option panes vs presets

[Casper Boemann]

On Wednesday 22 June 2005 21:46, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> As you can see, I've started making the tools work with any and all
> paintop. Some paintops won't work that way, e.g., duplicate, because they
> need some special interface, but others could make a separate tool
> obsolete, like convolve or filter.
>
> Of course, the filter paintop  or the airbrush paintop should be
> configurable -- the rate of the airbrush and perhaps some other technical
> things that airbrush users know about -- or the actual filter called. Or,
> in the case eraser, erase to background or erase to transparent.
>
> There are two ways of going about providing this configurability:
>
> * Allow paintops to add an option pane to the control docker (or even to
> the tool option pane directly)
>
> * Create a number of credible presets and present them as different
> paintops in the interface. This should be accompanied by an gui that allows
> creating different configurations of paintops. This is more or less what
> the other paint apps like Corel Painter do.
>
> I tend to towards the second option because that way an artist can keep
> certain presents and have them easily available, but the first option
> allows for more immediate flexibility.
I would go for a mix:
being able to add as many airbrushes to the tool box as the user chooses, 
while still being able to modify the options for that tool.

However that reminds me of the system I use at work to report on what project 
I spend my hours. (2 hours on project A task Z, 3 hours on project B task X, 
etc) I'm able to define 8 presets, but as this is not enough I often end up 
with redefining my presets and then it's more of a hazzel than a help to have 
presets. Suddenly you even find out that you have two presets that are set up 
the same way.

Maybe that wont be a problem if you have an unlimited number of presets but I 
doubt it.

So in the end going for one icon per paintop and having to redefine the 
properties everytime may be the way to go.

That is a question for usabillity experts however, and I think it's about time 
we brought in some help on this.


On a different note. I'm concerned with the brush icon you have commited. It's 
erm a bit large isn't it.

Anyway I wasn't expecting there to both a brush and a natural brush tool. I 
would expect the brush tool to be as natural as possible in any colormode.

We should have the following "paint tools":
 -pencil (as natural as possible. ie antialiasing,wearing down)
 -brush (as natural as possible)
 -airbrush (as natural as possible)
 -eraser (as natural as possible, but with great care to be useful for all)
 -stamp (merge of old tools: duplicate, the traditional brush of images or 
patterns)
 -pixel (the traditional non-antialiased pixel mangling pen)
 -filter (perhabs put it under the stamp tool too?)

And the following "guide tools" (as I call them):
 -none (aka freehand)
 -line
 -rect
 -ellipse
 -polygon
 -polyline
 -star

Both should be visible with (normal svg'ed) icons in two different sections of 
the toolbox, for the user to mix and match.

-- 
best regards / venlig hilsen
Casper Boemann