>> I really like this feature from Krita and My paint but I think it would be very inconsistent with from the way every other short cut we have. does switching back and forth between tools using N, P, E, A, and K work for you?
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> Essentially yes. The shortcuts we can modify and in many cases to adopt a pattern or schema friendly between different apps. Normally in the painting tasks, one painter, has his own schema... and in GIMP is possible to do a short toolbox to do it. But is not my scope discuss that in this thread ;-)What about this. By default GIMP would remain as it is now, press E to select the eraser and E again would not do anything. But if you want the workflow you want you can set a "toggle eraser" shortcut, if set to E pressing E would select the eraser pressing it again would go back to the previous tool you had selected. This way GIMP would stay consistent by default and if you want to change it to work better in your workflow you can.
This inconsistency wouldn't matter to you because you set it up and are now expecting it. On the other hand it would be very strange for a new user if the eraser was the only tool that toggled like this.
>> I personally turn off the sharing options in the tool options because when I use the brush and the pen or the air brush I expect them to be different. I manly use brush and the eraser but I think I might turn them back on now.
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> I think that the 'Paint Options Shared Between Tools' works fine in many cases... but not to all. My suggestion, here, is to provide another option to have the eraser directly on paint tool. For me and many painters that are using MyPaint and Krita, this feature is working fine.
Oh OK that sounds good
> Idea: well, the eraser directly, via a shortcut, as we've with pick color, could be the same tool with a mode blend to erase or to clean the strokes/stains. Perhaps in this way is more easy to create the conditions of this feature.
Are you saying to change holding Ctrl from color picker to smudge?