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nlao
wrote on the 26 Jun 09 at 13:05
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Unfortunately they are different projects by different people. It is like saying make Abobe CS Suite unified with AutoCAD. :D
Though a set of GUI standard might not go amiss. All Gnome based apps could be told to use certain styles etc that are unified across the whole system. So GIMP and Nautilus and Evolution etc all have a unified look and feel. They do up to point already but it could do with some refinement.
I also think that Scribus, GIMP etc all use different widgit sets but that should not matter if the above is implemented.
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ikus060
wrote on the 26 Jun 09 at 19:30
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May we explain what we consider as a unified look and feel.
Cause they all use GTK, tango icons and have the same concept of 'pannel' So I don't see what next can be acheived ..
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@nlao
Just to elaborate a little on what I "think" you were saying.
Unifying UI layouts and "look and feel" is similar to unifying code structure and styling. It's nearly impossible to force it on multiple projects and people, but if a few of them get together and define a "recommended" UI design, people will probably start looking into it and possibly implementing them.
It's all about cooperation. You can't force it on anyone, all you can do is develop a nice proposal, ask nicely and hope people start working together.
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@ikus:
All 3 of the applications may use the same icons, but their layout and menu structures (not to mention GIMP's use of multiple windows) are COMPLETELY different from each other.
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jeypeyy
wrote on the 26 Jun 09 at 21:46
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In that case Scibus has to be rewritten with the GTK library, which I don't think the developers want to do.
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dsavi
wrote on the 27 Jun 09 at 10:16
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If only, if only. I support this idea but it's pretty much a dream.
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ubby
wrote on the 27 Jun 09 at 13:36
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@dsavi, can you explain why you think it's pretty much a dream?
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carvao
wrote on the 27 Jun 09 at 18:09
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The difference between only a unified look and feel (User Interface) and an all-in-one graphic software
• You can work on a entire project in only one software. Don't need to save, export and change to another program if you only need to edit an image or a text.That's one of the differences of being open source. Since the developers don't have marketing issues they can offer a wide gamut of functions and it's up to the user to choose if that particular function is useful to his/her work. What happened with the Adobe Suite, which Gimp, Inkscape and Scribus were inspired, is that since they make money by selling licenses, it's logical to put together some function for specific niche of market like Photoshop for Graphics Designer, Lightroom for photographers and InDesign for Editors, so you need to buy all these programs to only execute a simple task like a brochure. You need InDesign for the layout of the pages, Photoshop to crop the pictures and Illustrator to to make a Pie Chart.
• Every aspect of the development and user's experience will be unified. The same library, swatches, shortcuts, translation, documentation, and so on. It could be like Blender is for computer graphics right now. It's a complete package for different professionals inside the same core. There is many plugins and it's totally customizable.
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andruk
(Idea reviewer)
wrote on the 4 Jul 09 at 09:07
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Good luck getting the GIMP folks to follow design paradigms that aren't theirs or actually make sense to end users.
Additionally, I am not expecting a Photoshop replacement when I use GIMP. Photoshop doesn't chug with big pictures, supports CMYK well, has a professional and descriptive name (What does GIMP mean? And a more important question: do end users memorize what GIMP stands for? And the most important question: should users memorize what GIMP stands for?), and works well and fluidly with other multimedia programs. Gee, is it any wonder why graphics professionals choose to pay lots of money and give up lots of disk space for something that makes their lives much easier? Is it any wonder why a company that needs to compete for users has a better product, even if it is more expensive?
What some people don't understand is that time is money, and if your program saves me just a few minutes *every day*, then it is probably worth it for me to pay you for your product. Even if GIMP is free, it's still more frustrating to use than Photoshop that I will pay *hundreds* of dollars for the privilege of using Photoshop instead of GIMP because GIMP sucks so much. Think about that the next time you suggest GIMP to somebody.
Does this mean that GIMP doesn't have a place? Of course not. It just means that it isn't a project that is taken seriously by the people it is trying to target (people who regularly edit or touchup photos). If you want to be taken seriously, don't complain or hide behind the fact that you're giving it away for free, because that doesn't matter, you need to make sure that your users are happy, and you have to think of ways to make their work easier, faster, and funner for them to do, even if it means you have to work harder - and that is why software is hard to get right.
There's a story I've heard (I think from asktog.com) about Steve Jobs getting engineers to reduce boot times by 10 seconds. The engineers thought that it was a stupid idea, because users could simply be patient and wait 10 seconds. Steve told them that he was expecting to sell a 10 million of the computers, and if the engineers shaved off 10 seconds of boot time, 10 million users would benefit. The total number of time saved would be 100 million seconds, which is 3 *years* of time saved. A single person would make ~$180,000 in that amount of time. Once the engineers figured out how much time they would save their collective users, they shaved 10 seconds off of their boot time, plus a little more. It's the same idea with GIMP - it should give people more time to do other things, like write long and rambling comments on the internet like this one. Thanks for reading.
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Awesome post andruk, you feel as I feel :D
Thank you for your post.
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@ andruk
Well the problem with Job's example is assuming that people actually use the time that they gain from faster boot time
You just know they're just going to spend an extra 10 seconds at MySpace, on MSN or wandering and surfing aimlessly around the Net- nice thought though ;)
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euxneks
wrote on the 10 Jul 09 at 03:05
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Solution #3 is excellent and should be spawned off into a separate brainstorm..
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euxneks, I think I *will* generate a new brainstorm entry regarding this. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Solution 3 has not been submitted as its own brainstorm idea.
Idea: 20651
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bah, last post should say "has now been"... :p
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This really is a great idea but I think it's more worth talking to the programmers for each program. There is the libre graphics meeting (http://www.libregraphicsmeeting.org/2009/) every year where some of the developers meet to discuss problems and opportunities.
Ubuntu is attempting to go some way to rectify this. They may start branding these programs with a more ubuntu-like identity. That'll at least breed familiarity with Ubuntu.
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I worry that attempting to standardize UI's may stifle creativity. I think a better approach to UI similarity may be to turn GIMP and any other program into a skinnable file. This way there could be a Ubuntu skin and a Fedora skin, ect without any major code changes.
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@andruk
"Good luck getting the GIMP folks to follow design paradigms that aren't theirs or actually make sense to end users."
http://gui.gimp.org
Learn the facts, mate. It's always good to know facts before talking.
Now, actually GIMP, Inkscape (0.47) and Scribus already share icon set to some extent, and Scribus and Inkscape have some similar UI solutions (align'n'distribute dialog). Getting them to use similar UI solutions is possible, but will take an enormous amount of time, while this isn't actually the largest issue, on which you will agree :)
As for common shortcuts, I did a research on that in the past (see create.feedesktop.org/wiki/) and it would be damn difficult to get them use same shortcuts simply because these products have different sets of tools and are streamlined to help solving different tasks. Some shortcuts are already shared (I mapped Eraser to Shift+E in upcoming Inkscape exactly for that reason), and it's possible to do a little more. But not much.
What really needs attention is file formats compatibility. That is: using SVG for all vector graphics exchanges and OpenRaster for bitmap projects. This is where GEGL is going to move things forward a lot, because it support both natively.
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Last, but not least: I don't really understand why you keep discussing tools like GIMP or Scribus here. No single developer would ever know. I stumble upon these discussions from time to time and I don't even code. Others probably don't even have any idea this project exists and any way they do know about the issue you are discussing and all the things that probably could be done time permitting. Not that you shouldn't be doing this at all, but could it be that your energy isn't used the best way? :)
Now, going to blueprints section for Inkscape and actually writing a good solid spec would make a lot more sense. Same for Scribus, only it uses Mantis.
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@ubby
Ah, good move, however... :)
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Solution #7
Is very good. Pros mostly always use keyboard shortcuts. The reason adobe has seamlessly integrated all it Suite applications is because of the unified looks and the common keyboard shortcuts, If you learn Photoshop well, they you are learning other graphic and print applications in adobe suite with out even knowing it.
It helps Adobe in turn, because users feel it really familiar when they try out other applications.
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dael99
wrote on the 7 Aug 09 at 17:24
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We are currently working on this!!
http://linuxdesignstudio.wordpress.com
twitter(news): linuxdstudio
flickr(mockups): flick.com/groups/linuxdesignstudio
so feel free to post your ideas here, there will be listened.
PD: if you are a developer, please help us
dael99 at gmail dot com
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ubby
wrote on the 7 Aug 09 at 19:13
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@deal99, but are the projects (Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus etc.) also involved?
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I have a friend who is a professional graphic designer. He teaches open source applications (scribus, gimp and inkscape) at community colleges. He feels that individually they are as good, even better than Adobe. He will however not work professionally on any of them as they do not offer the integration and workflow that Adobe offers. For this reason he will not migrate to a Linux OS.
If Linux (and Ubuntu) is going to make in-roads into professional graphics it will have to offer what professional users need. I believe that the UI for this should be a project on it's own (such as dael99 is working on) and could be politically endorsed and moderated by a big player, such as Ubuntu/Canonical.
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