On 05/17/2012 05:38 PM, Richard Gitschlag wrote:
... is that you can't edit them.
I don't mean it quite the way it sounds, but it's something I've
noticed ever since GIMP 2.2 that has repeatedly been an
annoyance to my individual workflow. And minor annoyances are
worse over time than major ones.
For example: When you're using the Paintbrush or Pencil tool
(with a standard brush) you have a button to select a brush from
the Brushes dialog, and you have a button nearby to Edit that
brush. However, the Brush Editor won't let you actually DO
anything as long as you're using a default brush, because as a
default resource that brush is read only.
The same thing applies with Brush Dynamics. By moving them out
of the tool context into their own 'resource' type, 2.8 loses
the ability to make arbitrary edits on an impromptu basis. I
can't, say, adjust the pressure curve on the default
Pressure-Opacity setting because, as a default resource, you
can't edit it. At all.
Of course, there's an easy workaround to the current behavior:
Take a default resource and Duplicate it. Then you can
fine-tune its settings however you want. I did this back in
GIMP 2.4 - I created two standard brushes (with differing
hardness values) solely so I could set up keyboard shortcuts to
increase/decrease brush size on the fly. (During 2.6 I
retweaked my keyboard shortcuts to affect the brush scalar, for
the same end result; size is a moot point in 2.8 with brush size
being part of the tool context, but it can still occur with
other brush settings, like hardness).
But the issue definitely comes up with editing Brush Dynamics
now that they have been made an official resource type. It's
... roughly like if you opened an image from a read-only XCF
file and GIMP insists you Duplicate the image before allowing
you to make any edits to the image whatsoever. (Okay, so that's
an exaggeration.) I know, the change was deliberate, but from
the user view it's still a loss of convenience and functionality
-- a regression. If I want to adjust the pressure curve on a
Dynamic, I first have to ensure that I'm working on an editable
copy of it and not one of the defaults.
So I'm going to toss out some ideas to discuss:
1 - If a default resource is selected, the matching Editor
dialog (Brushes editor, Dynamics editor, etc.) should have a
"Duplicate" button on its own dialog. This would save the extra
click of having to bring up a different dialog and hit the
button from there.
2 - Better yet, instead of locking down all the Editor's
controls, have GIMP give you a prompt asking if you want to
Duplicate the resource first (or even do that automatically)
when you try to tweak its settings. This would save one more
click over idea #1 - you couldn't make it any easier than that.
3 - Or can you? Maybe the default resources to be edited under
the condition that those changes can't be saved/overwritten back
to the original (read only) file. (Much like being able to make
edits to a read-only XCF file; sure you can edit, you just can't
overwrite the original file with those changes.) Also provide a
"Revert" button which would refresh the resource back to its
original state (like the "Reset" buttons on any number of
adjustment tools).
4 - Or, if all else fails, have the GIMP distribution include
one of each type resource (well, at least one Brush and one
Dynamic) which are installed in the respective user resources
folder (rather than the default resources folder, which is
marked read-only). This keeps all the default set of resources,
but adds one of each that the user may adjust at their whim.
Thoughts on the matter?
If you are a using a "serially multi-user computer" (family
computer, for instance) you don't want anyone to mess with the
standard stuff. And the standard stuff is is directories that may
not be backed up regularly.
All this stuff is in files, If you want to be able to edit it, you
can copy it to you own R/W directories, and disable the "shared"
directories in Edit/Preferences/Folders.
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