Friends,

OK, maybe this is just a matter of a lack of user experience, but recently after having edited an image using "paste" in the GIMP edit menu (v. 2.6), I was mildly surprised to find out that the edits were not in the layer I expected to find them. When I made the copy, the floating layer appeared at the top of the stack in the layers dialog box, even though the active layer was a couple layers down. I wasn't paying much attention to the layers dialog during the copy / paste processes, and the pasted bits seemed to be in the layer I wanted them in. But they weren't. I didn't lose much here, the desired materials were moved into the proper layers with a minimum of effort, and as chance would have it, that the layers that the bits had been pasted into
by mistake had nothing else of significance in them.

But it did lead me to wonder if the floating layer is always at the top,
why this is so, as opposed to having the floating layer inserted into the stack of the layer dialog immediately above the active layer.

I guess most things float on the top.

1. Select your active layer 2. Paste
3. When you anchor, the "float-ing layer" it sinks to the active layer

If you want the copy on a new layer, either; a. Create a new layer, position it in the stack, and then paste/anchor b. Edit->paste as New layer and then move it in the stack

http://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/gimp-image-combining.html#gimp-concepts-layers and
http://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/gimp-selection-float.html are probably worth the read

--
Owen