[Gpaint-develop] Re: gpaint to-dos

[Michael A. Meffie III]

Andy wrote:

> Hi, I think the to-dos for the short term are the
> following: (they are useful for getting "wet" with the
> internals of gtk, glade, etc.)
> 
> 1. Following xpaint, the "image processing" routines
> need dialog boxes to allow users to change certain
> parameters. Right now the parameters are hard coded to
> certain default value, not adjustible by the user....
> 
> 2. We want fill patterns and line widths selectable by
> the user... Right now there is a crude line width
> select control and no fill pattern dialog box.. we may
> want to implement them or borrow from some other
> applications (I am watching out for it).
> 
> 3. Printing--right now there is little or no printing
> control (user interfaces)--we may borrow the code from
> eog for this.
> 
> 4. Brushes for drawing...
> 
> For the longer term, we want to 
> 
> Switch to GNOME 2,
> adding variable zooming to the image window (like
> xpaint can do)
> Make gpaint a bonobo component (like OLE on
> Windows)....
> 
> Just my thoughts, and I will look into implement some
> some of the to-dos ASAP...

Hi Andy,

I've also been compiling a todo list for gpaint. Here is my list
so far. What do you think?

* Help Topics

    online user documentation

* Paint Brush Tool (major)

    We need to finish the paint brush tool. The user should be to select
    from a set of brush tips.

* Spray Paint Tool (major)

    The spray can tool, also known as the airbrush.

* Undo Feature (major)

    Should be able to undo and redo changes to the drawing.

* Background Color Selection (minor)

    Should be able to right click on a color palette to select the
    current background color.

* Eraser Tool (minor)

    The eraser tool should work more like the pencil tool. Currently it
    "stutters" if you drag it quickly.

* Cursors (minor)

    Need better mouse cursors to indicate the current selected tool, and
    to indicate the area to be changed. For example, the eraser cursor
    should show which pixels will be erased. Currently there is a cross
    hair, which shows just the center of the area.

* Tool Bar Icons (minor)

    I would like to see nicer icons for some of the tools. The current
    set taken from xpaint and look a bit flat.

* Blocking Operations (major?)

    Some menu selections, such as grabbing the desktop and some of the
    image processing functions, take a very long time. When these
    functions are running, the application is not responsive and the
    main window does not repaint after the menu pop up is dismissed.
    Could these time expensive tasks be processed in "the background"?

* File Formats

    It took me some time to realize gpaint can actually save files in
    various formats, based on the file name extension. It would be nice
    to be able to select the format type in the save dialog.

* Save Confirmation

    The application should prompt the user to save unchanged images when
    exiting. Well maybe it could be optional.

* Zoom

    The user should be able to zoom in and out. I'm not convinced the
    zoom should be variable. Maybe just a pixel level close up would 
    work, like the "fat bits" feature of xpaint, set to 1:6.

* Main Menu

    I'm a bit concerned the xpaint menu items could be confusing to
    newbies, specifically the region, filter, and image items. I think
    we should consider simpler names, like combining the region and
    filter options under "effects" (as in special effects).


Well, this is my list at this point. I haven't started on any of these
yet. I spent a good portion of my free time last night building an RPM
with the gpaint.spec. I'm RMP ignorant, so it took me a lot of time. 
Do you ever build gpaint rpms? It would be really nice if the makefile
had an rpm target.

--
Michael A. Meffie III         http://home.neo.rr.com/meffie
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it uses up a
thousand times more memory.