Layer usuability idea

[Mr YouP]

Le Lundi 07 Novembre 2005 17:33, Thomas Zander, dans son immense bonté, 
déclamait :
> On Monday 07 November 2005 16:41, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> > > Previews is fine but not enough because they are often too small.
> > > Another idea for that is to display the selected layer line "bigger"
> > > than other. I'm thinking about the adept (see
> > > http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=470&slide=29
> > > ) way of display more information for selected line. We should have a
> > > bigger preview and some complementaries informations (such as what is
> > > locked, mask, etc...) than for other layers.
> >
> > That's a _very_ good suggestion. We will need hierarchical information
> > some time, but probably not too soon. I'll see how easy it is to
> > abstract the adept fold-out widget.
>
> I'm not sure I understand the suggestion myself. I like the option of
> having hierarchical layers, but I'm sure that is not what you two were
> talking about.
>
> If selecting the layer (making it the active one) means all the other
> layers in the listview will jump from postion because the current one got
> bigger, then I'm not sure I like it very much.
> Jumping GUIs makes people feel disoriented and out of control.
Yes that's a problem, I agree. I also have mixed feeling about that kind of 
"unfolding" (although it present il many software area - treeview...)
For me the point is that previews are often too small to be useful and that 
make it bigger burn to much place (which is always a big issue in a graphical 
soft). So my idea was a compromise.
Another should be to make the preview of only visible pixels in the layer (ie 
crop the preview to "visible pixel boundaries"). The drawback of this idea is 
that your losing your space orientation in the picture.
(layers aren't a simple subject)

> We had a suggestion to have a big tooltip for the preview.  I'm not sure
> what the easy solution is if you feel the different toggles take up too
> much space.
A tooltip like ones we could have for images in konqueror ?
I'm not enthousiast about "furtives" apparitions. first because when I want it 
I must move my mouse over the right place, second because it often popup when 
I don't want them (although, if it consume no time, it isn't too much 
annoying)

> We'll see when the new layers diag is going to be designed :)
No problem, I stay tuned :)

> > I'm having a head cold, so I'm not feeling bright enough to tackle
> > Thomas suggestion, but this something the cotton wool that passed for
> > brain tissue inside my skull can grasp.
>
> oh :(
> Get well soon!
Yes, sooner, the better !

Regards.