On 05/17/2012 05:38 PM, Richard Gitschlag wrote:
... is that you can't edit them.
I don't mean it quite the way it sounds, but it's something I've
noticed ever since GIMP 2.2 that has repeatedly been an annoyance to
my individual workflow. And minor annoyances are worse over time than
major ones.
For example: When you're using the Paintbrush or Pencil tool (with a
standard brush) you have a button to select a brush from the Brushes
dialog, and you have a button nearby to Edit that brush. However, the
Brush Editor won't let you actually DO anything as long as you're
using a default brush, because as a default resource that brush is
read only.
The same thing applies with Brush Dynamics. By moving them out of the
tool context into their own 'resource' type, 2.8 loses the ability to
make arbitrary edits on an impromptu basis. I can't, say, adjust the
pressure curve on the default Pressure-Opacity setting because, as a
default resource, you can't edit it. At all.
Of course, there's an easy workaround to the current behavior: Take a
default resource and Duplicate it. Then you can fine-tune its
settings however you want. I did this back in GIMP 2.4 - I created
two standard brushes (with differing hardness values) solely so I
could set up keyboard shortcuts to increase/decrease brush size on the
fly. (During 2.6 I retweaked my keyboard shortcuts to affect the
brush scalar, for the same end result; size is a moot point in 2.8
with brush size being part of the tool context, but it can still occur
with other brush settings, like hardness).
But the issue definitely comes up with editing Brush Dynamics now that
they have been made an official resource type. It's ... roughly like
if you opened an image from a read-only XCF file and GIMP insists you
Duplicate the image before allowing you to make any edits to the image
whatsoever. (Okay, so that's an exaggeration.) I know, the change
was deliberate, but from the user view it's still a loss of
convenience and functionality -- a regression. If I want to adjust
the pressure curve on a Dynamic, I first have to ensure that I'm
working on an editable copy of it and not one of the defaults.
So I'm going to toss out some ideas to discuss:
1 - If a default resource is selected, the matching Editor dialog
(Brushes editor, Dynamics editor, etc.) should have a "Duplicate"
button on its own dialog. This would save the extra click of having
to bring up a different dialog and hit the button from there.
2 - Better yet, instead of locking down all the Editor's controls,
have GIMP give you a prompt asking if you want to Duplicate the
resource first (or even do that automatically) when you try to tweak
its settings. This would save one more click over idea #1 - you
couldn't make it any easier than that.
3 - Or can you? Maybe the default resources to be edited under the
condition that those changes can't be saved/overwritten back to the
original (read only) file. (Much like being able to make edits to a
read-only XCF file; sure you can edit, you just can't overwrite the
original file with those changes.) Also provide a "Revert" button
which would refresh the resource back to its original state (like the
"Reset" buttons on any number of adjustment tools).
4 - Or, if all else fails, have the GIMP distribution include one of
each type resource (well, at least one Brush and one Dynamic) which
are installed in the respective user resources folder (rather than the
default resources folder, which is marked read-only). This keeps all
the default set of resources, but adds one of each that the user may
adjust at their whim.
Thoughts on the matter?
If you are a using a "serially multi-user computer" (family computer,
for instance) you don't want anyone to mess with the standard stuff. And
the standard stuff is is directories that may not be backed up regularly.
All this stuff is in files, If you want to be able to edit it, you can
copy it to you own R/W directories, and disable the "shared" directories
in Edit/Preferences/Folders.
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