Re: [Gimp-user] Problem with Gimp 2.7.4 'Text' facility

[Liam R E Quin <liam holoweb net>]

On Wed, 2012-05-09 at 09:20 +0200, Johan Vromans wrote:

> Since we now have three ways to control text properties there's a risk
> of confusing descriptions. For example, the text options panel has
> "Adjust line spacing" while the tool box overlay has "Change baseline of
> selected font".

Kerning and letter spacing are not the same thing.  Or shouldn't be ;-)

Kerning automatically adjust spacing between letters, e.g. moving V and
A closer together so that they look as if they are evenly spaced.
Kerning uses data included with the fonts. Pair Kerning normally has two
settings (on and off); adjusting the spacing between a specific pair of
characters is also called kerning - either "every V/A pair" or "this
particular pair".

Letter spacing is a constant amount of space added to (or subtracted
from) the glyph advance between every pair of characters.

If that's not how the terms are used, please file a bug.

> Several features do not seem to function properly. In particular, the
> text editor seems to behave strange.

Yes, the text editor does not support all of the typographical features.

There was a move to remove it, but there are useability problems with
removing it - especially when you have text on a path, or if your text
doesn't all fit on the screen.

> Changing the baseline using the semi-transparent tool box does not have
> any effect, neither does changing the baseline in the text editor.

They work fine here, but you have to have selected some text on the
canvas.

> Changing it in the 'classical' tool options dialog does work.
>
> When the text editor is shown, the on-cavas editing doesn't work
> anymore.
works here (but I have a pre-release of 2.8) although you can't select
text.

> In the text editor, when you want to change e.g. the font size of a
> piece of text, strange things happen. For example, select the word
> "quick" and then go to the font size field and use the mouse wheel. The
> selection is lost and although the font size (number) changes, no text
> is affected.
yes.

> I consider these "first release" inconveniences that beyond doubt will
> get fixed soon.

Especially if you report them so the developers discover it too,
and even sooner if you include a patch :-)

Liam



-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml
The barefoot typographer