[Gimp-developer] ‘no image’ window: progress...

[David Gowers]

On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 5:27 PM, Michael Grosberg
<mgrosberg at bezeqint.net> wrote:
>
>
>  > > To give my $0.02, I think Gimp should simply emulate what is out
>  > > there,
>  > > namely the behavior of established applications such as Open Office
>  > > and
>  > > gedit.
>  >
>  > I am really struggling to say something nice here... ah:
>  >
>  > The perfect family car was invented ages ago: the volkwagen beetle.
>  >
>  > That did not stop designer from creating totally different cars for
>  > different needs. And customers from actually buying better cars.
>  >
>  No reason to design a joystick-steered three wheeled car just to be
>  different! Predictability of the UI is a very powerful tool and should
>  not be dismissed. Applications don't work in a vacuum: they are used
>  along with other applications, and asking users to "switch mental gears"
>  when they switch from one app to another for no reason is not a good
>  thing. The developers of those apps have struggled long with exactly the
>  same problems Gimp is trying to solve and have come up with good
>  solutions.
>
>  Case in point: in your specification you state that the application will
>  quit if:
>  "Close in the File menu is invoked and the no image' window is shown"
>  While usually in such cases the close command is grayed out and only the
>  quit command is available. What good reason do you have to change that?
I agree this is difficult. I believe the intent here is to make gimp
more symmetrical, so you can close images, and then you close the
final image (the no-image-window)

>
>  The idea of a window with no document in it is already established. You
>  yourself said "no gimmicks" and yet in the design there's a cute looking
>  wilber in the window's background, which is nice but really, you think
>  without it users won't know what this window is? give users some credit!
>  it's a gimmick and by your own rules should be removed.

I must disagree. It is not a gimmick, because without it, it is
difficult to rapidly identify where to drop. If your window has a
title bar (keep in mind that not all window manager's show a titlebar
attached to the window -- eg the WM I use shows the title of the
window that is currently focused only, at the top of the screen.), the
icon that identifies it as a gimp window is small, and may be obscured
by other windows. Since this window is a DnD target and the user may
want to do multiple drops quickly, it must be identifiable to the user
in  the greatest number of situations. Standard icon+text titlebars do
not provide this.