Subject: [Gimp-gui] GIMP Workspaces Concept

From: Americo Gobbo <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 11:55:43 -0300

Hi all,
I'm interested to study the possibility of the workspaces on GIMP... in
theory, we already have the themes... the workspaces is the natural
extension of this concept... is an enhancement of the theme feature, but I
am not safe if is good to talk in this way... because the workspace do not
change the theme... only use it to save as the docks are configured or
placed on our desktop in the sessionrc archive.

For me would be very useful to have the possibility to save the user's
workspaces, as sessionrc, for each task, for example. The problem of this
approach that in the current releases of GIMP is not possible use another
sessionrc without quit and open again GIMP.

Thanks,
americo
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From: Jehan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 17:40:31 +0200

Hi,

On 2015-10-15 16:55, Americo Gobbo wrote:
> Hi all,
> I'm interested to study the possibility of the workspaces on GIMP...
> in theory, we already have the themes... the workspaces is the natural
> extension of this concept... is an enhancement of the theme feature,
> but I am not safe if is good to talk in this way... because the
> workspace do not change the theme... only use it to save as the docks
> are configured or placed on our desktop in the sessionrc archive.

Basically you want what other software call "profiles" to have separate 
settings, right? Like you would have one *workspace* for "painting", one 
for "photography editing", and so on. Is that it?

This is interesting though I wonder how many user would actually use 
these. I feel like while this seems like a cool idea at first, but then 
many users may get used to one of their workspace in particular and in 
the end would basically use only this one.
Most software which had a profile concept seem to have dropped it now.

This said, I am in favor of enhancing capabilities of our API to allow 
plugins to do far more than what they can nowadays. And this kind of 
feature could be a good plugin. As for a main feature, I'm unsure. But 
if others are interested, we can discuss.

> workspaces, as sessionrc, for each task, for example. The problem of
> this approach that in the current releases of GIMP is not possible use
> another sessionrc without quit and open again GIMP.

Yes. As you say, technically this should be fairly easy. Now is to 
decide what would make sense for the core GIMP design.

Jehan

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> 
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From: Alexandre Prokoudine <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 19:53:59 +0300

On 10/15/15, Jehan wrote:

> these.

This is exactly where data from Instrumented GIMP project could come
in handy: how layouts look for people who work on different things
(painting, photography, web design etc.). I'm afraid we cannot make a
reasonable decision without some big data in this case.

Alex

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From: Americo Gobbo <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 15:59:43 -0300

> reasonable decision without some big data in this case.

I don't understood this issue about 'big data'. Explaining a bit more the
concept of the proposal, for me, the workspace profile is a user
question... and not a GIMP question, essentially not in this stage. In this
sense:

* one user has the own tasks and preferences how to do her/his tasks on
GIMP;
* one user is capable to build her/his dockable tabs;
* one user can share with other users these experiences through the
workspaces profiles.

Well, the profiles is only a way to simplify and to become more fast and
efficient this process.
After is possible to collect the 'big data' to understand the needs of
users and to do some official workspace profiles to GIMP.

Americo

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From: Americo Gobbo <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 16:13:56 -0300

> for "photography editing", and so on. Is that it?

Correct, profiles is better... workspace profiles, perhaps exemplify better
the concept.

This is interesting though I wonder how many user would actually use these.
> I feel like while this seems like a cool idea at first, but then many users
> may get used to one of their workspace in particular and in the end would
> basically use only this one.
> feature could be a good plugin. As for a main feature, I'm unsure. But if
> others are interested, we can discuss.
>

I think better is a plug-in... but... as you wrote it needs "... enhancing
capabilities of our API to allow plugins...".

> Yes. As you say, technically this should be fairly easy. Now is to decide
> what would make sense for the core GIMP design.
>

Ok, if need change the API for a specific plug-in... is better to
understand if this can be useful to others plug-ins... or if is necessary
to have a big picture to do the enhancements more interesting and a long
term (usable for many others plug-ins -- for example, Joao Bueno has a
proposal to make an assets manager to GIMP via plug-in).

Americo

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From: Americo Gobbo <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 16:17:09 -0300

On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 12:40 PM, Jehan <[email-masked]> wrote:

> many users may get used to one of their workspace in particular and in the
> end would basically use only this one.

this is true, but is interesting to have the possibility of workspace
profiles... because this is transversal of the themes concept... because
the same profile would be useful in 'all' (!?) themes. This open an
interesting scenario to simplify and share other workflows through the
workspace... Perhaps is a bit confused my concept,..., I try explain better:
“The workspace profile is the entry door of many kind of tasks... and in
this sense could to improve also the GIMP Usability to other scenarios,
perhaps.”

Americo

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From: Ofnuts <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 14:54:59 +0200

> another sessionrc without quit and open again GIMP.

Not sure. Did you try to both ask for a new sessionrc and a separate 
Gimp instance?

gimp --new-instance --session workspace1

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From: Americo Gobbo <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 10:49:12 -0300

On Fri, Oct 16, 2015 at 9:54 AM, Ofnuts <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Not sure. Did you try to both ask for a new sessionrc and a separate Gimp
> instance?
>

I have tried understand how to is possible to use the 'session' concept...
but I did not have success in it... perhaps is a path.

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From: Americo Gobbo <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 11:35:15 -0300

> but I did not have success in it... perhaps is a path.

Well, I did a test again... ;-), in my initial test I used the command in
the wrong way.
This way is possible to make the workspaces without the necessity to build
another sessionrc... and is just great thing.

* Each time that you call the session is correctly configured
* If create a new session... is called the default of GIMP
* If don't use the session feature... is used your personal sessionrc.

Now would be interesting to know if is possible to use this feature in a
plug-in (to build and to choose the sessions, directly when GIMP is opened).

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From: Elle Stone <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2015 09:52:03 -0500

> gimp --new-instance --session workspace1

Is a "workspace" how you have the windows arranged?

How do you save a workspace in the first place?

What is actually saved when you save a workspace, and where?

Elle

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From: Ofnuts <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2015 20:02:00 +0100

> Is a "workspace" how you have the windows arranged?

Yes... actually  the contents of a sessionrc file (which is mostly/only 
about window positions)

> How do you save a workspace in the first place?

It is saved in a sessionrc.* file when you exit Gimp.

> What is actually saved when you save a workspace, and where?

See the sessionrc file in your Gimp profile directory.

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From: Andrew Pullins <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2015 22:08:40 -0500

> It is saved in a sessionrc.* file when you exit Gimp.

So if you were to save two different workspaces would there be for example
photo.rc and drawing.rc?

My question is more how do you create, switch, and manage workspaces.  I
imagine going to the window > workspace menu.  Maybe have.

* New workspace...
* Manage workspaces...
---------------------------------------
* Photo
* Drawing

When you add new workspaces they get added to the list.  Selecting a
different workspace would change what dialogs are open and where they are.

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From: Ofnuts <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 13:23:47 +0100

On 11/11/15 04:08, Andrew Pullins wrote:
> So if you were to save two different workspaces would there be for 
> example photo.rc and drawing.rc?
>

Actually a sessionrc.photo and sessionrc.drawing

Then from memory you can also use an environment variable to make Gimp 
use a completely different user profile (with a different sessionrc of 
course, but also different add-ons (brushes, gradients, scripts, 
plugins....))

> My question is more how do you create, switch, and manage workspaces.  
> I imagine going to the window > workspace menu.  Maybe have.
>
> * New workspace...
> * Manage workspaces...

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From: Americo Gobbo <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 10:54:25 -0200

On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 10:23 AM, Ofnuts <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Then from memory you can also use an environment variable to make Gimp use
> a completely different user profile (with a different sessionrc of course,
> but also different add-ons (brushes, gradients, scripts, plugins....))
>

Very Interesting. Now we must know if is possible have an entry on menu to
use, more friendly, these workspaces.
The ideal to change to workspace 'a' to workspace 'b' without you quit GIMP.
With --new instance, is already possible make it, but I think very
difficult to have two sessions with the same tool box.