Re: Newbie Needs Help, Please! -- another one

On May 25, 11:21 am, jgrimm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
>
>
> I did install help, only to find that it is the same as the web pages
> on the site. The main thing about them is that they are quite
> useless. Even the simplest operations do not work as advertised.

Hmm, that's really bad...looks like I'm not missing much!

> Consider the selection and move within an image -- the first
> real operation I came across in Sec. 7.2. I selected rectangular
> and elliptical regions, but neither the Alt-Ctrl or the Alt-****ft
> techniques work. If I try either, the double arrow cursor
> changes back to the crosshairs and all I get is a new selection
> region.

Say, do you know about the GIMP video "podcasts"?  A German guy makes
them, and they are great tutorials.  Also, Akkana Peck's GIMP how-to
from apress is very nice, though it's mostly for a newbie like me.

> I am running GIMP of Windows XP (and I notice that the
> docs are all Mac oriented).

Yeah, the Mac certainly has design flair and arguably even a
technological edge, but come off it already, it ain't the Second
Coming of Sliced Bread!

> I am not new to "free" stuff as run Linux, Cygwin, etc. But,
> I find it strange that the simplest of things are so broken.

Well, I am, and though it's a great learning tool for a newbie, even I
am beginning to suspect that I will sooner or later migrate to
something like Photoshop Elements 5...especially since it's included
with a dreamy Wacom Cintiq 20WSX!!

I suppose we must be glad for such things like the GIMP existing at
all, considering the level of technical expertise that is
involved...writing do***entation is like an after-thought, and
probably not many programmers' forte anyway....

> What am I doing wrong?

You're not doing anything wrong; you get what you pay for!

> Also, fatuous refernces to ****ft key in typewriters (what
> are those?) and the mouse in Chapc. 3.5 makes one wonder
> about the whole enterprise! Luckily it was written in 2002.
> Isn't it time to yank it?

Probably an European sense of humo(u)r that got lost in translation!

2002??  That could explain why "things don't work as advertised"....

> thanks
> JG