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Bug 133030 - Customizable Toolbar
Customizable Toolbar
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Product: GIMP
Classification: Other
Component: User Interface
git master
Other All
: Normal enhancement
: Future
Assigned To: GIMP Bugs
GIMP Bugs
: 139885 168546 429281 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2004-01-31 04:59 UTC by John Richard Moser
Modified: 2009-02-03 15:00 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
Gimp Toolbar Patch (13.17 KB, patch)
2008-06-07 17:30 UTC, Ingo Ruhnke
reviewed Details | Review

Description John Richard Moser 2004-01-31 04:59:55 UTC
The dynamic hotkeys are great and all, and I love using my keyboard a lot,
but face it; in graphics work, you're GOING to have a hand on the mouse,
and that makes keyboard shortcuts less efficient.  In document processing,
web browsing, and gaming, keyboard shortcuts let you avoid fumbling around
with your mouse to get your balance (isn't it a @*#$% to grab the mouse
from a standing start and take off?), AND paging through menus or going for
a button on a toolbar to find what you need.  In graphics editing, they
only serve to get you a way to skip the menus.

Now, since your hand is already on the mouse, you could easily go straight
for a toolbar button.  But, what do you put on the toolbar?

I'll make this easy for you.  Don't bother putting anything on the toolbar.
 Leave it blank.  Users have a host of things they can set up in the Gimp
toolbox to house their recent images, tools, tool options, color selection,
brushes, pallets, layers, paths, EVERYTHING.  Gimp's current UI is all
about customization, and it quickly becomes evry powerful for any user.

What I want to see is a toolbar just below the menu that you so graciously
sewed to the image window.  A scrollable, hideable toolbar, maybe even one
that can be collapsed together into your most used (think about the Windows
XP system tray, if you don't click on an icon much, and you get too many
icons, it collapses down the tray).  That would of course require a new bit
of code in GTK+ for the new widget options, but it'd be excessively useful.
 If the user could design his own toolbar, he'd have everything he needs
right at a single click.

Me, for instance.  I tend to use Threshhold Alpha a lot, esp. threshholding
to 127.  I could hotwire a button that did a threshhold alpha to 127. 
Other users might not even USE that feature.  They might toss a save/save
copy button up there (I would, I use those every time I put down a stroke;
though more often it's CTL+S).

Gimp is already in its 2.0 prereleases.  I expect to see this in the 2.1
development series, if at all.  Now, if you WANT to shove it into 2.0 (not
with any kinds of GTK+ hacks), you're welcome to do so; but you won't
dissappoint anyone if you decide to go for it "later."
Comment 1 Henrik Brix Andersen 2004-01-31 17:18:56 UTC
The chances of getting this implemented would certainly rise if a
patch was attached ;)

Setting milestone to future - priority low.
Comment 2 Sven Neumann 2004-02-02 13:27:52 UTC
There's this script that Simon wrote years ago ...
Comment 3 Alan Horkan 2004-02-10 01:24:25 UTC
I previously filed a bug report wishing for the toolbox to be
customizable but this report is cleary different
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=105764

and having the option of toolbars as well would be useful for users
less comfortable with the CSDI (Controlled Single Document Interface)
of the GIMP and more used to applications like Paint Shop Pro that has
loads of toolbars.    
Comment 4 Sven Neumann 2004-04-13 10:32:52 UTC
*** Bug 139885 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 John Richard Moser 2005-02-09 05:04:43 UTC
"I expect to see this in the 2.1 development series, if at all"

. . . 2.2 is out.

The last development series took years, what gives?  You make me look demanding :P
Comment 6 Dave Neary 2005-02-09 08:45:22 UTC
Hi,

That was your comment, no? :)

The combination of "Severity: enhancement" and "Priority: Low" means that this
shows up very low on bug and feature lists.

Brix's comment #1 was right on the money - the chances of this being in the GIMP
would be vastly improved with a patch. There are lots of features that are more
important which are higher priority.

Thanks for your report, though. If the bug report is still open, it's because it
might be useful.

Dave.
Comment 7 Michael Natterer 2005-03-01 22:33:38 UTC
*** Bug 168546 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 8 Michael Natterer 2005-03-01 22:35:05 UTC
Bug #168546 suggests a DND interface for setting up such a button area.
Comment 9 Albert Cahalan 2005-03-02 00:01:10 UTC
I'd really like to put a button where the Quickmask one is.
Demote the seldom-used Quickmask button please, so that I could
configure something useful to go there.

Sorry about filing the duplicate. I notice that I'm not the
first to do so though. This indicates that the priority is set
wrongly; this is not just John Richard Moser's personal bug.
Comment 10 weskaggs 2005-03-02 15:44:31 UTC
I agree with you about the priority and will raise it -- a customizable toolbar
would be a very nice thing.  I disagree about the QuickMask button:  you may not
use it very much, but for many people it is one of the most commonly used
controls.  Besides, removing it would only free up space for one button, which
isn't worth the effort.
Comment 11 Michael Natterer 2005-03-02 16:42:31 UTC
I agree with Bill here. The QuickMask button is not worth the effort.
On the other hand it would be quite easy to implement a custom toolbar,
maybe even as dockable dialog.
Comment 12 Raphaël Quinet 2007-04-13 11:47:09 UTC
*** Bug 429281 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 13 Janet 2007-04-13 14:08:46 UTC
An alternative to a user customizable toolbar would be a favorites menu:
Bug 429331
Comment 14 Ingo Ruhnke 2008-06-07 17:30:40 UTC
Created attachment 112325 [details] [review]
Gimp Toolbar Patch

This patch adds toolbar support into Gimp, it is not yet configurable via GUI, but only via menu/image-toolbar.xml.
Comment 15 Martin Nordholts 2008-06-07 18:52:51 UTC
Thanks for the patch! It looks clean and straightforward. We should consider adding this functionality to GIMP 2.6.
Comment 16 Sven Neumann 2008-06-08 11:33:52 UTC
I don't think we want this functionality and vote for closing as WONTFIX.  We are definitely not going to do such a user interface change for 2.6 and definitely not without prior review from the UI team.
Comment 17 weskaggs 2008-06-09 18:19:07 UTC
I agree that this shouldn't be attempted for 2.6, but I feel that Gimp is going to need toolbars of some sort pretty soon -- in particular, I can't imagine how on-canvas text editing could be done effectively without a toolbar.  That would be a tool-specific toolbar, not a custom toolbar, but once the door to toolbars has been opened, there will need to be a general plan on how to deal with them.
Comment 18 Sven Neumann 2008-06-09 19:52:11 UTC
Tool-specific toolbars are somewhat unrelated to this bug-report and they should most probably be implemented as a floating toolbox that is drawn on the canvas.

If this needs further discussion, I suggest that we have it on the mailing-list.
Comment 19 Martin Nordholts 2008-06-17 04:41:36 UTC
The UI team has now taken a look at this and concluded that a toolbar does not fit the planned UI of GIMP [1] so I am closing this as WONTFIX.

Ingo, I am sorry that this bug report was not closed earlier so that the damage could be minimized. Even though your patch was not accepted it was of good quality and I look forward to any future patches you might write.

Best regards,
Martin Nordholts

[1] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/lists/gimp-developer/2008-June/020372.html
Comment 20 Michael Natterer 2008-06-17 09:49:56 UTC
I would like to see some further discussion on this please. The discussion
went on on IRC after this mail and it seems some toolbar-like thing
could be very useful to tablet users (maybe not like this, but this
needs to be determined)

Reopening, we can still close it again.
Comment 21 peter sikking 2008-06-17 14:00:51 UTC
It is a underlying general design principle for me to make GIMP's UI more hands-on, relying less on scurrying through menus. This will also contribute towards the goal of supporting tablet users without relying on keyboard shortcuts.

and yes, reflecting comments 17 and 18, one way to achieve that is to put more tool controls at certain moments on-canvas. but to imaging these ass toolbars is assuming too much.

But introducing a christmas-colorful toolbar at the top of image windows is not the way to achieve that. For the problems we are trying to solve, it is not even a decent solution.

And just at the moment we are taking the first steps to take visual noise out of GIMP's interface, too let users concentrate on the image, this thing pops up.

the arguments about easier to learn or make GIMP more like other apps are completely bogus on a UI concept level.

let's put effort into something else...
Comment 22 Sven Neumann 2008-07-02 21:54:18 UTC
We should accept the advice from Peter. Closing as WONTFIX.