Meta-defect: UI chances between versions leave functions broken (or hidden) when trying to use GIMP after the next upgrade
I posted https://superuser.com/questions/1590768/how-can-i-ideally-be-able-to-select-between-odd-ux-changes-between-versions-of-g on SuperUser.com.
Today I stopped and realized that with GIMP's toolbox and the menus, I tried for easily fifteen minutes, and was utterly failing to use a color picker to pick one single pixel from an area. I am still at a loss for how to use this feature in current GIMP UI. (And I have used GIMP for decades.)
GIMP seems to combine improvements with deterioration in successive versions; it's different and shows progress but also grows new problems.
I would like to be able to choose which set of odd features I want to contend with some particular time.
One approach I see (and I am deliberately trying to avoid just asking for that approach in an XY problem) is to download, compile, and install parallel versions of GIMP, so I can run e.g. gimp1.0 and have that set of strengths and problems.
How, in terms of good system administration, should I approach things so I can choose which version of GIMP I run?
Not long after posting it, I realized this is not a system administration question, which was what I initially thought. It is a meta-defect in GIMP.
I am a little unclear how it would best be resolved. One option would be to have a "setver" option analogous to the "setver" command in the last versions of DOS. My suspicion is that by analogy with web development issues where browser detection is deprecated but feature detection is a best practice, letting people choose between features would be better than letting people choose between virtual versions. And my suspicion is also that the best response to my concern is not one that would be obvious at first glance.