GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 349903
pan using the space bar
Last modified: 2006-09-08 15:05:46 UTC
I have had had a long conversation with a dev on irc#gimp this being the point we reached My question was can I make the space bar work in the gimp as it does in photoshop Answer: No (the feature has been requested and rejected) fair enough My Question is why cant I choose this as an option I dont care what the default is just that i have the choice to map any key/button to do any function. at the moment this in almost all posible in menurc with the exeption of the mouse buttion functions. In my case the middle mouse button I would like to map it to the space key. I think the key here is the GNU goal of choice im not trying to change the defaults just have the choice to change my copy and share/backup the settings it could be taken one step futher and added to the Preferences-->Interface as some common choices ie: Gimp Layout, Photoshop Layout, Fireworks Layout etc this could be in a drop down looking at ~/.gimp-2.2/keymaps/* then not onlyh do we have choice but easy choice Thanks to all for everthing long live Open Source
I agree with that. More configuration freedom in this respect would improve productivity (especially for users who are used to competing applications like Photoshop).
We would accept a patch that adds a gimprc option to make the space key do panning instead of temporarily switching to the move tool. Let's change the summary accordingly. It doesn't make sense to ask for making everything configurable. This would be very difficult to achieve and it is questionable whether this is a desirable goal at all.
No I think the point has been missed here the space is a control that affects me but there are many more controls that cant be changes why is this so hard to do when 99% are there already. The key is choice and easy choice. ie: having a conf file that cover all input devices and there actions for as many types of program as possible. Think joystick drivers how they map there buttons to do diff things for diff games hope this is clear
If you insist on complete configurability, I can as well close the bug-report as WONTFIX. Let's concentrate on an achievable goal. Panning with the space bar has been requested a few times already and it would be desirable to implement it as an option.
I hope this is not the attitude of all the developers on the gimp project as this is what makes and breaks open source projects. WONTFIX ??? I cant believe the GIMP has come this far on this attitude Changing the space function will work for me but may not work for the people who like it the way it is or for the people who want it to do something else Now some background about me so you know where I am coming from my job is to speak to developers who are working on certain projects and translate what the customer wants to the developer my coding abilities are very limited that's not what I am good at. So the if you want is do it your self is not an option. but before this puts your back up the reason I fell in love with open source was the lack of developers who took this attitude of "WONTFIX" the the goal of choice. All the solutions that have been given take choice from someone the fact that changing the space to do what I want will piss someone else off and we will play space ping pong My Solution to the problem as far as I can see there is the option to change the keyboard short cuts under File-->Preferences-->Interface-->Configure Keyboard Shortcuts Now This creates/edits a file called menurc First why not have the functions of the mouse keys in there to so you could map any function to any mouse/keyboard key stroke/click Then have a folder called menuec in that folder you could have as many layouts as you wished Then in File-->Preferences-->Interface--> have a dropdown with a list of the files in the folder menurc most of the work is done I hope i did not piss to may people of but it pains me to see an open source project with a "WONTFIX" attitude To everyone else thanks for all your hard work it is very much appreciated
David, it would help in discussing this if you'd actually *read* what sven wrote. Let me quote: "Panning with the space bar has been requested a few times already and it would be desirable to implement it as an option." He also said, that if you want *complete* configurability, we can close this as WONTFIX, since this is not implementable. And I agree - generic configurability sounds great unless you have to implement it and it *will* confuse users, since every user basically has a different gimp. So a sane design is the way to go and only implement options where necessary. We already have a great deal of configurability. And I don't see what you mean by "WONTFIX attitude". It sounds vaguely insulting and like a dumb attitude to have, but I don't know what this is. Tradeoffs between ease of implementation and added complexity by given features have to be made, especially since GIMP is not really a huge project. So there always will be stuff we maybe would like to have but we wont implement them (WONTFIX). It does not make much sense to clutter bugzilla with these kind of feature request. Lets (again - as sven wrote) focus on reachable goals and restrict this bug report to the panning with spacebar issue.
2006-09-08 Sven Neumann <sven@gimp.org> * app/config/gimpdisplayconfig.[ch] * app/config/gimprc-blurbs.h * app/display/display-enums.[ch]: added new gimprc option "space-bar-action" and default to "pan". Will add a GUI for this later. * app/display/gimpdisplayshell-callbacks.c: respect the new option and either pan the display or push the move tool. Fixes bug #349903.