GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 688849
Distinction between Save and Export is pointless, annoying, and will confuse newbies
Last modified: 2013-03-03 18:11:33 UTC
I just installed Debian's testing's gimp 2.8.2-1 package. Saving files now pops up a message informing me that 'save' only supports .xcf and I will need to 'export' if I want to save in other formats. In the old GIMP workflow, I could open an image, modify it, and 'save as' in my desired format, which was conveniently autodetected based on extension. If I was saving it in a format which would lose information or required additional user input, a dialog would pop up asking what to do. This was one of those little interface touches that make a program a pleasure to use - and while I no longer remember for certain which program I'm comparing it to, it was one of those touches that made coming to the Gimp *more user-friendly* than using the other graphics editors of the era. Now, opening an indexed .png, flipping it, and saving it gives me a .xcf. On top of that, the new save dialog is counterintuitive to users: it still says 'Select file type (by extension)' even though it only really supports a single type now. Now, I can see reasons to disallow saving files as jpeg - but really, this comes down to protecting users using the Gimp to do what they explicitly told the program to do, and for lossless formats it's pointless. It would be far better to add a warning to the *save as jpeg* dialog box to the effect that it will lose data. Ironically, 2.8.2 warns LESS when exporting than 2.6 did when saving - 2.6 would tell me when it was flattening an image or merging layers, 2.8 assumes that everyone using 'export' understands exactly what each file format preserves and that everyone using 'save' understands nothing. A good UI should help power users do what they told it to do and help newbies figure out what they want to do; the new system gets in the way of power users and, I expect, will confuse newbies.
It only gets in the way until you have retrained your fingers to a new keyboard shortcut. No capabilities have been removed; you're making a lot of fuss about what is essentially a changed keyboard shortcut.
If you honestly think that this is only a change in keyboard shortcut, then: why was the change made in the first place? Didn't you like the old keyboard shortcut? :) It is clear that this change arises from frustration at the non-use of the XCF format. However, in many cases XCF is simply not the desired and desirable file format. Web editors will want to "Save As" to PNG files, photographers will want JPEG. It is problematic that when closing a file that has just been ""exported"" (i.e., saved), a dialogue appears that says: you didn't save this file, you will lose the changes from the last X minutes. Which is simply not true!! Downstream bugs are starting to get filed... openSUSE: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=793231 Fedora: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=879796 Can you please come back to planet Earth and restore the old-style Save window?
It has little to do with pushing XCF as a format, much more to do with making sure GIMP can work better in the future for non-destructive workflows. The XCF format as we know it might not even be the format GIMP will be using for this in the future. The reason users are protesting is that Ctrl+S does not do what they have come to expect. No functionality has been removed; features have been reorganized in a more consistent manner that will permit further and better changes later. In an even more ideal future, there will be no concept of saving at all, just a history of revisions that can be checkpointed / named. In that world getting a PNG or JPEG would still be an export - while _save_ might not even exist.
> The reason users are protesting is that Ctrl+S does not do what they have > come to expect. False. The reason users are protesting is that when they close an image they just saved ("exported"), an annoying and confusing dialogue appears, asking "are you sure you want to close without saving?". Then, they learn to ignore those dialogues... and we know what happens next. > In an even more ideal future, there will be no concept of saving at all, > just a history of revisions that can be checkpointed / named. I think you are thinking within a very narrow scope of application that does not reflect the reality of the wider GIMP user base. As an amateur photographer, I sympathise with this vision, and I see how it could save me diskspace and save me time. However, pretty much *all* non-photography use of GIMP would want things the old-fashioned way. When I crop an image to eliminate detail, I don't want the detail to be preserved in the file in some "dormant" invisible state. When I edit a document scan to obscure a confidential/classified section of text, I sure as hell don't want the recipient of the file to be able to undo that. This is not "export". It is "save". It is how 99% of image manipulation works, for 99% of users.