Re: [Gimp-developer] Get rid of the floating selection where possible?

[Akkana Peck <akkana shallowsky com>]

Cordylus Interneter writes:
> You are probably talking about "Auto-anchoring of floating selection". I've seen it and thought it is about 
> something else - I supposed that creating a new layer is not anchoring.
>
> That's a bit strange to me that nobody prioritized it higher since this is the thing that you have to deal 
> with daily, with every paste, but it's good to see it on the list anyway. Thank you for the answer.

For what it's worth, I agree with Cordylus. Floating selections are
confusing because they look like a layer but don't behave like one.
It would be much more understandable if paste just created a new
layer, without any of the special behavior that floating selections
have. Then people who want to merge that layer into the current
layer can use Merge Down where today they'd use Anchor; no more
steps than today.

I've heard people suggest that the reason it isn't designed like
that is for the case where you want to anchor the floating
selection onto a channel rather than a layer. But surely that's
far less common than pasting as a new layer? One could design
a UI that worked for that case ("Paste into channel"?) without
interfering with a much more common operation.

Fortunately, for now, you can bind Ctrl-V to "Paste as->New Layer".
So it's mostly an issue for people who teach classes, write howtos
or answer user questions and have to try to explain what floating
layers are and how to deal with them.

        ...Akkana