Using The GIMP w/o dedicated workspace?

[Guenther Brunthaler]

Hi all,

I think The GIMP is a powerful tool, and I would really like to use it.

But I find it really hard to cope with the way it organizes its many windows. Actually, it nearly drives me mad!

The only solution I could find so far was allocating a dedicated workspace for The GIMP using my window manager (I'm using kwin).

Otherwise, I was unable to raise or lower all the The GIMP-related windows as a single unit; they all behaved as if they were completely individual top-level windows.

That made it impossible for the The GIMP windows to co-exist on the same workspace as the windows of other applications, because it was incredibly tedious to manually bring all the The GIMP windows to the same Z height on the desktop at the same time.

But allocating a whole workspace for just one application is something I also do not like - I usually create workspaces for separate workflows incorporating multiple applications, not for a single application alone.

I have googled around a bit on the subject and found a plug-in called "deweirdifyer" which seems to solve that problem for The GIMP running under Windows.

But I could not find an equivalent plug-in for Linux.

I also have read multiple statements of type "we lucky Linux guys don't need no MDI, because we have such powerful windows managers", but unfortunately I was unable to find a description how a Linux windows manager such as kwin can actually help running The GIMP in a useful way - that is, without allocating a whole dedicated workspace exclusively for it.

So I assume I am missing some point.

Can someone please explain to me how to use The GIMP with one of the mainstream Linux window managers on a the same workspace shared with other applications?

Because it cannot be that an application "requires" its own workspace. If every application did that, there would be as many workspaces as open applications, which could go into the dozens. And then we soon would need some sort of "super-workspace", which manages those many workspaces the same way a single workspace manages multiple top-level windows.

In other words, the decision whether to put an application onto a different workspace should only be up to the user based on his/her individual preferences, but never be quasi-dictated by an application.

The solution must obviously be to put all windows belonging to The GIMP into some sort of logical group, which is handled as a unit by the windows manager. That is, if any of those windows is raised or lowered, all the other windows within the same group must also be raised or lowered by the same amount. But I have no idea at all how to accomplish that with kwin.

Any ideas?

[leonglass]

Interesting I have never found this annoying at all and just raise each window I want. However in answer to your question I do not know if you can group the windows but I do know there is a program called gimpshop that makes the layout more simila r to photoshop if that is any good to you.
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[Guenther Brunthaler]

Hi Leon,

[jlh]

I'm actually a fan of having lots of workspaces and I usually use GIMP on its own workspace with at most one or two other windows. Since I can't lower or raise all of GIMP's windows at once, I often raise or lower the other window(s), which gives me about the same effect. So if I have 10 GIMP windows and one xterm, I can Alt-Tab to xterm to bring it to the front, and I can lower xterm to bring the 10 GIMP windows to the front.

Also, I often work like this: My GIMP main window and the tools window is set to always-on-top and is shaded at the top of the screen where it potentially only covers other windows' decoration. This gives me more free space to work with for GIMP itself, but also for other windows and avoids having to lower/raise two windows. Whenever I need one of those windows (which doesn't happen often for the main window at least) I point to it and it temporarily unshades and automatically shades again when I move out. So in many cases I end up having only one or two other GIMP windows that need to get out of the way when I need some non-GIMP window.

Well, this is how I do it, but I understand that this doesn't directly answer your question. I'd sure be interested in further replies. Also I'll have to check out that plugin for windows, because for me, GIMP has been a horror to use on windows.

[Guenther Brunthaler]

Hi jlh,

[Guenther Brunthaler]

When thinking about the differences between the MDI and the multiple desktops/workspaces approach, I have come to the following conclusions:

• MDI ist neither the same as nor equivalent to a workspace.
  
• MDI relates to a workspace in a similar way a per-project directory relates to a disk partition.
  
• MDI is more than just grouping some windows together. It provides a logical "scope", because MDI child windows all belong to the same application instance. Note: Application instance, not application. There can be multiple unrelated instances of an MDI application, each containing multiple related MDI child windows.
  
• A workspace, on the other hand, can contain any number of windows from any number of unrelated applications.
  
• Workspaces should be used to group applications and documents together which represent a work flow, or at least an integral part of it. Or they can be used to represent different topics or projects.
  
• But workspaces should not at all be some sort of prereqisite for running single application instances!
  

[i92guboj]

[Guenther Brunthaler]

[Guenther Brunthaler]

Now I've toyed around a bit with FVWM.

It's currently being unmerged while I write this posting...

I tried it in two configurations: As a fully-blown desktop environment, using the Gentoo's crystal-theme setup. And then as a kwin replacement with KDE.

The first configuration worked quite nicely, but I found FVWM is not my type of window manager.

It featured cute little icons, half-transparent window decorations, eight workspaces and other trendy little stuff, but I have actually no use for such advanced goodies.

I do my work in a single maximized console window most of the time, running GNU "screen" to multiplex any number of shells within it; some logged in locally; others remotely.

I also don't use the mouse most of the time and use Alt-Tab to navigate between top-level windows.

There are rarely more than six GUI applications running at the same time, because it is only that single console window which runs all the really interesting stuff.

And because I have so few windows on my desktop, each of them maximized, I normally have little desire for multiple workspaces or icons on the desktop: The desktop is normally covered entirely by the console window anyway.

But OK, I wanted to evaluate the "raise all (GIMP) windows" function of FVWM.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find it.

I checked all the window decorations I could spot, tried them with any mouse button combination I could imagine, and also looked into all the popup window menus provided by FVWM.

All I found were only quite standard options like all windows managers provide them; nothing special, and not trace of some "raise all (gimp) windows" option.

So I decided to let go and launched KDE with FVWM instead of kwin.

Well, at least it started. It even managed to launch KDE's menu bar and application launch menu as well as it's tray bar applications. That's fine.

But then: There were 36 (!) workspaces in the toolbar, and no space left for displaying normal application windows! That's just overkill for me - I hardly use more than two workspaces most of the time.

Next I discovered: All the window decorations were gone - the windows did not even provide a "close" button, or some sort of context menu.

I'm afraid this is a bit too minimalistic even for me!

Chances are that it might be possible to configure FVWM better when diving deeply into its configuration file, but I actually want to avoid that. If it's not useful right out of the box with only a few customizations, it's too much effort for me.

I'm sure FVWM can do wonderful things for people who want to invest the time to customize it, but actually I'm quite happy with kwin except for the GIMP's lack of MDI support.

And I also think it would be a mistake to make the choice of a window manager dependent on the requirements of a single ill-behaving application.

So, instead of replacing kwin with FVWM just because of GIMP, I think it will be easier to avoid GIMP where it is possible.

And for those situations when GIMP is the only application which can do the job, then - sigh - I will, for god's sake, create a dedicated workspace for it.

But I will never like the fact I have to.

[i92guboj]

Hello again,

[i92guboj]

Oooops hehe, I submited the response too late.

[Guenther Brunthaler]

[i92guboj]

To be frank, I don't like gimp in that regard either, but it doesn't seem like that's going to change at any moment soon.

I usually use as many workspaces as I need and I never ever minimize windows. So, having the gimp in one of those areas is not really an inconvenience for me anyway.

Of course, each person has a different methodology when working, and I am not much into graphics anyway. Just ocasionally.

[pizzach]

I sorry I am not saying anything helpful, but I just wanted to say I share your pain. If the windows acted a little more intelligently, the gimp would be a much less pain in the butt to use. The current setup screams to have the child windows work like those of Photoshop Mac. But most PC users wouldn't know what I am talking about. -_-;

[ThomasAdam]