On Sun, 6 Mar 2005, bulia byak wrote:
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 17:27:16 -0400 From: bulia byak <buliabyak@...400...> To: Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> Cc: Inkscape is a vector graphics editor inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Re: layer commands we need
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 16:55:05 +0000 (GMT), Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> wrote:
The Gnome HIG discourages using negatives like "Unhide" and as far as I can remember it would recommend using "Show All in Layer" instead.
Makes sense, especially since we already have Select All in All Layers.
Flatten layers // merge all siblings with the current layer
Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your description but do you expect that this going to work like the GIMP/Photoshop where they have
Merge Down merges the current layer into the layer below it. Merge Visible merges all the visible layers together Flatten Image merges all layers down leaving only the bottom Background layer
Yes, Merge Down is a good idea to have. But what is the difference between Merge Visible and Flatten Image?
If it's only that the latter affects all layers including invisible ones, then I don't need we need a separate command for this. Instead we need a way to unhide all layers.
Well the difference is that if you want to keep working on a layer you can hide it temporarily and flatten the rest and keep working with a more managable two or three layers.
You want to Include "Merge Visible" but not both with "Flatten Image"? I suppose that works, hadn't thought of it that way. Hopefully it wont confuse artists with bad habits too much.
I definately agree that Show All Layers is worthwhile functionality, irrespective of any layer merging functionality.
I think "Merge visible" should only work on the siblings of the current layer. So perhaps it's better called "Merge sibling layers", with "visible" being implied (we don't generally do anything to invisible/hidden layers).
Siblings seems extremely confusing to me, I hardly ever use the word siblings (brothers, sisters, family but almost never siblings) and I'm a native English speaker and as I user I wouldn't be sure what exactly it might mean (i did already have to ask) so it is bordering on complex jargon.
I'm still trying to understand what exactly you mean. Are you thinking of having an option called 'Merge sibling layers' that would merge the current layer with the layer below it and also the layer above it? This seems like overkill, it is confusing because I think it would be a rare enough use case. If the user wanted to merge three layers they could start on the top and merge down twice (it would of course need a good keybinding, preferably the same as either the GIMP or Photoshop but I think this is a common workflow at least from all the graphics tutorials I've gone through in magazines). Merging down repeatedly is really very effective, almost elegantly simple in its effectiveness.
I would urge you to implement the necessary infrastructure, but include menu items for the more straight forward "Merge Down" and whichever of "Flatten Image/Merge Visible" you prefer or both (and as usual I'm a firm believer in keeping consistant with other applications and I think this is a good case for it).
With that familiar functionality and the show/hide options you intend to implement users should be able to efficiently do all they need to do.
I would hope that user-developers in need of more complex functionality would be able to implement it using extensions. I'd be intersted in hearing more of what layer functionality you think would be useful as I might try implementing something similar as a Script-Fu script for the GIMP.
Also it may be useful to have a "Merge sublayers" command that would remove all sublayers copying their contents to the parent layer.
This all seems very complicated to use and catering to very specialised cases. Are we confident that most users will even use layers? I would have thought the average user with small projects would stick to groups and moving things around on one layer (it was years before I started using Layers in Dia and then only to break up more complicated diagrams).
Sincerely
Alan Horkan
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