[Gimp-developer] [GIMP] Suggestion to simplify user interaction

[gg at catking.net]

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 04:36:53 +0200, Saul Goode  
<saulgoode at flashingtwelve.brickfilms.com> wrote:

>> gg wrote:
>>
>> I also find as a user that menus often go too deep.
>>
>> One sub-menu is acceptable , two starts to get unwieldy. Eg. I ofter
> copy
>> a selection and Paste As New , this is three levels deep. I'd like to
> see
>> this at the same level as Cut:  Cut | Paste | Paste as New. I crated a
>> hot-key as a work around but as others have said , I would rather keep
> my
>> eyes on the screen except for typing numbers etc.
>
> Is there a reason you don't use tear-off menus? Having small sub-menus
> actually enhances this utility.

I assume a "tear-off" menu is the context menu I get from a right-mouse  
click. I dont see the gain here, it's actually one click more than using  
the edit menu.

If I misunderstood, could you explain what a tear-off is?

>
>> Another improvement would to clean up some menus. The Blur menu seems to
>> contain several, largely equivalent filters. Two would suffice and could
>> be incorporated into Enhance.
>
> Which two would suffice? Personally, I find all of them useful and I
> wouldn't recommend combining filters that use different algorithms into
> one interface -- not only would this complicate maintenance and
> development but menu grouping is a great indicator of a command's  
> function.

This menu could use some work, pixise is not a blur, it may be better in  
distortions menu.
Gaussian blur, Selective Gaussian blur and tile seem to do basically the  
same thing with more or less options on the interface. I have not looked  
at the source but it seems they could be combined. This may actually  
reduce any future maintainance.

Whether the non-adjustable blur is useful next to these may be worth  
thinking about.

Motion blur clearly is a separate tool.

If sharpen is an "enhancement" so is it's complement blur. It would  
probably be helpful for them to be together in Enhancement menu.

>
>> I also created a bug about making sure sub-menus did not jump from one
>> side to the other. This is appalling from a usability point of view but
>> the comment did not get a very positive response.
>
> If your proposal were accepted, there would be reports submitted
> complaining that all the submenus appear on the left when there might be
> only one that's overly-long. My preference is to minimize the number of
> times that my eyes have to "jump" from the far right of menu text to the
> far left of sub-menu (much less appalling to just "continue reading left
> to right").
>

I'm not sure we're talking the same language here.

my complaint was exactly that , that from one submenu to another the  
submenu can come up left or right which is visually distruptive.

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=358816

>> Some real basics like flip and rotating an image to straighten it up
>> should be on the image menu.
>
> Erm, they are.

I dont know what gimp you are looking at, I refer to 2.3.12 from cvs.  
There are no rotate operations on the image menu, all are in a submenu.

>
>> Some anomolies could be looked at, I can free-rotate a layer but not an
>> image.
>
> Erm, you can.
>

Can you please clarify what you mean. I look at the Image | Transform and  
I only get the simple 90deg and flip options.

Where do you see rotate image?

>> Colors | Retinex  ?? What's that supposed to tell the user?
>
> It tells me that it performs an operation called Retinex on the image.
> If I did not know what the word Retinex meant then, just like any other
> word with which I was unfamiliar, I would look it up. If Retinex is an
> inaccurate description of the processing taking place, a change in name
> might be called for but otherwise I would submit that the purpose of the
> GIMP is not to serve as a dictionary of graphics terms.
>
The hint is good here. "Enhance contrast with Retinex method" . So what is  
the key information here?
I would suggest "Enhance contrast" makes more sense as an entry in the  
color menu than an obscure name of the algorithm used. The hint then gives  
the extra info about what method is applied.


Thanks for your detailed reply.

/gg