export/save inefficiencies better. -- Jon Nordby - www.jonnor.com _______________________________________________ gimp-developer-list mailing list gimp-developer-list@xxxxxxxxx https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer-list
