this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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I think you're right about the EU. We have them to thank for C cables on everything.
Those are the exact reasons I had to stick with windows. Office was essential at work (much as I like Libre Office it just doesn't quite cut it when you need perfect compatibility) and I used to use photoshop a lot (and Dreamweaver ha ha ha those were the days).
GIMP latest release seems to finally have non destructive editing so I will have to take another look.
Work is another beast. You really need to have your whole workplace on LibreOffice. Microsoft loves to tuck proprietary stuff into things that mess up the compatibility we could have.
Last I checked, still no basic shapes though 😅
For workplaces that constantly deal with documents from other workplaces, even making your own one switch wouldn't work. Microsoft's evil strategy works - it really does have it sewn up unfortunately.
Wait what why does GIMP not have shapes!? Kudos to you for being able to find your way around its GUI. It hurts my brain.
If you want to do a circle, there are multiple ways but e.g. you can use the ellipse selection tool to select a circle area, then select the outside of it (perhaps with the border select option, setting the width you want), then use the fill tool to colour it in 😅
To do it properly, there's a lot of pre-work required. It's listed here: https://developer.gimp.org/core/roadmap/#non-destructive-layer-types
It's listed simply as "No" 😆, I think this means there is no one actively working on it, but there are people working on the prerequisites.
There was a bit of conversation on Lemmy about it recently: https://lemmy.nz/post/20638412
It's just what I'm familiar with. I struggle with photoshop, I'd rather use GIMP. But it has it's limitations!
Some gems in that conversation.
I used to use that exact same circle method in photoshop back in the day, before I learned how to use shapes and paths! (All my photoshop skills are self taught over the years, but I've used it for a long time, like you have with GIMP).
The idea of "intuitive" in software interface kind of fascinates me. So much of it is cultural or built on the shoulders of years of habit, but it feels so real and objective even though it isn't. I wonder about what it does at the level of synapses etc. Like, do you and I have a tiny piece of differing physiology at this point because of GIMP vs Photoshop?
One of the big things these days is "personas", which is basically sitting down and thinking about all the different people who might use your software. Which might be some guy called Fred who drives trucks doesn't really use a computer very much. It might be some chick called Jessica that has used the software for years and likes the current layout, or it might be Susan who has used photoshop but doesn't like the new subscription model so is looking for another tool.
All these people have very different needs, and you need to make sure it works for them all. They will all have quite different expectations about how things should work. Ideally you'll find people that fit each of your personas and get them to test and give feedback.
Unfortunately when software is made by volunteers, a lot of this side of things can be lost.
That's super interesting; I had never heard of personas in that context but it makes a lot of sense. How do you come up with/discover the personas?
This is probably a defining characteristic of half a generation!
This is a rambling tangent but one of my super weird memories from the late 90s was being asked to a market research focus group where all they did was give us cell phones and sim cards and video us trying to open the backs and insert the sims. It was new tech for most of us at the time and it's really funny to me now how challenging we found it.
You talk to people! Something that's a lot harder for a FOSS project to arrange. User Experience (UX) is a whole job, including interviews with users. And a related job is Service Designer.
"Design thinking" is a good starting point to Google😉
That market research group sounds like the above UX stuff I was talking about!
SIM card swapping is an interesting line of thought. Because you could sell phones with them installed, so problem solved. But if it's hard to do, you might struggle to convert customers from a competitor. But at the same time, it might help prevent your customers leaving.
Do you know what they were trying to learn?
That sounds like a really interesting field. I just realised there are Silicon Valley scenes that are about this as well...
Not really but it took ages and paid better than most. We had to read a set of written instructions so I think they were testing those, because everyone got given the same model of phones and afterwards we had to talk about how we found the instructions and how easy was it. The phones had those annoying little metal gates in them that some candybars used to have. I remember being completely weirded out by it.