Layer usuability idea

[Boudewijn Rempt]

On Monday 07 November 2005 20:49, Thomas Zander wrote:

> The main problem can not simply be 'working on the wrong layer'. Thats an
> unsolvable problem without wrecking the system that layers put in place.
> i.e. you can not expect the layers to behave like transparent sheets of
> glass and then at the same time expect to have a clear visual feedback on
> what the layers are.

No, but we can experiment and try to discover a great way to give users 
feedback on layer change.

A transient and auto-disappearing osd on layer change
A flash of brightness for the pixels in a layer on layer change
An transient and autodisappearing trace around all non-transparent pixels in a 
layer on layer change

Maybe something even more clever...

<...>

> So; you want to show the image a little differently then it actually is.
> Photoshop does this and I never found out how to disable this, I have
> been known to add 10 pixels left of my image for the sole reason of being
> able to see the top left pixels of my layer while there is an annoying
> status on top of it.

No, I don't want that -- but aren't you talking about a visualization that 
will mean that whenever you actively seek a reminder of what layer you're on, 
you'll have to move the mouse to the layer box, to the row that represents 
your layer, hover over the preview and wait for the display to show something 
that's different from the actual image?

> 1) there is the combobox to operate the paint method next to the brushes.
> I intend to address that as well soonish.

What I want here is to allocate a window-wide strip at the bottom of the view 
that contains a visual representation of the paintops ordered by category; 
i.e, chalks, pens, oil brushes, water color brushes, pixel tools -- and a 
nice way to select the current category. The combobox is a temporary measure 
that will probably still be there in 1.5...
-- 
Boudewijn Rempt 
http://www.valdyas.org/fading/index.cgi
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