[Gimp-developer] More intelligent user protection from information loss

[gg at catking.net]

On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:46:24 +0200, Alexia Death <alexiadeath at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> On Saturday 07 June 2008 20:01:17 Akkana Peck wrote:
>> Alexia Death writes:
>> > I'm going to echo my support for this. The nags on saves are
>> > counterproductive.
>>
>> And often they're not even right -- e.g. "The image has
>> transparency, flatten?" shows up on anything with an alpha
>> channel even if every pixel is fully opaque. All those dialogs
>> do is train the user to click OK without reading.

Exactly!

Too many "friendly" comfirmation dialogues and we find ourselves in MSland  
where the user just goes yes.. yes.. yes.. without even reading. One big  
problem I have with my software is a user reports an issue and I ask if  
there was not an error message. "Err , maybe I'm not sure... I think so, I  
did not read it".

This is all a result of MS dumbing down the user. All the pointless  
confirmations like "you just pressed cancel , are you really, really sure  
you meant cancel? Would you like to try again? " just anesthetise the user  
to whatever pops up.

So. first thing to realise is that your user is not a complete imbecile  
(which is the premise of MS). If the user choses to work in png and it  
does not have layers we don't need to bug him at every turn. He won't  
"lose his data" it will just be less editable next time.

Second, if we "know" the only way to work is xcf it is not the function of  
gimp to badger the user into submission if he does not want to user that  
format for whatever reason.

Once again, gimp claims to be top end this and that , not grandma's tool  
for removing red-eye from her birthday snapshots. We should credit the  
user with some intellegence.

Things like this just generally get in the way.



>
> Exactly... Witch has bitten me in the ass a few times... Namely the  
> bizare
> confirmation to save a layer mask pops up right exactly before that.  
> That's
> another bizare thing about saving... And since the number of dialogs  
> varies
> between formats has been *click* *click* *click* Close, load "Bah!  
> Mask." How
> often would someone need to save just the mask? How about having a  
> separate
> save option for that in the menu?
>
> -- Alexia
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