On 08/22/2009 05:48 PM, Christophe Buffenoir wrote:

Hello,

I use the GPS set of presets and I think that tags system will be good on presets and not only on brushes.

Nothing is done yet, the screens are just fakes to show my purpose. But, even if I've not enough spare time to do it quickly, I can code it.

I think tagging of presets makes sense, in particular since brush dynamics keep getting more and more sophisticated.

/ Martin

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 5:06 AM, Martin Nordholts wrote:

On 08/22/2009 05:48 PM, Christophe Buffenoir wrote:

Hello,

I use the GPS set of presets and I think that tags system will be good on presets and not only on brushes.

Nothing is done yet, the screens are just fakes to show my purpose. But, even if I've not enough spare time to do it quickly, I can code it.

I think tagging of presets makes sense, in particular since brush dynamics keep getting more and more sophisticated.

I immediately thought of Akira Shirakawa's proposition to move a majority of paint tool options into the concept of brushes. IMO doing that and using the already existing tagging for brushes would simplify the user interface and also the user experience. (like I've mentioned before in reply to Akira's topic, We have an example of how to make this work very well in MyPaint; the way MyPaint treats brushes really 'fits my brain' IMO and makes painting processes simple to think about, uncomplicated, and quickly done.)

IMO tagging is sort of a patch over the real problem: part of the qualities influencing a brush are in the brush itself, with others in the tool options. Maybe we need tagging, but for the current situation, tagging would make the separation less ugly, while leaving the disjunction of 'brush' meaning in place.

http://www.nabble.com/Improved-brush-editing-interface-mock-up-td24628609.html

On 08/24/2009 03:33 AM, David Gowers wrote:

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 5:06 AM, Martin Nordholts wrote:

On 08/22/2009 05:48 PM, Christophe Buffenoir wrote:

Hello,

I use the GPS set of presets and I think that tags system will be good on presets and not only on brushes.

Nothing is done yet, the screens are just fakes to show my purpose. But, even if I've not enough spare time to do it quickly, I can code it.

I think tagging of presets makes sense, in particular since brush dynamics keep getting more and more sophisticated.

I immediately thought of Akira Shirakawa's proposition to move a majority of paint tool options into the concept of brushes. IMO doing that and using the already existing tagging for brushes would simplify the user interface and also the user experience.

I have also thought a bit on how to clean up the concept of brushes, and in my mind, we could do it like this:

We make a "brush" be just a bitmap/svg/whatever (possibly also an animation). Note that a brush would not even have a spacing as the current GIMP gbr brushes.

A "brush preset" is a brush + dynamics, and this is actually what the user typically picks. If we would have tags for brush presets, we would be one step closer to make brush options be part of the brush, so to speak.

/ Martin

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Martin Nordholts wrote:

I immediately thought of Akira Shirakawa's proposition to move a majority of paint tool options into the concept of brushes. IMO doing that and using the already existing tagging for brushes would simplify the user interface and also the user experience.

I have also thought a bit on how to clean up the concept of brushes, and in my mind, we could do it like this:

We make a "brush" be just a bitmap/svg/whatever (possibly also an animation). Note that a brush would not even have a spacing as the current GIMP gbr brushes.

Right, so what you call a brush here is really more like a 'tip shape' (assuming that tip shapes can change over time, which seems reasonable)
definitely +1 on the transferral of spacing -- that illogicality is really annoying of having that lone option there. This would mean that we would also need to transfer the concept of ranks -- that is, a tip shape could specify what ranks it specified, and the actual meaning of those ranks would be specified in the other part you specified (the one I'm tempted to call 'tool tip') Mind you, I'm not sure that the flexibility of GIH brushes is a good tradeoff for the increase in complexity introduced by essentially multidimensional arrays of brush images; If it is, then it would help a lot to have a better way to lay them out (layer grouping functionality sounds like a good fit here -- one grouping level per rank.

A "brush preset" is a brush + dynamics, and this is actually what the user typically picks. If we would have tags for brush presets, we would be one step closer to make brush options be part of the brush, so to speak.

.. and I can't help thinking of this as a 'tool tip' :)

This sounds like the best idea yet on this subject.

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 8:58 AM, Martin Nordholts wrote:

I have also thought a bit on how to clean up the concept of brushes, and in my mind, we could do it like this:

Ive also thought of this.

We make a "brush" be just a bitmap/svg/whatever (possibly also an animation). Note that a brush would not even have a spacing as the current GIMP gbr brushes.

I would call this part "stamp" or "tip". Essentially it would be a deffinition of the bitmap stamped on the canvas, possibly in form vector shape.

As to removing spacing from the brush... I believe the default value should come from the stamp(along with the base size for vector shapes), just because whats sane for one stamp is not sane for another. Its entirely dependent on the image in question and its intended use. IT can be optional, but possible to specify. Perhaps in some formats via a use of a custom meta data field.

A "brush preset" is a brush + dynamics, and this is actually what the user typically picks. If we would have tags for brush presets, we would be one step closer to make brush options be part of the brush, so to speak.

I can only agree with this if default spacing is part of the brush. If that is the case, then yes, it would be great. However, I see little point in differentiating between brush presets and tool presets in general. Having a dock for listing tool presets and tagging them just like any other resource would make things a lot easier in a uniform way for ALL tools.

On 08/24/2009 11:51 AM, Alexia Death wrote:

A "brush preset" is a brush + dynamics, and this is actually what the user typically picks. If we would have tags for brush presets, we would be one step closer to make brush options be part of the brush, so to speak.

I can only agree with this if default spacing is part of the brush. If that is the case, then yes, it would be great.

If you by "brush" mean "tip shape + dynamics" then I agree. I don't think we should use any custom format for the tip shape; PNG or SVG should do fine.

/ Martin

On Monday 24 August 2009 18:59:53 Martin Nordholts wrote:

On 08/24/2009 11:51 AM, Alexia Death wrote:

A "brush preset" is a brush + dynamics, and this is actually what the user typically picks. If we would have tags for brush presets, we would be one step closer to make brush options be part of the brush, so to speak.

I can only agree with this if default spacing is part of the brush. If that is the case, then yes, it would be great.

If you by "brush" mean "tip shape + dynamics" then I agree. I don't think we should use any custom format for the tip shape; PNG or SVG should do fine.

Svg supports custom metadata. I see no problem in supporting a value for it.

On 08/24/2009 06:42 PM, Alexia Death wrote:

If you by "brush" mean "tip shape + dynamics" then I agree. I don't think we should use any custom format for the tip shape; PNG or SVG should do fine.

Svg supports custom metadata. I see no problem in supporting a value for it.

If we define a tip shape to be a dump bitmap/vector graphics, then it can be problematic (in terms of software maintainability and cleanness in design) to also read dynamics data from tip shape data files.

Everything depends on how we define the concepts.

/ Martin

Martin Nordholts wrote:

If we define a tip shape to be a dump bitmap/vector graphics, then it can be problematic (in terms of software maintainability and cleanness in design) to also read dynamics data from tip shape data files.

Everything depends on how we define the concepts.

I think this is the main problem. In my opinion the "brush" should either:

- Be *only* the tip shape and nothing else (leaving dynamics, brush settings, etc, to tool options, and therefore, tool presets).

- Include most, if not all, tool and brush options/settings, define the tip shape, its behavior, etc, like I proposed a few weeks ago. Brush presets would work as "tool presets".

Right now we have an unintuitive hybrid: some settings are defined by tool settings, some by brush settings.