[HN Gopher] Writing a Gimp 3.0 Plugin
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Writing a Gimp 3.0 Plugin
Author : nudin
Score : 145 points
Date : 2025-02-12 13:26 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (schoenitzer.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (schoenitzer.de)
| 10729287 wrote:
| I really want Gimp to succeed. It's a software I've been trying
| to use since more than 20 years now but the UX is so clunky....
| and different than Photoshop. Muscle Memory is a thing.
|
| I'm moving my main machine from macOS to Linux (which I also used
| partially since 20years), moving from a mac mini M1 to a lovely
| Lenovo M75Q-1 and so far the experience has been great.
|
| I'm a (enthusiast) photographer and I have big hopes for that 3.0
| release of Gimp. I'm ready to learn something else and freeing
| myself from Adobe.
|
| If I can manage my workflow, that will probably seal the deal.
| Everything else works fine and is unbelivably smooth while macOS
| had been very frustrating lately.
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| Exciting to be trying something new!
|
| Curious what drove the switch? You say macOS had been very
| frustrating lately, anything that made it particularly so?
| 10729287 wrote:
| I've always been tempted by Linux as my main driver, being
| myself an idealist. But making the move always been hard
| while I always had linux secondary machines around.
|
| My main reproaches towards macOS are weird choices Apple is
| imposing his users or the lack of compatibility with other
| systems :
|
| - Mail.app and the way it persists with its ridiculous way of
| handling attachements (I use Thunderbird)
|
| - Having to install additional apps to have an decent window
| manager or finder : Alt-Tab, Rectangle, new file menu
|
| - Not being able to pop a calendar while clicking on the
| clock
|
| - SMB compatibility is hell
|
| - Finder is hell
|
| - ...
|
| Too much customisations needed while Linux "just works".
|
| The recent position of the brand toward politics made me take
| the plunge.
| prox wrote:
| I would love Gimp to succeed but Gimp is made by coders for
| coders (as you might expect from a open source program) and not
| by visual artists for visual artists. I don't have a lot of
| hope.
|
| For years I have been using Affinity and it's been really good,
| haven't looked back. Unfortunately it's not on linux.
| homarp wrote:
| >for coders
|
| https://www.gimp.org/news/2025/01/27/gimp-team-zemarmot-
| fosd...
|
| Gimp is being used,and improved along the way, to make an
| animation movie. Jehan (scenarist, technical) of that movie
| is also a core maintainer.
| npteljes wrote:
| Gimp is nearing 30 years old, and it has been used for at
| most a handful of animation movies. I think, regarding its
| usage, that this is more of an outlier, than a main purpose
| of the software. So I don't think that this example refutes
| OP's point.
| homarp wrote:
| and I think otherwise
| https://girinstud.io/news/2018/04/zemarmot-main-
| contributor-...
| npteljes wrote:
| I do know about the movie, and having one (upcoming even)
| movie being made about GIMP doesn't say anything about
| its usage, or it not being made for coders. Being made
| for coders is a bad claim as well, at most, it's a jab at
| its user interface, which, I think, is no worse then
| Photoshop's by the way, it's just that people are
| familiar with one, and the not the other.
|
| A good refutal of the for-coders claim would be that it's
| one of the default image editor most commonly included
| with major Linux distributions. That's a much larger
| thing than it being just made for coders.
| Theizestooke wrote:
| They could start with a name change.
| amlib wrote:
| Yes, I suggest they change it to... The Pimp
| vednig wrote:
| ^ when you use 100% of your brain
| hulitu wrote:
| > They could start with a name change.
|
| Yes. Peacock will be fine. It is a wonderful bird.
| thomasfedb wrote:
| Though Photopea is already an online Photoshop clone and
| sounds a bit similar?
|
| (It's also pretty decent. My usual go to for stuff I
| can't justify spinning up an Adobe VM for...)
| xandrius wrote:
| Same here. Affinity is great, it has some quirk and some
| basic features are scattered around the UI without seemingly
| much thought.
|
| But every time I have to use Gimp is just a pain, feels like
| going back in time.
|
| For such a complex tool, UX is and will always remain king.
| That's why many people miss even something as simple as the
| Mac Preview tool, it does its job nicely and neatly. It
| doesn't do much but for basic stuff is quick and
| straightforward.
| da_chicken wrote:
| The few people I know doing visual design still balk at a
| program that lacks native CMYK editing. Honestly I'm still
| skeptical about the significant improvements made for 3.0 due
| to the project's history.
|
| I remember CMYK being the most common complaint (after the
| UI) 20 years ago, too. And at the time the entire GIMP
| project insisted that you never needed it and RGB was good
| enough. By coders for coders, indeed.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| I don't know. RGB was good enough. For every 1 person out
| there digitally processing art for a children's book, which
| is the only piece of printed media I could think of whose
| lifecycle does not feature immediate disposal, there are 19
| who would love their HDR iPhone photos to look right, so if
| anything, they should be worrying about P3.
| stuaxo wrote:
| One of the big reasons for the rewrite, GEGL brings CMYK
| (and many other things).
| ravetcofx wrote:
| Affinity seems like it works through Wine/Proton
| jrm4 wrote:
| As I've said exhaustively before, this is also reflected in
| the _stupid_ stubbornness in not changing the name.
|
| I firmly believe they could have eaten Adobe's lunch decades
| ago, but I can't recommend something that may be an ableist
| slur, and _definitely_ means something that is the opposite
| of "skilled."
|
| Childish and disappointing.
| npteljes wrote:
| It's not made for coders, it's made for the benefit of
| whomever uses it, and many people use and bundle it as well.
| I do understand the issues that people are experiencing with
| it UX-wise, but the answer to that is not that it's being
| made for coders, it's that it's an open source project, and
| as such, it has other incentives, than giving the best UX
| possible. Also, since it's open source and not for-profit, it
| has other circumstances than proprietary projects do. For-
| profit projects live and die on profit, and for b2c profit,
| you have to have good UX (like Affinity), or for b2b, good
| connections (like Cerner, or Windows). What open source
| projects need is being able to hold their main contributor's
| attention and dedication to the project. Entirely different
| ballgame. And, yes, very different UX as well. I also stopped
| fiddling with GIMP - what I do I can do 10 times faster in
| f** Photopea of all software.
| Zardoz84 wrote:
| The UI improved years ago. And they revamped the UI in Gimp 3.0
| and latest InkScape.
| t3rra wrote:
| It isn't alternative to photoshop though, what about darktable
| (https://www.darktable.org/)? I could be wrong but it is more
| of an alternative to lightroom afaik. Have you used?
| 10729287 wrote:
| Thanks for the suggestion. I've never been really into the
| "catalog" apps, starting from itunes. Always been more of a
| winamp guy ;) I like to browse my files from the explorer and
| not having to deal with a software to navigate or a software
| to catalog files and corrupting my filetree.
|
| I've been using gimp since one week and so far, once you
| start trying to understand what's going on (something I never
| allowed it since 20 years I've tried), it's really not that
| bad.
| MrDrMcCoy wrote:
| Darktable may have a catalog, but like you, I've never seen
| the value in that. It's primary purpose is as a RAW editor,
| and it's pretty good at that. Highly recommend it as a
| first pass for any digital photography. That, or
| Rawtherapee.
| dsego wrote:
| There is also rawtherapee.
| 4k93n2 wrote:
| gimp became way less annoying once i discovered the command
| pallette (the forward slash key), you can pretty much do
| everything with it. i even use it to switch tools sometimes
| sinces its easier than trying to look through all the tool
| icons or having to long press them
| robinsonb5 wrote:
| Thanks for that - I've been using GIMP regularly more than
| two decades and didn't know about that trick!
| gloflo wrote:
| It was easier when the icons had color and were not grouped
| into multiple tools behind one icon.
| archerx wrote:
| Try Krita, it's free, opensource and what gimp should have been
| all along.
| snvzz wrote:
| Different focus.
|
| Krita is for free drawing, gimp is a photoshop replacement.
|
| I do agree they probably would benefit from trying Krita.
| threeducks wrote:
| I often hear that Krita has a different focus, but does it
| lack anything that GIMP has? (disregarding obscure features
| like bell pepper brush)
| tux3 wrote:
| (And I'm sure someone has ported the pepper brush as
| well!)
| archerx wrote:
| I haven't missed anything in my usage, I just wish it had
| photoshop's easy automation tools where I could record
| and save my actions but Krita has scripting support so
| I'll learn that eventually.
| noisem4ker wrote:
| Krita is a better Photoshop than GIMP, in my opinion. I
| don't care what its intended usage is.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I just want to draw lines and geometric shapes, without having
| to deal with paths, like in any other sane graphical program.
|
| Has this been finally sorted out?
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Inkscape is an SVG editor. It's in the name. I for one love
| having a tool with semantics so close to the format, instead
| of dealing with Illustrator's nonsense. Sometimes Illustrator
| is the right tool, but as a web developer, Inkscape is the
| only sane tool for manipulating SVG.
| pjmlp wrote:
| The point is this a solved problem in every other paint
| program out there since Xerox, no one is asking for drawing
| SVG.
|
| But it never gets sorted out due to whatever ideologic
| feeling Gimp developers have with offering only paths as
| option.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| My post was irrelevant anyway, somehow I misread and
| thought you were replying to a post about Inkscape. Sorry
| about that!
| pjmlp wrote:
| No issues, I imagined just as much.
| bonoboTP wrote:
| You might like Pinta. It's my favorite no nonsense image
| editor for basic drawing and quickly changing stuff. Not for
| big projects, just editing a few pixels, resizing,
| brightness, cropping, painting, flood filling, basically
| classic MS Paint but with layers.
|
| It's a fork of Paint.NET, which happens to be my favorite
| image editor on Windows. The Mono-based port is a bit flaky
| and crashes sometimes, but the Gimp UX is just unusable for
| me, so Pinta it is. I tried gimp many times, but I just end
| up reading forums and often the program either can't do the
| small stuff I want, or it takes 5 minutes of clicks.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Actually I eventually moved into Paint.NET, and I am mostly
| on Windows/macOS nowadays.
|
| Thanks for the hint, tough.
| billfruit wrote:
| In a recent attempt to use Gimp for a small project, a few
| features I found were lacking:
|
| 1. Viewing the layer boundaries of all layers. Very helpful in
| seeing the total layout of the project.
|
| 2. Select multiple layers and do operations like move/align.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| You can move multiple layers if they are in a layer group, at
| least in gimp 2.10
|
| The group also shows the outline of the bounding box of all
| layers in it, although that's not quite the same as the layer
| outlines ofc.
| tasuki wrote:
| > I'm a (enthusiast) photographer and I have big hopes for that
| 3.0 release of Gimp. I'm ready to learn something else and
| freeing myself from Adobe.
|
| GIMP is for general graphics stuff. Try DarkTable, which was
| made specifically for photography editing and is very good at
| it.
| amelius wrote:
| > As with GIMP 2.10, GIMP 3.0 ships with a Python interpreter
| embedded and will not use the system Python.
|
| This is great and I wish this was the same with other tools, like
| Kicad, Freecad and Inkscape.
| bobek wrote:
| FreeCAD actually uses python for scripting. The console is a
| python repl.
|
| https://wiki.freecad.org/Python
| amelius wrote:
| Well the question is if it relies on the system Python, or if
| it ships its own version.
| RugnirViking wrote:
| Doesn't Inkscape use its own python? I feel like I've found its
| python a couple times when searching for venvs on windows
| Hackbraten wrote:
| For me on Arch Linux, Inkscape definitely doesn't ship with
| its own Python. and its source code suggests to me [0] that
| it shells out to any Python (or Perl, or Ruby, or shell) that
| it can find on the PATH.
|
| [0]: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/blob/5c4c6d116dae
| 5250...
| 2mlWQbCK wrote:
| It probably ships with python on some platforms. Pretty sure
| it does on Windows.
|
| But it does not really have a python API. Most (all?)
| extensions that ship with Inkscape are written in python, and
| it comes with some base classes and helper modules to make
| those extensions. But the "API" is basically "we send the
| current document to the extension's stdin, and whatever comes
| out as stdout becomes the new document". The extension,
| written in Python or something else, is responsible for
| handling all the quirks of SVG (a mix of subsets of two or
| more of the SVG specs) and (the current version of)
| Inkscape's additions to SVG.
|
| It is quite painful. I have maintained a couple of third-
| party extensions written in python since back in Inkscape
| 0.99.x days (ca 2007). Had to do several annoying major
| rewrites. Since there is no real API you depend on whatever
| happens to be in those helper classes, rarely documented and
| never stable. One of my extension, as do some of the first-
| party extensions, have to rely on launching Inkscape as a
| sub-process to perform some work, since there is no way to
| call in to the running Inkscape. If there was a real API you
| could have functions to call to query about the boundaries of
| objects, and other functions to apply changes to objects,
| that could use internal implementations that are already
| existing and that can do those things. But the way it works
| now (and always worked in Inkscape) is that you have to take
| care of everything yourself, more or less, maybe helped by
| some of the included helpers if you are lucky to find
| something that does something similar to what you want to do.
|
| Pretty much done with this. I stopped officially supporting
| new Inksape versions. I just tell users that the next time
| Inkscape messes with their not-really-API my extensions will
| be dead. I can still run them with old Inkscape in some
| virtual machine. Maybe I will re-implement everything if I
| find an application that has strong backwards-compatibility
| goals.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Oh, that's kind of terrible.
|
| I had assumed there would be an API to let you do stuff
| with the DOM and call into some of the functions inkscape
| itself uses.
| f1shy wrote:
| Gdb
| dp-hackernews wrote:
| You kind of get that sort of thing for free if you use Nix as
| your package manager, along with home-manager - check the link
| below for more info
|
| https://nixos-and-flakes.thiscute.world/introduction/
| cpach wrote:
| True, but this only helps a small fraction of the
| application's userbase.
| ElectRabbit wrote:
| Kicad brings its own Python and is fully interfaceable.
| sycren wrote:
| But would that make it so that it's impossible to
| install/access other libraries?
| chromakode wrote:
| Blender has done this since Dec 2000.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| Gimp 3 - Duke nukem forever!
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| RCs are already shipping in Fedora.
| ludston wrote:
| As is tradition, all threads about an open source project must be
| kicked off with non-contributers putting shit on it
| unconstructively.
| f1shy wrote:
| Fact of life: those who never do a thing, so never do something
| wrong, easily criticize those who actually do things, because
| of course, they don't do all perfectly, and do make mistakes.
| n3storm wrote:
| Also remember for million time they will never use it because
| it doesn't have exact keys as their proprietary contents
| kidnapper software.
| krapp wrote:
| I don't know... it seems to me that most of the complaints
| about Gimp come from people who actually use it, because
| people who never use it wouldn't have anything to complain
| about.
|
| It also seems odd to assert that non-contributors have no
| right to complain on a forum where most people, most of the
| time, complain about things they have no direct knowledge
| of nor a hand in making.
| f1shy wrote:
| >> most people, most of the time, complain about things
| they have no direct knowledge of nor a hand in making
|
| I certainly see it very differently, or I would not lose
| time here. Indeed here is full of makers and doers.
| People that did things, open source, or founded a
| company, or something else. Also lots of knowledgeable
| people. Of course, is some share of charlatans, specially
| in medical topics, is a show... but in general I do learn
| here.
|
| I think you can "criticize" if you are not contributing,
| but form is important. One thing is to say "I don't like
| it, you shouldn't use it" another is "I use it, and I
| would love feature XY"
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| I actually use it. I don't mind the keybindings, they
| make more sense than Photoshop's or Krita's to me. The
| complains are from people that want Photoshop for free
| and Gimp is not that.
| DonnieBurger wrote:
| I use it almost daily in website content creation. Sure
| there are quirks, but it's a completely free image editor
| that can do nearly everything I need. No complaints from
| me.
| n3storm wrote:
| I made gimp tutorials in spanish, courses for teachers
| and demos, twenty years ago. Also Sodipodi an Audacity. I
| have been downvoted, but there are not enough downvoted
| that make me change the comments I heard and read for
| this year's: keybindings and CMYK and pantone, these two
| last from people who will never paper printed their
| designs.
| dsego wrote:
| This software has been around for almost 30 years now and is
| always sold as this photoshop killer and praised by open-
| source zealots. It's become like a religion, they can't take
| constructive criticism, they don't listen to feedback and if
| you say anything bad, oh it's easy to criticize. But
| sometimes a piece of software is just bad in many different
| ways, and over promising and trying to gaslight users into
| believing it's a suitable commercial software replacement is
| dishonest and results in a frustrating experience for
| newcomers.
| instagraham wrote:
| At the same time, GIMP is remarkably not-geared at serious
| designers/non-codey folk.
|
| A simple fix would be to ask professionals using the Adobe
| suite what they would like in an open source tool that could
| get them to switch. Viewed at from outside, Adobe may appear
| like a multi-billion dollar moat of focus on prosumer products.
|
| Viewer from as a user, Adobe's software has bugs and
| inefficiencies that would get the average open source product
| shredded in the comments. It is ludicrous that Adobe still
| charges for such bad Ux.
|
| Of the top of my head, I'd say GIMP could get a headstart on
| Adobe if its builders added:
|
| - n00b user Ux option
|
| - Single panel modes for color correction with all settings in
| the form of a list of sliders (like lightroom)
|
| - Seamless vector/PDF editing so you don't need to bounce
| between 3 different softwares
|
| - Good UI for an InDesign competitor (this is a moat that Canva
| could easily crush if it added a few more options - but it's
| still worth building). Automatic layout (would really only need
| to follow a few simple rules - don't overhang text, match
| formatting, worship whitespace so the user doesn't have to
| break everything to add it back in).
| deknos wrote:
| if it's so easy, fork and build it :)
|
| "Seamless vector/PDF editing" seems especially easy.
| pjmlp wrote:
| As is tradition, all threads about open source talk about how
| great alternatives to commercial tools they happen to be, and
| how we should all shame ourselves only by thinking in using
| commercial software, without any consideration why we use them
| in first place.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Effectively what I was going to say. People are way too hung
| up on making open source software into a moral crusade that
| they completely blind themselves to the legitimate complaints
| about gaps between the open source and commercial options.
| They will say something like "well _I_ don 't need that
| feature" or " _I_ never noticed a problem with that " and
| just overall get very defensive instead of simply
| acknowledging that the use cases of others may be different
| or that they have different tolerances for quirks in the
| software.
| xandrius wrote:
| As tradition, the developers see themselves as gods on earth
| who cannot be given any sort of feedback without hurting their
| ego.
|
| Many other open source tools are beloved and used despite their
| flaws. Gimp is not built for anyone who isn't truly invested in
| it, making it a niche piece of software.
|
| And the direction of 20 years of a software can tell what kind
| of contributions would be acceptable for people. I don't think
| anyone coming in a redoing the whole UI would well accepted,
| given how little care is given to the same old feedback.
| trinix912 wrote:
| I don't see how saying "I wish GIMP had X" is "putting shit on
| it unconstructively". It's a feature suggestion, whether it's
| one that's doable given the project's resources or not.
|
| I'd say that "if you don't like it just fork it" approach has
| dealt way more damage to the reputation of OSS outside of
| programmer circles than people repeatedly asking for features
| or improvements.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Isn't it time to start providing wasm plugin support in most apps
| or too early?
| jeltz wrote:
| It is already a thing in Typst.
| relaxing wrote:
| How many layers of indirection do you need?!
| ritonlajoie wrote:
| Side question : can an LLM which nas no idea of how to write
| plugins for Gimp ingest this page (and the links to the C api and
| Python api) and write code by itself ?
| dahousecat wrote:
| If you already understand all the documentation and can prod an
| LLM in the correct direction every time it does something
| stupid then probably.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| Why not try it yourself? ;)
| isodev wrote:
| It's time for a new name. "gimp" may be semantically correct but
| it hardly prepares one for a "friendly and powerful graphics
| editing tool".
| beezlewax wrote:
| It's fairly idiotic at this stage that this has never been
| changed. Highly damaging to the products outward appearance.
| darkwater wrote:
| Then, when the announcement of the name change is on the HN
| frontpage, tens of HNers will post their anger "the name was
| already well-known, this is a marketing disaster!! They
| should know better!"
|
| Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
| DonnieBurger wrote:
| I don't think it's highly damaging. It's an acronym. Is BBC's
| name highly damaging?
| iamkonstantin wrote:
| Why would it be? I can't think of a single meaning of BBC
| which translates to an insult. GIMP on the other hand has
| more than one meanings as an insult (not even an acronym).
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Uhhh BBC also stands for something else, and that second
| meaning is a very common term on the internet.
| isodev wrote:
| Describing one's ... favourite desert? (HN is American so
| not sure we can say the word here) doesn't constitute an
| insult - people say it all the time irl. But you're also
| right that BBC wouldn't be a good name for a design tool
| either.
|
| Naming things is hard, someone should setup a focus group
| :)
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Are you thinking of the Coventry University Netball Team?
| (again).
| npteljes wrote:
| Try this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_(sexual_slang)
|
| Definitely came after the original BBC being established,
| and definitely is orders of magnitude less known than the
| sexual slang variant. So yeah, the Gimp comparison
| doesn't stand, at all.
| crtasm wrote:
| BBC isn't a great comparison - it's an initialism, not read
| or said as a word.
|
| I can't think of an acronym example though.
| zahlman wrote:
| And the embarrassing meaning that some might attribute to
| "BBC" is also an initialism.
| npteljes wrote:
| From what I gather, the people running the project don't mind
| the name, and that is basically to what this boils down to. I
| too think it's a stupid name, and that the project would be
| better off with a rename, but if being less "idiotic" or
| whatever is not the project goal, then they are no so idiotic
| after all, no? Idiotic would be to self-sabotage with the
| name, like failure to get into app stores because of policy
| or something, and still not changing the name, or trying to
| fight the perception of "gimp" as a word, or anything like
| that. But overall, I think situation is settled and the
| people running the show are consistent.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| This is posted every time this software comes up here. I don't
| know where you people are from, but in my dialect (Eastern US,
| Gen Z) "gimp" is just not a particularly rude word. It's used
| primarily as a verb, meaning "to reduce in efficacy, to
| hamper." Obviously it has it's noun definition too, bit if you
| think that has anything to do with the lack of adoption of this
| software you're kidding yourself, you gits.
| isodev wrote:
| In places where people speak the other flavours of English,
| reading the name goes a bit like this:
|
| The first thing that comes to mind is a slang term for
| someone who is physically disabled or limps. The second thing
| is that it refers to an insult (someone weak or foolish).
| Then one starts to wonder if it's a bondage reference...
| unless one is given additional context, one can never get to
| a design tool out of this. You wouldn't want people to
| overhear you say it and misunderstand the situation.
| talldayo wrote:
| > You wouldn't want people to overhear you say it and
| misunderstand the situation.
|
| Misunderstand what? Painting with GIMP?
|
| It's an acronym. Maybe I'm completely socially inept, but I
| don't see at all how it would be embarrassing to explain
| even to close family that I'm using GNU Image Manipulation
| Program. People are not going to overhear me and think I'm
| editing images with someone disabled or wearing a ball gag
| and straitjacket. It just doesn't happen outside Jim Carrey
| movies.
| kernal wrote:
| Let's try a scientific experiment. Go to a bar and start
| calling people GIMP's and analyze the reactions it receives.
| hn8726 wrote:
| You could make the same argument about GNOME
| jenscow wrote:
| What about "Professional Image Manipulation Program"?
|
| Digital Image Correction Kit
|
| Touch-up & Image Transformation Studio
| kernal wrote:
| Extraneous and unnecessary words for the sake of satisfying
| an acronym. Let's just call it Image Editor or IE for short.
| DonnieBurger wrote:
| I'm patiently waiting for resynthesizer to be ported. Then I will
| make the move to 3.0. I've used GIMP exclusively as my image
| editor for the past two decades and it has fulfilled my needs for
| web development. I really don't get all the gripe around it. It's
| one of the most valuable free programs on my PC. Sure, it does
| take time and possibly customization to get yourself a
| comfortable workflow. But once you get it down, you can do
| basically everything you need with keyboard shortcuts and blaze
| thru editing really quickly.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I tried and tried, but just couldn't make the switch. Krita
| made it much easier and now I'm 100% Krita.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Will continue to say it, this piece of software that could be a
| mainstream huge deal, a straight-up Adobe killer, will never do
| this unless it changes its name.
|
| I've mostly given up hope on this, but it's still wild that
| people who work on the software just seem to very stubbornly not
| understand this.
|
| Whether you want to blame it on ableism, or perhaps simply "you
| should name your software after something/someone skilled or
| professional, not literally the opposite," you're preventing
| people like me (IT teaching, a go-between between techies and
| non-techies) from being able to recommend it.
|
| Luckily, Krita's here and for better or worse does the AI stuff.
| veggieroll wrote:
| That's probably true. But offending people with prudish
| attitudes or without a sense of humor is a pretty common old-
| school hacker goal.
|
| It serves a valuable community function by protecting the
| community from corporate interests, non-technical bike-
| shedding, and overload by "bug" reports that are actually just
| the user not being technical enough to use the tool properly.
|
| Edit: Also FWIW, I've had no problem introducing GIMP to church
| groups and in various professional settings.
|
| Double edit: since you mention schools, I should also add that
| I taught my wife GIMP and she had no problem sharing it in her
| school (US public high school).
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _But offending people with prudish attitudes or without a
| sense of humor..._
|
| Some folks who are neither prudish or humorless want to see
| the project and its contributors succeed to the degree that
| alternatives like Photopea has, or as Blender has in the 3D
| space. The project will continue to limp along until the name
| is changed to something without negative connotations in
| English-speaking populations.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| You can fork it, rename to something like "Glimpse" and see
| the adoption skyrocket. Surely the success is just around
| the corner. Oh wait a minute
| gkbrk wrote:
| Hey don't be unfair to them, they also tried to collect
| donations for changing the name.
| troyvit wrote:
| > offending people with prudish attitudes or without a sense
| of humor is a pretty common old-school hacker goal
|
| I agree, and to an extent laud it, but it also means keeping
| GIMP an old-school hacker project.
| hackthemack wrote:
| I think they should just rename it as IMP. The gnu is implied.
| Richard Stallman might complain it should always be called Gnu
| IMP (New Imp), which is fine.
| DonnieBurger wrote:
| I'd argue that GIMP reclaimed the word for a better meaning.
| Consider how the word lame has lost its derogatory impact.
| Googling "gimp" gives me only results about the program.
| Changing the name now would dilute decades of brand recognition
| and confuse users, especially those in non-English communities.
| monetus wrote:
| I think the sunk cost into branding is the right take here;
| my 2C/. Gimp is still niche, and will never be used the same
| way people say Photoshop when referring to any general photo
| editing. It will take quite a few more years of transient
| language and lots of success for that unrealistic outcome.
| shmerl wrote:
| It's not about the name it's about pace of development. It's
| extremely slow since they don't see a need for more backing
| like let's say Blender.
| enriquto wrote:
| > his piece of software (...) will never do this unless it
| changes its name.
|
| Why?
|
| Honestly, why?
|
| As a non-native English speaker (like the vast majority of
| people in this planet), the word "gimp" to me means "the free
| software image processing program". If I search google,
| duckduckgo, bing, whatever, _the entire first page of results_
| refers to that very program. Digging deeper, I start to find
| some references to the Pulp Fiction movie, where a minor
| character is named like that. I remember that character, but in
| my language it was called by a different name. Is that all?
|
| Is there any other meaning to this word? If so, it must be so
| obscure as to be completely irrelevant.
|
| Please, take into account that most English speakers are not
| native speakers, and many words will have a different meaning
| to us. English as a lingua franca may be comfortable to native
| speakers, but it also means that it's no longer yours.
|
| The name of the program does not seem to be a serious issue for
| its adoption. Now, if you want to talk about its user
| interface... I don't think it does, either (but I may be open
| to discussion). I have taught my kids to do simple image
| processing tasks in gimp: copy-pasting parts of an image into
| another, removing some stuff, blurring, simple layer
| operations, etc. Anyhow, they got it in a few minutes.
| Important to say: they are not at all tech-savvy (to my dismay!
| but this is another story). If they use adobe or krita they
| will surely find it slightly confusing at the beginning, but no
| big deal either. Just like a regular person moving from
| photoshop to gimp.
| orphea wrote:
| > Is there any other meaning to this word?
|
| Yes. You can often learn obscure meanings by prepending a
| word in your search query with "urban dictionary".
| chongli wrote:
| A gimp is a man dressed in a bondage suit used for BDSM
| sexual roleplay. Gimps are considered inappropriate to even
| talk about in school and business settings. The GIMP software
| might as well have the name of a curse word like fuck or shit
| as far as its appropriateness in public discourse goes.
| redeeman wrote:
| yeah well.. says more about those who even bring that up...
| most people probably dont know that
| petee wrote:
| Anyone who's seen "Pulp Fiction", or hasnt been under a
| rock, or older than a young teen would have encountered
| the term or concept
| aspaviento wrote:
| I don't think more than half of the world population have
| been under a rock.
| enriquto wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification (as well as the suggestion of
| looking at the urban dictionary, in the other comment).
|
| My point is that when you say:
|
| > Gimps are considered inappropriate to even talk about in
| school and business settings
|
| This refers solely to the tiny percent of the world where
| people are native english speakers. Elsewhere, it already
| means the image processing software, if anything at all.
| veggieroll wrote:
| Literally, get over it. Even my (extremely conservative)
| church group doesn't have an issue with it. 1) because most
| people don't know BDSM terminology and 2) gimp has other
| connotations so it's not even obvious that was intended and
| 3) most people aren't terminally online and 100% don't care
| as long as the program works.
|
| I've never had a problem sharing it. And no one outside
| tech has ever brought up BDSM when I tell them about the
| program or help them install it.
| troyvit wrote:
| Eh. Where I work they probably wouldn't care about the
| BDSM aspects but they are pretty sensitive to ableist
| slurs, which is primarily why I recommend Photopea
| instead of GIMP when they need to do Photoshop-ish
| things.
| zahlman wrote:
| Or many, many other things
| (https://www.wordnik.com/words/gimp).
| ryanmcbride wrote:
| It's both a pejorative term for disabled people, and a
| specific type of bondage fetish.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I just treat it as an acronym, as do the current developers.
|
| The original founders of the project aren't the ones at the
| helm currently and the GNU Image Manipulation Program acronym
| took over from whatever pun it was a long time ago already.
|
| You might like krita better but maybe it is an insult or
| genital part name in someone else language but you might never
| know. It happens to so many products. The Toyota MR2 really
| sound in french like you are calling someone an asshole which
| is the reason they called it simply MR in that particular
| market, while an audi etron sounded like audi feces. All this
| to say that naming is hard and you can never please everyone.
|
| People should really relax and not take personally what has
| been an acronym for most of the project's life.
| noisem4ker wrote:
| There was an effort to rename it to Glimpse, with non-zero
| community and developer support, also solving a few common
| complaints about the user interface. It ultimately resulted in
| a dead fork, disproving not one but two hypotheses.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| > you're preventing people like me (IT teaching, a go-between
| between techies and non-techies) from being able to recommend
| it.
|
| Why exactly is it bad? It's not that all software have to be
| loved and recommended by everyone, opinions differ and it's
| normal.
|
| If for you the name matters more than the substance then well
| maybe you're not the target audience, so be it.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| I'm sure any project with a stupid name cannot survive. Take,
| for example, git. The name is a literal insult. github? Come
| on, like "a place where gits meet"? This is ridiculous! How
| would you expect anyone who is not a git to teach about it? Use
| it in a serious enterprise setting?
|
| ...Ah no, wait a moment...
| zahlman wrote:
| Doesn't seem to have caused a problem for Git. Probably didn't
| for LAME, either, granted MP3 seems to be falling by the
| wayside now.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| Serious question: Has anyone proficient in Photoshop given GIMP a
| proper go and come out the other side wanting to use it?
| prmoustache wrote:
| That was my experience 20 years ago.
|
| Photoshop wasn't the photoshop of today but neither was gimp.
| weaksauce wrote:
| there's https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP
|
| but i'm not sure how well that mimics photoshop in day to day
| stuff. hopefully they make strides in usability because it
| wasn't there the last time i tried it.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I worked in prepress, so pretty good an Photoshop, and vastly
| prefer GIMP. The problems with GIMP are technical, there are
| some necessary things for some jobs that it simply hasn't been
| able to do, but I'm seeing a lot of work being done on them.
|
| The problem with GIMP in industry is 1) that .psd is a
| standard, and 2) that Photoshop has a bad UI that takes a lot
| of work to understand well enough to do the very fine work most
| people are doing with it. Nobody would want to start over even
| if the consensus was that GIMP was better than Photoshop;
| Photoshop would still be good enough.
|
| Hopefully Adobe will be user-hostile enough to lose a bunch of
| people to Affinity, and a bunch of people on Affinity will
| weaken Adobe standards in industry generally. GIMP could sneak
| in on the back of that.
|
| GIMP is Free Software, it only gains features, never loses
| them. In the long term, there's no way anyone else can compete.
| aezart wrote:
| I tried 3.0 RC2 the other day and discovered that the new UI is
| much less space efficient. It imported my panel layout from 2.10
| (which I spent a long time getting just right), and I had to
| completely rearrange it to get it to fit on a 1080px tall
| monitor. Very frustrating.
|
| Also, it doesn't detect my drawing tablet.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| I recently moved from an old Ubuntu MATE to Debian Trixie
| Cinnamon with 2.0 UI scaling and had the same problem. I
| overrode this with the environment variable GDK_SCALE=1 for
| GIMP and was able to more-or-less duplicate the previous
| compactness.
|
| The theme might have helped too - I am using Yaru-cinnamon-
| dark. Some themes are truly wonky, with objects changing size
| and forcing re-layout on hover. WTaF that should not even be
| possible!
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