Re: [Gimp-gui] What is your opinion on on-canvas dialogs?
P.S.: On 2018-01-10 20:30, Jehan wrote: Hi! Thanks to everyone who participated on this discussion (here, and on IRC as well). I think the conclusion is that we don't like current on-canvas dialogs, but popup dialogs were quite bad too. ;-) Alexandre Prokoudine wrote: And above all, it kinda sucks that we are having this conversation right when 2.10 is looming upon us. Sorry about that. On short term (2.10), it seems clear that the on-canvas dialogs will likely stay as-is. Sorry Alexandre for any misunderstanding, my goal was obviously not to make any change in 2.10 on how they work (I have pushed for feature freeze for long enough myself as well! :p). My question was more for mid or long term changes. The only change I considered short term was maybe disabling some of the on-canvas dialogs, especially because we (still to this day) have some ugly crash with them and had some pretty serious usability bugs too (but these are fixed in-between!). As a statement, I want to say that I personally consider that many of the discussion which happen on this list are not meant for short term by nature (especially when sometimes we are discussing changing deeper GUI logics). On mid-term, I think the main issue that everybody is raising is mostly that the on-canvas GUIs are not repositionnable. They should be. Also I think they should be hidable and unhidable (you can currently "hide" them by clicking the top-right cross but this actually cancels any operation in progress, so that's not it). We need to be able to hide/show the on-canvas dialog while still seeing a preview (to see it fully with nothing in the way, but also to not influence the color perception as Elle notes). Also Alexandre notes: Frankly, the rotation dialog before 2.9 was PITA. I'll speak for myself, but every time I switched to that tool and clicked the drawable, the first thing I did was moving the bloody dialog away so that I could see my image. Elle also says the same thing: Removing the on-canvas color picker readout from the upper right corner requires clicking on a small icon in the upper right corner of the on-canvas GUI, and then you have to move the color picker readout to where you wanted in the first place, which for myself is usually *not* over the image So that's definitely true that the popup dialogs are by default just as annoying as the on-canvas ones since we popup them above the image! If not mistaken, we now we have some positionning saving code which we didn't have back in older versions and most popup dialogs' position in current GIMP is currently remembered and reused. We just need to remember the position of the popped-up tool dialogs as well and always put it here when popping a new one up. So this is not a problem. I just realized that this is already the case. As I said, we now remember a bunch of dialog position, and it seems that this includes these popup tool dialogs. Even accross sessions. :-) So this worry of both Alexandre and Elle is no more (as well as my point (5) below). You won't have to move the dialog again every time you use a tool. It will just go to the last position you put it. Just make the test youself with master code. :-) Jehan Finally Akkana notes: The Text tool dialog also differs from the other on-canvas dialogs in not having detach/dismiss buttons. And Elle: The behavior isn't consistent. If you detach it from one image and then color pick another image without changing tools in the meantime, the readout is not attached to the second image's canvas. But if you do change tools and then go back and color-pick a second image, the readout *is* attached to the second image's canvas, from which it needs to be detached again. Basically yes, I think the choice to have on-canvas or popup dialogs should stick, which means we should definitely be able to re-attach popped-up dialogs. So I see a few TODOs: (1) easily repositionnable on-canvas dialogs (2) hidable/showable on-canvas dialogs (3) same as on-canvas dialog can be detached, popup dialog should be re-attachable (4) choice of on-canvas or popup dialogs should stick (5) popup dialogs position should be remembered I guess that's the way to go for now which does not disrupt too much, yet would already improve things quite a bit. We can still think of better future and there were a bunch of ideas in the discussion which are not included right now, but may be some day. :-) Jehan -- ZeMarmot open animation film http://film.zemarmot.net Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/ZeMarmot/ Patreon: https://patreon.com/zemarmot Tipeee: https://www.tipeee.com/zemarmot ___ gimp-gui-list mailing list gimp-gui-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list
Re: [Gimp-gui] What is your opinion on on-canvas dialogs?
Hi! Thanks to everyone who participated on this discussion (here, and on IRC as well). I think the conclusion is that we don't like current on-canvas dialogs, but popup dialogs were quite bad too. ;-) Alexandre Prokoudine wrote: And above all, it kinda sucks that we are having this conversation right when 2.10 is looming upon us. Sorry about that. On short term (2.10), it seems clear that the on-canvas dialogs will likely stay as-is. Sorry Alexandre for any misunderstanding, my goal was obviously not to make any change in 2.10 on how they work (I have pushed for feature freeze for long enough myself as well! :p). My question was more for mid or long term changes. The only change I considered short term was maybe disabling some of the on-canvas dialogs, especially because we (still to this day) have some ugly crash with them and had some pretty serious usability bugs too (but these are fixed in-between!). As a statement, I want to say that I personally consider that many of the discussion which happen on this list are not meant for short term by nature (especially when sometimes we are discussing changing deeper GUI logics). On mid-term, I think the main issue that everybody is raising is mostly that the on-canvas GUIs are not repositionnable. They should be. Also I think they should be hidable and unhidable (you can currently "hide" them by clicking the top-right cross but this actually cancels any operation in progress, so that's not it). We need to be able to hide/show the on-canvas dialog while still seeing a preview (to see it fully with nothing in the way, but also to not influence the color perception as Elle notes). Also Alexandre notes: Frankly, the rotation dialog before 2.9 was PITA. I'll speak for myself, but every time I switched to that tool and clicked the drawable, the first thing I did was moving the bloody dialog away so that I could see my image. Elle also says the same thing: Removing the on-canvas color picker readout from the upper right corner requires clicking on a small icon in the upper right corner of the on-canvas GUI, and then you have to move the color picker readout to where you wanted in the first place, which for myself is usually *not* over the image So that's definitely true that the popup dialogs are by default just as annoying as the on-canvas ones since we popup them above the image! If not mistaken, we now we have some positionning saving code which we didn't have back in older versions and most popup dialogs' position in current GIMP is currently remembered and reused. We just need to remember the position of the popped-up tool dialogs as well and always put it here when popping a new one up. So this is not a problem. Finally Akkana notes: The Text tool dialog also differs from the other on-canvas dialogs in not having detach/dismiss buttons. And Elle: The behavior isn't consistent. If you detach it from one image and then color pick another image without changing tools in the meantime, the readout is not attached to the second image's canvas. But if you do change tools and then go back and color-pick a second image, the readout *is* attached to the second image's canvas, from which it needs to be detached again. Basically yes, I think the choice to have on-canvas or popup dialogs should stick, which means we should definitely be able to re-attach popped-up dialogs. So I see a few TODOs: (1) easily repositionnable on-canvas dialogs (2) hidable/showable on-canvas dialogs (3) same as on-canvas dialog can be detached, popup dialog should be re-attachable (4) choice of on-canvas or popup dialogs should stick (5) popup dialogs position should be remembered I guess that's the way to go for now which does not disrupt too much, yet would already improve things quite a bit. We can still think of better future and there were a bunch of ideas in the discussion which are not included right now, but may be some day. :-) Jehan -- ZeMarmot open animation film http://film.zemarmot.net Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/ZeMarmot/ Patreon: https://patreon.com/zemarmot Tipeee: https://www.tipeee.com/zemarmot ___ gimp-gui-list mailing list gimp-gui-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list
Re: [Gimp-gui] What is your opinion on on-canvas dialogs?
On 2017-12-23 00:14, Ell wrote: On Sat, 23 Dec 2017 00:11:42 +0100 Jehan wrote: > I know it's not quite it, but since commit > 984ed6cefda5df921777c8530d4ea8f51a52977c from today, constrained > line angles respect the canvas's rotation angle and flip mode. In > other words, you can rotate the canvas to the desired angle, and > press Ctrl while dragging an endpoint to create a horizontal line > (which, in actuality, has the same angle as the canvas.) Maybe that's a bit far fetched, but what if you wanted to take the canvas angle into account? Like currently we can constrain only within 15°. I could imagine some who would want to obtain any angle precisely by rotating the canvas first. Like you rotate the canvas by 5° exactly and you can get a 20° rotation with paint tools, gradient, etc. You can even get any random angle (18.3° or whatever!). But... that's exactly what this is about :) If you rotate the canvas by 18.3°, then the line angle will be constrained to 18.3° + 15° * n. Or maybe that's not what you meant? Oups sorry! I should have tested first (or read better your prose). I thought the change was the opposite (like you made so that constrained angles were always relative to the canvas coordinate system). All good then. :-) Jehan -- Ell -- ZeMarmot open animation film http://film.zemarmot.net Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/ZeMarmot/ Patreon: https://patreon.com/zemarmot Tipeee: https://www.tipeee.com/zemarmot ___ gimp-gui-list mailing list gimp-gui-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list
Re: [Gimp-gui] What is your opinion on on-canvas dialogs?
On Sat, 23 Dec 2017 00:11:42 +0100 Jehan wrote: > > I know it's not quite it, but since commit > > 984ed6cefda5df921777c8530d4ea8f51a52977c from today, constrained > > line angles respect the canvas's rotation angle and flip mode. In > > other words, you can rotate the canvas to the desired angle, and > > press Ctrl while dragging an endpoint to create a horizontal line > > (which, in actuality, has the same angle as the canvas.) > > Maybe that's a bit far fetched, but what if you wanted to take the > canvas angle into account? > Like currently we can constrain only within 15°. I could imagine some > who would want to obtain any angle precisely by rotating the canvas > first. Like you rotate the canvas by 5° exactly and you can get a 20° > rotation with paint tools, gradient, etc. You can even get any random > angle (18.3° or whatever!). But... that's exactly what this is about :) If you rotate the canvas by 18.3°, then the line angle will be constrained to 18.3° + 15° * n. Or maybe that's not what you meant? -- Ell ___ gimp-gui-list mailing list gimp-gui-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list
Re: [Gimp-gui] What is your opinion on on-canvas dialogs?
Hi! On 2017-12-22 12:37, Ell via gimp-gui-list wrote: On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 20:47:54 -0500 Elle Stone wrote: 1. The blend tool has an on-canvas GUI, but the angle at which the blend is being drawn isn't shown in the on-canvas GUI and also not shown in the status bar. This makes it a bit difficult to draw a gradient at a given prechosen angle. This definitely makes sense to show angle and distance in status bar. I already implemented something similar a few months ago for all paint tools (when in straight line mode, i.e. shift-clicking), following a similar standard as the measure tool status information. So I just implemented it for the gradient tool as well (I factorized into a single function so that Blend, Paint and Measure tools use the same code). I know it's not quite it, but since commit 984ed6cefda5df921777c8530d4ea8f51a52977c from today, constrained line angles respect the canvas's rotation angle and flip mode. In other words, you can rotate the canvas to the desired angle, and press Ctrl while dragging an endpoint to create a horizontal line (which, in actuality, has the same angle as the canvas.) Maybe that's a bit far fetched, but what if you wanted to take the canvas angle into account? Like currently we can constrain only within 15°. I could imagine some who would want to obtain any angle precisely by rotating the canvas first. Like you rotate the canvas by 5° exactly and you can get a 20° rotation with paint tools, gradient, etc. You can even get any random angle (18.3° or whatever!). Jehan -- Ell ___ gimp-gui-list mailing list gimp-gui-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list -- ZeMarmot open animation film http://film.zemarmot.net Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/ZeMarmot/ Patreon: https://patreon.com/zemarmot Tipeee: https://www.tipeee.com/zemarmot ___ gimp-gui-list mailing list gimp-gui-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list
Re: [Gimp-gui] What is your opinion on on-canvas dialogs?
Alexandre Prokoudine writes: [lots of sensible stuff] > Frankly, the rotation dialog before 2.9 was PITA. I'll speak for > myself, but every time I switched to that tool and clicked the > drawable, the first thing I did was moving the bloody dialog away so > that I could see my image. The dialog was getting in the way of Yes, that's true. I don't think anyone liked the popup dialogs. But the on-canvas dialogs, as you say, have a lot of the same problems. > That leaves us Angle, Origin X, Origin Y and maybe a small reset > button for the origin. Fits the rest of Settings dialog nicely. > > What I _would_ add to the canvas is a small on-screen display item > that would follow the mouse pointer at an offset and display current > angle as long as you drag and disappear as soon as you stop. That way > you know the current angle exactly _and_ you don't have to change your > point of eye focus _and_ you can evaluate the result without visual > obstacles (just stop dragging). That would be terrific. The three numbers that matter for rotate (and similarly for the other transform tools, except Unified) are easier to show than the numbers GIMP shows already for Crop, Rect Select and Ellipse Select, and the Tool Options work fine for those tools. Having a little additional feedback on the angle via a number near the mouse would be quite handy, and unobtrusive. [On the Text tool:] > There can be 3 (THREE) simultaneously available text setting areas on > display: on-canvas toolbar, text editor dialog, and settings in the > sidebar. All three have a feature overlap. Isn't that a little crazy? Worse, although they overlap in features, the features behave differently. For instance, the controls in the on-canvas dialog don't do anything unless you first select all the text (which makes the dialog's display look more cluttered and makes it even harder to see what's underneath), while the Tool Options controls work without needing a selection. The Text tool dialog also differs from the other on-canvas dialogs in not having detach/dismiss buttons. ...Akkana ___ gimp-gui-list mailing list gimp-gui-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list
Re: [Gimp-gui] What is your opinion on on-canvas dialogs?
On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 20:47:54 -0500 Elle Stone wrote: > 1. The blend tool has an on-canvas GUI, but the angle at which the > blend is being drawn isn't shown in the on-canvas GUI and also not > shown in the status bar. This makes it a bit difficult to draw a > gradient at a given prechosen angle. I know it's not quite it, but since commit 984ed6cefda5df921777c8530d4ea8f51a52977c from today, constrained line angles respect the canvas's rotation angle and flip mode. In other words, you can rotate the canvas to the desired angle, and press Ctrl while dragging an endpoint to create a horizontal line (which, in actuality, has the same angle as the canvas.) -- Ell ___ gimp-gui-list mailing list gimp-gui-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list
Re: [Gimp-gui] What is your opinion on on-canvas dialogs?
Hi, It use to bug me because I used windows mode with my layers panel on the right, Then every time I would use the rotate, scale etc, that little panel would appear under my layers panel. Was very annoying but that lead me to change my work flow around the single window mode, and I've not looked back since. The current one is fine in my opinion, but it would be great if one could reposition it's default position. Just off the original topic I don't know if this is a bug already or if this is the new way, I'm using gimp 2.9.7 and the tool options last used settings gets saved even if I have my (Save tool options on exit) disabled under the preferences, So every time I use that tool again I have to reset the values to default. Regards, Yeshua On 22 December 2017 at 03:47, Elle Stone wrote: > On 12/21/2017 07:30 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote: > >> Is there anyone who is satisfied with on-canvas GUIs in their present >> state? >> > > On the whole I don't particularly like the on-canvas GUIs, but I've > assumed that other people do like them. There is one on-canvas GUI that > lacks a fairly important bit of information, and another that is several > steps beyond annoying: > > 1. The blend tool has an on-canvas GUI, but the angle at which the blend > is being drawn isn't shown in the on-canvas GUI and also not shown in the > status bar. This makes it a bit difficult to draw a gradient at a given > prechosen angle. > > > 2. I wish that the color picker had an option to permanently disable > having the readout be on-canvas: > > * Its presence in the upper right corner means that to color pick in the > upper right corner first you have to put the color picker down somewhere > outside the on-canvas GUI, and then slide the color picker up to the point > where you want to color pick. But you still can't see where you might be > color-picking, despite the on-canvas color picker being transparent. > > * Its presence in the upper right corner interferes with seeing the > entire image: Colors influence our perception of neighboring colors, which > means having a GUI stuck in the corner of the image hampers making > judgements about the image colors as a whole. Similar concerns obtain for > judging image composition - the composition is thrown off by the presence > of an odd rectange in the upper right corner. > > * Removing the on-canvas color picker readout from the upper right > corner requires clicking on a small icon in the upper right corner of the > on-canvas GUI, and then you have to move the color picker readout to where > you wanted in the first place, which for myself is usually *not* over the > image, and on those rare occasions when it really is convenient to have the > readout temporarily right over the image, usually it needs to be somewhere > other than the upper right corner. > > * The behavior isn't consistent. If you detach it from one image and > then color pick another image without changing tools in the meantime, the > readout is not attached to the second image's canvas. But if you do change > tools and then go back and color-pick a second image, the readout *is* > attached to the second image's canvas, from which it needs to be detached > again. > > Elle > > ___ > gimp-gui-list mailing list > gimp-gui-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list > -- Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, “I’m possible!” ~Audrey Hepburn ___ gimp-gui-list mailing list gimp-gui-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list
Re: [Gimp-gui] What is your opinion on on-canvas dialogs?
On 12/21/2017 07:30 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote: Is there anyone who is satisfied with on-canvas GUIs in their present state? On the whole I don't particularly like the on-canvas GUIs, but I've assumed that other people do like them. There is one on-canvas GUI that lacks a fairly important bit of information, and another that is several steps beyond annoying: 1. The blend tool has an on-canvas GUI, but the angle at which the blend is being drawn isn't shown in the on-canvas GUI and also not shown in the status bar. This makes it a bit difficult to draw a gradient at a given prechosen angle. 2. I wish that the color picker had an option to permanently disable having the readout be on-canvas: * Its presence in the upper right corner means that to color pick in the upper right corner first you have to put the color picker down somewhere outside the on-canvas GUI, and then slide the color picker up to the point where you want to color pick. But you still can't see where you might be color-picking, despite the on-canvas color picker being transparent. * Its presence in the upper right corner interferes with seeing the entire image: Colors influence our perception of neighboring colors, which means having a GUI stuck in the corner of the image hampers making judgements about the image colors as a whole. Similar concerns obtain for judging image composition - the composition is thrown off by the presence of an odd rectange in the upper right corner. * Removing the on-canvas color picker readout from the upper right corner requires clicking on a small icon in the upper right corner of the on-canvas GUI, and then you have to move the color picker readout to where you wanted in the first place, which for myself is usually *not* over the image, and on those rare occasions when it really is convenient to have the readout temporarily right over the image, usually it needs to be somewhere other than the upper right corner. * The behavior isn't consistent. If you detach it from one image and then color pick another image without changing tools in the meantime, the readout is not attached to the second image's canvas. But if you do change tools and then go back and color-pick a second image, the readout *is* attached to the second image's canvas, from which it needs to be detached again. Elle ___ gimp-gui-list mailing list gimp-gui-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list
Re: [Gimp-gui] What is your opinion on on-canvas dialogs?
On Fri, Dec 22, 2017 at 1:37 AM, Jehan wrote: > Is there anyone who like the on-canvas GUIs? I'm sorry, but I will have to disrupt this line of questioning :) Let me rephrase that: Is there anyone who is satisfied with on-canvas GUIs in their present state? Because, personally, while I like them, I am not satisfied with them (nor am I satisfied with the whole idea of tool's settings in a sidebar with a vertical scroll, or with our current elephant-sized cumbersome slider widget, but that's another story). The whole idea of having widgets on the canvas was to give users controls right where they need them, when they need them. Frankly, the rotation dialog before 2.9 was PITA. I'll speak for myself, but every time I switched to that tool and clicked the drawable, the first thing I did was moving the bloody dialog away so that I could see my image. The dialog was getting in the way of understanding what I was doing. My guess is that mitch had more or less same reasoning to do away with it. However now this dialog is just elsewhere on the canvas. Not exactly right where you need it and not exactly when you need it. And once you detach it, you can't attach it again until you switch to another tool and back (which autoconfirms whatever change you made). Moreover, closing the attached on-canvas dialog makes no sense whatsoever: it just reappears as soon as you start rotating again. So the only use case for that close button in the on-canvas version of the dialog is when you want to view all of the image in the viewport to immediately confirm your change by pressing Enter next. So let me be clear: having controls on the canvas away from where you need them is no better than having them in a sidebar. At least in the sidebar they won't overlay part of the image. But we don't need all that stuff in the sidebar either: 1) We seem to have a convention that a double click to confirm works for both mouse and tablet stylus. That loses us the Rotate button. 2) Pressing Esc resets rotation angle, so we need something for tablet users there (Jehan?). Although, to be honest, I don't see how resetting angle fits any workflow. Origin -- yes, there may be a reason to reset it. But angle is something you either know exactly or tweak visually until you are happy with the outcome. Of course, just my POV. 3) Slider for angle --- again, what use case does it fit? It doesn't help with small rotation step, and for large steps we have all the canvas in the world :) That leaves us Angle, Origin X, Origin Y and maybe a small reset button for the origin. Fits the rest of Settings dialog nicely. What I _would_ add to the canvas is a small on-screen display item that would follow the mouse pointer at an offset and display current angle as long as you drag and disappear as soon as you stop. That way you know the current angle exactly _and_ you don't have to change your point of eye focus _and_ you can evaluate the result without visual obstacles (just stop dragging). The same logic applies to other transformation tools: be there when you are needed, go away when you are disrupting the workflow. It also applies to the much maligned Text tool :) Here is one of the things that is wrong with it. There can be 3 (THREE) simultaneously available text setting areas on display: on-canvas toolbar, text editor dialog, and settings in the sidebar. All three have a feature overlap. Isn't that a little crazy? I get why software like InDesign and Scribus have Story Editors: those help with editing long text that crosses pages and flows from text frame to another. We don't have that kind of stuff. So I;m not sure why we keep the text editor. Personally, I like the on-canvas toolbar despite having to know exactly the name of a typeface I will need (and I totally get why this makes other people's blood boil). But again, I see some ways to make it better (same for the settings in the sidebar). And above all, it kinda sucks that we are having this conversation right when 2.10 is looming upon us. Sorry about that. Alex ___ gimp-gui-list mailing list gimp-gui-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list
[Gimp-gui] What is your opinion on on-canvas dialogs?
Hello! This is mostly a discussion for people who have tried, and better are already using regularly, GIMP 2.9.x, since on-canvas dialogs mostly don't exist (or very scarcely) in GIMP 2.8. First a definition: the on-canvas dialogs are the dialogs which appear on the canvas (with some kind of semi-transparency) instead of in their own dedicated window. In GIMP 2.9.x, all transform tool (rotation, scale, shear, perspective, unified transform, etc.), as well as color-picker and Measure tools information appear as on-canvas dialogs. You can still detach them (second button to the top right), but that's not the default. It looks fancy and all, but with time, it feels like many people are more bothered by this dialog being on the canvas than anything else, and the first thing many want to do is to detach it. So what's your opinion? Is the on-canvas dialog simply not featureful enough (maybe if it could be moved as well, it would help a lot)? Or maybe it should just stay as a pop-up? Myself have often thought that the data in there could also make it as a window which could be dockable. Akkana Peck even proposed it could just go in the tool options (cf. bug 791797). Is there anyone who like the on-canvas GUIs? Jehan P.S.: note that for 2.10, there will only be 2 likely outcomes: either we keep them as-is or we may disable them (especially since their code also have some serious stability issues). But improvements can happen as a longer-term solution after 2.10. -- ZeMarmot open animation film http://film.zemarmot.net Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/ZeMarmot/ Patreon: https://patreon.com/zemarmot Tipeee: https://www.tipeee.com/zemarmot ___ gimp-gui-list mailing list gimp-gui-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list
