Re: If I was Ron Hovsepian...

Michael Soibelman wrote:

Yugo wrote:

A long time ago, when my OS was Windows, I used a demo of a little
program called Paint Shop Pro 4. Of course, I didn't have much time to
RTFM, since the demo expired one month later, but I had more than enough
time to make quite a few backgrounds for my desktop. As far as I can
remember from 5 years ago, it worked about like this.

For a 1024 x 768 desktop. I'd draw a 3 x 4 frame of any size. That was
easy since the ratio of the frame's sides was indicated in the status bar
at the bottom. Then, by pressing CTRL, the pointer would turn to a hand.
By grabbing the corners of the frame, you could resize it and keep the
aspect ratio. By grabbing the nodes on either side, you could modify the
aspect ratio. By putting the hand somewhere in the picture, you could
move the frame around . So the job was quickly done and there was no need
to RTFM. You just tried this and that and pretty soon, you found how
things worked. And, of course, it was easy to remember.

Now, I use The GIMP. When I draw a "selection", the aspect ratio is not
indicated and since no hand or nodes appear to modify the selection, I
must figure out exactly what the size of one side will be, then grab a
pen to calculate what the other side's size should be to get the right
aspect ratio. Painful? You bet!

If you press the CTRL key to see if you can move your selection, you find
out that, unfortunately, it only allows to remove something from the
selection. It looks like this:

______________
| __|
| |
| |_
|_____________|

(Excuse my ascii art :)

Well, SHIFT maybe? Well, no. It does the opposite, it adds to the
selection.

Well, I'm surely a weird guy. I suppose GIMP developers add and substract
from selections hundred of times a day and that's why they use the most
common keys to accomplish these operations they so dearly cherish and
cheer, but I for one have never used them.

So, what about ALT? Sorry. It moves all the picture and title bar to
another part of the screen.

ALT + SHIFT? It does the same ALT alone.

What about no key at all? It cuts the selection from the picture and
moves it. (Also very useful!)

ALT + CTRL ? YES! It does move the selection! But how do you enlarge the
selection? There's a way. I remember taking an hour or two searching this
about six months ago. It must be somewhere in my notes, but I don't
remember.

Is there a way to enlarge the selection while keeping the aspect ratio?
I'm not sure. Maybe another hour or two of research would help. My time
being precious, I could call a partner who could search for me at 75$ /
hour. (At this hourly rate, they're never in a rush. The less they know,
the more it pays!)

And it's the same all over the interface. For instance, having to sharpen
a picture is a very common operation. Many amateur and not so amateur
pictures are out of focus. Here's how to do it in the GIMP. You'll see
how handy it is.

Right-click on the picture and select the 9th option, filters. (Isn't it
clear that you need a filter to sharpen a picture?) There, the 6th
non-grayed option out of 18 is Enhance. It looks like it. Then, the 5th
option out of 6, is sharpen. So, you sharpen your picture. ***! It seems
that, overall, you overdid it. So you take great care opening the 3
levels of menus -- what was that first option again? Image, Tools? Nope.
Filters! -- and you click the right had corner of the last menu and
select "Stay on top" or "Stay visible", whatever, so that you can try all
the degrees of sharpness you want on your picture and maybe tenths of
other ones. But every time, the 3 levels of menu collapse after you make
your changes.

Now, if you RTFM, there might be a way to get away from this nightmare.
The problem is, after you're through RTFM, you're divorced twice, your
kids have left home, your dog is dead and you must start over because you
don't remember the beginning: there's no frickin' logic in the interface!

Many Linux softwares have such a low degree of usability. The 8th most
asked question at OOo, is how to save a page as the default template! Is
it really normal that users search more than 30 seconds to find how to
accomplish such a basic operation?

Whereas Windows developpers test and retest their interfaces with users,
Linux braggarts explain that there are two kinds of Linux users:
developers and ranters. If you don't code, you're not allowed to rant and
if you're a developer, you're not allowed to rant, since you can change
the code to suit your needs. The bragging never cease, things never
change.

The GIMP could move to 24 bit color, have superb CMYK printing, be vector
based all the way, it still wouldn't be a favorite. After an hour or two
of this fooling around, graphic artists would still move back to
Photoshop.

The main thing Linux lacks to make it on the desktop is common sense.
That things can finally be done sonehow is irrelevant. What counts is how
efficiently they can be done.

If I was Ron Hovsepian, there's one thing I would care about: the
usability of the software I sell. In all the long interview he gave to
CRN, this concern did'nt appear once.

I'm realy tired and I've had a long day. So if I sound a bit terse it's
because you sound like a fucking ass hole !! Or maybe just a jerk. Or
maybe just a troll. Whatever it is what the *** is your problem ???

If you love photshop than just use it. If you don't like the Gimp don't
use
it. If your too stupid to know that this is NOT the Gimp newsgroup then
go
to comp.graphics.apps.gimp. It seems that you're just here to rag on
something you simply don't know how to use. If you did you would know
that you could simply use the rectangular selection tool to do what you
suggest
can't be done. It's so simple to do yet you haven't figured it out.

Duuhhhh !! The one thing Linux lacks is.....?? I've heard crap like this
since 1999 when you Windows ZEALOTS thought it was "just for hackers &
geeks". If you where Ron Hovespian you'd have your work cut out for
you...educating idiots like yourself not to expect everything in Linux to
be exactly like it is in WinBLOZE. If it where it would be the same old
piece of crap. After spending 5 hours fucking with STUPID ASS WINDOWS on
a computer for a friends business I can tell you I think Windows
absolutely
is a piece of crap. And you are a FUCKING WINDOWS ZEALOT...Period.

Yes I'm pissed off. Just when you think the ass hole trolls are gone here
they come again.

Just because you learned how to use a computer with Windows doesn't mean
that the 'right' way to do it! That's the way you learned. I've used
Photoshop and what you call intuitive I call lame. Why can't I right
click
and get my drop down menu ?? Why do I have to go to the top menu bar to
find anything ?? How come I have to pay so much for Photoshop when I can
use Gimp for free. Why can't I write my own plug-ins without having to
pay
to do that ?? Where's my right click on the desktop to bring up a menu??
How come Windows wont let me upgrade from Windows 98 to Windows XP without
me having to stick the original Windows 98 disk in the cdrom drive when
the
hard drive already has windows 98 installed?? Don't they trust me?? Awe,
come on. I really did pay for Windows 98. How come they make me out to
be a cheater ?? How come, when I put a nic card in the Windows 98 box and
go to install the driver from floppy Windows says 'driver installed' and
then when I reboot it says it found a new piece of hardware, "do you want
to
install it?" when I just did that, 3 fucking times ???

So go *** yourself !! I'm sick and tired of you little ass holes !! And
if anyone's wondering why Windows Zealots are so fucking defensive about
Windows I'll tell you. Since I too was that way a long time ago (circa
1998). It's because you've spent so God Damn much of your money on a
piece
of CRAP. `God forbid you should have to admit you made a bad investment.
Crap, crap, crap I tell you. Bugs, spyware, virus, BSOD...Yes, it's all
in
there. And now you've got Microsoft checking you out every time you log
on.

However.....there are quite a few really nice Windows 'compatible'
applications. I'll give you that. But they cost so fucking much. What
is
it for the full on version of Photoshop ? $650.00 !!! And then more if
you want third party plug-ins !! Much more!!! I could buy a computer for
that much. One with Linux and hundreds of applications. No spyware, no
viruses. And all the stuff I could possibly use. Including Gimp !!
Which, after a couple of days, I easily learned how to use. And Apache.
And php, perl, python, scribus, LyX, all the IDE's I'd ever want, inscape,
gui designers, e-mail, web browsers, chat (don't use that)
videoconferencing, scientific plotting programs, databases, office
software, editors, text to speech in my browser, all the applets I'd ever
want, etc, etc, etc....And that's just a small fraction of what's in
there.
Free !!! Did I forget to mention you can run third party Photoshop
plug-ins in Gimp ??? Well, you can !!

And I can give away all this stuff to anybody without cheating or worrying
about the software police coming after me. Oh, let me turn down my free
streaming rock music so I can hear you bitching because Gimp doesn't do
everything just like Photoshop.

So there you have it. Just my two cents worth for tonight. I'm sure I'll
get lots of criticism for my remarks but as I stated earlier I'm tired.
Oh, did I forget to mention that you don't know much about Gimp or you
wouldn't be making such stupid statements. You could have just gone to
the newsgroup that is for Gimp users I mentioned earlier and you could
have
asked how to do the things you're trying to do. You can keep the menu's
and sub-menus visible at all times so you really don't have to go very far
to find the right filter, such as sharpen. Come on. That's free. Stop
bitchin. If you really have to look at your notes then you haven't spent
much time trying to learn something different. Just go through some of
the many tutorials available and you'll find you can do just about
anything you
want with Gimp. If it doesn't you can ask someone to make a plug-in that
does. Or you can write your own. You don't even have to ask for
permission. It's o.k. No, really, it's o.k. As for common sense, I find
that there isn't much of that. A lot of the old 'monkey see, monkey do',
but common sense ?? What's that ??

O.K. I've done enough bitching myself by now. I've still got that Gimp
window open and I just went back to that rectangular selection I made and
I can easily grab the left side, right side, top, bottom or corner and
resize
it to whatever exact dimension I want. Oh, that's tough. I better get
out
my notes. Let's see ?? Move cursor to line, left click, drag, watch the
coordinate window in the lower left and the dimension window at the lower
middle, oh, oh, my notes !! I've cracked my pencil tip !! Now what do I
do ?? I've got it. I'll call my friend and for $75.00 an hour he can tell
me how to sharpen my pencil.. No wait. I've got a better idea. I'll get
a ..PEN !! Oh, pardon me. I wanted to sharpen my image selection. Now
let me see... Oh look, right there on the right of my work area is the
enhance sub-menu. How'd that get there ?? wonder what would happen if I
click on the...SHARPEN menu item ??? No, you think ??

Gee, that's only one click away....Oh, and I didn't even have a pencil..or
even $75.00....Oh the misery...Oh the horror.....

Listen Mr. Windows Zealot. You're an idiot !! But hey, I'll forgive you
if
you forgive me. I did say I was tired...and cranky too. But for a mere
$50.00 per hour I'll be more than happy to teach you how to use the Gimp.

Better yet get out your pencil..no get out your pen and start looking at
the
many on-line free Gimp tutorials and learn how to think!!! Or not. Thats
your decision. Uh oh, there's that Gimp window again. And it's still
waiting for me to figure out how big a selection I want to make. And
where
I want to make it. And what I want to do with it. And what filter I want
to apply.....Oh man, so many decisions. Looks like I'll need another
pencil and another $75.00. Because I can't decide......


LOL all night long. Thanks for the stupid post you made. Now I feel much
better. I just had to get that off my chest. You really are quite
stupid !!


Good night.

P.S. I am not responsible for anything I said. It's just a nightmare I'm
having. When I wake up this wont even have happened. Uh oh, there's that
Gimp selection window again...and it's still waiting, waiting,
waiting...AAHHHHHH !!! LOL

Ctrl- Alt-Del....Ctrl-Alt-Del...Ctrl-Alt-Del...How come it wont reboot ??

Oh, and one more thing. If you use the rectangular selection tool you can
left click inside the selection and drag it anywhere. And then resize it
to anything. That simple. Oh no !! I've cracked my pencil again. Better
get a number 2 pencil. This number 5 breaks too easily...
.