GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 75459
Add persistent defaults for the Export dialog
Last modified: 2009-07-15 23:01:22 UTC
As mentioned in a part of bug #75328, it would be nice to have a checkbox in the Export dialog (in its various incarnations) that would allow the settings to be persistent. This applies to the options that can be selected (Flatten, Convert to Indexed, ...) and also to the button that is clicked by the user to dismiss the dialog. For example, if the user selects the "Ignore" button instead of "Export", then this button would be activated by default on the next invocation so that the user would only have to press Enter to get the same result. Implementation note: due to the way the Export dialog is created (it is owned by the plug-in, not by the core), this persistence should probably be done by using a global parasite such as "gimp-export-defaults" that can easily be read by gimp_export_image() when called from any plug-in.
Actually there is a lot more functionality that is duplicated in all the various save plug-ins. We need a library that takes care of file handling, thumbnail saving and export functionality. We know that this is much needed for a long time now but since noone has started to work on it yet, it will probably have to wait for the next development cycle.
Changes at the request of Dave Neary on the developer mailing list. I am changing many of the bugzilla reports that have not specified a target milestone to Future milestone. Hope that is acceptable.
Adding my comments about a suggested implemenation from the mailing list here. Paint Shop Pro keeps questions at Save/Export to a minimum by providing an [Options] button in the Save Dialog (file formats have their own specific options dialog it gets greyed out if there is no dialog for the file format). http://www.mail-archive.com/gimp-developer@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/msg04448.html In another bug report (which I am having difficulty finding) a users complians of being asked too many questions during Save. [The bug which I have since found is bug 75328 which depends on this bug] To solve this i suggested that there should be a section in Preferences allowing you to set save options on the basis that you dont need to set these options every time you save, usually you will want to use the same ones most of them. There would also need to be an [Options] button in the save dialog to access it quickly and change a save option when needed. I would be very much in favour of having a Prefernces section Export (and possibly Import). Hopefully I can help recommend how this might be added. I would be inclined to push the feature request to Future.
All of the discussion here seems to be pretty much irrelevant, because file plug-ins don't export things unless they need to. In fact, a scan through the file plug-ins indicates that the return value GIMP_EXPORT_IGNORE is not used in a meaningful way anywhere. Since there is really nothing for the user to decide except to export or to cancel, I suggest closing this as NOTABUG.
GIMP_EXPORT_IGNORE is used implicitely. It causes the export step to be skipped. This usually means that only the active drawable is saved. It could also mean that the plug-in fails to do its job. It is however sometimes a useful choice for the expert.
Hmm. A little experimentation: For GIF, "Ignore" causes the plug-in to fail. For JPEG and PNG it saves the active drawable but creates a thumbnail that looks like the visible projection.
I don't know what you mean by "For GIF, "Ignore" causes the plug-in to fail." but for all plug-ins, the effect of "Ignore" depends on the GimpExportCapabilities and the features present in the current image. The Export dialog will be different if the image has different features. Example: if you have an image with multiple layers and a file format that does not support GIMP_EXPORT_CAN_HANDLE_LAYERS, then selecting "Ignore" will cause the current layer to be saved. But if you have an RGB image and a file format that does not have GIMP_EXPORT_CAN_HANDLE_RGB, then selecting "Ignore" can return an error because the plug-in has no way to use the image data. I have just submitted bug #164709 related to this. The problem with the thumbnails is the old bug #25272.
What do you think about following SoundJuicer on presets? From my observations people use limited amount of file formats and rarely change export options (except level of compression, of course). We could introduce export presets and list them in additional combobox in Export dialog: Filename: [text entry field] Preset: [list of presets] [Change] Folder: [list of folders] V Browse other folders A preset would include: 1. Type of file 2. Specific options 3. Optionally, flattening (where applicable) 4. Optionally, path to a folder (I see possible issues) We could also provide several presets to start with. Generally it solves the issue with extra dialogs, including the one with "remembering last settings" when you need to change them again within one session. Possible issues: 1. Another level of complexity. 2. Other available types of files are "hidden" from UI, so the usual "Save" dialog will have to co-exist or be merged with the new one. If you think this idea is worth further investigation, please comment.
*** Bug 470459 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 512622 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I want to look closer at what this means in the context of this spec that I am working on atm at that we will have in 2.8: http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Save_%2B_export_specification
With the new export workflow (http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Save_%2B_export_specification), this dialog and its variants are not shown. Closing this as OBSOLETE: