Subject: [Gimp-gui] Commiting tools changes

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2015 15:17:52 +0100 (CET)

Hi,

For all image map based tools (Colors Tools and Filters), committing the changes is always done by the same action: clicking the OK button at the bottom right corner of the dialog.
This is a consistent and intuitive behavior.

For all tools which create on-canvas controls and require a specific user action to commit the changes, 3 actions are available :

- click on a specific canvas region (scissors select tool, crop tool, blend tool) 
- click on a specific button on the overlay dialog (all transform tools, foreground select tool)
- press Enter

Currently, only the "press Enter" action is common to all these tools. I suggest to make the "click on a specific button" action a bit more coherent.

- add an overlay/detachable dialog (even if the tool has no information or parameters widgets to display)
- provide a button with always the same label (like "Proceed" or "Apply")

In this way, whatever tool is selected, users have an additional consistent and intuitive way to commit the tool changes.
And when new such tools will arrive into Gimp, users will already know how to commit their changes, even if they do not know how the new tool work.

Thomas Manni

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From: Elle Stone <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2015 16:46:59 -0500

> - provide a button with always the same label (like "Proceed" or "Apply")

This inconsistency between different tools really can be a bit confusing.

It would be nice if tools like drawing a gradient had a "Cancel" button 
as well as an "Apply" or perhaps "OK" button, to be consistent with 
things like the Curves and Levels dialog.

Best,
Elle

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From: Jehan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2015 00:58:16 +0100

Hi,

On 2015-12-02 22:46, Elle Stone wrote:
>> For all image map based tools (Colors Tools and Filters), committing 
>> the changes is always done by the same action: clicking the OK button 
>> at the bottom right corner of the dialog.
>> For all tools which create on-canvas controls and require a specific 
>> user action to commit the changes, 3 actions are available :
>> 
>> Currently, only the "press Enter" action is common to all these tools. 
>> I suggest to make the "click on a specific button" action a bit more 
>> coherent.

I agree that there should be consistent UI accross all tools.

>> - add an overlay/detachable dialog (even if the tool has no 
>> information or parameters widgets to display)

Really though, if they can be avoided (i.e. as you say no specific 
information or parameters needed), I really prefer the absence of 
overlay/dialog. They are always getting in the way and you end up moving 
them.

Perfect examples of transformation tools where dialogs are so annoying 
are the ones with handles on the corners (scale, perspective…), because 
if your image fills the screen, you usually don't have access to the 
top-right handle until you move the overlay/dialog. So adding these when 
they are not needed?
I am really not in favor of this.

So yes, consistent dialogs, but not at the price of loss of usability (a 
dialog in the middle of the canvas blocking you from accessing handles 
is a loss of usability in many cases).

>> - provide a button with always the same label (like "Proceed" or 

Yes it seems a good idea at first. But on the other hand, the fact that 
the rotation tool "OK" button says "Rotate", that the Scale says "Scale" 
and so on does not look so inconsistent to me either. Basically rather 
than the same shared label, the label states the action. It does not 
seem bad.

> It would be nice if tools like drawing a gradient had a "Cancel"
> button as well as an "Apply" or perhaps "OK" button, to be consistent
> with things like the Curves and Levels dialog.

Really, as said above, I would prefer not to add useless dialog to tools 
which don't need them. Rather than having dialogs everywhere, why not 
have consistency in keys? Actually I believe we already have these, but 
this can be specified clearly: Enter = Commit - Esc = Cancel, and so on.

If this is clearly documented (and also "Esc" is quite a common Cancel 
key, which people will usually try to cancel the current action), I 
think that's better than adding a dialog just to add such a button.

Jehan

> Best,
> Elle
> 
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