Hi, I have been using GIMP off and on with both Windows and now Linux versions and whilst I realise that the program is extremely powerful and capable, I have always had difficulty using it and find myself resorting to online queries almost every time.
The reason for this is quite simple - I can never find what I want in the manual!
I really do appreciate all the hard work that goes into the program itself, and the manual too - but it is all really going to waste on me (and others?) for the lack of a ‘search’ option in the manual!
So, is this likely to appear any time?
If not, please consider doing it - it is the simplest possible route to making the whole exercise user-friendly.
Thanks, and apologies if this posting ends up in the wrong place.
Chris
The Help > User Manual menu in GIMP links to local static web pages. Without a web server behind it that can’t do search. The user manual link in Help > GIMP Online menu goes to https://docs.gimp.org/ and that does have a search box. It uses Google by default but you can use your preferred search engine and add site:docs.gimp.org to your search terms to limit results to that website.
Thanks, That’s a help.
I had missed the subtlety of the two different help formats.
It is an improvement on ‘no search’ but the results are somewhat ‘cryptic’?
Even a fuller index could be a considerable help.
For example, today I wanted to find out how to add transparency to an image.
Online authors suggest this is one of the most common requirements and yet it doesn’t get a mention in the index.
Note that in GIMP 3.0 the help browser will be gone and local help (if installed) will open your normal browser (due mainly to too much trouble with dependencies needed).
Using an online search engine is indeed the best option at the moment, though we welcome volunteers that want to implement a dedicated search for our documentation.
As for the index, when you see something missing, please open an issue in our help manual tracker. Keeping the manual up-to-date is a huge task and we could really use more volunteers to help with that.