I want to like the HUD. I’m a vi user; I like the idea of command mode for everything, I think it’s a great idea, and I have already found it useful. But, despite Precise Pangolin’s proclaimed pixel perfection, it has obvious failings.
The Gimp is a prime candidate for intentional programming. Its menus are often three levels deep so being able to hit Alt and type White for white balance saves a lot of mousin’ about. But every time I hit the HUD, the Gimp’s image window looses its focus. Want to do two menu operations in a row? You’ll have to “click” back in the window between them, to re-focus it. Has Scott Gilbertson actually used this in anger?
And what about the Dash?
The tool tip pops up and obscures the input area. Pixel perfect or partially perplexing?
Finally, the icons have been missing from Inkscape’s menus for three Ubuntu releases now. My bug at Inkscape dev has a few “me toos” and I live in hope. I wondered for a moment if this would be solved by the icons appearing in HUD. I use Inkscape’s menu items to tell the difference between Path Division and Cut Path. Is HUD for people who think in words? Where does that leave us Gimp and Inkscape users?