Re: [Tuxpaint-devel] Revisiting Selection tool idea

[Albert C. <aca...@gm...>]

8/7/07, Bill Kendrick <nb...@so...> wrote:

>     * Name: "Add" or "Add Rect."
>       Icon: Dashed rectangle with plus ("+") symbol
>       Description: Rectangular add to selection

This should automatically shrink to fit if the area is
multi-colored with a single-color border.

>     * Name: "Subtract" or "Sub. Rect." or "Remove" or "Remove Rect.
>       Icon: Dashed rectangle with minus ("-") symbol
>       Description: Rectangular remove from selection

This is neither needed nor simple to use.

>     * Name: "Add" or "Add Oval" or "Add Ellipse"
>       Icon: Dashed oval with plus ("+") symbol
>       Description: Oval add to selection

This is neither needed nor simple to use.

>     * Name: "Subtract" or "Sub. Oval." or "Remove" or "Remove Oval", or...
>       Icon: Dashed oval with minus ("-") symbol
>       Description: Oval remove from selection

This is neither needed nor simple to use.

>     * Name: "Add" or "Add Freehand"
>       Icon: Dashed squiggly outline with plus ("+") symbol
>       Description: Freehand (click-and-drag) add to selection

probably worth the complexity

>     * Name: "Subtract" or "Sub. Freehand" or "Remove" or "Remove Freehand"
>       Icon: Dashed squiggly outline with plus ("+") symbol
>       Description: Freehand (click-and-drag) add to selection

This is neither needed nor simple to use.

>     * Name: "Grow"
>       Icon: Grey dashed outline with a darker outline around it
>       Description: Grows the current selection by a few pixels

must be greyed out when the selection is everything or nothing

>     * Name: "Shrink"
>       Icon: Grey dashed outline with a darker outline within it
>       Description: Shrinks the current selection by a few pixels

must be greyed out when the selection is everything or nothing

needs two buttons, to allow choice of behavior at the screen edge

>     * Name: "Shrinkwrap" or "Snap"
>       Icon: Dashed outline of a hand with fingers spread (like tracing a hand
>       Description: Snaps/shrinks selection to any kind of obvious object
>         Tux Paint can find in the canvas

This needs no button if it happens when the selection is made.

>     * Name: "Unselect" or "None" or "Clear"
>       Icon: "X" or a grey dashed outline with a kind of "> <" (pop!) around i
>       Description: Disables any selection (aka 'Select None')

Maybe just make the selection go away when the user leaves the
selection tools. This is a destructive action unless it is in
the undo buffer. Losing the selection when leaving the selection
tools is unsurprising, perhaps expected, and helpful for teaching
users that the dashed lines are NOT part of the drawing.

>     * Name: "Cut"
>       Icon: Scissors
>       Description: Copy selection's contents to clipboard, remove contents
>         from canvas, and disable selection (aka 'Select None')
>
>     * Name: "Copy"
>       Icon: Photo camera
>       Description: Copy selection's contents to clipboard

The icon choice is very bad. That icon should be reserved for
grabbing a photo from a webcam or similar.

>     * Name: "Paste"
>       Icon: Large thumbnail of the current clipboard contents
>         (I figured it could be take up 2x2 spots in the toolbox)
>       Description: Acts like the Stamp tool; the user can click in the
>         canvas to 'paste' the clipboard's contents
>
>
>     * Name: "Mirror"
>       Icon: [Mirror icon used elsewhere in Tux Paint]
>       Description: Acts like the Stamp tool's mirror; mirrors the clipboard's
>         contents, so when it's pasted, it will appear mirrored, horizontally
>
>     * Name: "Flip"
>       Icon: [Flip icon used elsewhere in Tux Paint]
>       Description: Acts like the Stamp tool's flip; flips the clipboard's
>         contents, so when it's pasted, it will appear mirrored, vertically
>
>     * Maybe also include resizing 'slider', like Stamps have,
>       or Grow and Shrink buttons, like Fonts have in the Text tool.

You forgot quickmask mode. This is a really easy way to draw a selection.
It could even replace all the other methods above.

> Also, I'm considering whether I want to keep the current selection active
> when the user goes to use other tools, in which case it will act like other
> graphics tools.  That is, if you have a selection and then use the paint
> brush, the painting will be restricted to the selected area.  Magic Tools
> would similarly only affect the selection (likely by being masked when
> the Magic Tool plugin is done doing its job...?)

In general I think this would be horribly confusing. I think the selection
tools menu could include a few things for drawing. For example, there could
be a tool that does a 3D effect (like a typical GUI button) on the selection.

> This could be really useful, or could be very confusing.  Of course, making
> it optional is always an option. :)

Options are evil. If the defaults are good, then there is no need to
have any options. Having options tempts one to tolerate a bad GUI.