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

[surt]

Personally I'm more in favour of the GUI using more horizontal screen space and less vertical screen space, as I prefer my view port nearer square, and what with widescreens and all. Being able to turn off the panel titlebars should alleviate this some (and maybe option to drop the infobar down to a panel?). On the plus side the current layout allows for larger layer previews.

Tools are something I particularly like having vertical, a one-deep bar at the screen edge is my preference (that's how I have things setup in GGale). You could always use the opposite edge to the main panels.

Having the image preview share space with the palette/colour selector is a neat idea. Maybe the option to toggle it between view centred and cursor centred, so it can double as a GGale/Neopaint-style loupe.

[happymonster]

The new gui makes it easier to move the various sections of the gui around (by editing text files). So yes, you could have what you suggest.

No feedback from anyone else?

[blumunkee]

Interesting. You've basically oriented your workflow to the top left of the screen. Personally I think bottom right is where most of the action is, but that may be because most paint programs laid out in the same traditional manner.

Having used Grafx2 over the past 2 weeks, I've come to appreciate the value of using non-persistent GUI elements to good effect. By that I mean there parts of the GUI that only pop up when needed. A good example are the brushes. In Grafx2 they are accessed by clicking on a small rectangular icon. The resulting popup shows a window with a large selection of brush shapes and sizes. I'd easily trade the inelegance of clicking through two events—selecting the brush icon and then selecting the brush size—over Pixe's approach, simply because it allows a much broader range of brush selection.

I think your program could benefit by allowing for more easily expandable non-persistent functionality. The brush sizes are an example, and I think the tool options would save a bunch of screen real estate if they where made to expand when needed. That would leave room for things that should be persistent, like the preview, palette, and layers.

[happymonster]

Maybe I only have experience of the older versions, but I thought Promotion, PSP and Photoshop all had a default top-left workflow? Anyway, you will be able to change things a bit.

I have to disagree with using only one icon button to select a brush. It's something that I do quite commonly (selecting different preset brushes) and so I don't want to have to click on an icon to do such a common task. I will probably make the largest brush (the one on the far left) a drop down arrow which leads to more brush size / shape options (as before).

The tool options will need all that space when I implement all the ideas I have for them, so it seems cleaner for me to have panels (like preview) not be hidden when options are open but you move over the canvas.

So Palette / Preview will be semi-persistant and layers will be persistant.


I think we are discussing things in a rather circular manner though, no one approach will please everyone.

[happymonster]

I'm having some difficult lately..

Doing Pixe is just a hobby for me, but it does give me a very nice feeling to know that others use it. Despite difficulties it has really improved immensely due to feedback from people here.

Unfortunately, I've been getting bogged down in making the GUI flexible enough to suit everyone and trying to come up with a default look that both myself and the majority like. As such I've not actually made much progress on the actual functionality while I've been floundering around trying to come up with a specific focus.

I always have the difficulty of where to draw the line between my own desires and that of other users. I think if I just do what other people want I will lose motivation. I mentioned this before with the GUI, but sadly I don't think people really heard what I said. I don't want to give up on Pixe, so I think the best direction is to make Pixe more what I want for a while (and that will probably be a bit less traditional, a bit more experimental, as that is the kind of things I like to play with).

I've just been getting frustrated with trying to make it good enough without any other real help besides opposing ideas and suggestions. Curse thee Adobe and your design teams!

So I'm going to have to pull back from implementing everyone else idea's for now and focus on my own design here.. As a consequence probably not many of you will like the way it will develop, but as I have said before, on my own I can't do the perfect Paint Program for everyone, it's just too ambitious.

But, this way Pixe will still develop..

[Mathias]

Hey man, dont' let it get to you too much. I'd highly recommend pulling back a little if you think this endeavor is too great in scope. Take a hiatus if need be. I know from personal experience that once I've worked for too long any one project, and the time spent is disproportionate to what the end-result is meant to be, I begin to hate the project and additional time spent on it is done begrudgingly because I hate to not finish something. I'm sure most are like that with pretty much anything, including you with this.

I didn't take you seriously at first. When you initially posted about creating your own specialized pixeling program, I thought 'yeah sure, this'll last for a few weeks . . .' But wow, look at you go! I have full confidence you'll have a finished release relatively soon. I think you've come to one of the best possible sites for feedback, so wise choice there  -BUT-  most of these guys are dedicated artists and don't understand your development process so I think you're wise again to have the discernment to know that their point of view most likely lacks the programming understanding you have and so the cascade of feature requests and disagreements is impossible to perfectly rectify.

You cannot please everyone all the time. So don't try. Unless you enjoy defeat. I think this is a life lesson applicable to everything. Why cram every perceivable feature into the first release? Keep your idea log running and plan expansions, new versions, however you to handle it, with additional features, but code your engine flexibly so as to allow for convenient integration later in the future. Who knows where this will go. It may eclipse Promotion and all the others.

My underlying point is a recommendation to you - Determine a goalmarker where you can cut off your alpha-phase and polish to something releasable, then implement richer features later.

(and to weigh in on the multiple colors thing, if it can be done smoothly, do it, why not? I like the concept)

[Jim16]

I like the design and feel to this. Now a must download!
I will see how this go's! This is probs a step up from Mspaint to the noobs on the internet so the more you do the more the new guys get to play with Like matias said, you do your own thing but make sure that its flexible in use. Actually as is is perfect for me and has all the available tools a basic pixel artist needs.

[happymonster]

Thanks Mathias and Jim!

Some good advice there! I do have a tendency to try to please everyone all the time in terms of designing games/programs, and clearly that's sometimes impossible.

I also got some other good advice from other people: Instead of focussing on photoshop, GIMP, and things like the GIMP redesign posts, think about what ProMotion and Graphics Gale do wrong as well of course think about what I want to see in Pixe.

[Mathias]

happymonster, where you at? pinging for progress . . .  Is there anything we here at pixelation can do for you?

[happymonster]

Hiya!

No, this is not dead. But I've had 3 things happen lately:

1. Spending more time at the weekends with my girlfriend.
2. Working on my own ideas rather than other peoples.
3. I recently brought a great netbook (Samsung NC10), which I want to use Pixe on. The lower resolution of the netbook (1024 x 600) means I've had to redo the interface to be more compact (while not too complicated) so that it works fine on both my main PC and the netbook.

I am still working on Pixe (albeit slowly).