Yet another brush interface proposal

[Valerie]

Why yes, another one. Please throw my previous one into the
trash bin! :D

Foreword: So the popslide idea was promising, but in the
meantime, there was still the question of names, especially
since with a few "Position jitter" and "Whatever fade",
your whole toolbar is already full. Solution: use icons
instead. But then there's the question of what they'd look like.

So lo and behold! My brush options icons proposals! (in very,
very rough concept format)

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/6577/brushiconslb3.png

Mouse-over shows the name, of course. The eye icon helps you
determine what entries are present and what are not. 

Jitters are presented by a little zig-zag, fades by a little
arrow-down. Gets the job done, no? (note: in the event of not
knowing what a position fade or an angle fade is supposed to
do, I simply left them out. On the other hand, the normal "angle"
entry may have a "map to stroke direction" option if it is
possible to code. If not, then it only works with the "bezier"
drawing option).

Please also note: all my examples apply merely to the options of 
the so-called "generic" brush. Natural brushes have completely
different options, except I have no idea what said options are, so
haven't made any examples out of them. If someone can provide me
with all the parameters of a natural brush algorithm, I could always
try to think something up.

And now for resulting toolbar examples!

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/383/brushtoobar1fw0.png
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/1992/brushtoolbar2ou5.png

If too many options are opened on one row, another row is
added.

The biggest thing you might notice is that tool options and
value sliders aren't stuffed under the same button. There's
a difference between a value and tool options as a whole,
after all, besides I think this makes the interface leaner
since users change values frequently and tool options less
frequently, and they thus don't have to open so much at a time.

Notice the "map to stroke" option. Until Krita manages to do
real-time calculations and estimates of strokes, it could only
work with bezier stroke, and will automatically switch to it
accordingly.

But it basically gives the users the possibility of doing
easy perfectly smooth double-edge strokes, which are normally
only possible with graphics tablets (and even then, I've yet
to easily do them in most programs. Tablets are jittery with
most existing open source programs D: ) I would like this
feature. Please?

As for organizing, that shouldn't be too much of a problem if
the following idea works, my "drawers" proposal:

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/6924/drawersconceptzw3.png

(actually, I've noticed a mistake: the arrows for the first
three entries shouldn't be there, clicking on any of them loads
the corresponding "drawer." Ah well, will change later)

Intuitive enough? Just click the drawer icon and you can access
any other drawers you need to open. It is otherwise managed
like you would bookmarks, with tree systems and moving entries
around. This replaces my previous (rather cumbersome) proposal
for workspace management.

Oh by the way, in reply to Boemann:

> My KoPopupSlider also pops up with the knob directly under
> the mouse

Yay! :D

> Not sure we'd want to do that though. Some things are nice to
> always be available. I for one always maximize the height of
> the layerbox so I can see as many layers as possible.

I meant to have both! Inkscape has both, via a drop-down at the
bottom. It's nice to have the option.

And in reply to Boudewijn Rempt: nice to see you're keeping up
with so much! That said, I quite agree that programs should follow
their own visions. But nothing prevents a program from borrowing
a nice tool or code from another. It's the same-ish concept as
sharing libraries! :D No need to re-invent the wheel, and no need
to not use wheels just because another car also has it. Gimp is
still at its heart a photo-editing program, so its interface will
always be geared towards that.


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