On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 21:56:17 +0100, "Thorsten Froehlich"
<tho### [at] trfde> wrote:

>I am not sure which way to read this.  Either way, Mac OS never had anything
>like windows inside windows.

You're right it does not. What I meant was that the menu was on top,
then the workspace covered the screen and inside the workspace were
the work windows & palettes. That's how I seem to remember it.

>I am not sure which way to read this.

Sorry, I was unclear. See below.

>Does GIMP have windows inside windows in its Mac OS X port?

Nope. But it doesn't have a background workspace either. And the way
menus work, the way window focus works (in PhotoShop the image windows
is always in focus) as well as the way shortcuts *don't* work if the
image window is blurred, all of those are literally killers for work
flow and useability.

>That would imply it is one of those crappy Trolltech
>Qt framework applications.

Not the GIMP :). The GIMP was the reason to come up with GTK and Gnome
in the first place. GTK, around which Gnome is based on, stands for
the Gimp ToolKit (or something similar). Basically GIMP was first
based on MOTIF, which was at the time commercial (no LessTiff yet) and
the developers designed their own framework which later became the
base of Gnome (mainly because it was free, as opposed to Qt)

>Note that the Trolltech Qt framework does not draw system windows.
>It draws everything itself and provides a miserable user experience on
>both Windows and Mac OS X whenever it tries to emulate things not 
>available on the platform natively (or the GUI changes like with
>Windos XP or less so in Mac OS X 10.3).

Would you mind sharing some experience over email? Qt is one of the
frameworks I am currently focusing my attention at, and of course the
only stuff I can find online are praises (marketing, you know...) I'd
love to hear from someone who have burned their fingers with it as a
developer and/or as a user.

BTW every single cross-platform framework that I have ever considered
- Java, wxWindows, GTK+, Qt has had quite a bash from you -- are they
really that bad and is there one that doesn't have their problems?

>On Mac OS applications that do not
>follow the look and feel of the system will be avoided by users like hell,
>and they tend to get bad reviews unless the reviewer was paid or is no
>regular Mac OS user.

I know. This is my biggest nightmare at the moment. I have to design a
GUI for Windows/Mac (and eventually Linux, but Linux GUI is by
definition not well defined :) ) that:
  a) is stylish and elegant,
  b) looks native on both platforms
  c) is not as choppy and blocky as Windows
  d) is not as balooney, colorful and slightly childish as MacOS X
  e) is coherent in a cross-platform user environment (meaning minimal
switching effort between the  Win and Mac versions)

>Well, ever notice the "Mac"-mode of Photoshop for Windows that places the
>menu bar at the top of the screen and makes the root window cover
>everything?

When one PhotoShops, one barely does much else in parallel so it
totally makes sense that way. I shudder at the thought of having NO
workspace and having to find, for example, the Lasso tool on screen
with all the mess of windows in the background (normally chess,
winamp, ICQ, email, Agent, some browsers, Acrobat Reader) with nothing
to cover them while I am actually photoshopping.

I am sure that with the right window manager I can get the same from
the GIMP running in a nested server fullscreen (in KDE - borderless
window). I just have to find one that allows the menubar on top of the
screen and is not as ugly as my ex-mother-in-law.

Really, if you feel you have the time for some more discussion on the
subject, please drop me a line. I'm always open to others' experience
and points of view.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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On 17 Mar 2004 23:51:18 -0500, Eamon Caddigan <eca### [at] uiucedu>
wrote:

>The "bunch of windows in a single window" paradigm is called Multiple
>Document Interface (MDI), and I'll confess that I hate it. 

Me too, but I am not talking about that. I am complaining about the
"bunch of palettes and windows all over the desktop" paradigm of the
GIMP, which is as I see it the biggest issue people have with it (and
are flamed for when complaining :) ). It has nothing to do with MDI.

To use the Word analogy, imagine Word with a separate window per
document (as it is now), each document window having its own menu bar
(as it is now) BUT having every single toolbar floating somewhere on
the screen and operating on the currently focused document, if any --
if none is in focus things get worse. Not only will one have 5-6 more
windows to deal with which neither alt-tab nor taskbar grouping will
cure, but also one would have to aim mouseclicks with even more sniper
precision that is already required for using Windows.

So Office, IE, OE etc. are not good examples of the problem I am
illustrating. The Gimp is. Winamp is also using the same approach but
thankfully, one only has to operate it once every few minutes (maybe
even less if one has a remote control :) ) so it is much less
noticeable. Tt actually would not make much sense to have Winamp take
your whole screen a-la PhotoShop just for playing mp3s.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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Peter Popov <pet### [at] vipbg> wrote:
> Yes, that solves the problem of lacking a root window but doesn't
> solve the alt-tab annoyance.

  I don't understand what's this "alt-tab annoyance" of yours.

  If you have tons of windows in your root window and you don't like
focusing them by clicking, you will have to browse through them
anyways (in applications with a "root window" usually you do this
with ctrl-tab). How is this different from using Gimp in a virtual
desktop? I really don't get it.
  If I want to switch to another different application, I just switch to
the virtual desktop where that application is in.

-- 
plane{-x+y,-1pigment{bozo color_map{[0rgb x][1rgb x+y]}turbulence 1}}
sphere{0,2pigment{rgbt 1}interior{media{emission 1density{spherical
density_map{[0rgb 0][.5rgb<1,.5>][1rgb 1]}turbulence.9}}}scale
<1,1,3>hollow}text{ttf"timrom""Warp".1,0translate<-1,-.1,2>}//  - Warp -

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In article <j4mi505o8bqtsbjue6dl9ndq1rp1esd3l0@4ax.com> , Peter Popov 
<pet### [at] vipbg>  wrote:

>>Internet Explorer? Outlook Express - I noticed when writing that post on
>>Windos, actually - the window in which I types was independent.
>
> Not the same thing. Imagine how Outlook Express would look if the
> groups pane, the threads pane and the message pane were all separate
> floating windows and the menu was, for example, in the threads pane
> (but some simple menu is also located in the groups/servers pane).

But those are panes, not windows!  Of course you should not arbitrarily
sprinkle content between multiple windows.  Some common sense really helps,
and it has nothing to do with windows inside windows - panes are not
windows.

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 14:26:30 +0100, "Thorsten Froehlich"
<tho### [at] trfde> wrote:

>But those are panes, not windows!  Of course you should not arbitrarily
>sprinkle content between multiple windows.  Some common sense really helps,
>and it has nothing to do with windows inside windows - panes are not
>windows.

Well, with The GIMP you have the tools window (not a palette because
it has its own menus), then an image window per file each with its own
menus, then anywhere between 0 and 20 floating palettes, and none of
those is visually associated with any of the others nor with some
common element (root window, common workspace etc.) It's... strange.

Maybe my wording was not entirely correct from a GUI point of view but
I hope I made it clear now.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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On 18 Mar 2004 05:15:27 -0500, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

>  I don't understand what's this "alt-tab annoyance" of yours.

Well, if I open the GIMP and have three images open, then some
palettes - toolbox, layers, colors, tool options, brushes, etc. All of
them appear in the alt-tab pop-up and clutter it immensely because you
have to dig through it to find some other application you might need.
If it had a common root window/workspace, or is running in a nested X
server as I do it, all I get is a single icon which is The GIMP. Makes
much more sense to me that way.

>  If you have tons of windows in your root window and you don't like
>focusing them by clicking, you will have to browse through them
>anyways (in applications with a "root window" usually you do this
>with ctrl-tab).

But they don't get in the way when I alt-tab to switch applications.

>How is this different from using Gimp in a virtual desktop?
>I really don't get it.

The shortcut for switching desktops (if you have them at all - I
don't) is different, and alt-tab will still display all icons in all
desktops.

>If I want to switch to another different application, I just switch to
>the virtual desktop where that application is in.

That's another way to do it, I agree. In the original post I suggested
my way for those who haven't found another one. In any case both are
hacks to make up for IMHO poor GUI design, but that's a totally
different story altogether. I was just happy that I am finally able to
actually use The GIMP and wanted to share.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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Peter Popov <pet### [at] vipbg> wrote:
> The shortcut for switching desktops (if you have them at all - I
> don't) is different, and alt-tab will still display all icons in all
> desktops.

  My KDE only shows the applications in the current desktop. I find this
behaviour useful.

-- 
plane{-x+y,-1pigment{bozo color_map{[0rgb x][1rgb x+y]}turbulence 1}}
sphere{0,2pigment{rgbt 1}interior{media{emission 1density{spherical
density_map{[0rgb 0][.5rgb<1,.5>][1rgb 1]}turbulence.9}}}scale
<1,1,3>hollow}text{ttf"timrom""Warp".1,0translate<-1,-.1,2>}//  - Warp -

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Peter Popov <pet### [at] vipbg> wrote:
> On 17 Mar 2004 23:51:18 -0500, Eamon Caddigan <eca### [at] uiucedu>
> wrote:
>
>>The "bunch of windows in a single window" paradigm is called Multiple
>>Document Interface (MDI), and I'll confess that I hate it. 
>
> Me too, but I am not talking about that. I am complaining about the
> "bunch of palettes and windows all over the desktop" paradigm of the
> GIMP, which is as I see it the biggest issue people have with it (and
> are flamed for when complaining :) ). It has nothing to do with MDI.

So you want Photoshop Windows (not Mac, as has already been pointed
out). It's the only way you're comfortable working, why not use it? This
isn't a flame, but a serious question. If what you want already exists,
why use something you don't want only to complain about it?

-Eamon

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On 18 Mar 2004 09:55:38 -0500, Eamon Caddigan <eca### [at] uiucedu>
wrote:

>So you want Photoshop Windows (not Mac, as has already been pointed
>out). It's the only way you're comfortable working, why not use it? This
>isn't a flame, but a serious question. If what you want already exists,
>why use something you don't want only to complain about it?

I actually use it -- have been since version 2.5 (granted, that was on
a Mac). But I also want to learn to use the GIMP and the lack of a
consistent workflow hinders me in my quest. Also, I am in the process
of completely switching to Linux and would like to get the best of it
-- for example, I am currently writing a conversion tool to import my
Windows ICQ 2002 history into Licq.

As per my original post, I found a way to avoid some problems I (and I
know many others) find annoying and wanted to share. As per some other
posts, which probably don't belong to this thread and maybe not even
to this group, I would like to find the reasoning behind the current
GIMP design from a useability point of view, since this is a somewhat
professional interest of mine. I do not want this to be a PS vs. GIMP
thread and even less so a flame war - I want to use the best of both
worlds and I believe I am on my way to doing so.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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in news:mvaj50d6ikdjvgkipfhdj3fbbfv9o4ou91@4ax.com Peter Popov wrote:

> hen anywhere between 0 and 20 floating palettes, and none of
> those is visually associated with any of the others nor with some
> common element (root window, common workspace etc.) It's... strange.
> 

It was strange to me too at first, until I tried The Gimp in a two monitor 
situation. One screen for the image(s), one screen for all the pallettes 
and stuff so it gets to be a big control panel. Then it makes a lot more 
sense.

Ingo

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