MadChicken's Journal: Gimp UI Setup

I hear a lot about how terrible the GIMP UI is, and I do agree, to a point. It has to be set up right though.

First thing you need to do is make the palette a long horizontal toolbar. It takes up way too much space in its default configuration. Go into preferences | toolbox and deselect the foreground/background color and brush/pattern/gradient. This lets you shrink it right down to not much more than a single row of buttons.

Next, DOCK EVERYTHING. You can drag the title (not the titlebar, just a bit below that) either to the little strip on the bottom of another window or on top of another title - which would create that dialog as a tab.

I have only one dialog visible, the top section has the following tabs in this order: Tool Settings, Fonts, Colors. The bottom: Layers, channels, paths, undo history.

I find I don't need brushes, patterns or gradients constantly visible, so I close them altogether.

Now I have a very usable application on any screen size down to 1024x768. Yes, the interface still needs something, but really, it's not THAT BAD.

I do still have a hard time understanding where to find color tools, they seem to be scattered all over the place...