Posted by
dscho on
Jun 13, 2011; 4:16pm
URL: http://imagej.273.s1.nabble.com/Re-Fiji-is-conventional-ImageJ-was-Make-images-overlap-tp3684283p3684286.html
Hi,
On Mon, 13 Jun 2011, Curtis Rueden wrote:
> > My thought in posting was that I have the impression that there are
> > many users who are, indeed, using the non-Fiji version, and who may
> > still be interested in specific projects that require a given plugin.
> > For many new users, especially, "ImageJ" means the program that is
> > downloaded from rsb.nih.gov, or imagej.nih.gov, since that is where
> > Google leads them.
Right, but then, Fiji was created to make it unnecessary to download
things from multiple sites (and still end up with obsolete versions of
plugins, because you looked in the wrong place).
> Difficulty with the ImageJ "alphabet soup" of names is understandable,
> given how many relevant projects there are within the ImageJ community.
> We recently posted a FAQ question to help people understand the
> difference between the names:
>
>
http://imagejdev.org/faq#n141>
> That said, we hope to reduce the confusion with the release of ImageJ2
> later this fall. We are working toward an IJ2 that includes an automatic
> update feature (adopted from Fiji) that allows people to host their own
> plugin sites.
Yes, the Fiji Updater will be integrated into ImageJ2. This is hopefully
taking away a lot of the repetitive, cumbersome discussions revolving
around "I want ImageJ, not Fiji! -- But you want easy, right? So download
Fiji. -- But I don't want to!"
:-)
So: just to state it once more, in crystal-clear words: Fiji does not want
to compete with ImageJ. Fiji wants to make ImageJ easier to use for people
who do not want to learn e.g. what a "heap" is.
The work on Fiji has been made slightly tedious by the insistence of some
that there is a huge difference between the two projects when it is not.
That was never the intention of Fiji. But those problems not stop us (at
least yours truly) from continuing to work on making the two projects
converge (but I admit that I spent more time on working toward that goal
than to refute the misconceptions).
The real difference between Fiji and ImageJ is actually in the subtitle
"batteries included". If you want to go to the shop and buy the
appropriate batteries, sure, go ahead. But if you don't want to need to
care which types of batteries are needed, if you are more interested in
playing with the toy right away, just take the package that has "batteries
included".
> Users can then select plugins for installation from known update sites,
> rather than manually searching, downloading and installing them—though
> the manual install will still be possible too, of course.
>
> Once IJ2 has built-in support for automatic updates, the current "Fiji"
> suite of plugins can become available through one or more update sites.
> If someone then tells you (e.g.) "I got my result with TrakEM2" then you
> can just choose "Add plugin" from the IJ2 menu, click the Fiji update
> site, and select TrakEM2 from the list to add it.
We still have to figure out how we want to handle the difference with the
Fiji launcher (which is still required in order to update plugins).
But eventually everybody will benefit from Fiji -- even the ones clinging
to the name "ImageJ" :-)
> There will likely continue to be a standalone Fiji program available
> from the Fiji web site, but our goal is for it to be exactly the same as
> a copy of ImageJ2 with all the Fiji plugins pre-installed.
>
> As always, there are some technical challenges to making this vision
> into a reality, but it is very doable, and the ImageJDev and Fiji
> developers will be working together to make it happen.
The good thing is that the ImageJ2 and Fiji developers share that common
vision (even if users are often fully unaware). And soon, we will also
share some office space, too :-)
Ciao,
Johannes