Re: [Gimp-developer] Re: rectangle select tool specification

2006-08-15 Thread Sven Neumann
Hi,

On Mon, 2006-08-14 at 22:29 -0500, Tim Jedlicka wrote:

 Why make only the handles grabbable? I don't understand the harm in
 having all edges grabbable.

I think the idea is that different actions are assigned to different
handles. If you grab a handle in the middle of an edge, you only resize
in one direction. So if only the handles can be grabbed, it would be
clear what's going to happen. But I am not sure if this means that only
the handles should work. I would probably appreciate if one could grab
somewhere in the vicinity of a handle as well.

 This is especially true for the center handle. Take the user case
 where I make a selection but now want to fine tune the placement of
 the selection (i.e. I want to fine tune the placement of the SW
 corner). If I zoom the image such that the center handle is no longer
 displayed I have no way of moving the selection.

You could still move it using some modifier key. But the center handle
is much better discoverable than a modifier key. Currently, a lot of
users simply don't know how to move a selection. If we offer a handle
that they can grab, that problem would be solved.


Sven


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Re: rectangle select tool specification

2006-08-15 Thread saulgoode

Quoting Sven Neumann [EMAIL PROTECTED]:


Hi,

On Mon, 2006-08-14 at 22:29 -0500, Tim Jedlicka wrote:


Why make only the handles grabbable? I don't understand the harm in
having all edges grabbable.


I think the idea is that different actions are assigned to different
handles. If you grab a handle in the middle of an edge, you only resize
in one direction. So if only the handles can be grabbed, it would be
clear what's going to happen. But I am not sure if this means that only
the handles should work. I would probably appreciate if one could grab
somewhere in the vicinity of a handle as well.


My strong preference is to have only the four corner handles. Extra  
indicators clutter up the interface and a restriction to only moving  
the handles seems unnecessary and limiting.


Selections are the most important aspect of using the GIMP and they  
should be streamlined for proficient use; not designed to cater to  
the absolute novice. Clicking on an edge of selection frame and moving  
it is not inconsistent with the manner in which paths are edited,  
especially so when in the polygonal mode.


The current implementation is fine: the corner handles indicate an  
unconstrained move while anywhere else on the selection border  
constrains the motion. The constraint feature itself is not a  
requirement of using the tool and therefore, if undiscovered, no  
real functionality is lost. (I would submit that even without any  
knowledge of the tool's operation, the constraint feature *will* be  
discovered and easily understood. I discovered it quite by accident  
and its functionality seemed very intuitive.)


Please reconsider what is gained by adding four more handles versus  
the clutter (and even confusion) that they bring to the interface.

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Re: [Gimp-developer] Re: rectangle select tool specification

2006-08-14 Thread William Skaggs


From: Juhana Sadeharju [EMAIL PROTECTED]

The handles may confuse users if really the grabbing can be done by
clicking in anywhere on the edge. (That is the preferred way to do it
since the first interactive graphics system was written.)
The handles should be removed.

What you are saying makes sense, but there needs to be some
visual indication that the rectangle can be modified by moving
the edges -- it must not look like a plain ordinary selection.
If you can think of a better way of doing this, I believe we would
be open to it.  Originally we did it by showing the edges of
the rectangle in solid black, but I think most people who have
tried it feel that it is more pleasant to work with using the
four little squares.

  -- Bill
 

 
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Re: rectangle select tool specification

2006-08-14 Thread William Skaggs


From: Juhana Sadeharju [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date:  Mon, 14 Aug 2006 21:12:05 +0300


If I have multiple views to the same image, is the rectangle tool,
the crop tool, etc. visible in each view?

For example, I may have one view to the entire 5000x5000 image,
and second view of size 500x500 in which I do precision placement
of the tools.

No, that would be nice, but tool drawing gets applied on a display-specific
basis, for any tool.  It would be major work to change this.

  -- Bill
 

 
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Re: rectangle select tool specification

2006-08-14 Thread Tim Jedlicka
On 8/14/06, Sven Neumann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
(2)to enlarge the handles and to make only the handles grabbable(3)to add another handle in the center for moving the selection
Why make only the handles grabbable? I don't understand the harm in having all edges grabbable.
This is especially true for the center handle. Take the user case where
I make a selection but now want to fine tune the placement of the
selection (i.e. I want to fine tune the placement of the SW corner). If
I zoom the image such that the center handle is no longer displayed I
have no way of moving the selection.-- Tim Jedlicka, [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://www.galifree.com
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Re: rectangle select tool specification

2006-08-12 Thread Kevin Cozens

Juhana Sadeharju wrote:

In some other editor, the rectangle can be modified only by
grabbing the 8 handles located at the corners and at the
middle of edges. (That is an unnecessary limitation.)

The handles may confuse users if really the grabbing can be done by
clicking in anywhere on the edge. (That is the preferred way to do it
since the first interactive graphics system was written.)
The handles should be removed.


The handles aren't really handles like they are in many other software 
packages where you have to grab them to adjust the size of a selection.


In 2.3/CVS GIMP, the handles are four (yes, only four) tiny squares which 
appear in the inside corners of the selection. This provides a visual cue that 
the selection area can be altered. You need this cue since it is easy to 
toggle a selection between a fixed and alterable state.


When a selection is editable you move the cursor near an edge or corner of the 
selction. When you are close to the edge or corner the cursor changes to 
indicate that you can move that edge or corner of the selection (once you hold 
the left-mouse button down and drag that is).


I think this is a much easier method of resizing a selection than having to 
grab one of the 8 little handles that are used in most other programs.


--
Cheers!

Kevin.

http://www.interlog.com/~kcozens/ |What are we going to do today, Borg?
Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172|Same thing we always do, Pinkutus:
  |  Try to assimilate the world!
#include disclaimer/favourite   |  -Pinkutus  the Borg
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Re : rectangle select tool specification

2006-08-10 Thread Sven Neumann

On Thu, 2006-08-10 at 22:51 +0200, cedric GEMY wrote:
 may be i misunderstood your actual specification, but when you define 
 modifiers, i only talk about multiselection modes. What about old 
 options with Ctrl and Shift that does the same as Expand from center 
 and Make Square.
 In fact it may confuse the user, because these options have to be 
 checked before the selection is drawn.
 I agree with Sven on this : keep the old way, because users are 
 accustomed to it. 

I don't think that we absolutely need to continue doing things the old
way. Users get accustomed to new behaviour quite fast, as long as it
offers everything they need.

I agree though that it is important to make Expand from Center and
Make Square more easily accessible. I believe that we need to use
modifier keys for this, quite similar to the way the old tools used to
work. The old implementation was however rather unintuitive and hard to
discover, mainly because pressing the modifiers didn't change the
selection immidiately, you had to move the mouse first. This is due to a
limitation in the tools code and cannot be fixed in the selection tools
alone. It needs some changes to the tools infrastructure. But I think we
need to do those changes now, simply because we can't implement a
satisfying behaviour without them.

Mitch and me discussed this with Peter a while ago and our conclusion
was that it makes sense to continue to use the modifier keys pressed
when creating the selection to define whether the selection is replaced,
added, subtracted or intersected. Then, while creating the selection,
the modifier keys can be reused to add constraints such as expand from
center and make square. But in order to make this behaviour
understandable by the user, it is important that there is immidiate
feedback, unlike with the old tools. Pressing Ctrl should immidiately
center the selection on the starting point, releasing the modifier key
should restore it. Same for the Shift key. If you press it, the
selection outline needs to change to a square/circle immidiately.


Sven


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