• 0 Posts
  • 9 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 7th, 2023
  • reka@beehaw.orgtoTechnology@beehaw.org•The problem with GIMP
    1·
    7 months ago

    Wasn’t supposed to be condescending, apologies that I came across like that. I just more meant you aren’t representative of who a FOSS potential killer app needs to reach. I agree, I don’t want cloud, AI, subscriptions. But I do want a tool palette and interaction experience that doesn’t require looking at the docs to use.

  • reka@beehaw.orgtoTechnology@beehaw.org•A New Study Investigates 'The Failed Migration of Academic Twitter' To Mastodon
    4·
    7 months ago

    From a UX perspective federation has been absolutely bungled. Twitters greatest trick was to cause an exodus before the alternatives had reached maturity, though I imagine the demand has pushed them further than they would be otherwise.

    IMO BlueSky is by far the best Twitter replacement, insofar as you can just use it like Twitter but it is built on an open protocol, allowing you to run your own server if you wish but with zero interoperability friction or worrying about servers on the actual client. Also it has already started basic bridging between threads and mastadon, its custom feeds in place of algorithms is genius and stackable moderation is the most compelling solution I’ve seen to the core complaints and concerns over modern social media.

    And it’s independent, transparent and run by intelligent, passionate people. And, very importantly, Jack Dorsey has nothing to do with it!

  • reka@beehaw.orgtoTechnology@beehaw.org•The problem with GIMP
    3·
    7 months ago

    There’s always been a real stick in the mud attitude with GIMP. No matter how many people cry out about it’s confusing UX it’s always tried to serve the existing userbase rather than design to expand its usefulness to more people. I think this is a shame and is why GIMP never achieved what Blender has.

    I remember trying to use it the best part of 20 years ago when I wanted to make animated gifs. It was so hard to use it was easier to pirate photoshop/imageready. Then a year or so back I tried to use it as I had moved to being a Linux user and was kind of astonished that the UX was still so bloody hostile.

    I don’t think I’m a moron (though how many morons do… so take this with a pinch of salt) but trying to figure out how to do basic things like cut and paste, cropping etc. without reading documentation just goes hellishly wrong. Any time I take the time to follow a guide on how to use it I’m taken aback by how unintuitive it is and once I’m done I forget it’s idiosyncrasies immediately.

    I remember “gimpshop” being a thing at one point, which I never got to use but heard it used the processing of GIMP with a more photoshop like UX. Though I believe that project lapsed.

    Anyway, yeah it’d be nice in a world where things like GNOME have become such beautiful UXes that projects like GIMP have the courage to revolutionise themselves.