Automatic tab style and removed tab title bar
I currently have less time over for GIMP development than I used to have. Puss på dig Emma! ♡ :) Nevertheless, I've just landed two changes to the UI. The first one adds a new tab style to docks, the second one removes the rather space inefficient tab title bar.
The new tab style is called 'Automatic' and makes the tabs in docks as big as possible given the available space. If you have one dockable dialog in a wide dock, the tab will be an icon and a title. If you have many dockables in a narrow dock, the tabs will be just icons. The Automatic tab mode is dynamic, resizing a dock will update the tabs in a dock live. This tab style is also the new default tab style.
Following the Automatic tab style I could remove the tab title bars. The removed tab title bar had two purposes. Hosting the tab menu button and acting as a drag-and-drop handle when no tabs were present. The first has been addressed by moving the tab menu button up to the tabs and the second has been addressed by always showing tabs.
Along with the removal of the docking bars a while back, the result is that GIMP has gotten a cleaner and more space efficient UI. There's a lot of things that could be further improved of course, but this is what I wanted to do for 2.8. And the single-window mode. Speaking of, I haven't had much time for that lately either, but I'm sure it'll all be fine eventually.
posted by Martin Nordholts @ 1:27 AM
35 Comments:
Awesome changes :D ! I'm waiting only for collapsing for dock and I'm in Gimps haven :D
Please make more posts of course with screen-shots ;)
@Anonymous: If you mean hide docks in single-window mode, you can already do that. Windows -> Hide Docks
@ Martin Nordholts
No no I know about this. Something like that ;)
http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/2607/collapsing.png
@Anonymous: As I suspected then. No plans for it at the moment, but you never know ;)
You could have the currently selected tab display the label and still have enough space for the other tabs. I believe that's the best tradeoff between being informative and being a waste of space.
@Anonymous: Good idea, will experiment with it. The risk is that it will be too jumpy
I have Idea too, in Krita and photoshop theres something like unlimited canvas, when you move layer you don't have to press, fit layer borders to image, again, again and again.
I would put the tab menu button inside the active tab (on its right). That way, there’s no confusion as to what that drop-down refers to. A similar change was done in Firefox 2, based on user testing, when the tab Close button was moved from the right of the tab bar to inside the tab.
On other suggestion: in the left-most window size in your image, it would be better to have the tabs always expand as much as possible to take up the entire width. This allows you to show the tab titles at least partially (ellipsized), which is more informative than showing nothing. Even better would be to give the active tab a higher priority, as Anonymous suggested, so there’s more of a chance that you’ll see the entire title for the active tab.
@Anonymous: That have been part of the plan forever
@David: Good points, things can be improved to infinity :)
works fine! A good choice to not cripple the labels.
Any updates on Gimp 2.8 schedule? (devel-docs/gimp-schedule.ods)
@yahvuu: Hi, glad you like it!
@Anonymous: I will make un update to the schedule soonish
That is realy great, but it could be even inproved by trying to expand at least the selected tab if the dock is too small to expand them all. Example:
http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/291/gimpautotabstylenotabti.png
Great changes! Again a good step ahead.
two words
"FUCK YEAH"
These features, along with the single-window mode, will be sure to make the GIMP UI much more cozy. Thank you for devising and disclosing them.
Cool stuff :) but I'm confused by something. Let's say you have a window with multiple groups of tabs like on this screenshot:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1482587/GIMP_sidebar.png
Here, both "layers" and "Paintbrush" tabs are the active ones. Which one's name then gets displayed at the top? And what if you have a lot of such active tabs like on this screenshot:
http://files.chromecode.com/gimp/gimp-multi-column-dock-windows.jpg
@Lamoot: The window title is a concatenation of the active tab in each tab group. So in your screenshot the title would be "Layers - Tool Options". In my screenshot this wasn't working properly.
Thanks for the explanation. There still might be the issue of identifying which name in the header belongs to which tab (for example on that multi-column dock screenshot with loads of tabs). But perhaps the text - tab connection isn't as critical because you can mostly identify and recognize the tabs by their contents rather than their text labels.
@Martin Nordholts
Hi there, I hope you don't mid my off-topic post which I should rather send as a bug report to GNOME-GIMP bugzilla but I won't cause I'm lazy :)
So here it goes: I'm using GIMP compiled from git source (along with babl and gegl; just pulled fresh code, compiled and installed). In the Single-Window mode when I open a clone view (View > New View) of a picture, it comes up in a tab where it should rather appear in a separate window. I want to see changes in the clone output as I edit the original picture. I tried to detach the tab with clone but it won't let me do so. I think this is a bug isn't it? The workaround is switching to tabbed mode. But it happens that I really like Single-Window or rather mixed mode - some windows/docks attached to main window, other not. Anyway no matter what mode I use I think the clone should always appear in a separate window, not in a tab.
Regards
trapDoor
Regarding my previous post I meant that I prefer single-window mode over multi-window (not tabbed-mode which apparently I made up)..
And why the hell am I shown above as Trap, not trapDoor?
Right, I posted it now on Gnome bugzilla. Bug 622625
A good improvement would be to expand at least the currently selected tab if there is enough space. E.G:
http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/291/gimpautotabstylenotabti.png
@Anonymous: Yes you said that already.. why post again? Don't worry, I read all comments, so I didn't miss it.
I just testet 2.7.1 - it's awesome. I'd like to suggest you add a thing that is available in the firefox extension TabMixPlus: "If too many tabs: scroll with mouse, arrow-buttons on left and right side, arrow-buttons on right side, multiple rows". Arrow-buttons on left and right side is what gimp is doing right now. In particular, tabs in multiple rows would be nice for me since it means less clicking around.
Oh, another thing - is it possible to make the tool windows disappear with the TAB key when they have the focus?
Any idea if GIMP 2.8 will allow the keymapping of certain functions to the right mouse button? It seems to be hardcoded to the context menu for no apparent reason. I want to use it for drawing with the second colour like in Paint Shop Pro, instead of having to swap them with the keyboard.
@Nik: There currently are no plans to make that possible in GIMP 2.8. Eventually it will be possible though, because I agree it's a complete waste of a mouse button to show the image window menu on right-click.
@Nik: I also see the need of the right mouse button. Its unfortunate that gimp doesn't allow the use of this input easily. It develops into a kind of habbit as most other creative programs make great use of it.
Well unless you are using a mac ;)
Keep up the great work gotta love the gimp.
Great stuff :-)
Idea: I've always thought the arrow-pointer icon (for adding tabs) was rather confusing (and tiny!). New users will probably be familiar with the + icon from Firefox, so how about having a + on that drop-down, and an X on the current tab to close it?
Sorry for leaving a message here, I can not find a better way.
I need to change my photos to cmyk. It seems impossible now. Is it workable in 2.8? Or any plugin or script for 2.6?
Thx
Martin, maybe it's time for another update on gimp-schedule.ods?
@Anonymous: Try the Separate+ plug-in:
http://cue.yellowmagic.info/softwares/separate-plus/index.html
@Anonymous: Yes, I just want to get nightly tarball builds to work first...
update on gimp 2.8 schedule?
That saves me. Thanks for being so snsieble!
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