Re: GIMP and Photoshop user interfaces (was: Re: Distros specifically designed for children)

On Sat, 7 Jun 2025 02:19:41 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

So do it in multi-window mode.
 
Remember that Microsoft’s whole MDI/SDI rigmarole is a consequence of
the brain-dead architecture of the Windows GUI in the first place.
There is no reason for an application that runs on *nix systems to be
restricted to the same limitations.

MDI is one of several solutions to an inherently clunky and complicated
UX problem: how do you manage a single application with arbitrarily
many documents, in a desktop environment with a bunch of other stuff
open as well? The perfect solution would have the following properties:

A. not clutter up the window list in the desktop environment,
B. allow easy switching between documents in the application,
C. allow easy switching to/from other applications,
D. allow free arrangement of documents on the screen (side-by-side,)
E. make efficient and orderly use of screen real estate.

If there's a perfect solution out there, I've certainly never seen it -
but let's compare the articles at hand. GIMP in multi-window mode
allows easy switching and side-by-side work between documents, but
clutters up the window list with one window per document (or more, if
your WM doesn't take the hint to leave the "dock" windows out of the
list,) which makes it a chore to go back and forth between another
application and 2+ GIMP documents.

Photoshop in MDI mode allows easy switching and side-by-side work
between documents, and doesn't clutter up the window list, which makes
switching between applications easy - but it does limit the placement of
documents to the main-window area, meaning there's little point to
running it non-maximized.

GIMP in single-window mode allows easy switching between documents and
doesn't clutter up the window list, but it has no provision at all for
side-by-side work (despite, I will reiterate, GIMP's *own dev team*
admitting that this is a real need) - and your "just switch modes"
argument means forgoing what advantages it *does* have over multi-
window mode.

So: whether or not you personally consider MDI clunky or braindead, it
*does* have concrete advantages over both GIMP modes - and, again, the
GIMP team knows this, but they have not addressed it, because they
don't really understand or care about UX matters.