Workplace Setting

We can resize all the windows of GIMP.
Move the mouse pointer along the edge of the window, and when it changes into a double arrow (1), click and drag it until you’ve reached the desired size.
For each window, we can change it’s position by clicking on the window title bar (2), and dragging it to the desired position.
As you notice, we have The Layers panel and open channels.
These are the three commonly used windows in GIMP.
I’ll go through all of them starting from the one on the left.
Far left we have the tool (A), we also have the “Document Window” (B), and on the right we have the “Layers, Channels window” (C).
You can close a window by clicking the X icon in the title bar of the window.
However, close the “Document Window” then close your GIMP.

The “Layers, Channels, paths …” opens by clicking the “Windows” (3) tab in the menu bar of the window, and selecting “Layers, Channels, paths …” in the drop-down menu.

If you close GIMP, and open it again later, then the position and dimensions of all windows are the same as they were in the previous session of GIMP.

 

The Document Window

At the top, we find the document window title bar (1).
To the left of the title window we find the logo with GIMP along with the name of the application which is, GNU Image Manipulation Program, abbreviated as GIMP.
On the right side of the title we find the buttons “Minimize” “Maximize” and “Close”. I think their functionality is clear.
What I have to mention is that when you click the “Close” button, you close the open document, and also the application when there is only one document open. If multiple documents are open, then this is obviously not the case. Every time you close a document in which changes are made, you will be asked whether you want to save the document.

Under the title, we find the menu bar (2).

Clicking on any of the items in the menu bar opens a drop-down menu with various commands.

Thus, when the “File” button (1) is clicked on the menu bar, a drop-down menu appears with the commands “New”, “Create” and “Open”.
If there’s a right pointing arrow next to a command (2), this means when the mouse pointer moves on it, a submenu appears (3) with more options.
If there any commands in this submenu, behind the black arrows (4) then they will open up a sub-submenu.

When a letter is underlined in a menu item, then you can run this command by choosing the keyboard short cut, hold down the Alt key while you press that particular button on your keyboard.
Thus, for example, Press Alt + F on your keyboard, and the drop-down menu “File” opens.

If there is a key addition to a command, such as Ctrl + N next to the command “New …”, then when we press it on our keyboard, this command will be executed.

Nearly all command buttons that we find in the “toolbox” and “layers and channels window” are also found in the menu bar.
This is just so you know that for different features, there are various options that can be used to access them.

For example, the tool “brush” can be opened in three different ways.
One way to select a tool is from the toolbox.
A second way is to click “Tools” button in the menu bar, select “Draw” in the drop-down menu, and click on the “Brush”.
And a third way is by pressing the P key on your keyboard.

Whatever you choose does not matter, use the method that is easiest for you.

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