Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability for icon-editing

[Akkana Peck <akkana shallowsky com>]

Thomas W writes:
> 1) Icons open at 100% view, which is tiny in the window & far smaller than
> what I want for working at. This always requires two steps -- increase
> magnification, and then drag the window larger.

You might want to change the preference "Resize window on zoom"
in the Preferences window under "Image Windows". It will eliminate
the second step.

> 3) Not very easy to test icons. There's no quick way to get rid of the
> selection border, layer borders & background checks to view the overall
> tonality & see how it looks against a white background.

You know about the items in the View menu, right? And if you do
View->New View, you can turn off all that visual clutter in one
view while leaving it on in the other. You can also have a view
that shows you the icon at actual size, while you work on another
view with a high zoom.

> 4) Feature idea:  Especially nice would be the ability to view & test
> icons, or transparency in general, by dragging it against a white/ and
> variegated background (or over the whole desktop)  with a range of zoom
> levels from 100 - 400%.

That would be nice. I test transparent images by having a white or
colored background that I turn on or off as I edit the image, but
having a way to do that without making an extra layer would be useful.

You can test against the current desktop, even with transparency, using
Filters->Animation->Playback, then click the Detach button and drag
the image to the desktop. It would be nice if this feature wasn't so
hidden, since it's very useful for non-animated images but no one
is likely to discover it where it is without being told.

> Perhaps icon-editing is a little bit different from the "photographic
> editing" usecase, but it's quite common. Does anybody else find areas where
> GIMP could support the user/ workflow better? Suggestions welcome.

I've found GIMP to be an excellent tool for what little icon editing
I've done, mostly because of its multiple views.

        ...Akkana