Congrats. In my opinion Inkscape shines in usability (vs Gimp that I could never grasp for example)
Inkscape/CorelDraw/Illustrator/etc. are drawing programs. They deal with vector images.
Gimp/Photoshop/Paintshop Pro/etc. are painting programs. They deal with bitmaps.
They're fundamentally different paradigms. Very little intuition from one carries over to the other. Of course, they've been adding some bridge functionality (Photoshop smartobjects, etc.), if people want to nitpick, but the core UX is designed for something fundamentally different.
For both there is the question how editing multiple files at the same time is being dealt with, i.e. how processes and windows relate to files. Both have to arrange many tools and helpers together with the main view on the file being edited. Both want to have help and documentation. The files being edited support meta-data.
Both raster images and vector images are visual and can therefore be exported to other visual representations, and especially both can be printed. So both programs have to deal with printing, page setup etc.
The whole topic of colors and color spaces applies to both raster images and vector images.
I could go on, but the above should give a hint how much these programs conceptually have in common.
Try using Inkscape to cut a person out of a photo, adjust contrast/white balance, and add a vignette...
On the other hand, try making a beautiful invoice template in gimp, with a nicely laid out table, and nicely typeset text....
It's kind of like comparing Word to PowerPoint. Both can place text on pages, and it's possible to write an essay in PowerPoint, or make a presentation in Word, but you'll be hurting to do it.
To pick a more obvious dimension, if somebody said, "Word is buggier than Powerpoint", nobody would say, "You can't compare them because they don't do the same thing." Bugginess is an abstractable quality across kinds of product.
The same thing is true about UI quality. It goes well beyond intuitiveness. You can look at fit-and-finish details. You can look at number of unnecessary actions. You can look at difficulty for novices completing common tasks. You can compare utility of error messages. How much are key concepts related to a task obvious vs hidden? Et cetera, et cetera.
In my experience, Inkscape is better in that dimension. I think this even though I have used GIMP a lot more, and so normally would be biased the other way, because familiarity makes its UI issues less obvious to me.
- Non-destructive filters, AKA "layer effects" or "smart filters" (I've read it's supposed do come in some distant future when the GEGL overhaul is finished). A node-based nondestructive filter system would be awesome
- Smarter selection tools. Current tools create little to no gradient in the mask they create, and it's a pain to refine a selection after creating it. Sure there are workarounds, but it feels repetitive and inefficient.
Sure the interface is a bit all over the place but it's not so bad, and it's free!
Gimp is primarily a raster graphics tool (pixels), where inkscape is vector graphics (lines and points).
If you've been using gimp to do flat graphicy design stuff with its pathing tool suite, it's unsurprising that you found inkscape a better fit.
What is surprising, is that gimp is a ridiculously simple program, and inkscape is slightly notorious for having a questionably intuitive interface, and vectors are also less intuitive than raster.
What were your use cases?
I just wish it wasn't so expensive.
The filters are phenomenal though, I've been using Gimp for fifteen years and find it's good enough even though I still find the UI difficult.
For me the weirdest part is that clicking on the X on the toolbar closes only the toolbar instead of it realizing that probably if I click an X anywhere I mean to close at least the currently open project. I get the logic with multiple windows open, it's just the one weird thing that I will never get used to. I'm sure we all have those stories.
Thanks, I'll look into that.
Edit: Didn't even need to look that far, was in an obvious menu (good UI!) and was just unchecked probably since upgrading didn't switch the option by default. Can't really argue with that but boy is the single window mode less painful to look at! Thanks again!