GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 307701
Names inconsistently used in UI
Last modified: 2007-12-13 03:49:07 UTC
This is a placeholder bug, filed after some discussion on IRC, for places where GIMP's UI is self-inconsistent, using different terms in different parts of the UI. I'll be adding entries to this as I find them, along with recommendations on which term is better. To begin: New Image: Preferences says Default Image on the left, Default New Image on the right, while the dialog says "Create a New Image" (menu is File->New). My recommendation is to go with New (change both Preferences entries to be consistent) since Default Image suggests that GIMP might start up pointing at a default existing image or filename, rather than what GIMP will do when the user chooses File->New. But the Preferences strings were a fairly recent UI change so there may be strong opinions for switching to Default (if so, the dialog should change too). Next are three drawing tools where the tool name isn't mentioned in the toolbox tooltip and isn't guessable from the icon: convolve, clone, and blend. If someone says "Use the convolve tool", there's no way for a user to figure out what is meant based on the toolbox. They'd have to call up the tool from the Tools menu or dialog, or look in the dialog then match the icon with one in the toolbox. Recommendation: For convolve and clone, add the tool name to the tooltip, e.g. "Convolve: Blur or Sharpen", or perhaps "Blur or Sharpen (Convolve)". For Blend, I'd recommend ditching the name altogether and using Gradient instead, which is what everyone calls it anyway. Does anyone call it Blend? Would anyone be confused if the name went away? What does it blend? One could argue that Pencil and Paintbrush also have this problem, but the icons are so recognizable that if someone says "use the pencil tool" few people will have any problem figuring out what is meant. It wouldn't hurt to add the tool names to the tooltips, but it's not as important.
A partial inconsistency: clicking on "Configure Extended Input Devices" in Preferences under "Input Devices" brings up a dialog that says "Input". It should probably say "Input Devices" or better yet "Configure Input Devices" (unfortunately, "Configure Extended Input Devices", which would make them completely consistent, would be too wide for the window, and "Configure Input Devices" might also in some fonts).
Your suggestions for the Preferences dialog don't make sense to me. The preferences dialog allows to change the default values for the "Create New Image" dialog. It is important to make it clear that what is changed here are default values. We don't use "Default New Image" in the pane on the left simply because it is too long. Also the tooltips in the toolbox are not supposed to include the name of the tool. The name of the tool is shown prominently in the tool-options. The tooltip gives hints on what the tool can be used for. I don't think we should change this. I've incorporated the change you suggested in comment #1. Perhaps you might want to file a bug report against GTK+, because "Input" is the default name of the GtkInputDialog. Fortunately we can easily override it. 2005-06-15 Sven Neumann <sven@gimp.org> * app/dialogs/preferences-dialog.c (prefs_input_devices_dialog): changed window title as suggested in bug #307701.
I am tempted to close this report as FIXED. There wasn't any feedback on my comments regarding the preferences dialog so I assume that you follow my argumentation that the proposed changes don't make sense.
Well, not really. I still find it inconsistent (it's the "new image" defaults, not a default image), and have had to explain to at least one user that "Default Image" is where he should go to change what shows up in the "New Image" dialog since he couldn't find anything that seemed to match. I didn't comment because I assumed your word was final and I didn't want to turn it into an argument.
OK, let's find better terms for the prefs dialog then.
What is the point of asking for a bug report to be reopened if you don't provide any additional feedback then? Setting to NEEDINFO for now.
FYI, in GIMP 2.2.8 and the german translation, "Neues Bild" ("New Image") is used at both places in the preferences and "Ein neues Bild erstellen" is the title of the new image dialog.
Sorry, I'm not sure what additional feedback you're looking for. I still think "New Image" makes sense in the prefs dialog, because that's where a user would look for prefs modifying the New Image dialog that's called up by File->New. I could try to think of an alternate term (not "New") for the prefs dialog, but that would just make it even more inconsistent with the dialog. "Create Image" would be consistent with the dialog but it's not as good a description of it, and IMO wouldn't be as good as "New Image". Was there ever any feedback that people were confused by the prefs dialog saying "New Image" in earlier GIMPs?
Yes, there was indeed such feedback. People didn't understand that they are actually only changing the defaults. So it seems like a good idea to mention this somewhere. The real source of this problem is however the template combo-box in the New Image dialog. It's behaviour is difficult to understand and to predict. The real fix for the problem is thus to improve this widget. It shouldn't be blank but always offer the choice of: Last-Used Values Default Values From Image Probably with width and height in brackets after the names, indicating the size of these templates.
Should this still be NEEDINFO? Changing OS to All for now, at least.
yeah...removing NEEDINFO status.
Another inconsistency the other way round: Gimp has two menus labelled "File" (at least I guess it's that term in English, in German it's "Datei" in both cases) - the one above the toolbox (the main menu) and the one above every image window. IMHO that is confusing because both menus have different entries. Therefore I propose to give the main menu another name like just "Gimp menu" because half of the menu has nothing to do with files. That would avoid the confusion of two menus with the same name but different content.
(In reply to comment #12) > Therefore I propose to give the main menu another name like just "Gimp menu" > because half of the menu has nothing to do with files. That would avoid the > confusion of two menus with the same name but different content. Unfortunately, the most important command (File->Open) can only be accessed from the toolbox menu when no image window is open. So renaming this menu would not be a good idea. A future GIMP version (hopefully 2.6) will have only a single merged menu will always ensure that there is always at least one image window open. So let's ignore this problem for 2.4 and focus on the other issues mentioned in the previous comments.
I am going to resolve this bug report as FIXED, as suggested in comment #3, because it deals with several assorted issues in a very confusing way, and has been unconfirmed for a year and a half. It probably still raises valid issues, but it is not productive to try to deal with them using this bug report. Incidentally, the issue raised in comments 12 and 13 will be dealt with as a side effect of the upcoming merger of the image and toolbox menus.