gimp/TODO

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Please add things to this file when the need to do them is
discovered. Explanations of why or how this would be useful are
even better. Insight into possible ways to implement are even better
than that.
===================================================================
gui/functionality separation
both file scope wise and in use, particulary so that
the gui version of the tool uses the pdb whenever possible
(for finding bugs, and for macro recording)
May be a good idea to actually put the core and the gui in
separate subdirectories. --sg
fix the palette dialogs
(it would be nice to be able to actually edit
palettes and the like), also replace that menubox with a clist or
something. Right now, the palette dialog is unresizeable, and
mostly useledd useless for anything other than picking colors.
Import/Export options for palettes here would be good to.
Palettes should become a first-class core data structure (like
layers) with their own PDB interface. (Goes with below.) --sg
integrate palette saving into core
An option to save a current images pallete to a file is
handy. Theres currently a plugin to do this, but for
integration it might be better in the core.
more configurabilty (eek)
I would like to be able to let the user stick arbitrary
buttons into the toolbox and attach arbitrary functions to
them. --sg
fix stuff so that the tile size could actually be changed eventually
Currently gimp core is mostly setup to use a potentially
variable tilesize, but lots of plugins and some internal stuff
are hardcoded to expect 64x64 tiles. This is good for 8-bit
images on x86, but with potential of deep images and other
platforms, having this variable could be a real gain in
performance tweaking.
file new dialog stuff (i'm working on this...Adrian)
1. default to size of cut buffer
2. add units and resolution options
3. make x,y values have dropdowns for last 5 or so used sizes
4. maybe an estimate of how much ram the image will take?
5. maybe some "preset" common image sizes?
6. resoltuion/units need to be exported to the whole app
(probabaly in gimage.c) so size/scale, text tool, etc can
use them.
export filters:
This is one that would make some alot of sense intuitively,
and could be very conveint for scripting. Currently, theres no
"one step" way to save images easily. This feaure would be
useful for example in the Mail plugin, where it could flatten,
convert, etc the image in one step.
previews in file save (for jpeg compression, etc):
Currently there is no easy way to see the effects of
compression or other image saving effects before actually
saving and reloading an image.
save/restore state of major dialogs:
Gimp currently has no way to save the state of the gimp
desktop. Perhaps some of the gnome session management stuff
could be useful here. It should be exported to the PDB too.
keybindings for simple "binary" tools:
(for ex, flip should flip horiz normal, and shift+click to
shift vertically). The more that can be done by power-users
without having to delve through dialogs the better.
curve deal in the gradient editor?:
It could be useful to have a curve widget for each of the
color channels or hsv. For example, you have a custom palette
you like, but you want it to get dark from left to right. You
pop up the "Value" curve and make a curve getting darker.
(Note: this would require a complete rewrite of the gradient
_engine_, not just the editor. --sg)
some degree of drawing tools, straight line, etc:
Perhaps large parts of gfig could be salvaged for this. Its
not something "paint" programs traditionaly do, but there
usefulnes is obvious. square/circle/ellipse are already there
basically (just make a wrapper to select and stroke). need a
better straigh line drawing ui though.
paths, and better beziers would be a nice touch:
Being able to load, save bezier paths, and convert from bezier
to selection, and selection to bezier would be very
benificial. This combined with a working iscissors would make
for extremely flexible selection mechanisms.
Macro recording and better scripting support:
This pretty much is going to require the aforementioned
gui/func seperation. More stuff needs to be triggered via pdb
to make thsi a possibilty.
More Xinput stuff ( gradient brushes, pen "strokes" ?):
This is very important for "artist" types. The more
value-added utility we can make for Xinput stuff the better.
natural media tools (raph?)
A "Revert To" menu options:
Open a image, munge it around a whole bunch, decide you dont
like the results, and you dont have enough undo
steps. File->revert would easily reload the file from disk.
Redesign of the Blend Tool dialog? (it's rather large...)
"Fit text to selection":
make selection, scale text to fit it... A suggestion from
Xach, Perhaps instead of rendering the text and font size
exactly, make a bounding box of it, then scale the bounding
box as approriate. When the box size is chosen, figure out the
best-fit font size and render it.
instead of rendering into a preview, render preview directly
onto the image.
(Text should be redone entirely, with a native T1/TTF
interpreter. Using X to render text is cheap but nasty. --sg)
a complete groundup rewrite of iscissors:
Isciissors in theory are very useful. 1.0 iscissors basically
dont work though. It has also been mentioned that the gui from
.54 was much better.
Interactive resizing/scaling of layers (maybe with handles on the edges)
progress bars on long proccesses:
Xcf loading/saving, transforms, complicated blend's etc. The
user gets no feedback about what is going on. This is bad.
(Maybe run core image ops from the idle loop? We already do
this for curves et al. --sg)
status bars on image window:
(maybe swallow plug-in progress bars, show current x,y, file
type, etc...)
( I think snorfle is working on this)
- optionally show that information in the toolbar ?
- probably dragable to the toolbar and vice versa
"open into layer" and new image from cut buffer stuff should perhaps
be in core?:
This would be "Paste into New" and/or "Copy to New". Should be
simple. Theres a script to do this, but the functionailty is
so simple it perhaps would eb best to do in core.
drag & drop for layers:
(both in the dialog, and from image to image). Changing
postion of layers now is quite a pain. The onyl choices are to
raise by one, and lower by one. It would be much nicer to be
able to click & drag a layer to its new spot in the stack.
more indicators of current status:
(X,Y position, selection size and placement etc ), maybe in
another dialog, maybe a status bar? Lots of request for
this. Think snorfle is working on it.
Clean up swapfiles:
Gimp is prone to leaving large swapfiles lying around. Perhaps
on startup or exit it could clean up unclaimed
swapfiles. Problem: how to tell a unclaimed swap file (one
could be in use by another gimp). Maybe add a unique id to the
swap file?
Also should handle out-of-space on swap device better.
(Couldn't be much worse.) --sg
Automagically guess whats a good tilecache size:
Not sure how to do this. maybe offer suggestions in the
preference dialog or install.
an artist palette type of color selector:
(maybe based on raphs watercolor deal?) notebooked with the
regular color selector? (believe seth is working on this).
BETTER FONT SUPPORT!
even if we have to go around X. and a better font selector
too. Perhaps the new gtk font selector could be used. It seems
handy. The actual support may require integration of type1lib
or freetype or similar. Probabaly be an extension, gimp could
fall back to X font rendering if need be.
Refresh font list while running.
(There's a good argument for making all text operations run
thru an extension. --sg)
ability to get an exact count of the total number of colors in the
image:
Xpm plugin has an algo to do this. Perhaps it should be in the
core.
indexed/color reducing to arbitrary number of colors:
Current convert.c is limited to indexing to 8-bit palettes or
less. Dont know what would be involved in making it work for
larger palettes. convert.c has some deep magic involved in it,
so who knows.
(Related: indexed images with more than 8 bits depth. --sg)
Folding box for the toolbar:
So you can have it be 9x3 like now, or 1x27, or
whatever... gyve has rough outlines of a widget to do this...
(belive msw is working on this)
optimize transform_core (special cases, fft stuff?, optimizations only
raph understands, etc...)
brush-shaped cursors:
Possible solutions, generate cursors on the fly, use shaped
pixmaps, possibly just draw directly on the preview, any other
ideas? Raphs caanvas might offer the oppurtunity to do this
in color and anti-aliased.
pixmap brushes:
Should be simple. maybe need a new format that would include
data/mask (probabaly just use a xcf). Once its loaded in as a
tempbuf, a few tweaks in the paint tools ought to handle
it. Should it be a new tool? jsut a new brush type for old
paint to ls?
Quickmask/paintable selections:
Any ideas on the best way to do the ui? The fundamentals of
beng abl to do this are already there. Just need a good way to
present it.
let pdb stuff register under the layers_dialog menu:
Lots of potential in scripts to do layer/channel manip. Might
as well let them register on those menus.
some sort of mdi for dialogs so you could tab them together or
pull them apart:
Would be nice to be able to pile all the dialogs into one big
notebook. (think msw is working on this)
make color picker able to choose from any color on the screen.
This sounds really simple. Any ideas?
Also, set a radius for color picker to pick an "average" from
dodge/burn/sponge/smudge tools:
several people have commented on the need for this. Anyone
know how to do it well?
session management
Text Tool
More complete font selection
Multiple lines and alignment
Kerning, hints, etc.
big cad style cross-hairs cursor:
guides come close, but we probabaly dont wont somethign like
that again.
more info available to the user in general (current brush, etc)
some sort of image locking:
so we don't munge images by doing >1 ops on them at once.
For plugins in particular, may also simplifie some of the tool
redesign.
Suggestion from Ville Hautamaki (CW):
Pattern groups
Especially once patterns are demand-loaded. It would be
very conveint to say "load all the wood patterns",
or even just "set 1" etc.
Overwork the transform tools UI:
It would be nice if the transformation
wouldn't automatically start when releasing the mouse. Instead have a window
that shows the currently choosen transformation numerically
(e.g. Scale X: 0.75 | Scale Y: 1.00). The transformation should be editable
there and with handles on the outline. Perform the transformation when "OK" is
clicked in the dialog or when you doubleclick(?) into the image.
Probably have a "Preview" button too that performs the transformation
without interpolation:
As it stands, transforms can be very slow and feedback to the
user is smalld. A preiview would save much time and maek the action
more accururate.
Selections should always be bezierifyable.
Selections should be transformable:
(e.g. rotate an elliptical selection; the selection, not it's
content!!).
This shouldnt be too hard. Perhaps just need to add the hooks
for the selection info (usually in TileManager structs) to
be passed to the existent image ops.
Have a possibility to add a text as selection:
If selections would be editable as described above, we'd
then have editable vector-text. Is this possibel with type1 fonts?
option to create New Indexed image (with the choice of pattern foo) ?
Integrate gimp-16 stuff?
Would be difficult, but possibly very useful.
see http://www.netrover.com/~rayl/gimp/
A way to define a defualt comment
larry is working on named data attachments for images. More
or less a generic way to define image comments and other
embedded info.
Better use of wm hints.
Not sure where the line between dialogs and windows
lies, but it's something to look into.
Make file load/save errors not worthy of existence.
Right now the errors from the file plugins pop
up in weird places, at weird times, and are often
basically useless. This is bad.
Image pager/explorer
Basically similar in idea to a pager on a virtual desktop
wm, except a large image is the pager. Pop up a small preview
of the image, with a higlighted rectangle indicaing the currently
viewable area. User can then move around in the preview and the
highlighted area becomes the on screen viewable part. May
also be useful in file loading, where one could see a preview of a
large image and then jsut select a subset toa ctually load into
mem.
Code to set built in icons or icon path?
Is this the wm's job or soemthing internal?
Action/active/Procedural Layers
People seem to want them. For some ops it would be painfully
easy. For alot of stuff i havent a clue. Anyone have a good plan
on how to potentialy implement this?
generic preview code in libgimp for use by plugins
All plugins should have a preview. it would be nice if there
were code in libgimp to make this easier. Possibly just
generalize a good exmaple of preview code (quartics?) and
slap it in libgimp. Maybe throw some of the gck stuff in there
too. Or possibly make a new plugin helper lib combining
gck, megawidget, preview code, etc.
abiltiy to specify which gimprc to parse on commandline
Some people need to be able to use different gimprc on
different machines (for ex, 8-bit vs 24 bit display).
Undo groups
basically for snapshots for the UNDO stack instead of realying on
everything to be recorded. Particualr useful in scripts.
gradient map layer/paint mode
map values from current gradient to value/intensity
script-fu
proper font selector instead of typing the silly thing in
maybe a color history too...
tools
Make tools listen for gimage dirty signals to fix munging.
When a tool caches image data privately, you need to reset
when the image gets dirty.