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> This was a stupid change that added absolutely nothing of value, introduced unnecessary UI complexity and the only reason the GIMP developers did not revert despite all the users requesting it is arrogance as they believe to know better than their own users (which is to be expected by anything related GNOME - see the file dialog woes).

I can imagine that they made the change due to many beginners being confused about having lost editing capabilities by storing their work as a png. The developers probably spend quite some time on the fora where users report these kinds of questions, so I don't think it is all that arrogant of them to believe that they know what causes confusion and what doesn't. Thinking that as a single user you are more knowledgeable on what is better for the over all ux than the actual developers, that I do think could be seen a little bit arrogant.

This can be solved in the same way other applications that can save to multiple formats solve it: if you only use the functionality the target format supports, saving works transparently (so, e.g., you can create an image, draw an arrow and save it as a PNG). If you try to use functionality that the target format doesn't support (e.g. layers on PNG) then GIMP should display a warning dialog about it, perhaps with an option to save as a XCF instead (but not default on it).

This has two additional benefits: 1. the beginner will stop be a beginner at some point, will be informed about the target format they are trying to use and will know how to save, save as, etc so this issue will stop be a problem for them and 2. it will get rid of the useless and annoying "do you want to save" warning whenever you want to create a non-XCF image file (because you already saved with "Export", you just didn't save the image as an XCF).

The current approach makes the (wrong) assumption that everyone works with XCF files and only exports to other formats. This might be true for some cases, but a lot of people want to work with other formats directly.

GIMP before version 2.8: yell at users that layers will be lost when saving to JPG/PNG/TIFF etc. Actual result: people lost data.

GIMP since version 2.8: only allow exporting to JPG/PNG/TIFF etc., warn if data wasn't saved. Actual results: only a few cases of lost data.

We did the math. Now you do yours :)

Unless you have observed all users then you are pulling the "people lost data" out of thin air.

Here is something that actually happens since version 2.8: if you do not treat XCF files as the master image file format, GIMP complains all the time.

Oh yeah, I've been pulling that "out of thin air" for, ugh, 7 years now. That's 7 years of actual user support, every day.

I'd like to see you prove me wrong.

>If you try to use functionality that the target format doesn't support (e.g. layers on PNG) then GIMP should display a warning dialog about it, perhaps with an option to save as a XCF instead (but not default on it).

That's way more annoying than the current GIMP implementation. I sometimes export the same image a lot of times (to work on reducing gif file size etc.) It's very convenient that I can have a master XCF copy and one-click export without any additional dialogs.

Also JPG is a lossy format, so it doesn't support even saving a one-layer file correctly. Do you really want a supposed "photo editor" to warn people every time they export to JPG?

> a lot of people want to work with other formats directly.

I'm not even sure what this even means. No matter what file you're editing, you're converting it to a gimp internal format when you open it, you're working with it in a gimp internal format, then if you "save" it back to the format the image started in, what you're saving is a conversion from the gimp internal format.

The UI makes that clear. What people are arguing for is to make the UI less clear, not to change anything technical.

It means opening PNG files, saving PNG files, creating PNG files, etc without seeing XCF at any point (except perhaps if you try to use a feature - like layers - not supported by PNG when saving and GIMP showing a dialog to warn you about it).

Replace PNG with any other file format (outside of XCF, of course).

The technical side is irrelevant, i am talking about the UI and its behavior here, not how it could be implemented.

I don't get the hate for the save/export thing. Not everyone is comfortable with every single file format, ever, so being explicit about the different functionalities makes perfect sense to me.

Saving is by all intents and purposes understood as being able to resume work after loading the next time you use the software.

The formats available under export do not provide this guarantee, because they lose information one way or another.

Being separate features, I know this is the case without knowing what a .dds or a .tga file is, for example.

Hell, this way I can use GIMP without bothering with file endings altogether. I save the file if I want to continue work. It's automatically saved as .xcf. I export when I want to use the image. It's automatically saved as .png or whatever format I started with. No manual entry required. No understanding of file formats required. It just works, period. And it doesn't take any control from the user.

If you only use the functionality the target format has (e.g. you want to paint an arrow on a PNG image) then you are actually saving. If you tried to save in a format that would end up with data loss, GIMP could simply display a dialog warning you about it, like other programs that support saving to several formats of different capabilities do.

This is how every single CAD tool works, XCF isn't intended to be the final output, it is equivalent to a project file. When I finish laying out a pcb, my final output will be the Gerber files I send to my manufacturer, along with the schematic and BOM. If I'm adding an arrow to an image, I don't really care about preserving the separate layer functionality in the final output. I save the XCF, and if I want to change the size/position of the arrow, I will reopen the xcf file and all my edit history is preserved, along with the arrow on a separate layer that is easy to manipulate. My final output will be the png, which will end up on a web page or in some pdf document. How is it easier for users to have to fight through warning dialogs to find the "correct" image format? If I need a bitmap for some reason, then I know all my layers will get merged.

Think of xcf as the gimp project format, similar to source code, and the exported final image as a compiled binary.

I don't know about CAD, but this is not how many applications that save to multiple formats work - including image editors, as i point out in another reply of mine here where i list image editors that put the supported formats in their Save dialog instead of Export (some do not even have such a thing).

GIMP's workflow and what you describe assume you work primarily with XCF files but this is not always (or even often, for many people) the case when working with images as nothing else supports XCF files. Personally i rarely work with XCF files and only do that if i want to save images with multiple layers, otherwise i prefer to save in PNG files as those files will be editable in pretty much everything out there. For that sort of workflow GIMP's insistence on separating Save and Export is annoying, especially when i want to create a new image and GIMP complains that i didn't save it (but i did, i just saved it as a PNG file instead of the XFC GIMP wants me to use - that i have no real use for).

GIMP's current behaviour is simply better. Period. It accurately represents what happens and doesn't let the misconceptions bite you. What you're describing is just a minor annoyance (actually, I don't even think it is in any way annoying - I'm a long time GIMP user from before that change, I use it both for creating complicated xcfs and for simple edition of pngs and I just do the right thing without even thinking about it)

To be honest, I wish some other apps that have to deal with multiple formats worked this way too.

> GIMP's current behaviour is simply better. Period.

This is subjective, i do not find it better. "Period."

> doesn't let the misconceptions bite you

There are no misconceptions. I create a blank image, paint an arrow in there, want to save it as a PNG file so others can see it. GIMP complains when i try to exit because i didn't save the image. But i did, i just didn't use GIMP's proprietary file format that GIMP developers want to push.

> What you're describing is just a minor annoyance

Yes it is, i still use GIMP after all despite it. I am merely describing why i see it as an annoyance. Something being a minor annoyance doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all, after all.

You create a project, paint an arrow in its image and then export the project to a flattened PNG file. GIMP rightfully complains when you try to exit because you didn't save the project. There's no format-pushing agenda behind it (like, WTF would that even want to achieve?), it's just common sense.

Basically, you're angry because GIMP doesn't optimize its UI for MS Paint use-cases. Trading "slightly better for basic usage" with "significantly worse for any other usage" is a bad idea for a software aspiring to be a professional utility.

> i just didn't use GIMP's proprietary file format that GIMP developers want to push.

This is completely misrepresenting and misunderstanding what this file format even is. You might as well complain that saved games are not compatible between Age of Empires and Pokemon.

If existing formats don't support the complexity that software like GIMP requires to save a given state, then it has to fall back to a custom format. The only alternative that comes to mind is using .psd, which clearly wouldn't solve your problem since it is actually a proprietary format.

As for this "agenda" to push some proprietary format, this excerpt from Wikipedia might clear things up:

"A collaborative effort between the developers of GIMP and Krita is underway to design a raster file format called OpenRaster, modelled on the OpenDocument format, for use in both applications in a future version."[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XCF_(file_format)

In my understanding, there is a subtle but real semantic difference between "export" and "save" (and hence "export as" / "save as", "export copy as" / "save copy as", etc.)

The difference is that with "save", the user should be able to expect that all (or at least the most important) aspects of his image editing session are retained. That includes, for instance, all the layers, but could perhaps even extend to the undo-history. It's up to the developers to draw the boundary, I guess.

With "export" on the other hand, such guarentees are not given. If I export my Gimp image to ".jpg" then I won't be able to restore the layer information later on.

Thus, there might be situations where I want to "save a copy as" and also situations where I want to "export a copy as". But they are different things.

Now, all of the above are theoretical considerations. It's not hard to imagine that developers accidentally, or even intentionally, divert from that distinction for whatever reason. But I think it's potentially a useful decision to make, because when you "export", that comes with an implict warning that what ever is written to disk might potentially not retain all information you might want when you wish to continue your editing session later on.

If I edit a png file using gimp (open file and make some changes) and then save, I expect that gimp finally make changes to that png file. Whether it stores session or layers or whatever in xcf should be transparent to me.

I don't need to separately export it again to png. Because... I opened a png, I made changes, saved it and closed the file.

If gimp not doing it, then it's an issue.

Maybe, don't let people to open other formats. But let them "import" other formats. This will maintain consistency . Whether usability improves is another question.

At least in 2.10.10 (i haven't yet installed 2.10.12 here) it asks you to save the PNG image you modified as a XCF.

I've been using GIMP for some time also and I didn't think it was that bad of a change, in fact, I think it's an improvement. It's more in line with how most other multimedia applications work. Now I can just use the ctrl+s shortcut and it always saves my GIMP session rather than having to make sure I'm saving to the .xcf and not overwriting the last image file I saved.

Yes, the current behavior makes sense if you are treating the XCF files as your "master version". The problem is that as long as you want to use something else as the master version and do not want to bother with XCF files at all (including, but not limited to, nothing else supporting these files) then that sort of workflow breaks down.

Note that the "export" workflow could work as it does right now, there is nothing wrong with saving to a separate file (and the program remembering it) without changing the filename of the current image you work on.

> The problem is that as long as you want to use something else as the master version and do not want to bother with XCF files at all

That seems needlessly dangerous in the workflows typical for graphical design. Usually you import one or more source images, make your changes, and export a new image, leaving the source intact (specifically so you still have an original copy of the source images for later use in new, entirely-separate projects).

Sure, this makes it a little bit inconvenient for one-off edits, but I suspect one-off editing ain't the target use case for GIMP, much like how it ain't the target use case for Photoshop.

GIMP, like Photoshop, is a complex tool for people who know what they are doing, nobody in that category would be confused by such a situation especially if GIMP shows a warning dialog in case there would be data loss when saving (something that GIMP knows about).

Photoshop has that workflow to entrench its PSD file format. GIMP seems to want to do the same thing instead of treating all formats as equal (technical differences - which can be warned against - aside).

(since you use the word, I'll use it too). No, your approach is wrong and ..stupid. Save and export are two different actions. Saving permits you to resume your work, while exporting will make you lose information.

Basically this is the typical pet peeve of $GENERIC_USER in which is exactly how you're saying: developers DO know better than $GENERIC_USER what UX is easier and more functional.

Export is "Save to a different file as a potentially different format", so it is the same action. Unless you use functionality that the format you are trying to save to doesn't support, then you can resume your work. If you try to use functionality that the target format doesn't support, GIMP could simply tell you so, like what many other programs that support multiple save file formats already do.

So no, the developers do not know better than $GENERIC_USER, at least not this particular $GENERIC_USER.

- Save is "save my (editable) session"

- Export is "save the output of my work to a file (which may or may not be import-able afterward)"

So yes, you are right that both of them essentially translate to "save", but they're very different types of saving with different expectations.

The distinction here is that the primary "Save" should be reversible, and should never involve data loss. The 2.6 workflow was actually "dangerous" for this reason.

Please read the message you respond to. I already wrote:

> Unless you use functionality that the format you are trying to save to doesn't support, then you can resume your work. If you try to use functionality that the target format doesn't support, GIMP could simply tell you so, like what many other programs that support multiple save file formats already do.

There is nothing dangerous about the "2.6" workflow (which is also shared by many other programs) and what you describe is really trying to come up with nitpicky and arbitrary distinctions between saving and exporting to justify their unnecessary separation.