Subject: [Gimp-gui] Dockable dialog for reference image(s)

From: Joseph Bupe <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 10:55:10 +0200

Hi,

When painting portraits from photos, I always want to have my canvas
side-by-side with a reference image. The only way I can display a reference
image within GIMP is to un-check the single-window mode option and set up a
second canvas to hold the reference image.

There should be a way to hold a reference image while still in
single-window mode. Maybe a dockable image reference dialog with options to
zoom-in/out and panning, more like the navigation dock - but not affecting
the image on the canvas. Or add an option to zoom-in/out the image(s) in
the document history dialog which I can also use for reference images.

Regards.

Joseph

---

From: Jehan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 18:05:32 +0200

Hi,

On 2015-10-15 10:55, Joseph Bupe wrote:
> side-by-side with a reference image. The only way I can display a
> reference image within GIMP is to un-check the single-window mode
> option and set up a second canvas to hold the reference image.

This is a common issue which often comes up. Our former UX architect 
even had some image with the concept (which he called a "polaroid"): 
http://mmiworks.net/pics/blog8/lgmpolaroidL.jpg
And for the full post: 
http://blog.mmiworks.net/2009/09/gimp-single-mode.html

This said, it also raises another discussion we had yesterday on IRC: is 
the distinction between the single and multi window(s) mode really 
necessary? I feel that we are forcing users to choose between 2 
extremes.
Moreover some SWM users seem nearly angry at us that this mode is not 
the default (and I feel that if we changed the default, some MWM users 
would get angry). Not that I really care at who is angry. But I care at 
what will make GIMP more usable. And I am not sure having 2 antithetic 
extreme modes is the solution.

So why couldn't we have a single window mode type UI and still be able 
to detach images out (not only as polaroid, but also to work on it; 
right now only docks can be detached). For instance someone could work 
on several screens, would want to open one image on one screen and the 
other on another screen for instance and still prefer the SWM UI.

Just some food for thoughts. :-)

Jehan

> single-window mode. Maybe a dockable image reference dialog with
> options to zoom-in/out and panning, more like the navigation dock -
> but not affecting the image on the canvas. Or add an option to
> zoom-in/out the image(s) in the document history dialog which I can
> also use for reference images.
> 
> Regards.
> 
> Joseph
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gimp-gui-list mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-gui-list

---

From: Pat David <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 16:20:45 +0000

> Just some food for thoughts. :-)

Would this be something like MWM, but the ability to dock dialogs to a
particular window? (ie: SWM would basically be MWM, but with everything
docked to one window).

---

From: Jehan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 18:25:53 +0200

Hi,

On 2015-10-15 18:20, Pat David wrote:
> particular window? (ie: SWM would basically be MWM, but with
> everything docked to one window).

Yes basically stop with the SWM vs MWM dichotomy and just have a 
flexible UI (so both current behaviors will be possible as well as 
intermediates). Just 1 mode.

Jehan

---

From: Alexandre Prokoudine <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 19:58:55 +0300

On 10/15/15, Jehan  wrote:

> This is a common issue which often comes up.

Yes, dockable side-by-side images with optional sync lock (pan all
syncable images at the same time) have been requested numerous times.
This would effectively eliminate the need for MWM, because it's pretty
much the only reason people use MWM, as witnessed in tons and tons of
threads on forums.

Alex

---

From: Akkana Peck <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 11:19:21 -0600

Jehan writes:
> Yes basically stop with the SWM vs MWM dichotomy and just have a flexible UI
> (so both current behaviors will be possible as well as intermediates). Just
> 1 mode.

I'm a huge proponent of having an intermediate solution between
all-SWM and all-MWM -- I'd love to see something like multiple
tabbed image windows, like a browser, so I could have one window
for the 7 photos I'm working on, a separate image window for that
32x32 favicon.ico I'm editing and a third for another view of that
favicon at 400% so I can edit the pixels. But there's one issue that
I'm not sure was ever solved: where do the Toolbox and dialogs dock?

Does every image window show them, or is there just one main image
window, as Pat suggests, with everything docked there, and all the
other image windows are independent and have nothing docked to them?
If there's one main window with images docked, how does something
like the Layers dialog indicate which image's layers are being
shown? If all the windows have toolboxes and dialogs, can they all
have different active tools, colors, brushes and patterns or do they
have to be kept in sync somehow?

Or something in between? For instance, there's only one Toolbox,
docked to the main image window, but every image window has its
own Layers, Paths, Channels and other dialogs.

I guess in my favicon example, I'd want to be able to have just the
image window for the 32x32 image view: it would be silly to have
dialogs stuck to that. So it should probably be at least possible
to bring up a "New View" window with no dialogs docked.

        ...Akkana

---

From: Alexandre Prokoudine <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 20:33:16 +0300

> I'm not sure was ever solved: where do the Toolbox and dialogs dock?

In one single place. Active image window would simply define the
context for them.

Duplicating toolbox for every docked image would be a capital crime :)

Alex

---

From: Joseph Bupe <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2015 09:34:39 +0200

> This is a common issue which often comes up. Our former UX architect even
> had some image with the concept (which he called a "polaroid"):
> necessary? I feel that we are forcing users to choose between 2 extremes.
> Moreover some SWM users seem nearly angry at us that this mode is not the
> default (and I feel that if we changed the default, some MWM users would
> get angry). Not that I really care at who is angry. But I care at what will
> make GIMP more usable. And I am not sure having 2 antithetic extreme modes
> is the solution.
>
> So why couldn't we have a single window mode type UI and still be able to
> detach images out (not only as polaroid, but also to work on it; right now
> only docks can be detached). For instance someone could work on several
> screens, would want to open one image on one screen and the other on
> another screen for instance and still prefer the SWM UI.
>

Hi,

I am in full support of the multiple windows mode within the single window
mode.

Here is my proposal.

The multiple  windows feature could consist of the following buttons:

1. minimize
2. restore down
3. close

To make the feature more discoverable, the buttons could be located in the
main menu bar to the far right of the "Help" menu, just under GIMP's
control buttons close button. The MWM buttons would be only available when
we are in SMW.

Here is how the MWM buttons would work:

1. minimize button: to invoke multiple image windows each for every image
already open in the SWM image tabs, but the image windows will be
minimized/ shrinked.

2. restore down button: to invoke multiple image windows each for every
image already open in the SWM image tabs. All image windows are visible
under each image tab, and any tab clicked sets focus on that tab's image
window.

3. close button: to close all SWM image tabs. (Would this be necessary)

Please, see the visual description in the link below:

Position of the MWM feature buttons in the SWM:

http://s11.postimg.org/8sx2nwh43/1_single_window.png

Restore Down (MWM):

http://s15.postimg.org/90ledhudn/3_minimize_down.png

Minimize:

http://s23.postimg.org/ynk55wiej/2_minimize.png

Regards.

---

From: Ofnuts <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2015 22:01:25 +0200

On 20/10/15 09:34, Joseph Bupe wrote:
>
>     This is a common issue which often comes up. Our former UX
>     architect even had some image with the concept (which he called a
>     "polaroid"): http://mmiworks.net/pics/blog8/lgmpolaroidL.jpg
>     And for the full post:
>     This said, it also raises another discussion we had yesterday on
>     IRC: is the distinction between the single and multi window(s)
>     mode really necessary? I feel that we are forcing users to choose
>     between 2 extremes.
>     Moreover some SWM users seem nearly angry at us that this mode is
>     not the default (and I feel that if we changed the default, some
>     MWM users would get angry). Not that I really care at who is
>     angry. But I care at what will make GIMP more usable. And I am not
>     sure having 2 antithetic extreme modes is the solution.
>
>     So why couldn't we have a single window mode type UI and still be
>     able to detach images out (not only as polaroid, but also to work
>     on it; right now only docks can be detached). For instance someone
>     could work on several screens, would want to open one image on one
>     screen and the other on another screen for instance and still
>     prefer the SWM UI.
>
> I am in full support of the multiple windows mode within the single 
> window mode.
>
> Here is my proposal.
>
> To make the feature more discoverable, the buttons could be located in 
> the main menu bar to the far right of the "Help" menu, just under 
> GIMP's control buttons close button. The MWM buttons would be only 
> available when we are in SMW.
>
> 1. minimize button: to invoke multiple image windows each for every 
> image already open in the SWM image tabs, but the image windows will 
> be minimized/ shrinked.
>
> 2. restore down button: to invoke multiple image windows each for 
> every image already open in the SWM image tabs. All image windows are 
> visible under each image tab, and any tab clicked sets focus on that 
> tab's image window.
>
How do you put one image per screen on multi-display systems?