Hacker News Reader

Comment by SebastianKra | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised there's uncertainty about how Gimp should be redesigned. Just copy Photoshop! Select tools on the left, configure the current tool at the top, global options on the right. Affinity does this and nobody complains. Thanks to MacOS help search, we even already have the command search that this video proposes. And it has interaction hints too.

Gimp isn't more complex than Photoshop. We don't need it to reinvent drawing applications.

View on HN

The thing is, Photoshop didn't win the "graphics wars" in the 90s by having a good interface. It won by having an interface that's analogous to physical photo editing and by having a bunch of the weird/fiddly things that professional need.

The best from-the-ground-up interface for a graphics program imo is that of CorelDraw, which survives as the interface to Inkscape. Rather than a craptasm of random, physical-analogue tools, you have a small number of highly functional tools giving you a wide range of options at any one point.

And yes, I'm "confusing" vector-graphics editors and bit-map editors. But imo they should be the same, the form of the image should be secondary. High film editors produce a script of editing operations to be done on the raw film. Bit-maps should also produce a sequence of operation that can be edited afterwards.

In this case, Deluxe Paint deserves a honorary mention. It's amazing the range of creations people were able to pump out using its very basic and incredibly functional interface.

With a few quick in-app tweaks, I'm honestly really happy with how Gimp looks and functions. But I've used it for 10+ years so I may be biased.

https://www.pugi.cafe/uploads/db4664/original/2X/3/3f7a5d40e...

This still blows my mind a bit - yes literally they should just copy Photoshop because everyone knows how to use it. Menus are fine, any complex tool has lots of menus. I have been wishing for a photoshop-like GUI frontend for GIMP for 20 years. It's not even that far off. That sounds ungrateful, and it's not meant to be - I know this is just how it is, amazing stuff under the hood and janky interfaces

I mean, linux today is full of macos GUI ripoffs and people love it - because Apple did some great UI design. I was using windows 11 recently and so many common things are complex to the typical user - e.g. making an application run at startup, anyway I'm in boomer mode so I'd better stop writing

> I have been wishing for a photoshop-like GUI frontend for GIMP for 20 years. It's not even that far off. That sounds ungrateful, and it's not meant to be - I know this is just how it is, amazing stuff under the hood and janky interfaces

They used to have a Windows build that was like this called "Gimpshop":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMPshop

> they should just copy Photoshop because everyone knows how to use it

except new users.

you're part of a self-selecting population.

Personally I think UI experimentation is awesome, because we might end up with an interface usable on modern hardware.

But new users already don’t know how to use the UI, so why should it matter? If anything it’ll allow them to get a better idea of where to go if they land on a photoshop tutorial instead of a gimp one.

I don't mean clone, I mean copy the good ideas the obvious ones like docking panels re-arrange the menu a bit. If this had happened years ago I think GIMP would have become more popular with a more accessible interface. Hamburger menus are from the devil. Be good

I am surprised how most people don't understand how open source work.

Please no. I very much prefer the multi window UI of gimp, especially with multiple screens

Photopea did this, and on web

Reply on news.ycombinator.com