Current Status on Brush Dialog Lists
On GIMP the parametric and raster brushes are showed together, in the same list on Brushes Dialog (List).
When you use the Brushes Menu we have these options and some problems:
- Parametric brush open correctly the own brush editor (OK);
- Raster brushes are opening also the parametric brush editor1 (??);
- The current contextual menu is the same for the two types (parametric and raster) (Not Ideal);
When we select a parametric brush… the 'Open Brush as image…' is correctly disabled, instead the inverse situation, to raster brushes, both actions are enabled. - The current 'Brushes Menu' has the options2 in bottom only to parametric brushes (Not Ideal).
Brushes Menu |
Complete Brushes Menu. When is selected a raster brush, we have also (bottom) the options to create the .vbr brushes (Not Ideal). |
.vbr Brushes Menu |
.vbr Brushes Menu. When we have a parametric brush selected, the option to raster is correctly disabled. |
Raster Brush Selected |
Raster Brushes Menu. When we have a raster brush selected, the option to parametric brush is yet enabled (Not Ideal). |
Brushes Menu | Proposal
Ideally is fine to have an unique dialog list to show parametric (.vbr) and (.gbr, .gih) brushes… but, is necessary to separate the brush type in different options inner of the Brushes Menu.
My proposal on this bug report #773003 - Improvements on brush creation and their filtering (tags) | Proposal, must be revised with this document, only to clarify the comments posted on the bug report.
The proposal of the behavior suggested to Brushes Menu is correct.
The Brushes Menu conform my proposal must be modify:
- Divide the menu options to brushes by category (parametric and raster).
- Each brush asset category enables the own editing flow, for instance, raster brushes edited by a dedicated menu, as an asset image.
Contextual and Brushes Menus
To Raster and Parametric Brushes on the Dialog lists.
- Parametric Brush [1] >
- New Parametric Brush…
- Edit this Parametric Brush…
- Duplicate this Parametric Brush…
- Raster Brush [2] >
- New Raster Brush > create by default an image with 256x256 px in grayscale, for instance.
- Edit Raster Brush (old Open Brush as image)
- - - -
- Copy Brush Location >
- Show in File Manager >
- Delete Brush >
- - - - - Refresh brushes >
Behavior
If the user has a parametric brush selected on the list, is enabled [1] and is disabled [2] and vice-versa.
Brush Assets Editors | Proposal
The Editors specialized to brushes on GIMP are essentially three, parametric editor, .gbr creation module (creation, alias name and spacing essentially) and .gih editor module (creation, name alias, spacing and array editor).
In these dialogs I suggest add news fields, as Author and License… and the feature to embedding the tags by the designer (author) on the binary archive.
Fields to Author and License
In the dialogs to build the .gbr and .gih brushes on GIMP, is interesting to have two new fields:
- Author Name
- License
Tag Field
Many brushes could be organized by designer through 'static' tags and independent of the Tag GIMP feature. These tags are read normally by Tag feature but are not modifiable.
When a brush is created the author decides the tags that each brush would have by default. This feature is a great way to customize the author's sets and to improve the usage of the sets on GIMP.
Parametric Editor Dialog
Parametric Brush Editor |
Parametric Brush Editor with the fields to Author, License and Tags. |
Raster Brush Editor Dialog (.gbr)
Parametric Brush Editor |
Raster Static Brush Dialog |
Raster Brush Editor Dialog (.gih)
Parametric Brush Editor |
Raster Dynamic Brush (.gih) Dialog |
Jehan Comments bug 773003
2016-10-16
Hi Jose,
That's a fine proposition. Here are some comments:
1/ I don't think we should divide the brush assets. Once created, from the painter's point of view (even when painter and creator are the same), one doesn't care at all *how* they were built. Parametric, raster, who cares? Only on creation side, one cares.
In my opinion, brushes should be simply freely orderable. Right now it seems the order is totally static, which sucks. I'd like to drag and drop my favorite brush to the top of the list.
2/ Authorship, licensing and tag fields are a very good idea IMO. Actually there is already a tag feature, but I don't find it particularly usable (the filtering, tagging, everything feels like it could be better made).
3/ Instead of adding contextual menus with separate labels, what if when clicking "Edit this brush" on a raster brush, it opens the brush as image and also opens the Brush Editor, but showing only field which apply also on raster brush (i.e. brush name, authorship, license, tagsā¦) as well as the shape: a raster brush would be a fourth shape "custom".
Similarly creating a new brush and selecting the "custom" shape would open a new blank image.
jose americo gobbo [reporter] [GIMP developer] 2016-11-08 20:21:46 UTC
(In reply to Jehan from comment #3)
Someone in bug 772088 raised the question about multi-selection of brushes
(when one has a lot of brushes and want to delete or tag a whole bunch
together). I think this makes sense and could be integrated to your spec.Since selection is also used to set the current active brush, we'd have to
discuss what happens when several brushes are selected. Which one is active?
How do we show the difference?
Now, when we select brushes or another image based asset on list dialogues views… this option is referred only to tag editing.
Finally I was wondering how the viewing should also be updated. If you have
a lot of brush, you will want sometimes to show only some of them. It is
already possible with tags, but I don't find the current GUI very usable.
Is very useful to enable the delete option for this case.
Would be useful to have multi-selection option to 'Edit Parametric Brush' and 'Edit Raster Brush'.
In these cases, when we'll have multi image-assets or not (parametric brushes, e.g) (brushes, patterns) selected… the icon edit and delete will be enabled, too (to drag-drop option).
Also, just an idea, but wouldn't an artist want to create groups of brushes,
not by type of brush, but for specific projects for instance? (like for this
project, I use only these brushes, just like you will make color palettes
for a given project)
Well this can also be done with tags, so maybe I'm just duplicating the
feature, but it always felt to me as though tags were more used for the type
of brush. Anyway just bouncing ideas against you.
This is a good issue, for me, in the current behavior of tags, the folder name is a 'big tag'… almost an category. In fact, is not possible edit them via tag editor instances. So, is possible to think an view dialog to view these 'categories' (tags > from folder names) with tag editing to amplify the categorization of them.
Other issues | Editing Alias name
- Simplifying the flow to create/edit directly from the dialog lists.
Perhaps, is necessary think a new procedure to assemblage of the different procedures in a unique. - Editing the Alias Name of Raster Brushes directly on list dialogs.