The path tool is quite painful concerning text. It's very difficult to use to get things just right, and doesn't seem to ever do things perfectly the first time when applying "Text along Path". Neither is it intuitive or easy to edit.
It squishes. Distorts. etc. Strange thing is there's little to zero on the interwebs on the topic.
I cannot possibly be the only one wanting to do this. Either that, or it's actually so elementary no one actually cares to document it. I'd very much love to see this as a future feature. As a software developer, though the task may be a difficult one to code, my humble unsolicited opinion is justification of text along a path should've been there from the beginning.
So, is there a simpler way to assign justification attributes to text being applied to a path, with a focus specifically on centering?
12-22-2022, 09:18 PM (This post was last modified: 12-22-2022, 09:34 PM by Canuck Sailor.)
EDIT - Maybe I'm NOT as dumb as I figured here. After screwing around with things for a while, I got this to work as advertised. Now to see if I can make it do what I need.
Ok, I'm NOT computer savvy at this level and I'm lost at this explanation of how to get this plug in to work. WHERE do I put the plug in? Do I have to create a plug in folder? Here's what I've found and where I found it -
Library>Application Support>GIMP>2.10>Filters
Do I create a plug in folder and if so, do I put in inside 2.10 or inside Filters? Filters contains the following fyi:
What is the proper name for the folder: Plug ins, or Plug in? (do caps matter here? I have no idea). Do I put the Docs in there as well, or retain them elsewhere to read?
What I have done is created a Plug Ins folder inside GIMP, put the PY script into it and restarted the program. I. do NOT see the Tools sub menu mentioned above. Not sure what I'm doing wrong here.
Can someone lead me through this process please? All I'd really like to do is create a curved text path with the text in the middle to complete a design I'm working on. And WHY this function isn't native to the program should be addressed and corrected.
(12-22-2022, 09:18 PM)Canuck Sailor Wrote: EDIT - Maybe I'm NOT as dumb as I figured here. After screwing around with things for a while, I got this to work as advertised. Now to see if I can make it do what I need.
Ok, I'm NOT computer savvy at this level and I'm lost at this explanation of how to get this plug in to work. WHERE do I put the plug in? Do I have to create a plug in folder? Here's what I've found and where I found it -
Library>Application Support>GIMP>2.10>Filters
Do I create a plug in folder and if so, do I put in inside 2.10 or inside Filters? Filters contains the following fyi:
What is the proper name for the folder: Plug ins, or Plug in? (do caps matter here? I have no idea). Do I put the Docs in there as well, or retain them elsewhere to read?
What I have done is created a Plug Ins folder inside GIMP, put the PY script into it and restarted the program. I. do NOT see the Tools sub menu mentioned above. Not sure what I'm doing wrong here.
Can someone lead me through this process please? All I'd really like to do is create a curved text path with the text in the middle to complete a design I'm working on. And WHY this function isn't native to the program should be addressed and corrected.
See the big Installation section at the bottom of the page where you dowloaded the ZIP from.
12-23-2022, 03:22 AM (This post was last modified: 12-23-2022, 03:44 AM by Canuck Sailor.)
(12-23-2022, 01:29 AM)Ofnuts Wrote:
(12-22-2022, 09:18 PM)Canuck Sailor Wrote: EDIT - Maybe I'm NOT as dumb as I figured here. After screwing around with things for a while, I got this to work as advertised. Now to see if I can make it do what I need.
Ok, I'm NOT computer savvy at this level and I'm lost at this explanation of how to get this plug in to work. WHERE do I put the plug in? Do I have to create a plug in folder? Here's what I've found and where I found it -
Library>Application Support>GIMP>2.10>Filters
Do I create a plug in folder and if so, do I put in inside 2.10 or inside Filters? Filters contains the following fyi:
What is the proper name for the folder: Plug ins, or Plug in? (do caps matter here? I have no idea). Do I put the Docs in there as well, or retain them elsewhere to read?
What I have done is created a Plug Ins folder inside GIMP, put the PY script into it and restarted the program. I. do NOT see the Tools sub menu mentioned above. Not sure what I'm doing wrong here.
Can someone lead me through this process please? All I'd really like to do is create a curved text path with the text in the middle to complete a design I'm working on. And WHY this function isn't native to the program should be addressed and corrected.
See the big Installation section at the bottom of the page where you dowloaded the ZIP from.
Copied from ofnut's page -
Intended Audience Advanced End Users
I am NOT any kind of advanced user. I made that clear with my original post. To me, a Python is a large African snake. There are many of us who, like me, wish to use GIMP but don't have the kind of programming knowledge you folks here have. My last (and only) exposure to coding was Fortran IV when I was in high school, two years before the HP handheld scientific calculators came out, at $400. And for the record, I nearly failed that course. Not part of my skill set.
But this much I can tell you, there is NO section titled "Installation anywhere on the ofnuts Gimp path tools page. Nor is there anything about installation on any of the tabs on that page.
It's ok - I stumbled my way through, actually got it right with some luck and guesswork, and was able to complete the project I was working on. I'll try not to bother you again, because I know it's a nuisance dealing with we lesser folk who don't have the esoteric understanding of bits and bytes that you do.
You know, you really should make all this open source stuff off limits to clueless types like me. It would save you so much trouble.
/SARC off.
For the record, I still have copies of Photoshop 1.0, Quark 1.0, Word 1.0 and a variety of other commercial publishing software products in my attic. I was one of the very first desktop publishers, back in the 80s, and actually produced a monthly 32 page newspaper using a Mac Plus with an external 800k disc drive. To accomplish that required almost a half hour of swapping the system, program and file disks through the two drives before taking the file disk to a service to get it laser printed, an 11 x 17 laser printer being well over $10k at that point.
Then we had to get the photos screen printed, scanners not having been invented yet, and wax them onto the page, before sending the flats off to the printer to be turned into negatives for printing, since neither PDF files nor the internet had been invented yet. If we had any colour on the page, we had to create rubies to deal with that (https://youtu.be/P_CPKjn3wBQ).
Four colour printing for newspapers was unheard of. I didn't do a full colour front page until almost the mid 90s, and again, I was one of the first. And we still had to get separations done, the software hadn't been created that would do it automatically.
I watched the entire printing and publishing industry go through these changes to become what we have today, I was a part of all that change. I had employees who actually worked with lead type before this time to set the newspapers they worked for - I wonder if you know what that is? Here ya go - https://letterpresscommons.com/setting-type-by-hand/
I was a part of the discussion on how to use Photoshop in editorial vs advertising in Canada, a big issue at the time in the industry, given the power we now had with our computers to "alter" photographic reality.
Up until I sold the business in 2002, I kept an angled art board and a waxer in my graphic designer's office to remind everyone where we had come from. You probably have no idea how easy it is to do graphics work now as compared to even 25 years ago. So when someone struggles with figuring out how to work with Gimp, especially something like scripts that are not part of the original program and involve digging deeply into one's computer to find files one has never been to before, how about lending them a hand rather than just point out non-existent installation instructions from your on-high place of knowledge?
Hell, even a link would have been helpful. I thought open source was about sharing the knowledge, and not some cabal of high priests who look down on us unlearned peasants.
I think this is about where you respond with "Hey Boomer".
@Canuck Sailor, as a 'Boomer' have I learned to use the free gimp program step by step. I can't say I know all the possibilities of the program, but I like it. And I discoverd that there is always someone who want to help if there is a problem with gimp (using their time for free). As I say, it's all about a helping hand, the driver have to take the wheel. One time, even driving with a shift gear goes like a piece of cake. One thing, plugins and scripts are also available for PS and many other programs (as I remember as a Boomer).
Maybe the video at https://youtu.be/CHHqlHdmQ0o - Gimp OSX scripts and plugins, can clarify how to install plugins and scripts in gimp.
Hi, and thanks, I'll check that out, see what I can learn. But, got the issue figured out finally, and ofNuts script for curved text works amazingly well. What actually makes me crazy - and I've taught a great deal throughout my life, sailing, swimming, teaching high school, teaching my employees - is that a lot of people assume that the questioner knows more than s/he does.
The person answering under that assumption skips steps that need to be known to accomplish the goal. Good instruction requires that you enumerate EVERY step, in minute and painful detail. The only assumption one should make is that the person knows nothing. I made that fairly clear up front, for exactly this reason.
I had looked at nearly a dozen youtubes and sites online on how to create a curved script before finding ofNuts stuff. Only one gave a step by step method that led to accomplishing the end result. The rest of them missed important things, knowingly or unknowingly presuming that the reader/viewer knew them.
And not one of them explained how to properly center text on a path, making all of their work useless. And they put themselves out as "pros".
You know what other group is really terrible at explaining their technology, and assuming that people will understand them? Ham radio people. I've yet to meet one who can answer even a simple question without lording it over the questioner - who they make clear they regard as a simpleton for even asking.
Totally turned me off ever joining their little clique, and I've had a ham radio installed on my boat for over ten years now. I'll read the manual, twiddle the knobs, before asking one of those people again.
(12-23-2022, 07:27 PM)denzjos Wrote: @Canuck Sailor, as a 'Boomer' have I learned to use the free gimp program step by step. I can't say I know all the possibilities of the program, but I like it. And I discoverd that there is always someone who want to help if there is a problem with gimp (using their time for free). As I say, it's all about a helping hand, the driver have to take the wheel. One time, even driving with a shift gear goes like a piece of cake. One thing, plugins and scripts are also available for PS and many other programs (as I remember as a Boomer).
Hi Denzjos - I have basic experience with Photoshop from my years as a newspaper publisher and that helps me with the basics. I even have a copy of Photoshop 1.0 in the attic, but I was never great at using the program - I had graphics people then to do that work - but I knew the basics. I'm used to proprietary software, not open source. I do get the difference, and it's in the learning area. Open source, you don't generally have a manual that answers all the questions. With Photoshop, there was always a phone line or email address available for an expert to assist - which is part of the reason the damn program costs so much.
I'd very much love to see this as a future feature. As a software developer, though the task may be a difficult one to code, my humble unsolicited opinion is justification of text along a path should've been there from the beginning. 
