On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 7:40 AM, Jay Smith wrote:

If this issue has not been addressed yet and if I can't find anything in Bugzilla on it, I want to make an Enhancement Suggestion, first on the Gimp-Developer list, then Bugzilla.

However, I don't have the quick or convenient ability to check the current status of this issue in the most recent Gimp version.  (I am a "user only" and am not involved in installing such programs.)  I am hoping that somebody who has the most recent version can check this for me.  Thanks in advance.

Image > Canvas Size in the "Set Image Canvas Size" dialog in the Layers section at the bottom
there are five different possible settings, including None, All Layers, etc. etc.

In Gimp 2.6.6 (Ubuntu Linux 8.04) this defaults to "None" and ALWAYS remains none EVERY time I go to the dialog, even if I had it changed to something else on this image or a previous image.

I believe that this setting should be remembered a) during the session of editing an image; b) during all sessions editing all images; and c) between sessions of shutting down and restarting Gimp.

+1 on this; It jars me momentarily every time I open this dialog and the setting is stuck to None instead of what I last selected.

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 9:12 PM, David Gowers wrote:

+1 on this; It jars me momentarily every time I open this dialog and the setting is stuck to None instead of what I last selected.

What's unfortunate is that most of the tools in the toolbox have the ability to have their default settings changed, but many of the dialogs do not. It would be nice if the "Save tool options on exit" feature from the preferences could be expanded to the dialogs too. But where does it stop? I often wish my filters remembered their settings, but I'm pretty sure that's beyond the control of the developers.

On 03/09/2010 11:15 PM, Jay Smith wrote:

It seems to me to be more useful to remember what the user does rather than some setting that the user never uses.

Hi,

Absolutely. This isn't controversial. Now all that is missing is a patch.

BR, Martin

Hi,

Jay Smith wrote:

Image > Canvas Size
in the "Set Image Canvas Size" dialog in the Layers section at the bottom
there are five different possible settings, including None, All Layers, etc. etc.

In Gimp 2.6.6 (Ubuntu Linux 8.04) this defaults to "None" and ALWAYS remains none EVERY time I go to the dialog, even if I had it changed to something else on this image or a previous image.

I believe that this setting should be remembered a) during the session of editing an image; b) during all sessions editing all images; and c) between sessions of shutting down and restarting Gimp.

[..]

It seems to me that there are quite a few of "these situations" in Gimp.

I know it is a big PITA, but eventually, I think "they" should all get remembered as the last-used state *where appropriate*.

I fully realize that it is *not appropriate* to remember last used state in all situations.

Is there an organized checklist of all this "stuff" that we could work through?

Another point of view:

Each of these dialog options points at a potential interaction problem. If the dialog remembers an option, the user also has to remember that option. In general, this amounts to additional cognitive burden to keep the mental model in sync with the application state.

In consequence, each of these settings is worth beeing questioned and every potential solution to get rid of such an option is worth a posting on the brainstorm.

For example, the "Image->Canvas Size |resize layers|" option, with which you started this thread, can be obliterated by automatic layer size management.

regards, peter

2010/3/10 yahvuu :

Hi,

Jay Smith wrote:

I believe that this setting should be remembered a) during the session of editing an image; b) during all sessions editing all images; and c) between sessions of shutting down and restarting Gimp.

It seems to me that there are quite a few of "these situations" in Gimp.

Another point of view:

Each of these dialog options points at a potential interaction problem. If the dialog remembers an option, the user also has to remember that option. In general, this amounts to additional cognitive burden to keep the mental model in sync with the application state.

Hi yahvuu

Hmm I don't understand, how would there be additional cognitive burden on users if a dialog remembers a setting across invocations? Or do you mean that the setting itself is additional cognitive burden? If so, then I agree. The more options we can get rid of, the better.

BR, Martin

Martin Nordholts wrote:

2010/3/10 yahvuu :

Each of these dialog options points at a potential interaction problem. If the dialog remembers an option, the user also has to remember that option. In general, this amounts to additional cognitive burden to keep the mental model in sync with the application state.

Hmm I don't understand, how would there be additional cognitive burden on users if a dialog remembers a setting across invocations?

You are right, that was an invalid generalisation. I was thinking of the 'New Layer' dialog where the 'fill' option tends to get in the way. (If i leave that option to a fixed value -- like a prefs item -- there's no problem, i can just hit enter to create the new layer. If i, however, do change this value, i'd better remember this the next time i create a new layer.)

The more options we can get rid of, the better.

yep, that's what i was after

regards, peter

On Tue, 2010-03-09 at 21:18 -0500, Frank Gore wrote:

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 9:12 PM, David Gowers wrote:

+1 on this; It jars me momentarily every time I open this dialog and the setting is stuck to None instead of what I last selected.

What's unfortunate is that most of the tools in the toolbox have the ability to have their default settings changed, but many of the dialogs do not. It would be nice if the "Save tool options on exit" feature from the preferences could be expanded to the dialogs too. But where does it stop? I often wish my filters remembered their settings, but I'm pretty sure that's beyond the control of the developers.

Not really. It's on the TODO for quite a while already. But it's quite a big task and it might take years before it gets enough priority that someone actually sits down and attacks it. Of course if it bothers you so much, you might want to be the one who fixes it...

Sven

Jay Smith wrote:

On 03/10/2010 03:27 PM, yahvuu wrote:

Martin Nordholts wrote:

2010/3/10 yahvuu :

Each of these dialog options points at a potential interaction problem. If the dialog remembers an option, the user also has to remember that option. In general, this amounts to additional cognitive burden to keep the mental model in sync with the application state.

Hmm I don't understand, how would there be additional cognitive burden on users if a dialog remembers a setting across invocations?

You are right, that was an invalid generalisation. I was thinking of the 'New Layer' dialog where the 'fill' option tends to get in the way. (If i leave that option to a fixed value -- like a prefs item -- there's no problem, i can just hit enter to create the new layer. If i, however, do change this value, i'd better remember this the next time i create a new layer.)

[..]

I am not convinced that the 'New Layer' example given presents a "better" situation as described.

well, it additionally depends on the task at hand -- which tells that it was bad idea to hold the dialog state responsible for getting in the way. This cannot be generalized.

Allow me to rephrase my original point: Each of said dialog options can potentially get in the way of smooth workflows and is worth being questioned.

Now for my example where it's indeed the dialog state that is counter-productive: For the New Layer dialog, the crucial question is wether the next layer will be created with the same fill as the last one. If that assumption holds true most of the time, then a stateful option is useful, as you described here:

In the 'New Layer' example given, if I am doing a certain repetitive task, it is *highly* likely that I will want the new layer to have the same fill every time I do that function. There is a significant "burden" in having to change this setting _every_ time. (And to make it worse, some of these settings are not so easily accessible via keyboard, thus wrecking my shoulder from mousing too much.)

If however, say, a mixed stack of 10 transparent layers and 5 colored layers is to be created, then using the stateful option becomes a burden: The user is forced to read and potentially adjust its value for each new layer.

In this case, it is more efficient to leave to the fill option to 'transparent' and manually fill the layer later on, if required. Why? Because it can be done blindly, at least when using the keyboard (see below).

So, which is better:

a) Knowing that the program will always force a default value and having to change it much of the time (in my case for Canvas Resizing, ALL the time).

b) Knowing that the user is responsible to paying attention to what the value says when they get to the dialog and if it is correct for the task (which it will then be, once the user has set it, until later changed by the user).

Sorry, i cannot give a useful general answer here. Consider e.g. the Gaussian Blur filter, whose radius setting matches both a) and b).

For the New Layer dialog, i'd prefer:

c) Always create a transparent layer, without showing a dialog. Then let the user fill the new layer if desired (not considering layer size here).

This works nicely for a keyboard workflow: CTRL-SHIFT-N, CTRL-. Fast, no confirmation required and no application state has to be remembered. An open question is how to make this fast for a mouse only / tablet user.

For your original case of Canvas Resizing, i fully agree that the dialog should remember the 'resize layers' option (until we get auto-sizing layers, of course).

regards, peter

Hi,

On Thu, 2010-03-11 at 23:50 +0100, yahvuu wrote:

For the New Layer dialog, i'd prefer:

c) Always create a transparent layer, without showing a dialog. Then let the user fill the new layer if desired (not considering layer size here).

Well, layer size is the problem here. It is rather inconvenient to resize layers, so it is somewhat important for many work-flows to have a way to specify the size when the layer is created.

This works nicely for a keyboard workflow: CTRL-SHIFT-N, CTRL-. Fast, no confirmation required and no application state has to be remembered. An open question is how to make this fast for a mouse only / tablet user.

Easy enough, a mouse user can drag the foreground or background color from the bottom of the Toolbox or from the Colors dockable and drop it either on the image window or on the newly created layer in the Layers dialog.

Sven

On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 08:03:18AM +0100, Sven Neumann wrote:

This works nicely for a keyboard workflow: CTRL-SHIFT-N, CTRL-. Fast, no confirmation required and no application state has to be remembered. An open question is how to make this fast for a mouse only / tablet user.

Easy enough, a mouse user can drag the foreground or background color from the bottom of the Toolbox or from the Colors dockable and drop it either on the image window or on the newly created layer in the Layers dialog.

Or you can just drag the color to the new layer button in the layers dock to do it in only one step.