RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor

Posted Jan 14, 2010 0:29 UTC (Thu) by ikm (subscriber, #493)
In reply to: RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor by DDevine
Parent article: RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor

> I think if you can learn how to use the GIMP well enough then you could *realistically* use it professionally.

Well, I've been using it here and there, a little bit of this, a little bit of that -- for several years, and still can't make it feel comfortable. E.g. those small windows always try to lurk away somewhere behind all those Firefoxes and other windows -- without even being on the task bar, and each time before starting to duly minimize everything in order to find them back I feel like banging my head on the wall. It was said many times that GIMP has usability problems -- and answered that it's a matter of taste and habit, but I've got to say it just doesn't feel that way to me. I've used Photoshop much less than GIMP, but from what I've experienced it really is much more handy.

That said, GIMP does seem like the best thing available for Linux. There was also (a non-free) Pixel, but well, that's a *long* story, and everyone who knows it would understand the pun.

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RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor

Posted Jan 14, 2010 4:40 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (9 responses)

Multi windowed mode with Gimp the 'small windows' should follow the main window up and down in the windows hierarchy. Either your experiences are not with recent Gimp versions or your window manager sucks and you should use a different one.

That should be the default behavior for Gimp 2.6. The 'daughter' windows are hinted as 'utility windows' to the Window manager and they should follow and bring up the other windows.

In earlier versions this was not the default, I think, but you could configure it to make all the windows behave in that manner.

With the current development version of Gimp they added a 'one window mode' so that it'll reflect the Photoshop behavior in Windows.

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Note that in OS X each application has it's own virtual desktop, more or less. Each has their own plane of existence and the main menu bar is always the same place no matter what your window placement is... right there at the top of the screen.

Like if your using a browser with lots of browser windows open. When you click on one of the windows it brings up _all_ the windows for that application.

So Photoshop in OS X is much more like Gimp in Linux rather then Photoshop in Windows in the way the window management works. It's just that in Linux you would have to manually separate your Windows into each virtual desktop rather then have it happen naturally; which makes it all very confusing for people not used to how the Linux desktop works. In comparison people are able to use OS X's multiple desktops without even thinking about it since they are all visible at once because they are layered on top of one another.

With composited desktops it should now be technically possible for Linux to emulate the intuitive window management that OS X uses. (Unfortunately all that people seem to want is to get OS X's dock... which is horrible beyond all words. The 'dock' is the worst feature of OS X's desktop IMO. It looks cool, but it's just kinda fails in practice)

I am hoping that in Gnome 3.x stuff they will introduce a way to automatically group application windows and such together on their own desktop. That would be a terrific feature to have. That way you could get rid of the need for 'tabs' in most applications. I like it in my browser, but hate it in my gnome-terminal.

Plus it would make tiling make much more sense, which is a great feature for some window managers, but requires a lot of manual manipulation or scripting to pull off.

RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor

Posted Jan 14, 2010 11:35 UTC (Thu) by ikm (subscriber, #493) [Link] (3 responses)

> Either your experiences are not with recent Gimp versions or your window manager sucks and you should use a different one.

It's KDE4. When I minimize gimp's main window, those small windows do hide, and after I un-minimize the window they do appear back. But when I merely switch to other window, and then bring GIMP back forward, those windows aren't brought back -- they are still somewhere behind the window I just was in.

I don't think a program should dictate the choice of a window manager.

> With the current development version of Gimp they added a 'one window mode' so that it'll reflect the Photoshop behavior in Windows.

I have a 2.7.2-2009090102~jj version installed, this option is not yet there. It is supposed to be a life saver, yes.

Thanks to you I did find out that it is possible to change window types for those utility windows to be 'normal windows'. Now at least I will be able to bring them back from taskbar.

> So Photoshop in OS X is much more like Gimp in Linux rather then Photoshop in Windows in the way the window management works. It's just that in Linux you would have to manually separate your Windows into each virtual desktop rather then have it happen naturally

Exactly!

> which makes it all very confusing for people not used to how the Linux desktop works.

But this conclusion is just wrong. Linux desktop works pretty much the same way Windows desktop does. Yes, there are additional features like virtual desktops, but many people, me included, find them unnecessary and complicated, and would rather prefer to have Photoshop-like single window. You've said yourself that Photoshop under OS X is like GIMP, BUT at the same time Photoshop under Windows is a single window.

I hope this will all become moot once this new 'single window' mode for GIMP is available.

RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor

Posted Jan 14, 2010 14:59 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

I don't think a program should dictate the choice of a window manager

Well you need one that works correctly. It's like using a browser with broken CSS support then complaining when somebody tells you to use firefox. It's not a big deal, but it's not really the Gimp's fault with this particular problem.

I don't know for certain, but I think the 'utility window hinting' that gimp uses is _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_UTILITY from: latest wm spec

This particular feature was in 1.1 of the specification, I think. I am not really up on the whole window manager specification thing and it's quite possible that utility window behavior is unspecified and KDE4's behavior is acceptable, but it does not sound like it. It's probable one of those WM corner cases that does not come up very often and it could be a easy fix. I'd file a bug.

I have a 2.7.2-2009090102~jj version installed, this option is not yet there. It is supposed to be a life saver, yes.

I have not tried the developer version of Gimp yet, but this guy says he is using single window mode in 2.7.1, but it's not turned on by default. Maybe it's a build option? how to install gimp with single window

He just goes through adding a PPA repo to Ubuntu to grab the development version, but he has a screenshot of where to enable the option.

Personally when I use Gimp I like to have all the dialogs open all the time and dividing things up into 2 desktops it makes it easy to go alt + arrow right and alt + arrow left to access all of them. That way I don't have to hunt through menus or whatever.

But this conclusion is just wrong. Linux desktop works pretty much the same way Windows desktop does. Yes, there are additional features like virtual desktops, but many people, me included, find them unnecessary and complicated, and would rather prefer to have Photoshop-like single window. You've said yourself that Photoshop under OS X is like GIMP, BUT at the same time Photoshop under Windows is a single window.

I've always thought of the virtual desktop thing as fundamental to how the Linux desktop operates. I use it constantly and when I go back to using windows I find the window behavior there quite painful.

Unfortunately here is no way to see all your applications at once if they are spread around, unlike OS X. This is one of the reasons I like the newer Gnome Shell (not that it's perfect... the alt-tab behavior leaves a lot to be desired, for example) since it makes it very easy to locate things.

RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor

Posted Jan 14, 2010 15:31 UTC (Thu) by ikm (subscriber, #493) [Link] (1 responses)

> it's not really the Gimp's fault with this particular problem.

Well, I'm sure you understand that while this is technically true, in reality it doesn't matter whose fault is that.

> I have not tried the developer version of Gimp yet, but this guy says he is using single window mode in 2.7.1, but it's not turned on by default.

Thanks. No, there wasn't such an option in mine's install, but I've just updated from that PPA to 2.7.3-something, and there's that option now indeed! So I turned it on, and I can say gimp looks MUCH better now! Utilities now occupy left and right vertical screen areas, which you can resize with splitters to give more or less space to the canvas in the middle. Also, instead of different windows for different images, there are tabs now. Overall, this looks so much better, you wouldn't believe!

However, right now this works glitchy as hell. Oh well. I'll wait for 2.8. That's all very promising. Thanks for a pointer!

RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor

Posted Jan 14, 2010 16:01 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

> in reality it doesn't matter whose fault is that.

It's just the fix is easy. Use Metacity or something that works correctly.
;)

I tested Metacity, Openbox, Compiz, and Gnome-shell (which uses Mutter) and
all those behaved how I expected it. No Gimp windows getting mixed up with
anybody else's.

RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor

Posted Jan 14, 2010 11:39 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] (4 responses)

<blockquote>Multi windowed mode with Gimp the 'small windows' should follow the main window
up and down in the windows hierarchy. Either your experiences are not with recent Gimp versions
or your window manager sucks and you should use a different one. </blockquote>

God, I'm so sick of hearing this from the Gimp developers. In order to move a selection you're
supposed to alt-drag it. But alt-drag is taken by the GNOME window manager for moving windows.
Neither the GIMP nor metacity developers are willing to budge over this problem. The result is that
the GIMP is not usable in GNOME. No, I am not switching to twm just so I can edit some damn
photos!

RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor

Posted Jan 14, 2010 14:34 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

Uh?

I can move selections just fine by clicking in the middle of it and
dragging. Maybe I am confused or they fixed this. This is on Gimp 2.6.8

RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor

Posted Jan 14, 2010 15:17 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] (1 responses)

I am referring to moving the selection and its contents together. Sorry for being unclear.

RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor

Posted Jan 14, 2010 16:21 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

That's ok.

I was still confused. I was creating a selection using the rectangular
select tool and that was creating a selection with handles that I was
dragging.

If you create a selection with the magic lasso or from a path then those
handles are not created and there is nothing to grab onto.

But ctrl-alt-drag seems to work.

RawTherapee: the newest open source raw photo editor

Posted Jan 14, 2010 19:49 UTC (Thu) by anton.molyboha (guest, #62820) [Link]

In my version of Gnome (2.22.3) you can also change the Alt-drag combination to "Windows logo"-drag in System->Preferences->Windows . Then the Alt-drag is available for applications like GIMP.