inestead of that
hold shift
!
it has been dthe default through the 2.0 series, and it was not firendly to novies.
You just hold shift whenpressing the new layer button.

thank you for your interest, an dyou are welcome to more suggestions. But this one is not a bug.

On Wednesday 17 May 2006 04:17 am, Martin Nordholts wrote:

Hi Everyone!

It's me, the Xtns -> Extensions guy if you remember.

I've been using GIMP over the last months to really get to know it, and I must admit that the workflow improves dramatically once you start to really get into the UI.

I have however noticed one thing that I think could be improved. I've found myself using the 'New layer' command on the 'Layers' window quite often, and it is very rare that I want to change the properties of the layer. (The absolute most frequenty new-layer-command is 'create a new transparent layer the same size as the image').

I propose a small change to the code. Since it is very few lines, I thought that creating a .diff file would be overkill, so I'll just write the changes here:

In gimp-2.3.8/app/widgets/gimplayertreeview.c swap place of the new layer callbacks so it becomes this:

item_view_class->new_action = "layers-new-last-values"; item_view_class->new_default_action = "layers-new";

In gimp-2.3.8/app/actions/layers-actions.c, make layers_new_last_vals_cmd_callback() be invoked when N is pressed (instead of
layers_new_cmd_callback()).

If you need this as a formal patch, let me know and I'll create one.

IMO this improves the workflow futher.

/Martin Nordholts

__________________

On Wednesday 17 May 2006 08:40 am, Martin Nordholts wrote:

One other alternative be to provide a key-shortcut which would create a new layer with the previous properties,

which part of "hold shift" in my e-mail was that hard to understand?

On 5/17/06, Martin Nordholts wrote:

Which part of "improve workflow" in my e-mail was hard to understand?

I mean you can't possibly mean that it is more effective to Shift-Click than to only Click?

Do you have showable results of a usability study that clearly states that GIMP should always create new layer with previous settings? Is there any statistics that in most cases users don't change color of background (and other options) in a new layer?

I just want to make sure that we are not talking about your personal preferences and your personal workflow ;-)

Alexandre

Martin Nordholts (enselic@hotmail.com) wrote:

1. GIMP wants to provide its users with a good workflow, independent and unaffected by other similar applications. 2. The majority of 'New layer' commands are equal, i.e. users rarely changes the properties (width, height, prefilled color, etc) of a new layer

I fail to see why this should not be adjusted.

As Joao already said, it is quite easy to create a new layer with the default properties. Just Shift-Click on the "New Layer" button in the layers dialog.

We earlier had it the other way around: Click would create the layers with the defaults, Shift-Click would show the dialog. We then switched it around again, because Shift-Clicking to get the dialog, made the dialog a pretty hidden feature. Most people would not even be aware that there is a dialog, that is pretty useful at times.

If the dialog pops up it is pretty easy to basically ignore it and hit "OK". The other way around is not so easy to solve.

Better have an undiscoverable workflow-optimization than an undiscoverable feature.

If you know about the Shift-Click it basically is not more or less convenient than a simple click on the button. Hence I don't see how switching this around again would drastically improve the workflow.

I'd say, lets stick to the current solution, it works good enough (TM) and we don't need to invent a different way to create new layers.

Bye, Simon

On 5/17/06, Martin Nordholts wrote:

Having to use two hands instead of one is a dramatic loss of workflow IMHO.

What is the second hand doing then, if not being on keyboard?

I'm really curious, because when I'm using GIMP/Inkscape/Scribus, my left hand is _always_ on keyboard, mostly in the Ctrl/Shift/Alt area (try drawing a vertical gradient at 90 deg without using Ctrl) or switching between tools.

Alexandre

On 5/17/06, Martin Nordholts wrote:

(? my reply seems to have been lost, I will reply again)

Well no, I have no statistics :)

As I said though, we could gather some if needed. Maybe some admid could ask on the Users list
if they find it appropriate.

Probably yes, but from what I remember, Shift + Click works in several more parts of GIMP's UI. If so, changing it would break consistence.

Alexandre

0> In article ,
0> Simon Budig ("Simon") wrote:

Simon> Better have an undiscoverable workflow-optimization than an Simon> undiscoverable feature.

One way to make it discoverable is to display a hint in the New Layer dialog window. (This might be conditional on whether Tip of the Day is enabled, or might appear only the first time New Layer is used in each session). Anybody want to take this up?

A feature I quite like from XFig (10 years ago; don't know if it's still there) is the little window showing what the mouse buttons currently do.

On 5/17/06, Martin Nordholts wrote:

I think like this:
For maximum workflow, one should be able to do as many things simultaneously as possible, wouldn't you agree with that?

What else can I do while creating a new layer except scratching my poor head and holding a paper? :)

Again, I would like consistent user interface. If GIMP uses Shift+Click for using last settings and bypass an extra dialog in several places, I want it to always work that way, throughout UI.

If you point is in bypassing all "extra" dialogs by default, then it is a subject to a usability study. I can't see how possibly we can decide changing what many people already got used to without studying user experience of at least part of them.

Alexandre

Martin Nordholts (enselic@hotmail.com) wrote:

We earlier had it the other way around: Click would create the layers with the defaults, Shift-Click would show the dialog. We then switched it around again, because Shift-Clicking to get the dialog, made the dialog a pretty hidden feature. Most people would not even be aware that there is a dialog, that is pretty useful at times.

Ah, it was the other way around before, I see.

From previous discussions however, I concluded that GIMP is not inteded to be an app for newbies, but rather be effective to its faithful users.

I don't think that discoverability is about newbies vs. professionals.

Better have an undiscoverable workflow-optimization than an undiscoverable feature.

Note that the patch does not affect that when you use the Layer _menu_ instead of the shortcut button in the Layer window, the dialog shows as default. I find this quite logical too, that the "shortcut" command should be fast, and the "slower" menu command should offer more details.

Actually it would be interesting to review the usage of buttons in the GIMP, maybe it would be an interesting topic for an usability study. Then we could try to make this consistent all across the GIMP.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if some usability engineer would tell us, that buttons usually ask for an immediate action to the image (or whatever is supposed to manipulated by the button) and that dialogs in that case are not that usable. But I'd like to argue about this in a more global scope. Discussing this for a specific button is not that useful: Arguments get over-emphasized (as if this were the most important button in the GIMP) and we lose the big picture.

If you know about the Shift-Click it basically is not more or less convenient than a simple click on the button. Hence I don't see how switching this around again would drastically improve the workflow.

Having to use two hands instead of one is a dramatic loss of workflow IMHO.

Uh, please back that up.

If you would want _one_ new layer per image, than this doesn't matter. However, for more serious work where creating many layers often, having to use the left hand for shift is not effective I think.

Why? I don't buy this.

Bye, Simon

Martin Nordholts (enselic@hotmail.com) wrote:

Probably yes, but from what I remember, Shift + Click works in several more parts of GIMP's UI. If so, changing it would break consistence.

I am not sure in what way? Yes, there are other commands that are altered by Shift. However, the logical relationship between Shift and non-Shift is (or at least should be) that the most common use of a certain button should be executed with non-Shift, and the other (less used) command with Shift.

If you agree on that, then this improves consistence.

I don't agree. First, determining what the "most common use" of a button is, probably is subjective at all. And even if we could determine this in an unambigous way we'd end up basically with a list: This button shows a dialog, this button does not. Shift toggles this. The user would have to learn the behaviour of all the buttons by heart, since there is no simple rule to describe the behaviour all over the application. I wouldn't call that situation consistent (Note that I don't claim that the current behaviour is consistent).

Bye, Simon

On 5/17/06, Martin Nordholts wrote:

With my suggestion:
One click and press 'L'
or
Ctrl + Shift + 'N', 'L' (Which btw makes the right hand free to do whatever it wants)

It doesn't free the right hand :)

I understand your point. Our different conclusions is based upon our different definitions of 'consistency'. I think that the UI should be consistend in the effective workflow sense, while you want it to be consistent in a structured way.

I don't buy this distinguishing of "consistencies", sorry.

2everyone else: what is the best way to start a usability study fro GIMP?

Alexandre

On 5/17/06, Martin Nordholts wrote:

I understand your point. Our different conclusions is based upon our different definitions of 'consistency'. I think that the UI should be consistend in the effective workflow sense, while you want it to be consistent in a structured way.

I don't buy this distinguishing of "consistencies", sorry.

I'd appreciate if you told me why instead of just 'I don't agree with you'.

Because in fact you are not talking about effective workflow over structure really.

Have a look at most recent Inkscape or read http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes. Calligraphic pen and Pen tool now use same modifiers other tools use. This is both "in the sense of effective workflow" and "in the structured sense", because it gives consistent experience throughout UI that leads to effective workflow. Now you might understand why I didn't buy that distinguishing.

Alexandre

Martin Nordholts (enselic@hotmail.com) wrote:

If you agree on that, then this improves consistence.

I don't agree. First, determining what the "most common use" of a button is, probably is subjective at all. And even if we could determine this in an unambigous way we'd end up basically with a list: This button shows a dialog, this button does not. Shift toggles this. The user would have to learn the behaviour of all the buttons by heart, since there is no simple rule to describe the behaviour all over the application.

I strongly doubt that any regular user had any idea that that was the logical connection between a Shift and a non-Shift click. I had no idea.

I did state explicitely that I don't claim that GIMP is consistent at the moment. There is no doubt that the current situation can be improved. It however IMHO cannot be improved by randomly changing the behaviour of individual buttons.

As I said, I always figured GIMP wants to be _effective_ to work with rather than logical. I mean there are a lot of inconsistences in the UI, however, they make it _effective_ to work with GIMP.

So to use GIMP effectively you have to go through a list of dozends of buttons and memorize what they do when clicking and what they do when shift-clicking?

My idea of consistency is: The user looks at a button and can predict (maybe after learning one or two rules) what the button will do when it gets clicked, and what it will do when it gets shift-clicked. Even when he encounters this particular button for the first time.

Your approach involves a lot of guesswork: We have to make an educated guess, what is the more frequent usage of each of the dozends of buttons. Each user has to guess what we guessed. And I bet that there are users out there who don't agree with our guesses. How do we defend our guesses?

To exaggerate your approach: Wouldn't it be the most usable GIMP if we keep counters for the button presses? And if it turns out that a user uses SHIFT-Click more than a simple click, shouldn't we just switch the behaviour of the button on the fly? Maybe we should also reorder the buttons according to the button click count.

According to your arguments this would result in the most usable GIMP ever, because we react to the individual usage pattern of each user. But it basically will result in a Chaos, where it is unpredictable what a specific button will do, even where it will be located. It is impossible to document.

I firmly believe that simple consistency rules are important for usability. And that saving 0.3 seconds per new-layer (assuming for 0.5 seconds, that your made-up number resembles reality) or 30 seconds per 100 new layers is not as important as a goal.

Conclusion: We definitely can improve the GIMP, but we need a coordinated approach. A usability study would help here.

Bye, Simon

On Wed, 2006-05-17 at 15:22 +0200, Martin Nordholts wrote:

Probably yes, but from what I remember, Shift + Click works in several more parts of GIMP's UI. If so, changing it would break consistence.

I am not sure in what way? Yes, there are other commands that are

altered

by Shift. However, the logical relationship between Shift and non-Shift

is

(or at least should be) that the most common use of a certain button

should

be executed with non-Shift, and the other (less used) command with

Shift.

If you agree on that, then this improves consistence.

I don't agree. First, determining what the "most common use" of a button is, probably is subjective at all. And even if we could determine this in an unambigous way we'd end up basically with a list: This button shows a dialog, this button does not. Shift toggles this. The user would have to learn the behaviour of all the buttons by heart, since there is no simple rule to describe the behaviour all over the application.

I strongly doubt that any regular user had any idea that that was the logical connection between a Shift and a non-Shift click. I had no idea.

As I said, I always figured GIMP wants to be _effective_ to work with rather than logical. I mean there are a lot of inconsistences in the UI, however, they make it _effective_ to work with GIMP.

What are these "lot of inconsistencies"?

Martin Nordholts (enselic@hotmail.com) wrote:

To exaggerate your approach: Wouldn't it be the most usable GIMP if we keep counters for the button presses? And if it turns out that a user uses SHIFT-Click more than a simple click, shouldn't we just switch the behaviour of the button on the fly? Maybe we should also reorder the buttons according to the button click count.

According to your arguments this would result in the most usable GIMP ever, because we react to the individual usage pattern of each user. But it basically will result in a Chaos, where it is unpredictable what a specific button will do, even where it will be located. It is impossible to document.

That sure is exagerating.

Sometimes it is necessary to exaggerate to make a specific point clear.

For this particular button however, I think we are not even talking about a majority, but rahter as good as _all_ users.

Yes. You think. And you have no way to back that up.

I for myself *do* use the dialog occasionally, mainly for creating new white layers.

If you ask yourselves, how often do I need to adjust the settings of a layer, and how often do I just click OK on the dialog, what is your answer?

I am not sure you are trying to understand what I write. If you've read my mails you'd understand that I don't see a point in arguing about this single individual button. I'll readily agree that you have a point when looking at this specific button in an isolated manner. Heck, I even was involved into making this button behave in this way before we reverted it back to its current behaviour. But that is not my point.

My point is that we need to look at the big picture. The New-Channel and New-Path button behave the same way. In a lot of other dockable dialogs there are "New"-Buttons as well. For the reasons stated earlier I want a consistent behaviour. This is not the case currently, but your change won't make it more consistent at all. We need to analyze these things and change them in an coordinated manner. Read: Usability-Study or at least a description of the current situation and then try to improve that.

If you don't adress the big picture in your future mails I don't see much point in a further discussion.

Bye, Simon

On Wed, 17 May 2006, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 16:52:08 +0400 From: Alexandre Prokoudine
To: GIMPDev
Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] Suggestion: Make the 'New layer'commanddefaultto 'New lay

On 5/17/06, Martin Nordholts wrote:

I think like this:
For maximum workflow, one should be able to do as many things simultaneously as possible, wouldn't you agree with that?

What else can I do while creating a new layer except scratching my poor head and holding a paper? :)

Again, I would like consistent user interface. If GIMP uses Shift+Click for using last settings and bypass an extra dialog in several places, I want it to always work that way, throughout UI.

It works for Layers, Channels, and Paths. Good consistency.

Doesn't seem to work for the Templates dialog. Doesn't work for brushes or gradients but in that case it is more like Edit gradient than New gradient so it probably isn't applicable.

Cannot think of other places to test.

If you point is in bypassing all "extra" dialogs by default, then it is a subject to a usability study. I can't see how possibly we can

I couldn't agree more with the point Simon made about discoverability and the workflow optimisation should take second place in this situation, especially since this was all based on trial and error and the developers came to this decision the hard way.

decide changing what many people already got used to without studying user experience of at least part of them.

It is a tough burden to require usability testing to prove every suggested change but in this there effectively has been a substantial body of testing already.

Martin,

Have you considered assigning the "new layer" function to a key? I have assigned my apostrophe to do just that and, if the need arose, I am quite confident that I could request 100 new layers faster than my computer could generate them; all without even leaving the image window.

Martin Nordholts schreef:

For this particular button however, I think we are not even talking about a majority, but rahter as good as _all_ users.

If you ask yourselves, how often do I need to adjust the settings of a layer, and how often do I just click OK on the dialog, what is your answer?

FWIW, I think this is one thing (in fact the only thing, I guess) that Microsoft Visual SourceSafe got right. Many functions show a dialog box with options when you first use it. The dialog box has a checkbox "From now only show this dialog if Shift is pressed" (or something to that effect; I don't remember exactly). If you check the checkbox, that specific function from then on doesn't display the dialog anymore; it just uses the default (or current) option values.

If you want to change the options, you just press shift while selecting the function. I believe there's also some preferences menu to reset the shift-behavior.

Works pretty good, I think.

I agree with the suggestion. The 'New Layer' button on the Layers Dock should represent a new layer with the last values, then have the dialog , if wanted, with a SHIFT-CLICK. The longer way can stay the same (on the top window: Layers- New Layer - Menu).

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