Fotoxx: digital image editor

Paint programs, vector editors, 3d modelers, animation editors, etc.
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muggins
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#41 Post by muggins »

Upgraded to v4.5. Has been renamed as Fotoxx.

muggins
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#42 Post by muggins »

Upgraded to v4.7.

muggins
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#43 Post by muggins »

Upgraded to v4.9.

muggins
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#44 Post by muggins »

Upgraded to v5.0.
What's New in This Release:

· This release of fotoxx focuses on improvements in convenience and usability.
· Scroll bars were added to more easily pan across large images.
· Zoom in/out with toolbar buttons or left/right mouse buttons (zoom to the mouse position).
· The +/- keys can also be used for zoom.
· Slide show mode was added to the menu (full screen image without menu and toolbar), and several control functions were mapped to the keyboard.
· Select Area is now a separate dialog that can be used parallel with relevant edit dialogs to edit a mouse-outlined section of the image.
· The user guide was converted from PDF to HTML.
· A few other minor bug fixes and improvements were made.

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ttuuxxx
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#45 Post by ttuuxxx »

muggins wrote:Upgraded to v5.0.
What's New in This Release:

· This release of fotoxx focuses on improvements in convenience and usability.
· Scroll bars were added to more easily pan across large images.
· Zoom in/out with toolbar buttons or left/right mouse buttons (zoom to the mouse position).
· The +/- keys can also be used for zoom.
· Slide show mode was added to the menu (full screen image without menu and toolbar), and several control functions were mapped to the keyboard.
· Select Area is now a separate dialog that can be used parallel with relevant edit dialogs to edit a mouse-outlined section of the image.
· The user guide was converted from PDF to HTML.
· A few other minor bug fixes and improvements were made.
Sounds like some well needed feature, excellent, I like this Image editor, works great :)
Thanks muggins
http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/ <-- Codec Test Files
http://html5games.com/ <-- excellent HTML5 games :)

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nutts4life
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#46 Post by nutts4life »

I thought i might add my part to this conversation as you guys seem to be really enoying yourselves!

I have to say i'm a fan of paint .net. Ironically i don't use it too much as i have fireworks and photoshop on my windoze box.

I was a big fan of fotox when it started, for two reasons. And that it's UI looks better than mtpaint. (not difficult)
And it has a nice index viewer...basics.

But my view of fotoxx is slightly different from yours. I'd like to see fotoxx come up against gthumb and f-spot NOT compete against mtpaint etc....

both gthumb and f-spot are too heavy weight, both relying on gnome libs, when their functionality is simple. There is no lightweight alternative.

fotoxx with the ability to print and to import from a camera (libphoto2) would complete what is a very good applicaiton and cover the market it was intended for.

Fottox needs to focus on photos: import, indexing and manipulation.

mtpaint needs to focus solely on advaced image manipultaion and image creation and SORT OUT ITS UI.

n4l

wjaguar
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#47 Post by wjaguar »

nutts4life wrote:mtpaint needs to focus solely on advaced image manipultaion and image creation and SORT OUT ITS UI.
Should it be printed somewhere conspicuous, in a large bold font, that mtPaint's interface has been deliberately designed the way it is? ;-)

Given the above, it should be really obvious that neither I nor Mark Tyler see anything in said UI which needs "sorting out". So if you believe otherwise, then tell us which specific feature(s) you think should have been done differently - and what you think would be a better way of doing them, and why.


-= With best regards, Dmitry Groshev, maintainer of mtPaint =-

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nutts4life
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#48 Post by nutts4life »

wjaguar,

People can argue until they are blue in the face that things were done this way for a reason. But the reason doesn't fit the requirements, so what was the reason in the first place?

but in saying that, you're right my comment ' SORT OUT THE UI' was a poor comment and unnecesseary.

The UI is perfectly usuable and in fact a joy to use, but its just the look. You can't sell a ferrari if it looks like a ford.
Specifically i would start with allowing for theming. A set of nice icons will make alot of difference.

Apologies for the brash statement.

n4l

lapis
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#49 Post by lapis »

nutts4life wrote:
A set of nice icons will make alot of difference.
l
Why? I don't like skins either. 500 different skins available for something and yet the user interface does not work in the first place.

I don't use Fotoxx because the user interface is useless to me: no keyboard navigation.

Mtpaint has keyboard navigation and hence I use it although I note that it has bugs, like Alt+s does not open the Selection menu as it is supposed to. Also, once one menu is open, another cannot be chosen without first closing it. I would fix these flaws long before worrying about silly icons.

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#50 Post by wjaguar »

nutts4life wrote:The UI is perfectly usuable and in fact a joy to use, but its just the look. You can't sell a ferrari if it looks like a ford.
I am more concerned with compatibility across systems, GTK+ versions and associated theme engines, than with "selling" an app which is GPLed anyway. Besides, all this craze about pretty GUIs is pretty alien to me - I genuinely don't understand the people who prefer form above function.
Specifically i would start with allowing for theming. A set of nice icons will make alot of difference.
Theming is supported by GTK+, and mtPaint interface rendered with QtCurve engine looks nice enough for my taste. And there exists a multitude of other theme engines, so anyone can find (or tweak) one to his liking.
As for icons, if someone contributes a nicer set, good; and it hadn't happened yet, so I use what I have. Like I said above, I'm not obsessed with prettying my desktop, so simplistic-looking icons are a non-issue to me.

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#51 Post by wjaguar »

lapis wrote:Mtpaint has keyboard navigation and hence I use it although I note that it has bugs, like Alt+s does not open the Selection menu as it is supposed to.
Thanks, I fixed it. It was a long-standing issue, BTW - since keyboard handling rework in version 3.00 - which I myself hadn't noticed because I don't use this kind of shortcuts; I use a trackball instead of mouse, and am so accustomed to it that cursor feels like it's thought-operated - I rarely need keyboard shortcuts at all, and never for opening a menu.
A gzipped patch (against version 3.21) is attached.
Also, once one menu is open, another cannot be chosen without first closing it.
This is the way GTK+ menu widget operates; shortcuts set up by a menu are disabled while inside the menu. Evidently, user is supposed to use arrow keys to navigate from one menu to another.
Attachments
skey321.patch.gz
Gzipped patch for mtPaint 3.21, fixes Alt+S shortcut
(278 Bytes) Downloaded 762 times

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nutts4life
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#52 Post by nutts4life »

I agree with all of this. You can't sell something that doesn't work even if it looks good.
But it happens all the time and especially in the IT world.
You are describing a person like me, i look at what i need to do tasks and i get the app that does the job. I also don't care how it looks as this is never part fo the task that i need to acheive. But i'm an IT guy and i'm not your everyday user.
The other type of person chooses stuff initally becuase it looks good, they do this becuase they see the look of the application as part of the functionality that they need, it is part of the task of sourcing the app.

I really really don't want to offend you as the designer of a superb applicaiton here, it's something i don't have the incredible will and petience to do and with that i give you massive respect for. But surely you want to listen to your users and what they feel will make this applicaiton more and more popular.

Theming may not be the solution you're right, all i am trying to do is point out what i feel could be improved on the application and allow for a wider user base

Thanks,

n4l

lapis
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#53 Post by lapis »

wjaguar wrote:Thanks, I fixed it.
Thank you! (I was almost getting used to using to Alt+i then right arrow ;) )
I am a keyboard person myself for activating commands. The keys are always in the same place, so no need to even look hence reduces strain on my old eyes.
wjaguar wrote: all this craze about pretty GUIs is pretty alien to me - I genuinely don't understand the people who prefer form above function.
I'm with you on that. I don't care what colour it is just as long as it works. What is pretty anyway? Most of the non-standard gui's I have seen I find positively ugly as well as being unfriendly to use.

I hate it when I look at the website of an app and there are 57 screenshots of different themes and skins but nowhere is there a description of what the app actually can do.

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#54 Post by wjaguar »

nutts4life wrote:The other type of person chooses stuff initally becuase it looks good, they do this becuase they see the look of the application as part of the functionality that they need, it is part of the task of sourcing the app.
People are free to choose their own punishment. :-)
I really really don't want to offend you as the designer of a superb applicaiton here
:lol: My ego isn't *THAT* inflated - I don't take offense as long as the opponent gets his facts straight.
But thank you for your kind words anyway. ;-)
But surely you want to listen to your users and what they feel will make this applicaiton more and more popular.
The problem isn't that we're unwilling to make mtPaint any prettier, but that we're the wrong persons to attempt it. Because, as we don't see anything amiss with the current state of things, then our notion of "improvement" in this area is also unlikely to be what an eyecandy-starved user wants. :-)

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nutts4life
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#55 Post by nutts4life »

wjaguar,

I'm gonna make this the last post from me, because i think we both understand each other perfectly.
I am happy and will continue to use mtpaint as it's a great app. The beauty of choice allows users to decide what they want out of an application and you have decided to offer them a efficient light and functionality-filled application and concentrate your work on this.
It's difficult to argue my case against your logic, as my case is illogical, but so are people and i guess that's what i'm trying to get to.

I wish good luck with a great app.

Thanks,

n4l.

muggins
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#56 Post by muggins »

Uploaded v5.0.1. It has a bugfix.
This version fixes window lockup in the image crop function.

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#57 Post by Ron »

May I ask a basic question here? Running Puppy 4. I need an editor that will recognize and acquire (import) from devices, especially from scanners. I don't need anything as sophisticated as Photoshop, but I do need this. For the kind of work I do a lot, this is a deal breaker for me. My Windows apps like Paint.NET and FotoFiltre do this nicely, as do many, if not most, others, I think. MtPaint seems like it would do everything I need, if it imported from scanners. Sure, I wish mtPaint looked nicer (it is a bit harsh looking,) but functionality with devices is more important to me.

If mtPaint does import from devices, how is it done; maybe I'm just missing it? If it did, I would be happy to use it, as it does everything else I need.

I see that Fotoxxx is for cameras, but does it import from scanners as well?

Thanks

Ron

muggins
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#58 Post by muggins »

Hi Ron,

if your scanner is working properly, with sane/xsane, then, according to this link, both xsane & xscanimage can be used as gimp plugins.

Do you have gimp installed? If yes, then you can try linking, or copying, /usr/bin/xsane to your gimp plugins directory.
See here for info.

If you're comfortable accessing your scanner from the commandline, and you're mtpaint version has the menu option File->Actions, then you could probably cobble together a commandline option to open a scanned image with mtpaint.

Edit I just had a look at mtpaint, and I think the Action option is more for secondary processing, of images already opened in mtpaint, with other programs, rather than for sourcing images. WJaguar, the mtpaint developer, is the person to ask about this.

Ron
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#59 Post by Ron »

Muggings: Thanks. I'm still getting this system set up and I don't even have a Linux supported scanner yet, but I started looking into what programs may work. I'll use your suggestions.

Ron

muggins
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#60 Post by muggins »

Uploaded v5.0.3.

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