Re: [Gimp-developer] Export File dialog question

2008-06-11 Thread Alexia Death
Sven Neumann wrote:
 Hi,
 
 On Tue, 2008-06-10 at 17:54 -0400, Liam R E Quin wrote:
 
 Could make sense to ask on the gimp-user list. But as far as I can see,
 saving the current drawable is the only reasonable use case. We might
 want to consider to make this easier by adding Save Layer and removing
 the Ignore choice from the Export dialog.
 Maybe also Save Visible Layers in that case?
 
 It's not clear what Save Visible Layers would do. Would it save the
 merged image of all visible layers into a single layer or would it ask
 you to specify a filename for each visible layer? Both options don't
 seem to be very useful in general. If someone needs this functionality,
 it can easily be added as a script.
So basically the whole dialog is useless and could just as well be 
replaced by assuming that the user clicked Export... and maybe a 
notice in save dialog that any other format except xcf may cause some 
data loss. That should be simple to implement... Any chance that could 
be done before 2.6? Its a small change but would make a decent usability 
difference.

-- Alexia
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Export File dialog question

2008-06-11 Thread Sven Neumann
Hi,

On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 09:14 +0300, Alexia Death wrote:

 So basically the whole dialog is useless and could just as well be 
 replaced by assuming that the user clicked Export... and maybe a 
 notice in save dialog that any other format except xcf may cause some 
 data loss. That should be simple to implement... Any chance that could 
 be done before 2.6? Its a small change but would make a decent usability 
 difference.

I don't quite understand. What dialog is useless?


Sven


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Export File dialog question

2008-06-11 Thread Alexia Death
Sven Neumann wrote:
 Hi,
 
 On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 09:14 +0300, Alexia Death wrote:
 
 So basically the whole dialog is useless and could just as well be 
 replaced by assuming that the user clicked Export... and maybe a 
 notice in save dialog that any other format except xcf may cause some 
 data loss. That should be simple to implement... Any chance that could 
 be done before 2.6? Its a small change but would make a decent usability 
 difference.
 
 I don't quite understand. What dialog is useless?
Export file... dialog you get on saves to formats that are not xcf. It 
does ask in some formats for conversion options but I doubt many people 
have ever done anything else there than just clicked export. If someone 
wants to ie. flatten instead of merge they can do that beforehand.

-- Alexia
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Export File dialog question

2008-06-11 Thread Sven Neumann
Hi,

On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 09:45 +0300, Alexia Death wrote:

  I don't quite understand. What dialog is useless?
 Export file... dialog you get on saves to formats that are not xcf. It 
 does ask in some formats for conversion options but I doubt many people 
 have ever done anything else there than just clicked export. If someone 
 wants to ie. flatten instead of merge they can do that beforehand.

I don't quite follow that argument. The choices are important. Imagine
you are saving a multi-layered image to the GIF format. You get to
choose between saving an animation, saving a flattened or a merged
version. That choice is not trivial to avoid.

Changing these things is not trivial. Both from the user interface point
of view (writing the spec) and from an implementation point of view. I
don't think we want to address this for 2.6. But we can very well try to
get it done for 2.8.


Sven


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Export File dialog question

2008-06-11 Thread Alexia Death
Sven Neumann wrote:
 Hi,
 
 On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 09:45 +0300, Alexia Death wrote:
 
 I don't quite understand. What dialog is useless?
 Export file... dialog you get on saves to formats that are not xcf. It 
 does ask in some formats for conversion options but I doubt many people 
 have ever done anything else there than just clicked export. If someone 
 wants to ie. flatten instead of merge they can do that beforehand.
 
 I don't quite follow that argument. The choices are important. Imagine
 you are saving a multi-layered image to the GIF format. You get to
 choose between saving an animation, saving a flattened or a merged
 version. That choice is not trivial to avoid.
 
 Changing these things is not trivial. Both from the user interface point
 of view (writing the spec) and from an implementation point of view. I
 don't think we want to address this for 2.6. But we can very well try to
 get it done for 2.8.


You are right... In case of gif it is not trivial and there are probably 
many other nontrivial cases. I was oversimplifying the issue. I still 
think that discussion and spec'ing of this matter should happen as soon 
as possible...

-- Alexia
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Export File dialog question

2008-06-11 Thread Guillermo Espertino
From my user perspective, I'm ok with the save / export separation.
- Save only for XCF
- Export for other formats (using the current method, guess format by
extension, or manual selection of the output format).

We users are used to save anything, despite if it's a lossy format or
not, and that's bad for our workflow. I guess it will take some time to
get used to the new method and break the habit of pressing CTRL+S to
save when we are working on a jpeg file (for instance). But in the end
it will be educative and possitive.
The right way to manage files is separating the native, loseless format
from the lossy, export file formats.
The benefit will be a reduction of accidental data loss and an
improvement in the work flow.

I'm concerned about the save a copy command, though. It will certainly
present a usability problem. Should it save, export, or both?
Should it be removed?
My guess is that it should not be removed, because it provides a useful
solution when working with different versions of the file.
In my oppinion, it should do the same that the save command. It means
that it will no longer export to different formats, just xcf.
Again, that will force users to adopt a better workflow (much people
uses save a copy for exporting to a lossy format keeping the
original).

These changes can be quite traumatic for some users but in the long term
will benefit the usability and interface coherence of the program, so in
my honest oppinion, they have to be performed.
 
Guillermo Espertino

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Re: [Gimp-developer] Export File dialog question

2008-06-11 Thread Liam R E Quin
On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 08:08 +0200, Sven Neumann wrote:

 It's not clear what Save Visible Layers would do. Would it save the
 merged image of all visible layers into a single layer
Yes.  I.e. like doing a flatten and then a save and then an undo.

I don't have strong feelings about it, but since most end formats
don't have layers, it seems to me a common case.

Liam


-- 
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Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org

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Re: [Gimp-developer] Export File dialog question

2008-06-11 Thread Sven Neumann
Hi,

On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 13:17 -0400, Liam R E Quin wrote:
 On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 08:08 +0200, Sven Neumann wrote:
 
  It's not clear what Save Visible Layers would do. Would it save the
  merged image of all visible layers into a single layer
 Yes.  I.e. like doing a flatten and then a save and then an undo.
 
 I don't have strong feelings about it, but since most end formats
 don't have layers, it seems to me a common case.

It's what Export - Merge Visible layers should give you. I don't see
why we need an extra menu entry for it.

Regardless of that, the way this should be implemented is that file
plug-ins should have a way to get read-only access to the projection.
That would avoid the hassle of merging and it would guarantee that what
is saved is what the user sees.


Sven


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Export File dialog question

2008-06-10 Thread Sven Neumann
Hi,

On Tue, 2008-06-10 at 12:21 +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 from the docs:
 The export file dialog shows up if the image type does not match the format 
 capabilites.
 If the user chooses 'Export', a suitably altered copy of the image is used 
 for saving.
 If the user chooses 'Ignore', the image is fed directly to the save plugin 
 instead.
 
 Are there examples where choosing 'Ignore' benefits the user,
 other than being possibly able to save the current drawable alone?

Could make sense to ask on the gimp-user list. But as far as I can see,
saving the current drawable is the only reasonable use case. We might
want to consider to make this easier by adding Save Layer and removing
the Ignore choice from the Export dialog.


Sven


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Export File dialog question

2008-06-10 Thread Liam R E Quin
On Tue, 2008-06-10 at 23:46 +0200, Sven Neumann wrote:
[...]
 Could make sense to ask on the gimp-user list. But as far as I can see,
 saving the current drawable is the only reasonable use case. We might
 want to consider to make this easier by adding Save Layer and removing
 the Ignore choice from the Export dialog.
Maybe also Save Visible Layers in that case?

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org

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