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List:       gimp-developer
Subject:    [Gimp-developer] Fwd: Re: Unified transform tool (mouse gestures)
From:       gg () catking ! net
Date:       2011-04-17 20:28:59
Message-ID: 4DAB4D8B.6020901 () catking ! net
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oops, only sent reply to Michael. Forwarding to list.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] Unified transform tool (mouse gestures)
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 10:33:10 +0200
From: gg@catking.net
To: Michael Grosberg <grosberg.michael@gmail.com>

On 04/17/11 08:31, Michael Grosberg wrote:
> Ofnuts<ofnuts<at>  laposte.net>  writes:
>
>>
>> Symmetry mode is not well defined... In your drawing, you drag on
>> top-right and the top-left follows (vertical axis), but it could as well
>> have been the bottom-right (horizontal axis), and even the bottom-left
>> (radial).
>
> As I did mention, it was not a complete spec. The points you raise are valid,
> but they are already treated well in the original spec, and I only wanted to
> present the differences.
>
> In distort mode, Symmetry is applied to the larger distort delta of the two
> axes, i.e. if you distort a corner point 20 px to the right and 10px to the
> top, the symmetry will be horizontal.
>
>> IMHO, your proposal, like the original one, doesn't address a very
>> frequent use of these transforms, which is to match the transformed
>> object with an existing one.
>
> Actually, the original spec DOES mention that scale from center is toggled
> by the CTRL key. Moving the center point lets you scale from any given point.
>
>

Hi,

having read the spec by Mitch I like the idea which could remove a hole
bunch of icons from the toolbox and make life a bit easier all round.  I
started getting a bit uncomfortable with all the special keystrokes,
this is one area where I find 2.6 confusing, non-inutitive and hard to
remember. These are not easy to discover and have no logical connection
to their function, you just have to commit it all to memory.

Maybe the idea of mouse gestures could be useful here (as used in Opera
browser and now available as extensions for firefox).

This may be a good short cut for rotation and flip transformations (that
does relate to function so easy to remember) .

The rotations are a pain at the moment because they require navigating
to a submenu, three mouse operations for a trivial action.

One could imagine , once the transform tool is in operation mouse
gestures could trigger H,V flip , the fixed rotations and mirror:

drag down : v flip
drag left/right : h flip
drag up then left : anti-clockwise 90
drag up then right: clockwise 90
drag up then L/R then down : rotate 180
drag left , right, left : h mirror
etc.

In the context of Mitch's pre-spec document, these could operate in the
"outside the box" area defined for the free-hand rotation.

These could have keyboard equivalents (up arrow , left arrow) for
disabled access or special hardware requirements.

Some modifier key could be held at same time to differentiate between
image transformation and layers

If the floater is used , it probably should be interactive rather than
display only and be draggable in case its placement is inconvenient.

One word of caution , although I like the way the move tool fits into
the plan, I think there is a possibility of confusion of this being
billed as a transformation. Although mathematically linear translation
can be done as a matrix transformation, it probably is not a
"transformation" to a graphics user.  A user would skip past it thinking
" I don't want to transform the image I want to move it !"

Some care will be needed in how this is presented to avoid this point
making access to the move tool less obvious, not more so.


I think the whole idea has a lot of potential for cleaning up the
interface and making things more accessible with less of a time spent
learning. I like it.


regards.



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