What annoys you about the GIMP?

I decided I'm going to spend a few posts talking about preferences set-up. I want my GIMP personalized--don't you?? Well, you can do it--to an extent--and I want you to learn how to do it, too.
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First of all, open the GIMP. (If your layers dialogue opens, go ahead and close it because we aren't going to do a LO right now.) Now toodle around the menus in the toolbox. There's a LOT of stuff in there that I never used to use--in fact, I didn't even know it was there! But now that you've glanced around, let me give you a tour!
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First, left-click on the little GIMP guy in the top left corner. He's above the "File" drop down button. The first option is "Advanced." Choose "Advanced" and then choose the first option "Keep above others". When I do this it will allow me to look at the tool box while I am typing this blog, AND always have the toolbox visible while I am working on a LO. This is nice for me because I always seem to need it when it is buried! Ugh. Now it won't be buried anymore! To turn it off, go back to the same button and click it again. It appears that I will have to reset this feature every time I open GIMP. However, as we explore more menus and more options, this might change.

You could also select "Keep below others" if you prefer using the "tools" dropdown menu on the image (or LO) window.

NOTE: DO NOT click on "no border" or "full screen". They are annoying, at least to me, and seem to have no useful purpose in the realm of digi-scrapping.

I think that's all I'm going to cover in the "Advanced" section.

Now click on the GIMP guy again. Go down to "shade". If you REALLY don't like looking at the toolbox, and selecting "Keep below others" is not enough for you, you could use the "shade" feature. This treats the toolbox window like a window shade. You reverse the feature by de-selecting it.

ANOTHER NOTE: Closing the toolbox will shut down GIMP.

Okay, that is all we will be doing with the GIMP guy. And if all of that was confusing to you or did not make sense or you could not find any of it, do not dispair. GIMP runs on different operating systems, and yours just might be different than mine.
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Now to the "File" drop down menu. There are several options here, as I'm sure you have noticed before. Here's the list I see: New, Open, Open location, Open recent, Acquire, Preferences, Keyboard shortcuts, Units, Dialogs, Close all, Quit.

"New" gives you a window to create a new, blank image. You can decide the size manually, or use a template. In digital scrapbooking, I find that I never use this feature. It may be useful if you find yourself creating your own blinkie, digi-elements or digi-paper, however.

Next is Open. Open takes you to a window where you can open any file on your hard drive, disc or memory card. Choosing this option limits you to opening the file in the size that it already is. For instance, I scrap in 12" x 12" or 3600 x 3600 pixels, with 300 dpi. If I open a file with these dimentions, my resulting image (or LO) will be those dimentions. So, I always open my background paper first when I do a LO. More on this later.

Next we will skip to "Open recent." When you click on this it will give you a list and tiny thumbnails of your recent files, whether they be photos, LO's or anything else you might have opened. If you want to dock this list for frequent reference, you can click on the very bottom item which is a folder of your recently opened history.

I think I'm gonna stop there now. I know we haven't gotten to many "preferences" yet, but we will so hang in there. I have to get some laundry started and go pick up my son at preschool. A mother's work is never done ya know! :D

Happy Scrapping! ~Jen