Fedora the Tablet OS?
Linked by David Adams on Tue 28th Sep 2010 21:58 UTC
Fedora Core The Fedora 14 Beta was released today, but as a Network World article points out, it "will be the first Red Hat supported distribution to let users choose MeeGo as their desktop." This new release will also include the Sugar interface, intended for netbooks, and "will also be the first version to fully incorporate Red Hat's VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure), called SPICE, or Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments. SPICE will allow Fedora to host virtual desktops that can be accessed over a network."
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RE[4]: Comment by Radio
by Neolander on Wed 29th Sep 2010 11:45 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Comment by Radio"
Neolander
Member since:
2010-03-08

The question is not to imitate photoshop or not. Quit that line of thinking. Design & ergonomy are NOT completely subjective: these are fields that have been under heavy research for decades.

I know that very well, as I've been studying them for some times. BUT it takes some time to fully grasp the good and bad sides of an UI. Spontaneously, when you see an alien UI that does not respect the conventions you're used to, you have, as a human being, a natural tendency to notice what is absent rather than what is present.

E.g. when I see photoshop's UI, my first thought is "uuuugh why do I have to open silly menus when I want to access my tools ? And why are those buttons so tiny ? I can't click them with a pen tablet ! And who had that crappy idea of putting everything behind non-discoverable modifier keys and context menus ?". I suppose that if I took the time to learn it, I'd end up discovering some advantages in most of their UI choices.

Not all UIs are equal. But contrary to popular belief, you cannot measure the quality of an UI at first sight without in-depth knowledge of usability rules and the targeted user, or in-depth use... In books about ergonomy, you discover why who your user is matters more than generic rules supposed to apply to all human beings.

Your original point was that GIMP's UI is universally bad ("sucks" in your own words). My point is that this is wrong. GIMP has its issues, but it's quite good when you're used to working with it ;)

Clutter is bad, wasting space is bad, etc.

Clutter and wasting space are opposite extremes ;) PS tries to put lots of tiny widgets in few room while Gimp takes more space.

But consider that most computers have wide screens nowadays. As much as they're crap for actual work (I can develop this point), they have a single advantage : more width for tools. The GIMP tools are good for tablet use, at the expense of that extra width of widescreens that you don't need anyway. It's not about wasting space, it's about using it properly !

Have a look at this blog post:
http://humanized.com/weblog/2007/10/05/make_oss_humane/

It's large (and old, too). Extract the part of it which you want to use in your argumentation.

Edited 2010-09-29 12:01 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[5]: Comment by Radio
by Radio on Wed 29th Sep 2010 13:00 in reply to "RE[4]: Comment by Radio"
Radio Member since:
2009-06-20

It's large (and old, too). Extract the part of it which you want to use in your argumentation.
I was especially thinking at "MISTAKE 2" and "MISTAKE 5".

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE[6]: Comment by Radio
by Neolander on Wed 29th Sep 2010 13:47 in reply to "RE[5]: Comment by Radio"
Neolander Member since:
2010-03-08

Mistake 2 : Well, I'm not sure that I agree with him on this one. He seems to disagree with use of the layer/selection/path paradigm in GIMP because it's too complicated and he thinks that it was only introduced for photoshop compatibility.

But there's a reason why photoshop is using this paradigm : though difficult to learn, it's powerful in the end. AFAIK, a UI paradigm for these tasks that's at the same time simpler and just as powerful has not been found yet.

Maybe the author means that GIMP should switch to a simpler paradigm (like that of MSpaint) at the expense of image editing power. But then I disagree : casual editing is not the main usage pattern envisioned by gimp designers, so they should remain consistent with that, even if it alienates casual users. Alas, software design is about choice.

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