Adam wrote:

Hey folks!

I've got a small mess of questions, and I do not mind being redirected to older threads. :)

Here goes:

If I have a bunch of text layers, how do I reselect them to move them and/or edit their content without moving backwards in the history?

This will only work if you haven't merged the text dialog into another layer, even another text layer: in the layers dialog, make the layer with the bit of text you want to edit the active layer, and click on the text to open the text dialog. Note that in a layer dialog, only the text is in the layer, so if you are using a font with a large size, you might have to click exactly on a character of the text.

Also, I have a smudge brush effect currently behind a text layer. The brush effect was a long time before the text layer. I need to remove the brush effect. How do I do so without going backwards in the history, thus eliminating the text (and any other previous work on the project after the smudge tool was used)?

Activate the layers dialog, select the layer with the brush effect, and delete it. Of course, if there is other content in the layer that contains the brush effect you want to eliminate, that will be deleted, too.

Is there any way to save projects "in progress" to continue editing later, with the history intact?

I know that saving an image as an ~.xcf file will preserve the layers. I've never tried to save a file with an intact history, so I may be wrong, but I'm not sure you can save a file with the history intact. I've never tried to do this, because I've never needed to, since my standard workflow method is that when I work on a highly complex image, where I anticipate that I might want to have access to the history, I create this history by incremental back-ups; that is, after I have layer 1 the way I want it, I save the work, then when I get layer 2 the way I want it, I make second a back-up with a different name, and when I get layer 3 the way I want it, I make a backup with a name distinct from the first two.

Regarding backups I wrote a script http://registry.gimp.org/node/14246 that makes a backup xcf file with the same name and date plus time appended. If you bind it to a key (that is what I do) it is very quick to save a working copy every now and then.

-Rob A>

On 5/20/10, Noel Stoutenburg wrote:

Adam wrote:

Hey folks!

I've got a small mess of questions, and I do not mind being redirected to older threads. :)

Here goes:

If I have a bunch of text layers, how do I reselect them to move them and/or
edit their content without moving backwards in the history?

This will only work if you haven't merged the text dialog into another layer, even another text layer: in the layers dialog, make the layer with the bit of text you want to edit the active layer, and click on the text to open the text dialog. Note that in a layer dialog, only the text is in the layer, so if you are using a font with a large size, you might have to click exactly on a character of the text.

Also, I have a smudge brush effect currently behind a text layer. The brush
effect was a long time before the text layer. I need to remove the brush effect. How do I do so without going backwards in the history, thus eliminating the text (and any other previous work on the project after the smudge tool was used)?

Activate the layers dialog, select the layer with the brush effect, and delete it. Of course, if there is other content in the layer that contains the brush effect you want to eliminate, that will be deleted, too.

Is there any way to save projects "in progress" to continue editing later, with the history intact?

I know that saving an image as an ~.xcf file will preserve the layers. I've never tried to save a file with an intact history, so I may be wrong, but I'm not sure you can save a file with the history intact. I've never tried to do this, because I've never needed to, since my standard workflow method is that when I work on a highly complex image, where I anticipate that I might want to have access to the history, I create this history by incremental back-ups; that is, after I have layer 1 the way I want it, I save the work, then when I get layer 2 the way I want it, I make second a back-up with a different name, and when I get layer 3 the way I want it, I make a backup with a name distinct from the first two.