On Mon, May 17, 2004 at 06:26:16AM +0200, Jakub Steiner wrote:

* Don't have a use case for why would the original pixel size be useful. Dropped it, but have a weird feeling I'm missing something.

Please leave it there - I'm not sure in which case but I'm using this information quite often. It's very convenient to have it here.

Bye, Tino.

Hi,

Jakub Steiner writes:

I have planned to come up with a better interface for the scale dialogs. The task turned out to be more complex than I initially thought. Because I will probably be busy until next weekend I am posting the unfinished work here for some discussion that could help push things forward. Only the image scale dialog has been mocked up in glade for now, although suggestions how to solve the defined tasks are suggested. No UI for that yet. There are couple of open issues even with the scale image dialog.

* The header could stay, showing not only a thumbnail, filename, but perhaps also the original pixel size (see below).

If you are talking about the dialog header provided by GimpViewableDialog, can we please consider keeping it? We are using this dialog all over the place and IMO it is very useful that the header shows

- the icon that is also used in the menus - a descriptive title of the action associated with this dialog - a preview and the name of the viewable (image/drawable) that this dialog operates on

IMHO removing this header would be a regression.

Sven

Hi,

Jakub Steiner writes:

General
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One thing that would be very helpful everywhere in GIMP would be using a custom "intelligent" unit text entry. Instead of using a spinbox and a dropdown for entering numbere values and units, there could be a single entrybox accepting a number AND the unit, that would also include a simple calculator. Task 5 illustrates how it could be useful in practice.

Well, we don't have such an entry and I don't see it being added for GIMP 2.2. So for now we should IMO keep the changes to the dialog purely cosmetic. It will help users to be able to recognize the Scale dialog that they have worked with in earlier GIMP versions. Also it makes the code changes easier to do in the limited timeframe that is left before 2.2 is supposed to be done.

* The ratio control has been dropped, since it effectively duplicates the % unit.

I'd rather drop the % unit since I don't think that it is intuitive enough. From my experience the ratio control is the most used control in this dialog and IMO it should stay.

1) Pete opens the new image and brings up the image>scale dialog. He slects "CD" as a template. The Width and Height values get unlinked. Pete changes the unit to "%". He sees something like 56% for Width and 80% for Height. Because he wants the image to retain its aspect ratio, he locks W and H, focuses the H control and presses enter. That will make the Width control update to 80%. He applies the settings and brings up the Image>Canvas size dialog. Selects the CD template and presses the center button.

Do you really think that Pete will get this done w/o having it explained at least three times? I doubt it.

Sven

Hi,

On Mon, 2004-05-17 at 10:59, Sven Neumann wrote:

If you are talking about the dialog header provided by GimpViewableDialog, can we please consider keeping it? We are using this dialog all over the place and IMO it is very useful that the header shows

- the icon that is also used in the menus - a descriptive title of the action associated with this dialog - a preview and the name of the viewable (image/drawable) that this dialog operates on

IMHO removing this header would be a regression.

I agree. We're working hard to make all our dialogs have a consistent look and feel - GimpViewableDialog does a great job in simplifying this task.

Regards,
Brix

On 17 May 2004, Sven Neumann wrote:

Well, we don't have such an entry and I don't see it being added for GIMP 2.2. So for now we should IMO keep the changes to the dialog purely cosmetic. It will help users to be able to recognize the Scale dialog that they have worked with in earlier GIMP versions. Also it makes the code changes easier to do in the limited timeframe that is left before 2.2 is supposed to be done.

* The ratio control has been dropped, since it effectively duplicates the % unit.

I'd rather drop the % unit since I don't think that it is intuitive enough. From my experience the ratio control is the most used control in this dialog and IMO it should stay.

I agree. Percentage changes are definately common enough to warrant their own control set. Percentage isn't even considered a unit outside of the computer graphics world, so most people wouldn't think of using a units selector to select a percentage.

Now, if the default on this dialog was always "%", that might work, but it might cause other problems as well. Something to test in the lab.

Rockwalrus

On Mon, May 17, 2004 at 06:26:16AM +0200, Jakub Steiner wrote:

* The ratio control has been dropped, since it effectively duplicates the % unit.

I think there should be fields for the aspect ratio (not starting on 1x1 but actual values).

* Print resolution has been removed (discussed at task 6 below)

For me, changing print resolution is an integral part of scaling. Say you have a scanned image and need to scale it down for a layout. Print resolution would go up without intervention. Being able to restrict it to the highest value that makes sense in one go would be a good thing.

The problem I have with the current dialog, or that of PS, is that it's hard to understand what will change, when you enter a value somewhere.

I think a solution might be to split things up into 3 areas: - Current values (just output, not editable) - Target values. Start with empty fields. The user can add target values until everything can be determined (left input fields will be disabled). Because all possible tasks are realy about defining target values, and having feedback about what else will change and how (see next one).
- Final values (not editable). The consequences of initilal values and target values.

The values are: - pixel or % width and height
- print width and height
- resolution
- aspect ratio (important for artistic work, giving a work a nice shape)

Oh, and finaly Quality/Interpolation should be in the dialog, because it's something to decide on per image.

--- Thorsten Wilms