GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 91934
want to drag edges of selected rectangles, elipses
Last modified: 2006-06-06 11:04:47 UTC
(I mentioned this in bug 91846, Raphaël said I should report it separately.) When I've made a rectangular selection, I'd like to be able to pick up the edges and drag them, the way window borders work in, e.g., Sawfish: CCCC VVVVVVVVV CCCC C C DDDDDDDDDDDDD H DDDDDDDDDDDDD H H DDDDDDDDDDDDD H H DDDDDDDDDDDDD H H DDDDDDDDDDDDD H DDDDDDDDDDDDD C C CCCC VVVVVVVVV CCCC Dragging on "C" drags that corner, no constraints. Dragging on "H" drags that edge (constrained to horizontal changes). Dragging on "V" drags that edge (constrained to vertical changes). Dragging on "D" moves the whole rectangle (maybe?) The rectangle should still be drawn as 1-pixel ants, but the clickable region should be a little wider (indicated by mouse cursor changes.) This would also be really handy for elipses (though in that case, any point on the edge would be a freehand non-constrained move, I guess.) I generally find the elipse tool hard to use: when I'm trying to select a circular region out of an image, I'd have better luck doing it if I were selecting the center and then dragging out to the edge, than trying to select the top left/bottom right. Though that only works for circles, not elipses. However, if one could adjust the edges afterward, maybe that would make it an easier two-step process than the current one-step process. I haven't really thought this through that far, so I'm not sure how well it would work out in practice, but I do find the current elipse tool really awkward to use.
> Dragging on "D" moves the whole rectangle (maybe?) This one is already in the GIMP: ALT + drag with left mouse button. AirBete.
jwz wrote: > This would also be really handy for elipses (though in that case, > any point on the edge would be a freehand non-constrained move, I > guess.) There is another option: when you create an elliptical selection, you are actually defining two corners of a rectangle inside which the ellipse is drawn. So instead of using the edges of the ellipse for moving or resizing the selection, it could be possible to draw the outer rectangle briefly when the mouse is over one of its edges (just outside the ellipse). Moving the edges of this rectangle would resize the ellipse exactly in the same way as for the rectangular selections. airfullbete wrote: > ALT + drag with left mouse button. Yes, but as mentioned in bug #91486 (and in bug #51108), this is not a very good solution because there are no visual hints indicating that the feature exists. So although this is convenient for experienced users, this is not so good for beginners. Besides, the Alt+drag combination was used because the mouse buttons without modifiers were already used. It is always better if something can be done using only the mouse (or pen), without requiring a keyboard+mouse combination. Anyway, there is a general problem with this proposal: contrary to the crop tool (bug #91486), the selection tools require you to keep the mouse button pressed while you define the selection (click and drag). Once you release the mouse button, the selection is defined and maybe merged or substracted from an existing selection. At that point, the tool that was used to define the selection (rectangle, oval, freehand) does not matter anymore because the selection can have an arbitrary shape. There could also be some feathering and so on. So it looks like the only way to implement this feature for the selection tools would be to change the interaction model. Releasing the mouse button should not immediately create the selection. Instead, it should still be possible to modify its shape like with the crop tool. Once you are satisfied, then a separate operation (e.g., clicking outside of it, double-clicking inside or something else) would really create the selection. This would allow for more precise control but would be slower. Of course, we could offer both interaction models and allow the users to switch from one to the other at any time, depending on whether they prefer to define selections quicky (click, drag, release) or precisely (click, drag, adjust, confirm).
Oops, I meant bug #91846, not -486. I guess these CPU numbers are just stuck in my head...
I'd rather favour a solution where we have a Selection->Transform function which invokes the transform tool on a selection of just any shape. The selection transform tool would support scaling, moving, rotating, shearing and whatever. IMHO it makes more sense to keep the selection tools as simple as they are and implement transformation of arbitrary selections separately. Opinions?
I kind of like the idea to have the currently selected shape editable until the user thinks it fits perfect. Especially when you want to adjust for example an elliptical selection to a given ellipse it would be cool to simply drag the four edges of the bounding rectangle. The new (editable) shape should stay editable until the user applies it or should be combined with an existing selection when the user performs other stuff (filling, switching tools, invoking plugins). The transform tool usage does not help much, because it would always affect the *whole* selection. With the proposal you could fit several ellipses of the selection to existing imagedata. (select and adjust ellipse, apply, select and adjust ellipse, apply...). *Maybe* this could be also a way to tackle the newbie-problem of the combination with an existing selection, since it would be a two step process: 1) select and adjust shape, modifiers control the constraints 2) apply, modifiers control combination with an existing selection. A "classic" mode would be possible with automatically converting the shape to a selection at the end of the mouseclick and changing modifier behaviour a bit. Currently the ellipse tool sucks when you want to adjust an ellipse to a given shape in the image. This proposal would solve the problem, the transform tool would not. :-)
Right, I slightly misunderstood that. I want both featuers :)
Bumping a bunch of enhancement requests which will not be done by the feature freeze to Future. Dave.
This is partly addressed by the new rect select tool in current CVS.
The new selection tools in CVS address this request. Let's close it as FIXED. If another enhancement is required, it will be best to open a new report for it.