Y'know what maybe I will. Fuelled by the power of irritation I'll try and fix it. If anyone's reading this in a few months and the header tags are in a logical order; you're welcome

I don't recall that to be normal.

I had to check because that sounded crazy. So maybe your scroll lock key is on? If so Excel does the same thing.

Expecting it to be the exact same and working in an expected way are different. Blender used to select with RMB instead of LMB like every other program in existence, is it really the users fault for finding that stupid?

Following expectations and having a "smooth" workflow is something to aim for unless the standard is really bad. No need to fix what ain't broken

I think that's the new page :
https://testing.gimp.org/news/2026/08/16/dev-update-august-2026/

Again, no, because Affinity is more similar to photoshop.

What exactly, is the "crap" part of gimps UX? I never had an issue with it.

Then again I really liked it when all the elements are not in the same space, it is very similar to high production work using multi monitors and having the actual canvas the focus.

you're right, but i need people to understand that this is simply not a workable solution for most people. the simple fact is if we want the average person to adopt more open source alternatives, it needs to improve usability even without their help. it's not really enough to only cater to us power user nerds with "good enough," and it doesn't win hearts and minds to handwave complaints and tell people to come back with a patch.

We are talking about software built by, in many cases, volunteers. The only way it will get better, or good enough for the average person, is if those who can help do so. The only real alternative in practice is open source the way IBM, Google, and Oracle do it, and they wouldn’t do that anyway if the volunteers didn’t exist.

@schnurrito @thingsiplay Yes, the XML is for file structure descriptions not binary data.The GEGL buffers we use for image data in GIMP can be synced across files, so this new format will allow us to quickly auto-save the image/layer/etc to file as you make edits. Still in-progress work, but it's really cool.

Logo change!

Green Is My Pepper!

We <3 GIMP

There was a fork some time ago with that intention, but I think they ended up ceasing the project

Not to down on them too much but this comment is kind of funny in the context of a 30 year old program.

Leaving this here for Photoshop converts

https://github.com/Diolinux/Photogimp

I use Affinity full time at the moment, but if they ever go paid, I’m running straight to GIMP.

My way into CAD software was 1. Dealing with DXF editors like QCAD. 2. Trying to tackle parametric CAD, I ran Onshape's tutorials, they have pretty good technique tutorials, like how to draft a paperclip, that are applicable to most parametric CAD packages. Then learning how FreeCAD's spreadsheet works.

FreeCAD has a full-on spreadsheet built in, now it's feature poor compared to Excel or LOCalc but you can store and calculate dimensions there and then use them in the main drawing. Other software has features that accomplish this but it's not as flexible and familiar as a spreadsheet. FreeCAD has some usability issues but everything else out there is either drawbackware or subscription.

i completely switched to Affinity suit some 3 years ago at work. I was so excited when the affinity4linux install script dropped. but performance makes it near useless. slow and stuttering.

here is for hoping gimp and inkscape can one day match.

i disagree. i started out on paint shop pro. moved to adobe. and then to affinity.

i have given gimp several chances through the years and it just can't compete.

@sibachian @moldy_rice I agree 100%. I love my Affinity Designer.

My thing is that I use the iPad app with the pencil. The last time I tried GIMP it was great.

Finding things just feels unintuitive. Like I can never find how to do a basic task like cropping. Or resizing a layer, it does shit like grabs the layer under sometimes, ir just resizes the selection box instead of the selection.

To be fair, Photoshop peaked about 10 years ago and has been steadily getting worse. It's only a matter of time before they're neck and neck.

Agreed. XML has been dead for at least 10 years. Still, at least it's not YAML.

It's not just awkward for Americans, but for the entire English speaking world - at least 470 million people. How can anyone seriously recommend a business use a program called GIMP? It is a massive hurdle to adoption in the corporate world. They should change the name, or at least create a business-oriented alias.

outside US and UK (and few others)

If we're considering just the US, Canada, UK, NZ and Australia, that's at least 470 million people for whom the name is problematic. As an enthusiastic Australian user, there's no way I would recommend a program called GIMP to my higher-ups.

Unlike the towns of Bra or Fuck in Austria, the acronym GIMP was chosen specifically because of its edgy double meaning.

No it's not. It's very relevant - it's the reason I've never recommended the software to anyone outside of close friends.

Not at work. Certainly not.

It was in the ballpark of 2014-15ish IIRC, so a little over ten years

I've been using GIMP for over a decade. It's slowly starting to become one of the leading sources of frustration in my computing life. The more I learn about it the less it makes any sense.

Not trying to be negative here. Just saying that a modernization is much needed and I'm really excited for this.

It is shocking how well-designed the Affinity apps feel on the iPad. I'm not entirely fond of everything being stuffed away in menus, but I see why they did it, and overall I've rarely felt so positively surprised about pleasant UX.

Now if only they hadn't been bought by Canva… well, at least I still have my old Affinity 2 Suite.

I've always wanted to see gimp on the same level of blender.

Honestly I switched to Inkscape more and more. Especially for logos.

in corporate environments i've worked in in aussie for decades, the worst you can expect is a chuckle at the name.

yes, i'm sure there are more prudish organisations.

but it's 100% wrong to equate all english speaking nations to the US dip shitery.

getting the average graphic designer to consider anything other then adobe is like getting IT to consider anything other then MS... that is holding adoption back far more then anything to do with the name.

they better add a fucking draw circle tool istg

I used to work in schools IT and I managed to get a lot of FOSS tools into regular use amongst both staff and students; Audacity, Libre Office, Firefox, even Debian in a few IT labs... but the one that never stuck was GIMP because no teacher is going to tell their class they'll be using GIMP today.

I know this is a tired point and will probably never be fixed, but that name causes more problems than anything else.

Krita for the win if you just need the drawing part. Left Gimp long time ago for Krita and never looked back.

Something new to learn for me. Didn't know FreeCAD had that.

I started with FreeCAD. Never changed 😉

I stopped using GIMP for Krita, but it looks like GIMP's nondestructive has come a long way.

Try FreeCAD if you really want to suffer.

So in order to make it less awkward for ~500M people, we should make it more awkward for the rest of the 7.8B people.

The acronym was chosen as a reference to a character in Pulp Fiction.

And just India has a population of 1.4 billion people, and it's a single country.

There's a name for this phenomenon: the Software Imprinting Dilemma.

have you not met many Americans ?

they're also big into CBT with their GIMP, or their therapist. i can never remember which one

That explains a lot of stuff actually

Honestly I think some people just want to be offended. "Oh I can't use this in class because of the name" is complete nonsense. If the faculty are going to immediately assume you're doing weird sex things with the kids then you've got bigger communication problems.

Could you eli5 why gimp doesn't work as a name, i genuenly don't know...

It’s a derogatory term as well as a BDSM term.

The UI needs a global overhaul since the day one and still nobody talks about it