[Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
hiya, thanks for responding, On Sat, Nov 29, 2003 at 12:54:12PM +0100, Sven Neumann wrote: Carol Spears [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: are there other instances of tools that do not appear in either the menus or in the toolbox? No. All tools register a menu entry at least. A few of them set a flag that indicates that they don't want to show up in the toolbox. We should probably make this configurable somehow; perhaps for 2.2. Does that answer your question? having seen alts egg in gimp-1.2, i have no idea what might not show up in the gimp menus. i really thought that someone might 'fess (confess) to having a tool or plug-in included in gimp that does not use the usual registration protocol to get there. i was sorry to see only one negative and late response here. i wish i had time to try all the different key combinations on all the buttons of all the widgets to see if what you say is true. one thing i have learned, is that just because i try to do things the right way, it doesn't mean that others have done the same thing. carol ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
Hi, Carol Spears [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: are there other instances of tools that do not appear in either the menus or in the toolbox? No. All tools register a menu entry at least. A few of them set a flag that indicates that they don't want to show up in the toolbox. We should probably make this configurable somehow; perhaps for 2.2. Does that answer your question? Sven ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
[Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
hi, question: On Mon, Nov 24, 2003 at 06:42:21PM +0100, Sven Neumann wrote: Hi, Rapha??l Quinet [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You can already add a tools list/grid to whatever dock you like. But this list or grid of tools does not behave like the one in the toolbox, unfortunately. The grid view does not behave as set of buttons (different background color, no highlighting on mouse-over) and it is not possible to drag drop images (as mentioned in Dave's message). It would be nice to replace the main tools area in the toolbox by a grid view of the tools if these differences could be fixed. But then there would be even less reasons to treat the toolbox differently from all other docks. Exactly and that's why the toolbox is special. It holds the tool buttons, it decides what tool is active, it has the most important menu and for that reason it also creates images when things are dropped there. If the menu could also be removed or dragged to another dock, then the last difference between the toolbox and the other docks would go away. Or did I miss something important? You missed the important fact that the menu cannot be removed and that we don't intent to change this. Face it, as it stands, the toolbox is special. I really don't understand why you are questioning this. It's a fact. What about the tools that only appear in the menus? carol ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
Hi, Carol Spears [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What about the tools that only appear in the menus? They are tools but not in the toolbox, so what? Actually the toolbox editor that I roughly outlined would allow you to decide for yourself which tools are in the toolbox and which can only be accessed thru the menus. Sven ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
[Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
Well ... On Wed, Nov 26, 2003 at 10:17:46AM +0100, Sven Neumann wrote: Carol Spears [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What about the tools that only appear in the menus? They are tools but not in the toolbox, so what? Actually the toolbox editor that I roughly outlined would allow you to decide for yourself which tools are in the toolbox and which can only be accessed thru the menus. it was such a thorough discussion of the tools and such, i was interested to see so much exchanged about them and the tools that are only found in menus not mentioned. are there other instances of tools that do not appear in either the menus or in the toolbox? carol ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
On Mon, Nov 24, 2003 at 07:25:01PM +0100, Raphaël Quinet wrote: I am questioning this because I think that the fact that the toolbox is special is an artificial limitation that should go away in a future release in order to make the user interface more consistent and easier to use. Artificial limitations give the application some shape. A place that a user can stand and from which they can survey the rest of the application. Otherwise why doesn't the context menu in your text editor have an option to download QuickTime movies over UUCP and play them in the toolbar? Nick. ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
Hi, Raphal Quinet [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In most cases, a new user will have two GIMP windows that have more or less the same size: in the current docs, one of them is refered to as the toolbox and the other one is just a dock. Both of them have roughly the same importance: they control what happens to the image, and it is possible to move (almost) all dockable items freely between these windows. Both of them are managed in (almost) the same way. I don't agree. You are IMO simply putting it the wrong way. There's the toolbox that has the main menu and some other functions that are unique to the toolbox. Then there are docks. As a convenience, some of the dock functionality has been added to the toolbox. Note that the toolbox is not even a full-featured dock since it can't have an image menu. The toolbox is a special window and it is meant to be one. The fact that it can also swallow dockables is just a nice add-on, nothing more. For what reason do we want to call one of them the toolbox and treat it in a special way in the code and in the docs? Why couldn't we call any of the top-level control GIMP windows a toolbox or a dock, without having to care about how this window was created? If the list or grid of tools can be moved to any dock, wouldn't it be more appropriate to use the term toolbox for whatever window happens to contain the tool icons? But why should we make the tool buttons detachable? It would only lead to confusion and wouldn't add any extra value. So call me thick if you want (or just persistent), but I still do not see a good reason to have this artificial difference between the toolbox and the other docks. The argument from Simon about the minimal GIMP GUI seemed interesting at first, but on second thought it is not very good either: as the current toolbox window is also a dock containing several tabs, it is usually far from minimal. The default setup for the toolbox is just the tool buttons and the tool options docked to it. We allow the user to add more tabs here but it is certainly not what most people are using. Sven ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
On 25 Nov 2003 14:07:12 +0100, Sven Neumann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Raphaël Quinet [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: For what reason do we want to call one of them the toolbox and treat it in a special way in the code and in the docs? Why couldn't we call any of the top-level control GIMP windows a toolbox or a dock, without having to care about how this window was created? If the list or grid of tools can be moved to any dock, wouldn't it be more appropriate to use the term toolbox for whatever window happens to contain the tool icons? But why should we make the tool buttons detachable? It would only lead to confusion and wouldn't add any extra value. I was talking about the list or grid of tools (the Tools dockable), not the current tool buttons. Currently, we have two ways to display the tool icons: either as buttons (as shown in the current toolbox), or as a dockable list or grid of tools. Although the latter should be improved to have the same features as the current buttons (tooltips), it is more flexible because the user can customize how the icons are displayed. In order to reduce the amount of partially redundant code, we could get rid of the current toolbox replace it by the dockable grid of tools. Then we would call this the toolbox and it could be moved to any dock. That's what I tried to explain two messages earlier, in my reply to your first comments. Sorry if that was not clear enough. So call me thick if you want (or just persistent), but I still do not see a good reason to have this artificial difference between the toolbox and the other docks. The argument from Simon about the minimal GIMP GUI seemed interesting at first, but on second thought it is not very good either: as the current toolbox window is also a dock containing several tabs, it is usually far from minimal. The default setup for the toolbox is just the tool buttons and the tool options docked to it. We allow the user to add more tabs here but it is certainly not what most people are using. I thought that minimal GIMP GUI was used in the sense of small, i.e. that it would not take too much space on the screen. Even with a default setup including a single tab, this doubles the amount of space that would otherwise be taken by the toolbox. Adding more tabs does not change the amount of space used, unless this is done by stacking another dock area below the existing one. That's why I wrote that ``a better minimal GIMP GUI would only show the toolbox (i.e., just the list or grid of tool icons) and maybe the menu, but not any of the other dockable items.'' Anyway, it looks like neither of us will manage to convince the other one that one user interface model is easier to understand and use than the other one (toolbox must be special or all docks must be equal). So I propose that we leave it at that for the moment and only revisit this issue if we get significant feedback about this. -Raphaël ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
[Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
Following the discussion in bug #115092 and according to Sven's suggestion, I am moving a part of the discussion here: what is special about the GIMP toolbox, from a user's point of view? What makes it different from the other docks? There are some subtle differences that are internal and IMHO not important from the user's point of view: the code currently keeps some references to that window because it contains the brush, pattern, gradient and color indicators but these will probably change or go away soon. Also, its title is handled differently from the other dock windows and there are other internal differences due to the fact that the code of the GIMP must have at least one window to start with. But if we look at the remaining differences (again, from the user's point of view, not from the code point of view), what is left? - The toolbox has a menu bar. - The toolbox contains the buttons for switching tools. Apart from these differences, I consider the toolbox to be just another dock: - one can drag tabs to and from it, - one can move and resize it - its state is saved accross sessions, - it is a controller window that allows the user to perform some actions on the current (active) image. As I wrote in bug #115092, I don't think that any user would be surprised if we allowed the menu and the tool buttons to be dragged from the toolbox to any other dock. In fact, it would be nice to add this feature to a future release. Is there anything else that makes the toolbox special in the GIMP user interface? -Raphaël ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
Raphaël Quinet wrote: There are some subtle differences that are internal and IMHO not important from the user's point of view: if we look at the remaining differences (again, from the user's point of view, not from the code point of view), what is left? - The toolbox has a menu bar. - The toolbox contains the buttons for switching tools. - Drag drop of URLs, image icons, etc. opens up the image. That's the only one I can think of off the top of my head. Cheers, Dave. -- David Neary, Lyon, France E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
Hi, Raphal Quinet [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Following the discussion in bug #115092 and according to Sven's suggestion, I am moving a part of the discussion here: what is special about the GIMP toolbox, from a user's point of view? What makes it different from the other docks? The toolbox is the first window that opens and the last that closes. It is even raised when the last image window is closed. It is treated special when you hit Tab. All this makes it the leader window of the GIMP application. It is a very special window and IMO there's no reason for this to change. As I wrote in bug #115092, I don't think that any user would be surprised if we allowed the menu and the tool buttons to be dragged from the toolbox to any other dock. In fact, it would be nice to add this feature to a future release. You can already add a tools list/grid to whatever dock you like. Sven ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 16:52:34 +0100, David Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Raphaël Quinet wrote: There are some subtle differences that are internal and IMHO not important from the user's point of view: if we look at the remaining differences (again, from the user's point of view, not from the code point of view), what is left? - The toolbox has a menu bar. - The toolbox contains the buttons for switching tools. - Drag drop of URLs, image icons, etc. opens up the image. Yes, but this is already a bit confusing for the user: you can drop something on the menu, on the icons of the tools or on the area around the color, brush, pattern and gradient selectors. But you cannot drop it on the selector themselves or on any other part of the toolbox window (e.g., the tabs attached to it, such as tool options, etc.) We should probably take care of the drag drop issues in a separate thread (maybe I should file a bug report) because I don't think that our user interface is very consistent there. How do we explain to a user _why_ she should drop an image on the menu or on the icons of the tools, but not on the other parts of the GIMP windows? -Raphaël ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
On 24 Nov 2003 17:04:37 +0100, Sven Neumann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The toolbox is the first window that opens and the last that closes. Yes, I mentioned this in my message (the code of the GIMP must have at least one window to start with). But this is not something that most users should care about, IMHO. It is even raised when the last image window is closed. It is treated special when you hit Tab. All this makes it the leader window of the GIMP application. But could you explain to a newbie _why_ this is like that? Is there a reason why only that window (which includes a dock) is raised when the last image window is closed and why this one is treated differently when you press Tab? Why don't we do the same thing for all docks? The only reasons that I can think of are historical, so this is not very good from a (new) user's point of view. It is a very special window and IMO there's no reason for this to change. The consistency of the user interface would be a good reason, IMHO. As I wrote in bug #115092, I don't think that any user would be surprised if we allowed the menu and the tool buttons to be dragged from the toolbox to any other dock. In fact, it would be nice to add this feature to a future release. You can already add a tools list/grid to whatever dock you like. But this list or grid of tools does not behave like the one in the toolbox, unfortunately. The grid view does not behave as set of buttons (different background color, no highlighting on mouse-over) and it is not possible to drag drop images (as mentioned in Dave's message). It would be nice to replace the main tools area in the toolbox by a grid view of the tools if these differences could be fixed. But then there would be even less reasons to treat the toolbox differently from all other docks. If the menu could also be removed or dragged to another dock, then the last difference between the toolbox and the other docks would go away. Or did I miss something important? -Raphaël ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
Hi, Raphal Quinet [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You can already add a tools list/grid to whatever dock you like. But this list or grid of tools does not behave like the one in the toolbox, unfortunately. The grid view does not behave as set of buttons (different background color, no highlighting on mouse-over) and it is not possible to drag drop images (as mentioned in Dave's message). It would be nice to replace the main tools area in the toolbox by a grid view of the tools if these differences could be fixed. But then there would be even less reasons to treat the toolbox differently from all other docks. Exactly and that's why the toolbox is special. It holds the tool buttons, it decides what tool is active, it has the most important menu and for that reason it also creates images when things are dropped there. If the menu could also be removed or dragged to another dock, then the last difference between the toolbox and the other docks would go away. Or did I miss something important? You missed the important fact that the menu cannot be removed and that we don't intent to change this. Face it, as it stands, the toolbox is special. I really don't understand why you are questioning this. It's a fact. Sven ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
On 24 Nov 2003 18:42:21 +0100, Sven Neumann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Raphaël Quinet [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If the menu could also be removed or dragged to another dock, then the last difference between the toolbox and the other docks would go away. Or did I miss something important? You missed the important fact that the menu cannot be removed and that we don't intent to change this. Face it, as it stands, the toolbox is special. I really don't understand why you are questioning this. It's a fact. I am questioning this because I think that the fact that the toolbox is special is an artificial limitation that should go away in a future release in order to make the user interface more consistent and easier to use. Let's imagine for a moment that the menu can be moved to any dock, and the tools area is just a grid view that can also be moved around. We may have to ensure that at least one menu is present in some dock, but this may not even be necessary if the functions can be accessed in some other way. If we achieve this, then the mental model of how the GIMP behaves becomes much simpler: - There is one, two or any number of windows (docks) that can include various controls acting on the image windows. - All docks are session-managed top-level windows. Their size and position are kept accross sessions. - All docks are equal and can host any number of tabs, including the one containing the tools. - The main menu is just another thing that can be included (or not) in a dock. If present, it would appear at the top of the dock. Wouldn't this be easier to understand and work with? The user simply has a number of control windows in which several dockable items can be organized in any way they want. And none of them is more special than the others. If there is no good answer to the question why do we need the toolbox to be special (from a user interface point of view)? then the differences between the toolbox and the other docks should go away. Not now, but in a future release. -Raphaël ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
Hi, Raphal Quinet [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I am questioning this because I think that the fact that the toolbox is special is an artificial limitation that should go away in a future release in order to make the user interface more consistent and easier to use. This discussion is about proper defaults for GIMP-2.0, not some future plans. Let's imagine for a moment that the menu can be moved to any dock, and the tools area is just a grid view that can also be moved around. We may have to ensure that at least one menu is present in some dock, but this may not even be necessary if the functions can be accessed in some other way. If we achieve this, then the mental model of how the GIMP behaves becomes much simpler: - There is one, two or any number of windows (docks) that can include various controls acting on the image windows. - All docks are session-managed top-level windows. Their size and position are kept accross sessions. - All docks are equal and can host any number of tabs, including the one containing the tools. - The main menu is just another thing that can be included (or not) in a dock. If present, it would appear at the top of the dock. Wouldn't this be easier to understand and work with? The user simply has a number of control windows in which several dockable items can be organized in any way they want. And none of them is more special than the others. I seriously doubt that this would make it easier for the user. In my opinion it only adds an completely unneeded level of configurability and thus complexity. The GIMP should have a common window that everyone (and the docs) can refer to as the toolbox. I don't see any good reason of changing this. Sven ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] What makes the GIMP toolbox special?
Raphaël Quinet ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On 24 Nov 2003 17:04:37 +0100, Sven Neumann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is even raised when the last image window is closed. It is treated special when you hit Tab. All this makes it the leader window of the GIMP application. But could you explain to a newbie _why_ this is like that? Is there a reason why only that window (which includes a dock) is raised when the last image window is closed and why this one is treated differently when you press Tab? Why don't we do the same thing for all docks? Actually the raising action that Sven mentioned is a side-effect of the Tab-Feature. I'm pretty sure that you know about it, but it appears garbled in your description. * The first Tab in an image window hides the toolbox and the docks * The second Tab lets the toolbox reappear * The third Tab also lets the docks reappear. Basically the Tab key cycles between Full blown GUI, Toolbox only, just image windows. And IMHO the possibility to have a reduced GUI (Toolbox only) seems useful to me. Of course we have to make sure that a window of the Gimp is visible when the last image window gets closed. So we make sure that the toolbox gets _present()ed again [1], when the last open image gets closed. So the Toolbox Window is different, because it is by definition the minimal GIMP GUI. Hope this clears things up. Bye, Simon [1] There lurks an annoyance here: this step actually should be omitted when actually closing the GIMP. I sometimes have the effect that I shut down the Gimp (living in its own Viewport), switch to a different Viewport and want to do something different and *oops* Sawfish switches back (because the toolbox got _present()ed) and I have to watch the Shutdown process of the GIMP. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.home.unix-ag.org/simon/ ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
