Some UI nitpicks

[John Califf]

David Johnson wrote:
> 
> Should the gradient editor and dialog be under the View menu? It seems to me
> that it doesn't quite fit. Everything else under View is in some way related
> to a viewport. It might work if these were "panes", but they appear to the
> casual user to be simply dialogs.
> 
> And on a related note, what the heck is the difference between a gradient
> editor and a gradient dialog? To the above mentioned casual user the names
> are almost synonymous.
> 

They should probably be somewhere else.  We will eventually have several
other special dialogs as well, for such things as scaling, etc.  There
is a difference between the gradient editor and dialog, though it's
worth a thought to combine them into one.  The gradient editor is used
to select a range of colors for a given gradient, and you should also be
able to edit the colors with it. The gradient dialog is for deciding
what type of gradient to create or use or modify in more general ways,
to generate what you see in the editor.  Once a specific gradient is
generated, you should be able to edit it in the editor and save it -
also load ones you've already saved or load gimp gradients.  But, if
they were combined you could see the results right away and that would
probably be better.

Right now they aren't very usable, and finishing them up is not a high
priority because I've been working on more basic and essential things -
like some of the basic tools, copy-paste and a few gui fixups.  I will
make another commit soon.

If you have more ideas on other dialogs we could use please feel free to
document them in outline form - just the name and one sentence perhaps
for now as they aren't coded yet.  I will add a "tools" menu which will
duplicate the tools toolbar we already have with subitems items for
settings for the tools (these will require properties dialogs) and one
for "effects".  So, put the gradient stuff under "effects" if you think
that's good.  We we will also add various effects that can be done on
selections, layers or entire images (later).  Actually everything is
either done to the current layer or the selection.  I've added a new
selection class - the selection can either be what is copied to the
clipboard or what is outlined in the layer itself - in context.  A
selection doesn't have to be copied to the clipboard to be acted on.  We
also need a view clipboard dialog that allows actually editing the
clipboard content before pasting into a layer using a sratch layer -
very easy to do.

Regarding tools (currently accessed from the toolbar) I am considering a
settings dialog for each tool accessed with either a right or middle
click, the left click being kept to actually activate the tool, as it
now does.  What do you think - right click or middle?   Also, feel free
to add more tools in your documentation - just the name of the tool
itself is enough for now.  I am slowly but steadily adding more tools
(just added a bucket fill tool and fixed the dropper tool so it works)
but you should have a general idea of what is needed - similar to gimp
but not as confusing I hope.  As we get more tools, they need to be
grouped into separate toolbars you can load and unload but that's a way
off.

I've added icons for everything we have so far - no more default app
icons, and fixed the custom cursors to show up properly with distinct
cursors for each tool.  Much nicer.  

So, count on a "tools" menu including at least one item for each tool we
now have, and an "effects" menu for the special dialogs.

John