Re: [Gimp-gui] Possible places to save vertical space in Single (and Multiple) Window Mode

[Elle Stone <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>]

On 12/29/2017 09:18 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 6:32 PM, Elle Stone wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > After years of using GIMP in Multiple Window Mode, I'm thinking about
> > switching to Single Window Mode - the "sticking point" is not enough
> > vertical space in Single Window Mode.
>
> Hi Elle,
>
> I have to admit I understood most of your email as "let's cram it all
> until UI elements are indistinguishable from each other" :)

I agree that reducing the space between the sliders too much (if at all) 
would make it difficult to tell one slider from another.

My goal was to list as many places as I could see where vertical space 
might be saved, in hopes of starting a discussion of possible ways to 
save vertical space.

The slider *height* is a different matter. The height varies with the 
font size, becoming quite tall as the font is increased:

https://ninedegreesbelow.com/files/font-size-changes-slider-height.png

In the above screenshot, for the default version of GIMP I modified 
"themes/gray/gtkrc" to always use sans 9, instead of using the font 
specified in $HOME/.gtkrc-2.0. The CCE version shows the result of 
setting the .gtkrc-2.0-specified font to sans 14. In the CCE version the 
slider height is considerably more than in the default GIMP version

Having modified the "themes" file to use sans 9, I'll probably keep this 
modification in my local copy of the default GIMP code. Setting my 
system font to sans 9 would make it difficult for me to read the text in 
many applications.

Fortunately I don't need to be able to actually read the text for most 
of GIMP's user interface, as I already know what it says :)

> > 1. A good quarter-inch of empty space above the tool icons - could this
> > space be removed?
>
> Or you can add (toolbox-wilber no) to gimprc.

Thanks! I didn't realize this. Works like a charm. What is that "by 
default" empty space above the tool icons for?

> > 2. I like having the "Foreground & background colors" dialog be in the tool
> > box, but look at all the wasted horizontal space.
>
> The space looks wasted, because you created such a wide group of
> dockable dialogs :)

I don't know what you mean by "such a wide group". I use all the 
dialogs. In fact several dialogs that I normally have in the toolbox are 
missing because switching from multiple to single window mode completely 
messed up the way I had the toolbox set up.

Originally, in Multiple Window Mode, I had the tool icons in a 
single-icon vertical panel, similar to how Krita arranges the tool icons 
vertically along the left edge of the window.

But when I switched to Single Window Mode the toolbox got all messed up, 
so I had to empty everything out and start over. I'm not sure if having 
the tool icons be vertical is even possible in Single Window Mode.

> > If this icon could be made the same height as all the tool icons, and also simply float in line with
> > the other tool icons, then vertical space could be saved.
>
> At 16x16, the FG/BG widget will most likely be not very usable. While
> tools can be switched via shortcuts, the widget is a mouse pointer /
> tablet stylus target.

Well, the Krita FG/BG widget is considerably smaller than the GIMP FG/BG 
widget, and still is useable. But it's bigger than 16x16.

My main use for GIMP's FG/BG widget is to bring up the full dialog. The 
"FG/BG Color" dockable dialog splits the sliders to one panel and the 
"color square" with the third parameter in a vertical box to another 
panel, and what I really want to see is both in the same panel. This 
allows (for me, can't speak for other people) maximum ease of color 
choosing.

> > 3. I think the extra space around the Tool Options sliders is currently
> > determined by the system font size.
>
> Vertical padding between sliders is tiny! Sliders are just a few
> pixels apart. An extra 1px is not the problem here, the height of the
> sliders is.

Hmm, I see the problem. I didn't use the right terminology, in fact used 
completely the wrong words.

I was referring to the padding around the text in the middle of the 
sliders, which contributes to the total height of the sliders 
themselves. I wasn't referring to the "padding space" between the 
individual sliders - my apologies for the confusion!

> > 4. Same as above: The opacity slider has too much vertical padding.
>
> Same as above :)

Same as above. I completely messed up trying to describe what I was 
talking about. I don't mean the padding around the opacity slider. I 
mean the height of the opacity slider, which is determined by the font-size.

> > 5. It seems to me that a tiny bit of extra vertical space could be saved by
> > decreasing the vertical padding surrounding the icons at the bottom of the
> > various Toolbox panels.
>
> Not much though.

Here I really was talking about padding between elements in the user 
interface.

> > 6. This is the biggie, literally. It would be nice to have the option to not
> > have the image window tabs at all. But if having these tabs is a
> > requirement, at least make the tab height and tab icons as small as
> > possible. Is there a place in Preferences that controls this icon size? It's
> > huge! Where in the code is the tab/icon size set?
>
> Um, huge? It's more like regular :) And it depends on the size ratio
> of the first image you opened, it could be tiny.

Well, experimenting, you are right, it depends on the ratio of the 
height and width of the image. But if you open a new image with a 
portrait orientation, the amoung of space taken up by the tabs 
increases, no matter the size ratio of the first image.

It seems the height of the tab tries to keep the number of pixels in the 
icons on the tab constant? With a maximum and minimum height of 
apparently 0.5 and 0.75 inches? At least for my purposes, it would be a 
lot better to make the height of the icons constant regardless of the 
size ratios of the individual images. And ideally the user could set 
this maximum icon height.

> Either way, there recently was a discussion to introduce filenames for
> tab captions as an alternative to previews. I hope that's going to
> happen. And yes, I agree that smaller previews could be introduced
> too.

I saw some of the discussion of file names instead of icons, and 
wondered how this would work with really long file names - truncated to 
a maximum number of characters, depending on the available width and the 
number of open images?

> > 7. Same as 5 - it seems like maybe a little less vertical padding could be
> > used here, though of course there is the option to not show the task bar at
> > all.
>
> Frankly, I'm surprised that you keep scrollbars in the image window
> around. They account for a lot more screen space than 7. Unless you an
> me understand padding differently, of course.

Well, it depends on what I'm doing.

Right now I'm teaching myself how to paint/draw not from a photograph 
but from an actual item out there in the real world. So for example with 
the screenshot posted above, I'm drawing and shading a wooden salt 
shaker (it's not done yet). Originally I had the ruler, grid, and 
guidelines set to "so many pixels per inch". This was very helpful when 
making "air measurements" using an actual ruler to determine the heights 
and widths of the various parts of the salt shaker.

> Moreover, you could shave just a little more pixels by switching to
> text captions instead of icon captions for dockable dialogs.

Except that with as many dockable dialogs as I keep open, there would be 
no way to read the text, and also at some point the GIMP interface 
wisely switches to using the icons even if you ask for the text. Text 
that's not readable is useless.

For example when painting I want to be able to use Jehan's symmetric 
painting dialog, the dynamics editor for GIMP brush tools, GIMP's 
brushes, MyPaint brushes, the pointer and color samples dialogs for 
monitoring colors, the histogram, etc, etc. I do use every single docked 
dialog plus a few that aren't shown in the screenshot.

Also I want the tool options dialog to show all of the paint tool 
options without having to use the scroll bar. Scrolling up and down is 
just plain time-consuming and requires extra clicks. Keeping the tool 
options dialog "scroll-bar free" is actually the overriding reason for 
the way I've arranged the entire toolbox.

I tried putting the toolbox on a second monitor (in Multiple Window 
Mode), but that created a host of other problems.

> In general, I completely agree that things could be tidier, I just
> don't think vertical padding between elements is our main enemy here
> :)

Neither do I :) - I completely misdecribed what I was trying to say.

Elle