Re: [Gimp-developer] Blend Tool UI

[Ofnuts <ofnuts laposte net>]

On 23/06/14 05:31, Michael Henning wrote:
> I'd like to make some incremental improvements to the blend tool. On
> IRC, Alexandre suggested to get the UI team involved, so I'm looking
> for feedback/advice from the UI team.
>
> Here are my general plans:
>
>   * I'd like to make the blend tool generally more interactive. By
> this, I mean that after the user has created a gradient, they will be
> presented with handles that they can use to modify the endpoints of
> the gradient before committing their changes.
>
>   * I'd also like to add a live preview to the blend tool so users can
> preview the gradient and experiment with different options, before
> committing their changes.
>
>   * I'm also planning to add undo support within the tool.
>
>   * The general consensus within the dev team seems to be that the
> shapebursts (all of the gradient types currently marked "shaped")
> should be moved out of the blend tool. They would likely be moved into
> either a menu item, or (maybe?) within the fill tool.
>
> Any thoughts?

I like the idea.

If you have a "live preview", do you really need the handles to change 
it afterwards? IMHO it would be one or the other, and a live preview 
would be best (I've long been dreaming of seeing in real time gradients 
applied to layer masks).

Yes, shaped gradients are an oddity, but they would also be a bit out of 
place in the bucket-fill (unless this can be applied to other fillings). 
This would also require a new gradient icon in a rather busy Tool 
options dialog. At least in the Blend tool they are in a tool that deals 
with gradients. But would we need a "tool" for this? The UI is minimal 
since it is just applying the current gradient to the selection. A 
filter in Filters>Render perhaps?