Subject: [Gimp-gui] Food for thought: the clumsiness of the current layer creation proces

From: Ofnuts <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2015 11:26:46 +0100

There are too many things to tell when creating a new layer and and an 
important one is missing....

In my experience with Gimp, I haven't got that many use cases:

- Fill: layer is either transparent, or filled with the background color
- Size: layer is image sized, or the same size as the current layer
- Position (missing in current dialog): layer is at 0,0 (image sized) or 
overlaps current layer

IMHO: asking for a size in the layer dialog is pointless, because 
usually you cannot tell the size in pixels in advance (and when you can 
you also have a position in mind...). In real life you create an 
image-sized layer and crop it later using its contents as a reference.

If we can skip the dialog then we have shortcuts for instant layer 
creation, especially for the three most used:

  * image-sized filled with background color
  * image-sized and transparent
  * copy of the active layer, transparent

You can always fill/crop/name the layer afterwards so no functionality 
is lost.

A penny for your thoughts

---

From: Jehan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2015 15:07:54 +0100

Hi,

On 2015-12-15 11:26, Ofnuts wrote:
> There are too many things to tell when creating a new layer and and
> an important one is missing....
> 
>  - Position (missing in current dialog): layer is at 0,0 (image sized)
> or overlaps current layer
> 
> usually you cannot tell the size in pixels in advance (and when you
> can you also have a position in mind...). In real life you create an

I agree I have never created a new layer different from default size. 
And I don't believe I have ever seen anyone using it either.
Thus I indeed wonder how useful this is. This said, unless we manage to 
remove the whole dialog altogether (which is your goal below, I see), 
removing these specific features in this dialog is useless because it 
does not really slow users down (since most of the time, you are good 
with just hitting Enter to keep your defaults, which is very fast).

So I am not sure to be in favor to remove this.
Maybe there are users who really use this and getting rid of it would be 
a bother to them whereas it is not a problem at all to us.

> You can always fill/crop/name the layer afterwards so no functionality

It is already possible to create a layer of the last type you did by 
shift-clicking the New Layer button, and there is a 
layers-new-last-values action which does this too (which you can assign 
a shortcut to).

I am not sure creating shortcut buttons or actions for 3 specific 
combinations is really a good idea.
My personal preference for instance is mostly "image-sized and 
transparent" (even when I want a background, I usually create my 
transparent layer first in 1 click, then drag'n drop the fg color over 
it and tada! Much faster than going through the New Layer dialog). This 
is like 90% of my needs. So for instance if we were to compare my needs 
to your proposition, we would create 2 new buttons which I would 
consider cluttering the UI for not that big a workflow improvement.

So in the end, I'm not sure if you are not taking particular cases and 
putting them in the UI.

Jehan

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---

From: Ofnuts <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2015 22:03:31 +0100

On 15/12/15 15:07, Jehan wrote:
> it and tada! Much faster than going through the New Layer dialog). 
> This is like 90% of my needs. So for instance if we were to compare my 
> needs to your proposition, we would create 2 new buttons which I would 

I'm not talking about buttons, I'm talking about direct-action keyboard 
shortcuts. But I agree that the filled version isn't necessary. So that 
leaves us with two.

---

From: Jehan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2015 22:39:06 +0100

Hi,

On 2015-12-15 22:03, Ofnuts wrote:
> I'm not talking about buttons, I'm talking about direct-action
> keyboard shortcuts. But I agree that the filled version isn't
> necessary. So that leaves us with two.

I have already said it but since you keep only a small part of my email: 
if you read the thread that Joseph Buppe linked earlier, you will see 
that some people always use the white, others used the foreground fill, 
etc. Nothing seems to indicate that making transparent layers are more a 
more common action. You and I are not representative of the whole 
userbase.

The more I think about it, the less I think we should make default 
action for every particular create-a-layer case. Now custom actions are 
very easy to create in a plugin. If all you need is an action, why don't 
you simply make yourself a few-line plugin? This is why the plugin 
system was created: to handle specific use cases.
I myself have made several of these (plugins of a few lines which just 
add simple actions — which I need — to map to a shortcut) and that fits 
perfectly my needs.

Our plugin API is far from perfect and it cannot do some things (like 
updating the default UI); but creating actions, this is no problem.

Jehan

---

From: Ofnuts <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2015 23:10:45 +0100

On 15/12/15 22:39, Jehan wrote:
> action for every particular create-a-layer case. Now custom actions 
> are very easy to create in a plugin. If all you need is an action, why 
> don't you simply make yourself a few-line plugin? This is why the 
> plugin system was created: to handle specific use cases.
> add simple actions — which I need — to map to a shortcut) and that 
> fits perfectly my needs.
>

We can both write plugins, but plenty of users can't, and for them 
locating a plugin (assuming they even think that a plugin for this could 
exist....) isn't always easy...

---

From: Andrew Pullins <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2015 15:57:46 -0500

> IMHO: asking for a size in the layer dialog is pointless, because usually
> you cannot tell the size in pixels in advance (and when you can you also
> have a position in mind...). In real life you create an image-sized layer
> and crop it later using its contents as a reference.
>    - image-sized filled with background color
>
>
>    - image-sized and transparent
>
>
>    - copy of the active layer, transparent
>
> You can always fill/crop/name the layer afterwards so no functionality is
> lost.

This dialog has always aggravated me.  I have always wanted it to go away.
It is rare that I ever want to make a layer that is not transparent and the
full length of the image.  In my opinion the action should be the
opposite of what it does now. You click the new layer button and it would
just create a layer with the same options as you previously did. When the
layer is created it gives you the option to name it as though you were to
double click the image right away, and if the user does not want to name it
clicking anywhere else would just leave the layer name editor.
Shift-Clicking would bring up the Layer options dialog so that users can
select new layer options.

For people who do use the same layer options over and over regardless of
whether they like transparent, white, four ground, or background, this
dialog popping up every single time I want to make the same layer I just
made is annoying.

> shift-clicking the New Layer button, and there is a layers-new-last-values
> action which does this too (which you can assign a shortcut to).

 Thank you so much for this. I have wanted to Ctrl-click the new layer
button to do what Shift-Click does for years.  I will be using this every
time I make a new layer from now on.

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On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:10 PM, Ofnuts <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> The more I think about it, the less I think we should make default action
>> for every particular create-a-layer case. Now custom actions are very easy
>> to create in a plugin. If all you need is an action, why don't you simply
>> make yourself a few-line plugin? This is why the plugin system was created:
>> to handle specific use cases.