Re: [Gimp-gui] Layer mask button for the layers toolbar, feature additions?

[Jehan <jehan girinstud io>]

Hi,

On 2015-12-14 21:00, Ben wrote:
> I had posted a patch to a bug report to add support for a button to be
> added to the toolbar for the layer dialog/widget (see
> https://imgur.com/wkyxoqM), but it's been suggested i post here for
> starters to start a dialog. So here i go :)
>
> I was wondering what the reticence to having the button there was.
> Photoshop has a similar feature to add layer masks which avoids having
> to reach for the menu to enable it.

It does not look too bad to me. But then there are other features in the 
right-click menu which are often used too. We just can't add them all.
I don't really have a strong opinion here.

> It was originally suggested i just make a keyboard shortcut but for me
> and i would think for a lot of people that would not be exactly
> feasible. I already have too many apps that could make use of that and
> too few keys on the keyboard i could de-allocate from them as-is :)
>
> For me and most folks coming from photoshop who may give GIMP a try
> would find this slowing us down considerably in our work flow
> (especially when working on composites where masking is heavily used).

As a side note, comparing GIMP to Photoshop will never be the reason to 
a decision. We would choose to implement something because we decide 
that it is a good design, whether Photoshop does it or not (or even the 
opposite!).

> Hence why i came up with a patch to add a button to add them from the
> interface and opened a bug report for that.
>
> Having said that, i've spent the week since pondering an alternative
> that could solve everyones dilemma, which would be to add the ability
> to ctrl-click the selected layer to enable a layer mask (which if that
> were added, it would be trivial add the opposite effect to remove the
> layer mask by also ctrl-clicking).

Ctrl-click definitely not IMHO. We want to add multi-layer selection at 
some point and ctrl/shift clicking are common mouse usage for 
multi-selection.
Unless this is ctrl-click on some specific place of the layer (like we 
have shift-click which has a particular meaning when on the eye and 
chain icons of the layer).

> I haven't looked at the code yet (been busy with this whole icon
> themes business lol) so not sure how feasible/work it involves but if
> it will never get added there isn't much point for me to go on and try
> to implement it.
>
> So here we are, what do you all think?

I'm not sure. It does not look like a bad idea.

Jehan