node conversion gui

[Boudewijn Rempt]

Hi,

Recently someone on irc asked how they could convert a mask to layer (or the other way around). Looking at our current mask creation and mask-to-layer gui, we definitely are very limited in this regard. If I create a mask, I should have the choice to create it from another mask, the global selection, one of the channels of a layer or the grayscale representation of layer(1). And if I create a layer from a mask, I should be able to create any type of layer that has pixel data associated with it, and perhaps only use the mask as an alpha channel, or maybe have a default color for the pixels.

I was thinking to solve it in this way:

* replace the drop-down button for creating layers and masks with a row of buttons in the layerbox (this also solves the very fiddly layer creation with a stylus we have). It adds another row of buttons, but we can affort that, I guess.

* make the buttons drop targets for nodes from the layerbox

* when a node is dropped on a button, popup a dialog asking for the relevant options -- perhaps also with the option to remove the original node.

* then create the node according to the source and options


(1) Gimp allows white, black, layer's alpha, transfer layer's alpha, selection, grayscale, channel and invert as options when creating a mask.
-- 
Boudewijn Rempt
http://www.valdyas.org, http://www.krita.org, http://www.boudewijnrempt.nl