GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 361810
Cannot position selection or layer numerically
Last modified: 2018-05-24 12:01:14 UTC
I want to make a rectangular selection, and I want the position of that selection to be at a precise location with a precise size. GIMP has a means to enter a fixed size or aspect ratio for a selection. For those, I can find a place to TYPE IN the position (in whatever units). But I cannot find any way at all anywhere where I can type in a position for the upper left corner of either a selection or a layer. I can alt-drag the selection to reposition it, but the position shown in the status line of the window is the position of the cursor relative to where I originally clicked, NOT the position of the upper left corner. There seems to be absolutely no way to specify precise positions with GIMP. If you can specify precise sizes and aspect ratios, why not positions as well? Seems like an oversight, and it's almost a showstopper for me. Other information:
This is probably a duplicate of bug #50771; this one has a better description, though.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 50771 ***
Reopening, as it has a better description than bug #50771.
I didn't realize this bug report existed. It is possible, as of Gimp 2.4, to position a rectangular selection numerically, using the tool options, so the specific problem the bug report describes is now solved. However, it still isn't possible to position a layer, or an arbitrary-shaped selection, numerically. What should be done about the bug report?
What should be done? It should be fixed. The easiest and least intrusive way would be to add entries for the offset to the "Layer Attributes" dialog. Not very discoverable, but at least the functionality would be available at some place.
I haven't seen this fixed in 2.6.8 and I haven't tried compiling from code. Somewhat unbelievable that this is not implemented. I'm a game dev, and this is pretty essential for assembling GUI into predictable places. I was quite surprised that GIMP, a tool by developers for not only artists, but also for developers, does not expose precise positioning of layers anywhere in its GUI. It's somewhat a showstopper. It's also surprising that there isn't even a label anywhere specifying current layer's position, which is a minimum for properly reading properly created GUI element sheets. A workaround is... check this out. Completely sick. I pick the "Crop" tool, then I check the "Current layer only", then I select entire layer, and finally I read the stuff that "Crop" tool spills out (position and size). This still does not allow precise positioning of layer if it contains any content. If it's empty, one could perhaps create a large layer filling entire image, and then crop it. But it's an almost worthless workaround if the entire point of slicing into a separate layer was to use "Autocrop" to minimize the size of the GUI element. (In reply to comment #5) > What should be done? It should be fixed. The easiest and least intrusive way > would be to add entries for the offset to the "Layer Attributes" dialog. Not > very discoverable, but at least the functionality would be available at some > place. Sven, I don't think it's non-discoverable. I believe that is the right place for this, and in fact I was quite surprised that I didn't find this option there. In fact, it's odd that "Layer Attributes" is mostly blank. Should this not be the place where you choose whether or not the layer has an alpha channel? Should this not be the place to specify position, as well as the size of the layer?
Hi Ivan, if you want to help us fixing this, I would love to help you get into the code base. The easiest way to collaborate would be on irc.gnome.org in #gimp. Complaining is not going to motivate anyone to fix it.
I understand you perfectly w.r.t. complaining, from my experience. I just thought bumping it might resort some priorities. Anyways, I'm currently dealing with way too many projects, and some about which I care deeply are on halt because of lack of time-space continuum. (If universe is expanding, I don't see it :) Adding GIMP would be problematic, not because fixing this might be complex, but because getting initial build system set up on a Mac would be troublesome. Don't worry, if I had time to set it all up, a patch would be attached to this very comment :-)
*** Bug 737503 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This addresses the issue for layers: commit 3518a150649d119ce6022ad0914c8fdd13ecf0ff Author: Michael Natterer <mitch@gimp.org> Date: Fri Oct 21 22:54:10 2016 +0200 Bug 770901 - Improve the "New Layer" and "Layer Attributes" dialogs Add "Mode", "Opacity" and "Offset" controls to the dialogs. Remember the "New Layer" mode and opacity in GimpDialogConfig. Also addresses bug #361810. app/actions/layers-commands.c | 114 +++++++++++++++++++++++++---------- app/config/gimpdialogconfig.c | 30 ++++++++++ app/config/gimpdialogconfig.h | 2 + app/config/gimprc-blurbs.h | 6 ++ app/dialogs/layer-options-dialog.c | 173 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------- app/dialogs/layer-options-dialog.h | 26 ++++---- 6 files changed, 282 insertions(+), 69 deletions(-)
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message -- This bug has been migrated to GNOME's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity. You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/issues/217.