Libb

Depends what operating system you’re using. I run Linux (Mint).
And I use mpv a lot… it’s probably the application I’m the most stupidly fond of, as a user I find it amazingly good.

I use it mostly through the Nemo file explorer (through its custom actions) as my video/music music player. But I also use it to listen to podcasts, using newsboat as my feed aggregator and yt-dlp to actually download/stream whatever multimedia content I want mpv to play. And, well, for everything else that contains video and/or audio.

You can launch mpv with --no-video and no window will be displayed, say if you want to play only the audio from a video file. You can also launch it using the save-position-on-quit. I’ve mine set by default to yes (in mpv.conf), so it remembers position in whatever I play next time I play it, and on specific scripts/occasions it is set to ‘no’ (see example below).

in my ~/.config.mpv/mpv.conf I have set volume=65 which is the level I want it to start with, while defining custom keyboard shortcuts and mouse scrolling buttons to change volume in the ~/.config.mpv/input.conf. I’ve never tried it but you might be able to add a volume parameter each time you launch mpv (maybe store the actual value in a hidden text file somewhere for it to load from, using a script?)

Your 3, I’m not sure to understand what you want to do. But in order to keep mpv open after it’s done playing whatever, add this to your mpv.conf: keep-open=yes

As an example, here is one of the ‘Nemo Actions’ I use to make mpv randomly play audio (even from video) from the folder I right-click on, without mpv opening any window. If you don’t know them already, custom Nemo Actions must be saved in ~/.local/share/nemo/some-file-name.nemo_action :

[Nemo Action]  
Active=true  
Name=MPV shuffle NOVID  
Comment=Play at random the content of selected folder into mpv AUDIO only, no position save 
Exec=sh -c "mpv --no-video --save-position-on-quit=no --shuffle %F"  
Icon-Name=multimedia-video-player  
Selection=any  
Extensions=any  

The ‘exec’ part of that action uses standards mpv parameters next to Nemo’s own stuff.

I also use the socat utility that lets me connect a series of tiny (they’re one-liners) custom shell scripts directly to mpv, using system-wide keyboard shortcuts. I’m really not an expert about any of that, I just learned to use it to get what I wanted out of it which is a … universal mpv remote-control.

I don’t mean just the Play/Pause buttons but almost any of the controls I need with mpv.

For example, I started using it to let me skip forward/backward a couple seconds and resume playback while I’m listening to audio notes, as I recently started using a pocket voice recorder. Which makes mpv great when I’m transcribing said notes. Not as good but quite close to one of those dedicated old-school foot pedal people into that kind of tech used to use in the 80s and 90s… Yep, don’t tell anyone but I’m that old that I remember them ;)

Edit: I hope any of that can help you with your script.

You can’t convince people to change, that’s not how things work. They must already be willing to. Even if it’s only to change the OS they’re used to.

I’m not a gamer, so bear with me, but can’t you show him his favorites games work on your computer?

There’s different and then there’s worse. I switched to Linux a few months ago and gimp fits the latter category more often than not

A good first step in learning anything new is to realize one’s own opinion about it is just that: an opinion, not a fact. Then, it helps to keep in mind that one’s expectations are also very often nothing more than the expression of previously acquired habits. Habits that also happen to be one of the hardest thing to change.

Gimp is not worse, nor is it better. It’s a tool for anyone to use or to not use.

It’s also not a clone of Photoshop, and I don’t think it wants to become one. Does being its own thing make it “worse”? Maybe, for some users. You seem to be one of them. That’s OK.

What do I think of Gimp? I seldom have emotions towards tools, beside in the case of Free/Libre software a real feeling of gratitude for the people sharing them with all of us (making me even more willing to support them back). Those tools I either use them or I don’t.

Like, no matter how impressive it is (and it is), I don’t use Krita to sketch because I prefer sketching using a pen and paper instead of a screen or a tablet. Heck, I don’t even use my iPad/Apple Pencil to sketch not even with the Procreate app I purchased many years ago.

It happens I do use Gimp on occasions, when I need to. And since I sometimes need to use Gimp I decided it was a good idea to learn to use it properly, to the best of my ability, aka by not comparing it to Photoshop (the app I had been using for almost 20 years before that) but by trying to understand its own logic. Am I an expert Gimp user? Lol, no. Will I ever be? Nope, I have no need to. Which is fine too.

The same with Darktable. Up until a few years ago I used to do a lot of photos. I had been doing phos since the late 70s. For the last 20 years or so I had been using raw file formats so I searched for an alternative to Lightroom. I tried hard to learn Darktable and I failed. No hard feelings, I simply realized it was not worth me doing all that learning since I was now doing so little photography I could as well stop using raw entirely, not a huge loss. Would I have been taking more pictures, and need raw, I would have kept a Mac with Lightroom for that purpose only. I know very few toolboxes that contain one single tool ;)

One last point that may be worth repeating, over and over again:

It’s ok to not like something, an app, a book, music, a color, some food, or even a person. It just should not mean that that one thing/person is bad. There is no need to make it emotional.

If Gimp does not work for you, say like you switching to Ubuntu may not feel that good either compared to your previous OS, then there is no harm in moving back to your previous app and OS, or to try different ones.

Before settling on Linux Mint myself, which I have been using for the last 6 or 7 years (already? Time flies!) I tested Debian, and before that I tested Arch, and before Arch I first tested… Ubuntu. Mint just felt best for my own needs back then.

Tried use GIMP a few times, but the standards feels way too different from Photoshop.

Because it is different.

and GIMP is nearly impossible to use for me.

As long as you wish it to become Photoshop-like, it will remain ‘impossible’. Bu the moment you agree that it is not some free clone of Photoshop but its own thing, it starts becoming… not impossible. And I say that as an almost 60 years old dude that had been using Apple computer since the early 80s and purchased and started using Photoshop for my job in the late 90s, that is now using GNU/Linux full time.

Imho, the best way to learn Gimp, or any new software, is not to wish for it to be more like Photoshop (or any other software you may previously used) but to start using it… from scratch and to do it progressively.

Don’t try to master it or to reach the same level of expertise you have under Photoshop (this took you probably a few years, at the very least a few months… and I’m sorry to say there is no shortcuts: learning takes time. But if you give yourself small specific tasks to learn to do you will quickly see yourself getting better… faster and faster.

Not knowing what you used Photoshop for it’s hard to suggest anything but say you used to it to edit your photos. Make a list of all the things you used to do, not the tools you used to use under Photoshop just the task you want to achieve. And start learning them one at a time.

Say, learn to crop and to resize a picture. Next time, learn to change file format or to color correct. Learn to change exposition or use curves. Learn to use masking tools to do local edits, use layers, and so on.

You will also realize there are tools you used to use that have no equivalency under Gimp. And that there other tools that exist under Gimp. But learning the tools and methods one at a time will make it much simpler:

1. you won’t need to be looking in those endless menus with their endless options all at once, nor to learn all the keyboard shortcuts (that is essential to learn if you want to be more efficient, like with any app worth something)
2. you will only need to search for specific tuto or guides, asking precise questions: ‘how do I change gamma in Gimp’ ‘how do I change color balance’, ‘how do I crop’, and so on… that are more likely to bring you much more useful results than broader questions like ‘how do I learn to use Gimp as a previous Photoshop user’ ;)

edit: typos

What’s the tax on his slightly above average salary? Asking for a friend.