I'm making a paint program, so useful tools, ideas and features required please

[happymonster]

Alex, I have changed things. But I said at the beginning that some things will stay the same and that the GUI is probably one of them.
I have incorporated suggestions regarding colours and features and I have changed the GUI in some ways since starting.

However I am not now able to going to scrap the entire GUI to make it use the kind of interface you describe. It would be too much work and I wouldn't be happy with the interface myself anyway.

As for the large icons, they are large because a) they are easier to select and b) as screenmodes get larger and larger they will be needed over small icons.

To answer your questions in more detail. I can now click on an icon, have the options open up and then click again on one of the tool options. To do the same with expanding icons I would need to move over a tool icon and wait a second or two and then select another icon. It just seems less efficient to me to have to wait.

Also, photoshop which is an industry standard has probably got this kind of layout for a lot of people:

That is actually a smaller canvas area than I have now..

[happymonster]

Added:

• Checked grid option
• Grid offset X & Y values
• Grid Brightness slider

[happymonster]

Alex:

I apologise if I came over rude or aggressive/defensive.. I just honestly believe that this approach will work for myself and other people more than other GUI styles.

Thanks,
Richard

[happymonster]

Added:

• Checker grid pattern
• Snap to grid
• Fit to grid (to keep lines, boxes and grabbing brushes within a tile boundary) - was on Personal Paint on the Amiga.
  
• Grid co-ords, look at the top right and you will see the x, y and 'tile' number for this square on the grid. Useful when doing games and tile work.
  

[flaber]

Hey,
so i havent gotten a chance to read this whole thread yet, since its numerous pages long..
but ill still suggest a few things.
sorry if they have already been mentioned.

for color selection; one thing that i really like, and use with most programs i can is numerical values.
In MSpaint, and Corel Painter IX, both have color sliders as well as Hue, Sat, Lum numerical options.
I choose most of my colors, and have memorized color combinations off of their number values. So I dont know if you have this included.. or if its just straight sliders. I seem to spend way too much time playing with sliders than need be.

atleast one transparency that you can set to any color, like in MSpaint. Nothing even fancy, with different percentages of transparency. Just full or not.

Layers. Layers would be super beneficial. And again, not even necessarily have to worry about it being at different opacity percentages. Just plain layering, nothing fancy. For such things as tracing sketches, or for pattern experimenting.

For colors.. If you could have a finished image.. and color slider the whole thing.. Not sure what the proper term is, but you can do it in Painter IX, and photoshop. Where you adjust all colors together, so their ratios are all the same, but changing together.. So you can turn the whole thing red, or blue, or green, etc.

Lastly, which goes along with Alex
is I like a clean workspace. The programs I use are MSpaint (which already has nothing to it..), Corel Painter IX, and Adobe Illustrator. With Painter IX and Illustrator I like to try and have as least as possible options and featurs open.
As I need something Ill pull it open from the top, and then close its window after.. or minimize it.
So, Im not saying anyting fancy like mouse over options.. or minimizing each section.. But if you could turn things on or off.
And access it at the top bar. MSpaint has this option under View. I refer to that, because that seems to an industry minimum standard.

Just my few suggestions. sorry if these are all repeats, or if you have these done already.

[happymonster]

Hi Flaber,

Thanks for the comments!

The sliders do have values which you can see, and at the moment you can see RGB & HSV sliders and values when you change a colour.
It will indeed have layers.. (The core code is already in there)

I can understand your feelings about GUI space, but one thing I perhaps haven't explained clearly is that this program will (eventually) have a multitude of different options and tools. As such I do need to have a bit of GUI space, and I find it cleaner to have that space fixed than in a system that has some tools take up a small amount of work space and others a lot more work space.

Also, I am not a GUI programmer, my skills in this area are basic as I am better at graphical tricks and ideas. Still, I hope people do like using the program once they have gotten used to it. It might seem more familiar to people who grew up on DPaint and Personal Paint on the Amiga.

[happymonster]

Added:

• Added Ellipse/Circle tool options.
• Added symmetrical (and quite optimised) hollow and filled ellipses and circles.
• Hollow ellipses and circles use brush thickness.
• Filled ellipses and circles work in the same way as in DPaint and Promotion.

[flaber]

well thats fair.
your doing this just as a side project.
And if GUI is out of your realm, thats fine.
im interested to see a demo.

Also - the one last other thing that I forgot to mention would be nice.
would be simple gif animation compiler.
a simple animation option would be absolutly prime.

[happymonster]

Can you explain what you mean by Gif Animation compiler? Do you mean an option to save an animated gif from loaded images/frames?

[happymonster]

Added:

• Basic Fill tool