GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 387779
Transform tools could make better use of cursor keys
Last modified: 2018-05-24 12:06:14 UTC
* Rotate could use the cursor keys to adjust angle (with CTRL retaining its current meaning, and SHIFT being move-by-45-degree-increments, and ALT to adjust centre) * Skew could use the cursor keys to adjust skew, with SHIFT being adjust-by-larger-amount as with Move tool * Flip could trigger a flip by pressing up/down to flip vertically, or left/right to flip horizontally. * Scale and Crop: cursors could expand the scale rectangle on that border; CTRL+cursors could shrink it, with SHIFT having similar meaning as with Skew. ALT+cursors could move it. * Perspective (perhaps - this would require a bit more work): cursors adjust the position of the current point, CTRL+cursors move between points, SHIFT+cursors move as in Skew, ALT+left/right expand the horizontal line the point is on, ALT+up/down expand the vertical line the point is on, like this: (@ is the selected point, # are unselected points) @----# / / / / #----# Pressing left or right would expand the top line; pressing up or down would expand the left line. These changes would make a great difference in usability, particularly for fine adjustments. Most of the transform tools are naturally suited to a keyboard interface. I expect I could implement at least some of this; I'll look into it.
Some of your suggestions are controversial. Ctrl for example is already used in the Scale tool.
Revised: * Scale and Crop: cursors could expand the scale rectangle on that border; SHIFT having similar meaning as with Skew. ALT+cursors could shrink it. ALT+SHIFT could move it (meh -- Space would be nice, but can't use that.) The others I have checked are in no conflict with existing behaviours.
Peter has some ideas for a combined transform tool and I would very much like to see them implemented for 2.8. But perhaps we can still get better key bindings for the current tools into 2.6. Let's see if this catches someone's interest in the next few weeks, otherwise bump it to 2.8...
I have added simple key support to the Rotate Tool that demonstrates a possible approach. With one example, we can easily put this as a gnome-love bug. Commited to trunk, rev 25873: 2008-05-31 Martin Nordholts <martinn@svn.gnome.org> * app/tools/gimprotatetool.c (gimp_rotate_tool_key_press): Implemented this function to support rotating with arrow keys. See bug #387779. To see the diff, do 'svn diff -r25872:25873' in GIMP source root.
Actually, that example is not really a good one as it modifies the tool by fiddling with its user interface. That will make it more difficult to change the code later so that it does not rely on the tool popup dialog. Also the tool function should be considered. When the tool is in TRANSFORM_HANDLE_CENTER mode, the cursor keys should move the center of rotation, similar to how the rectangle tool behaves. Let's keep this as is for 2.6 and bump it to the 2.8 milestone.
We won't have time to do this for 2.8. Let's just close it as a duplicate to the free transform tool and make sure it's handled properly there. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 138462 ***
Reopening because it's unrelated to the free transform tool per se.
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