Subject: [Gimp-gui] Layer mask button for the layers toolbar, feature additions?

From: Ben <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2015 15:00:33 -0500

I had posted a patch to a bug report to add support for a button to be 
added to the toolbar for the layer dialog/widget (see 
https://imgur.com/wkyxoqM), but it's been suggested i post here for 
starters to start a dialog. So here i go :)

I was wondering what the reticence to having the button there was. 
Photoshop has a similar feature to add layer masks which avoids having 
to reach for the menu to enable it.

It was originally suggested i just make a keyboard shortcut but for me 
and i would think for a lot of people that would not be exactly 
feasible. I already have too many apps that could make use of that and 
too few keys on the keyboard i could de-allocate from them as-is :)

For me and most folks coming from photoshop who may give GIMP a try 
would find this slowing us down considerably in our work flow 
(especially when working on composites where masking is heavily used).

Hence why i came up with a patch to add a button to add them from the 
interface and opened a bug report for that.

Having said that, i've spent the week since pondering an alternative 
that could solve everyones dilemma, which would be to add the ability to 
ctrl-click the selected layer to enable a layer mask (which if that were 
added, it would be trivial add the opposite effect to remove the layer 
mask by also ctrl-clicking).

I haven't looked at the code yet (been busy with this whole icon themes 
business lol) so not sure how feasible/work it involves but if it will 
never get added there isn't much point for me to go on and try to 
implement it.

So here we are, what do you all think?

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From: Pat David <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2015 20:40:28 +0000

I'm a fan of the idea of making the addition of a layer mask easier, and
not a fan of adding more buttons if it can be avoided...  So Ctrl+Click
sounds like a great comprom
On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 2:17 PM Ben <[email-masked]> wrote:

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---

From: Jehan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2015 21:52:54 +0100

Hi,

> to reach for the menu to enable it.

It does not look too bad to me. But then there are other features in the 
right-click menu which are often used too. We just can't add them all.
I don't really have a strong opinion here.

> (especially when working on composites where masking is heavily used).

As a side note, comparing GIMP to Photoshop will never be the reason to 
a decision. We would choose to implement something because we decide 
that it is a good design, whether Photoshop does it or not (or even the 
opposite!).

> that could solve everyones dilemma, which would be to add the ability
> to ctrl-click the selected layer to enable a layer mask (which if that
> were added, it would be trivial add the opposite effect to remove the
> layer mask by also ctrl-clicking).

Ctrl-click definitely not IMHO. We want to add multi-layer selection at 
some point and ctrl/shift clicking are common mouse usage for 
multi-selection.
Unless this is ctrl-click on some specific place of the layer (like we 
have shift-click which has a particular meaning when on the eye and 
chain icons of the layer).

> I haven't looked at the code yet (been busy with this whole icon
> themes business lol) so not sure how feasible/work it involves but if
> it will never get added there isn't much point for me to go on and try
> to implement it.
> 

I'm not sure. It does not look like a bad idea.

Jehan

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From: "draekko.software" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2015 18:14:48 -0500

On 12/14/2015 03:52 PM, Jehan wrote:
> It does not look too bad to me. But then there are other features in 
> the right-click menu which are often used too. We just can't add them 
> all.
> As a side note, comparing GIMP to Photoshop will never be the reason 
> to a decision. We would choose to implement something because we 
> decide that it is a good design, whether Photoshop does it or not (or 
> even the opposite!).
>
I'd already understood that going through the various bug reports prior 
to bug report and this post :)

My point still stands, which is the gimp way in this instance may not be 
the best way of doing it or the only way to clarify. Either way adds 
whats needed. Though i do admit it will make the it a bit more crowded 
should the button be added but not overly so.

> Ctrl-click definitely not IMHO. We want to add multi-layer selection 
> at some point and ctrl/shift clicking are common mouse usage for 
> multi-selection.

Valid point.  It hadn't dawned me because gimp never had group/multi 
layer selections before. hmmmm. Maybe it would be best  to have it 
toggle by ctrl-clicking the image in the layer but that would probably 
still cause confusion in the future with multiple layers selection :(

Also adding another icon besides the link and visible icons might make 
it feel even more crowded than the bottom button would though that could 
be a third option.

As a side note i've always found that to be an irritation to not be able 
to select multiple layers to work on or with. Well that, the layer mask 
selection and not having non destructive layers :) **Kneels and prays to 
the gegl gods** lol.

> I'm not sure. It does not look like a bad idea.

Which one the button or the ctrl-click idea.

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From: Ofnuts <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2015 10:59:17 +0100

> (especially when working on composites where masking is heavily used).

On the other hand:

  * this is something you only do once in the life time of the layer
  * this isn't an immediate operation... the menu leads to a dialog to
    select how to initialize the mask

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From: "Liam R. E. Quin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2015 23:37:20 -0500

> I was wondering what the reticence to having the button there was.

For my part it makes the dock too wide.

I think I'd rather have a context-menu-affordance button equivalent to
right-clicking on the selected layer.

---

From: Ofnuts <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2015 11:28:36 +0100

> For my part it makes the dock too wide.

If you have it wide enough to fit meaningful names it would fit :)

---

From: Andrew Pullins <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2015 15:32:30 -0500

Pat David wrote

> sounds like a great comprom

Liam R. E. Quin wrote

> right-clicking on the selected layer.

Why not make it so that the dialog icons are configurable? I personally
would like to have a merge down button replace the anker button. I always
want to add a new layer when I past something into gimp and never ever want
to anker it, I think this should GIMP should work, just add a new layer
when I paste something into the image.  If I want to merge it down with the
layer under it I would go to the menu and merge it down.

Any way why not make it so that anything in the dialog's dialog menu can be
put in the icon bar at the bottom?  So in this case the layer dialog > menu
> layers menu. anything in this menu can be added or removed from the icon
bar at the bottom.  This way if you want the layer mas button you can have
it, if you don't want it you don't want it you can leave the dialog alone.
This could also work for other dialogs for example I think there are too
many options in the navigation dialog. I would like it to only show zoom
in, zoom slider, zoom out, and 1 to 1 zoom buttons. Oh and possibly some
rotate canvas options :)

I think this option is the most GIMP way.  Let the user decide how they
want their UI and don't force them into any one option.

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From: "draekko.software" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2015 12:19:39 -0500

> right-clicking on the selected layer.
I've made an alternate patch to the button one that instead lets you 
ctrl-click the image for the layer to add /  remove a layer mask and the 
ability to set a preset setting in the prefs dialog. 
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=759601 if you compile it let 
me know what you think.

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From: Jehan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2015 21:12:46 +0100

Hi,

On 2015-12-16 21:32, Andrew Pullins wrote:
> Pat David wrote
> 
>> I'm a fan of the idea of making the addition of a layer mask easier,
>> and not a fan of adding more buttons if it can be avoided... So
>> Ctrl+Click sounds like a great comprom
> 
> Liam R. E. Quin wrote
> 
> Why not make it so that the dialog icons are configurable? I
> personally would like to have a merge down button replace the anker
> button. I always want to add a new layer when I past something into
> gimp and never ever want to anker it, I think this should GIMP should
> work, just add a new layer when I paste something into the image.  If
> I want to merge it down with the layer under it I would go to the menu
> and merge it down.

Having UI customizable would be a great solution indeed. Something like 
in Firefox which has a customization mode, where you can choose which 
icons you want or not, and where.
This does not replace scriptable UI (which allows much more), but it 
would already allow fair customization here.

Jehan

> Any way why not make it so that anything in the dialog's dialog menu
> can be put in the icon bar at the bottom?  So in this case the layer
> dialog > menu > layers menu. anything in this menu can be added or
> removed from the icon bar at the bottom.  This way if you want the
> layer mas button you can have it, if you don't want it you don't want
> it you can leave the dialog alone.  This could also work for other
> dialogs for example I think there are too many options in the
> navigation dialog. I would like it to only show zoom in, zoom slider,
> zoom out, and 1 to 1 zoom buttons. Oh and possibly some rotate canvas
> options :)
> 
> I think this option is the most GIMP way.  Let the user decide how
> they want their UI and don't force them into any one option.

---

From: Andrew Pullins <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2015 15:32:33 -0500

>
> Having UI customizable would be a great solution indeed. Something like in
> Firefox which has a customization mode, where you can choose which icons
> you want or not, and where.
> This does not replace scriptable UI (which allows much more), but it would
> already allow fair customization here.

I see this working three ways.

1. A toolbox like menu in the preferences that would allow you to select
the dialog and what menu items to show in the button bar and in which order.

2. A customize Button bar menu item under the "Show Button Bar"  menu
item that would bring up a dialog much like #1.

3. A a menu list under the "Show Button Bar" menu item that would allow you
to select or deselect menu items that would show in the button bar.

#3 might be annoying as every time you select an item the menu would
disaear making you have to select the menu again and navigate to the
customize Button bar menu list.  #1 and #2 could be both be an option #2
bringing you to the #1 dialog.

On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 3:12 PM, Jehan <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Having UI customizable would be a great solution indeed. Something like in
> Firefox which has a customization mode, where you can choose which icons
> you want or not, and where.
> This does not replace scriptable UI (which allows much more), but it would
> already allow fair customization here.
>
> Jehan
>
>

---

From: Alexandre Prokoudine <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2015 10:40:45 +0300

16 дек. 2015 г. 23:33 пользователь "Andrew Pullins" <[email-masked]>
написал:

> Why not make it so that the dialog icons are configurable?

This sounds like a terrible programming overhead :)

> I personally would like to have a merge down button replace the
anker button.

The anchor button would probably go away once floating selections are
dealed with at some point in the future. Ask Mitch :)

Alex

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From: Andrew Pullins <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2015 02:43:13 -0500

> This sounds like a terrible programming overhead :)

Whats the difference between this and the toolbox or where the dialog are
placed?