Updating Gimp for Mac section.

[UnconventionalT]

This is a message about Mac forum activity, information validity, and general help.

Personally, I believe that in order to attract more Mac Gimp members to the forum, I believe we should first update our stickies, and show that there is forum activity. Most of them were written Auria, who, while providing builds for quite some time, hasn't logged in for around 2 years, so I'd say the information is a bit dated.
Seeing as lisanet has pretty much become the main compiler of all Gimp builds (I'd volunteer my time, but building Gimp for Mac is NOT the easiest thing in the world, believe me, I've tried), I think maybe we should PM her sometime and see if we can't get some newer information to post here. Also, I believe the "Welcome and links" thread should be retired, and replaced with a new "Start here" thread. I'd volunteer to write it if that's what it takes.

If we provide up-to-date starter information, as well as common issues users experience and work-arounds, fixes, or other general help, I think we should be able to reel in a few more Gimp users from the Mac community.

[Arzoroc]

First of all: I like the idea.

But ... Writing a basic "Start here" thread about every single problem (I'm not talking about MacOS users only) would be a LOT of work. Also, if we answer 90% of the common problems in 1 thread, almost nobody will post their questions in the forums, thus the main goal of attracting new members (as we always have up to 100 guests floating around among us) is not archieved by this kind of "first help" thread.
Getting lisanet here from time to time is a good idea IMO, there's nothing wrong about that.

Basically, everything a common Gimp beginner is looking for is easy tutorials. We, I must admit, do not have much of those, and especially not listed/sorted like the ones on gimp-tutorials.net, our sister site that has around 80,000 views on every single tutorial. That, sadly, is what the users want.

As I was posting some time ago in the Admin/Mod forum, a Gimper.net YouTube channel with video tutorials by everyone of us will most likely draw most attention. I volunteered for being one of the guys making the videos, but it seems that not many others would join me.
The bad thing is: The Gimper Magazine failed because the pages were never finished. The forum design-change failed because ... idk why. The Gimper blog failed because ... I also don't know why we didn't finish that one.

I'd support any changes on this site as long as we get more users to be honest.

[UnconventionalT]

Truth be told, I'd say there are three things I'd post there, 1. how to set up Gimp (the right way), 2. how to fix Gimp's double click through window problem, and 3. how to get tablet support without breaking mouse support.

That would just be the beginning. Another part would be to add some "And if you have any questions, feel free to ask" header somewhere. Also, about the tutorials, perhaps we SHOULD start making our own? Basic ones, of course. A beginners crash course. I'll LOOK INTO it, but I won't promise anything. (gimp-tutorials.net hasn't posted and update since 2010.)

I'm not surprised a Gimp magazine didn't work out, as we don't have the largest community out there. Maybe if our community actually bothered to CENTRALIZE itself, we wouldn't have such a problem. A gimp.org sponsored site, perhaps?
However, a Gimp blog would be nice, in the style of Blendernation.com perhaps? It seems to do pretty well.

Perhaps some sort of "Get more Gimp users in general" brainstorming session should be organized sometime?

-UnconventionalT

[Arzoroc]

The three things you mentioned are only for Mac users, though :/
I already talked about a general Gimp Forum Fusion of all the big Gimp forums to one giant one, which will then be located at www.gimp.org/forum. But that will stay a dream, as all the webmasters would have to meet up etc., so basically it will never happen.

I would really welcome some beginner Gimp tutorials (written and video), like "What is a layer", "How to colorize/recolor something", "Basics about Selections" an so on.
As I said: YouTube, then update Gimp-tutorials.net with links to the YouTube videos and mention THIS site in every video. This will most likely help a lot, especially because we've got David, who already is a small celebrety out there

[Maffe811]

Isn't there a thing called TLDR or something (To long, didnt read)...

Anyways, just looking at the last 3-4 posts you made, you obviously knows mac a bit better than the most of us and thats great.
Arcoroc aka. Arzo aka. Baum aka. Baumiii boy above here ^ knows, if im not wrong, linux quite well.
Also i think Willy and/or DarkLite is running linux so that end is covered, the rest of us uses windows, except cyril wich i think got a mac... not sure though.

So if you decide to become a well known name on the gimper.net scene, be our guest.
We could need a mac person. You seem like a nice persion and we could always need the activity!

[Arzoroc]

Arcoroc

T__T

[Maffe811]

Dude... its 2am... I was tired.. now its 4:45am...
And why are you up???

Maffe

*cough*maffe811*cough*

[UnconventionalT]

Wow, you guys were still up? I went to bed after posting that.... Since I have quite a bit of free time at my job, I decided to write a few tutorials. I ended up writing 3. They still need to be proof-read, and 'idiot-tested', but I think they're all right. The first is an instalation Guide for Mac users, the second is a general 'Get to know Gimp' tutorial, where I explain the user interface (with screenies), and the final one is a simple image manipulation tutorial, on how to edit an image, and do some basic cropping and color correction. I will post them when I get home.

[Arzoroc]

Sounds great, have you got any good microphone at home? This way you could even do a video about it. You'd probably even do better than non-native speakers like Maffe and me

[UnconventionalT]

Not much of a fan of video tutorials... They take too long to watch, and I hate loosing the audiences attention. Plus text-based tutorials are easier to update and correct, and can always be downloaded.

Also, my first tutorial is up. viewtopic.php?f=52&t=10902

[Maffe811]

I prefer text as its easier to pause at specific points... just stop reading...

We should really get the password for the tutorial site...