The future of selections and masks in Krita

[Casper Boemann]

On Tuesday 01 August 2006 15:37, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> The issue is: something created based on, in association with one set
> of data suddenly applies to another set of data. That's confusing.
I agree, and to turn this thread back into constructive mode (rather than just 
arguing) I think we should set this as one of the problems our solution 
should solve

> That's 
> harmful, because if you're the kind of artist who doesn't plan in advance,
> but works on all levels almost simultaneously, you have to remember to turn
> the current selection into a mask before leaving the layer, and turning the
> mask into a selection after selecting the layer.
Well the are other ways to solve this, without creating a "multi selection 
hell"

And I know I shouldn't put this up here before we discuss usecases some more, 
but I just don't want this to be forgotten.

My extended suggestion is:
  - a single global selection
  - masks galore (like all the use we have talked of)
  - conversions between masks and selection

No difference yet from the orignal proposal. Now on IRC Cyrille and I 
brainstormed what selection are good for and what we came up with is 
cut/copy, protecting pixels and source for transform tool.

Further we asked ourselves when do you actually want to reuse a selection and 
the answer is for protecting pixels, Cyrille said (and I follow him) that he 
often protects pixels in different layers (right now he does that with 
selection ofcourse)

But to me this suggests that we should take the write protecting out of 
selections and into "edit masks". Now for all intents and purposes this will 
give us exactly what boud wants but just not calling it selections, but "Edit 
masks" (or some other name if you like)

This will allow us to have a single global selection (good for consistency 
with other apps) and still have all the things you want. In fact apart from 
taking the cut/copy and "source for transform" out of it, and a namechange it 
is _exactly_ what you want.

Now selection (which no longer act as write protection) and is global are no 
longer needed for longer than the actual period of time. This allows us 
discard the selection when changing layer.

Actually I want it to be so that selecting a layer (clicking in the layerbox) 
is the same as making a selection. You effectively select the entire layer. 
This also handles the ambigiouty of Select All / Deselect. There is no longer 
such thing as deselected. You have always selected either a layer or a 
subpart of a layer.

Now in case the problem of loosing selection (which changing layer does) is 
too big a problem I imagine a scratchpad of masks, where selections are 
automatically stored when "loosing" them so they can be retrieved when 
needed. This would even allow several different masks (which can be converted 
into a selection) to be kept at hand.

-- 
best regards / venlig hilsen
Casper Boemann