Pixelmator Bugs Persist
Written by Michael Swengel on September 15, 2009
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
As a graphic design fanatic, I’m always looking around at shiny new tools available to the design community. A friend of mine recommended that I take a look at Pixelmator. At the time, I was using OS X 10.5 Leopard. I proceeded to download the app and play with it.
My first impressions were extremely favorable. The user interface is beautiful and well-designed. Several filters – like colorize, blurs, etc – can be previewed and edited in real time. Even Photoshop lacks that ability.
As a Mac-only program, Pixelmator is a relatively full-featured editor for graphics and photos. At only $59 USD, you can’t argue with the price. Compare that to the least expensive version of Photoshop – which can easily ring it at over $500!
Naturally, it has it’s limitations. Pixelmator lacks a decent radial blur and has a far smaller library of filters than does Photoshop. However, for the price you really can’t argue.
Though I do have the Adobe CS3 suite, I planned to buy Pixelmator to use for a few projects.
I held off on purchasing Pixelmator for a while due to rumors of an impending update. Unfortunately, it turns out the bugfix release… didn’t fix many bugs at all.
BITING BUGS, BATMAN!
My friend, a Pixelmator customer, informed me that after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.6 he experienced several fatal flaws. When I upgraded to 10.6, I too saw just poorly the program functioned.
Upon reporting these errors to the developer team, he was given a spider (beta) version of the now-released 1.5 version. Initially, everything seemed alright. Then the serious issues began to show.
The Pixelmator user interface did not seem to cooperate under 10.6. The buttons were still clickable, and the app was still useable – given a working knowledge of the location of interface elements.
This bug has been fixed in a more recent update, thankfully.
However, there is still one glaring bug that demands to be fixed. Gradients in Pixelmator 1.5 look horrendous. They are jagged on an extreme level.
As the name suggests, a gradient should be gradual change from one color to another. However, in versions 1.4 and 1.5, one can clearly see divisions between colors.
As my friend describes the issue: “It’s like walking down steps instead of a ramp.” One can show exactly where one color becomes the next. This should not happen.
Click to enlarge image.
That’s not the end of it either.
Not even an exterminator could clean up Pixelmator – from my experience – at this point without being recoded.
Through my experiences with the software, I too have found a load of bugs – both minor and critical – that impede normal use of the program.
A quick search will show that many of these bugs go back to versions 1.3 and earlier. That’s just unacceptable.
In their defense, 10.6 brings with it a world of new APIs, code structure changes, new coding conventions, etc. All Mac developers should make sure their code stays up to date. Failure to keep pace with core code changes can take a program out of commission in the future – or at least cause serious problems.
That appears to be what has happened with Pixelmator and Snow Leopard.
However, that is no excuse for failing to address bugs that remain from 1.3 and beyond.
Keep in mind that many customers use this software for professional purposes – including web design. Those projects will now have to be put on hold until these issues are dealt with.
WELL, CRUD
Don’t get me wrong. Any program can have problems. Programmatically speaking, the more lines of code there are, the more likely a program is to have bugs.
Take a program like Firefox, for example. Because it is used in so many ways in a wide range of computing environments, there is no way for the developer to completely test the software in every conceivable circumstance. So there will be bugs.
Bugs can be fixed with patches and updates – IF the developer(s) will acknowledge there is a problem and seek to fix it.
Unfortunately it seems bugs are repeatedly ignored by the developer team.
A quick perusal of the Pixelmator forum is very enlightening. Posts about bugs and program errors seem to be overlooked. I understand that time is limited and the team can’t respond to every report individually. But it feels as though reports are being ignored – whether they are or not. They should at least offer some form of acknowledgement that the report has been looked at by the developers.
Sebastiaan, one of the forum moderators, assures me that he forwards every bug report to the developer team – but the team doesn’t always respond, and his questions often go unanswered. That’s troubling.
In addition, posts that question the developers in any way are promptly locked or deleted.
Their reasoning? They say problems with the dev team should be dealt with outside of the forum. What? Granted, a forum is no place for personal attacks, hate messages, and the like. That’s never acceptable. But it is very much the right – and the duty – of the customer to point out if and when a developer team fails to address problems or fails to look into an issue as it should.
In order for any program to be workable for mass use and distribution, the developers must be willing and able to pinpoint and kill any program errors discovered – instead of writing them off as normal or ignoring them completely.
Perhaps someday Pixelmator will once again be a usable program for graphic design and editing. However, a lot needs to happen before then. A lot.
TAGS: Pixelmator review, Photoshop, CS3, CS4, CS5, Pixelmator bugs, Pixelmator tutorials
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09-15-2009
2:20 pm
Aidas Dailide
Hi Michael,
I was quite shocked after reading your post – I thought that you’re talking about some other company (really bad one too).
I can assure you that we do not delete/close forum posts related to bugs. This must have been some kind of misunderstanding. The only idea that comes into my mind is that we did indeed removed posts reporting Snow Leopard bugs that were posted before the official release ( August 28th).
We treat every post with respect and have never removed any post or blog comment just because it is negative. I understand that every user deserves a direct response from developer but it is physically impossible. Rest assured we read every single forum post.
In short – we do listen and respect our users. Sharp and constructive criticism is always welcome.
Regards,
Aidas
P.S. We are the good guys
09-29-2009
5:10 pm
Michael @ TSM
Aidas,
I can assure you this is no misunderstanding. I am not the only one to witness such behavior on the forums.
Now, you say that you read every forum post. That’s great. But how much more energy would it take to post a short, one-line response? A couple micro-joules?
I understand you want people to think of you as “the good guys.” But you have a lot of work to do before that happens.