GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 89275
Rename Alpha to Transparency to improve usability
Last modified: 2005-05-19 18:12:38 UTC
There is difficult balance between sophisticated power user with domain specific knowledge and new users unfamiliar with a powerful piece of software like the Gimp. In this particular case we can in fact make the Gimp easier to use for new users without bothering power users. In the right click menu there are the items Image, Alpha, Add Alpha Channel It took me a while to realise that Alpha meant Transparency, and that was primarily because of the menu item "Alpha Channel" jogged my memory. I do a bit of mathematics so greek letters on their own have a variety of meanings. I propose that Alpha be changed to Transparency so we would have Image, Transparency, Add Alpha Channel This is clearer, removes the redundant repitition of the word Alpha, but we still have "Alpha Channel" so it is still perfectly clear to the experienced users what is going on here. I have given this plenty of thought and consideration, i hope it can be agreed upon and changed soon (and hopefully backported, i am stuck using older versions of Gimp although recently had the chance to check out Gimp 1.4 i think). The keyword easy-fix and PATCH_NEEDED should probably be added to this. If some one points me to the correct place in the code or other the relevant place i will try and provide the patch myself but i am really far too busy at the moment, too many deadlines.
Should at least be considered for the 1.4 release and it should probably happen soon so translators have a chance to deal with the changes. The easiest way to find the places in code that need to be changed is to look at the gimp.pot file in the po directory. It lists all user-visible strings together with the location where they appear in the source code.
I think it would be better to replace all occurrences of Alpha with Transparency. Mixing the two is likely to be at best inconsistent, and at worst confusing.At the code level that might be a bit harder, but in strings it should be doable. Cheers, Dave.
If there is need for discussion, we should discuss this on the gimp-developer mailing list.
What: Transparency How: Add Alpha Channel I think this strikes the correct balance between technical jargon and easier to understand description. The GIMP is a complicated piece of software, i like the notion that my way might help educate users as to the correct terminology while still being fairly usable. I also dont like the redundant repitition of Transparency -> Add Transparency which seems to be what you are suggesting. I have given this plenty of thought and can discuss it further if you are try and convince my why your suggestion or any other way is better. (never had a bugzilla collison with anyone but myself before, i actually wrote this at about the same time as svens above comment. I dont have time to participate fully in GIMP developement and will not be joining the mailing list and i am late for a meeting...)
I agree with the "What"/"How" statement made by Alan above. I think that we should only change the "Alpha" sub-menu to "Transparency" but keep "Add Alpha Channel" (or more generally "Alpha Channel").
I'm happy to go along with it, then, if people think it's reasonable. I tried to send the mail that Sven suggested to the list, but must have had a typo in the address since it doesn't seem to have appeared there, and it hasn't come back to me that I've noticed, so it might be stuck in the "undeliverables" of some mail server somewhere. Cheers, Dave.
Be patient with the mailing list. It looks like the server is down for the moment and it may have been down since last week (I don't know because I have been away for the last three weeks). So it is possible that your message will show up whenever lists.xcf.berkeley.edu comes back. Unfortunately, I don't know who is taking care of that machine so I don't know when it will work again.
Created attachment 13557 [details] [review] Proposed patch - replaces "<IMAGE>/Layer/Alpha" with "<IMAGE>/Layer/Transparency"
2003-01-14 Sven Neumann <sven@gimp.org> * app/gui/image-menu.c * plug-ins/common/threshold_alpha.c: applied a patch from Henrik Brix Andersen that changes the Alpha menu to Transparency (#89275).
Cool thanks.
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