Brainstorming/UI

From MyPaint

This page is dedicated to main interface ideas. When you add your ideas, please focus on visual mock-ups and their discussion. Also check the GIMP UI brainstorm for inspiration from the GIMP world. There are also some interesting Krita design documents.

This is a brainstorming page, a place for new ideas and suggestions. To contribute, please follow the these guidelines and help us keeping the wiki organized.

Contents 1 TabletPC Support 2 Popups 2.1 Behavior 2.2 Context Pie 2.3 Markup Pie Menus 2.4 Brush History Popup 2.5 Brushes popup 3 Palette 4 Right Click Menu 5 Layers Window 6 Dialogs / Windows 6.1 Behavior 6.2 A "Gtk-like" layer dialog for blending modes 6.3 Workspace dialog 7 Docking Zone 8 Status Bar 9 Brush editor 10 Drawing and measuring guide 10.1 Choice file size and resolution 10.2 the saving file 10.3 Help Lines 10.4 Multifunctional select tool

[edit] TabletPC Support

As TabletPC are getting more and more common MyPaint should support them better. TabletPCs have some differences to normal Desktop PPCs or Notebooks:

• You can paint directly on the screen
• You can easily rote the screen
• You don't have any keyboard (Only a limited number of special keys)
• Not easy to use right or middle mouse button
• Relative small displays (<= 14")

The goal for my mockup as to create an interface were:

• every thing is reachable with the left mouse button
• no overlapping, separate windows
• easy adjustable
• not wasting to much screen space
• easy to discover for new users

[edit] Popups

[edit] Behavior

Several of the popup windows have behaviors that could be improved

• Fix color wheel popup so that it doesn't disappear if the cursor crosses the center after entering the selection area.
• If secondary windows are present but do not have focus when their hotkey is pressed, bring them to the front rather than close them. (Brush window in particular)

--Songwind apogee 18:12, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Popup Defined:

a Transient window which closes when mouse focus leaves or the key that triggered the popup is pressed again.

[edit] Context Pie

Horizontal movements change the brush size, vertical movements the opacity. The inner button of each piece opens some dialog, the two outer buttons immediately select something, eg. the most recent two brushes or colors. Open Problem: visualize the opacity/size that is really chosen. Size could be solved by changing the cursor shape.

Also, it might be better to have multiple small submenus instead of a big one that contains everything.

[edit] Markup Pie Menus

[edit] Brush History Popup

[edit] Brushes popup

[edit] Palette

--SeanJM 15:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC) Cleaned up the Wiki

[edit] Right Click Menu

--SeanJM 11:26, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Layers Window

--SeanJM 14:54, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Dialogs / Windows

[edit] Behavior

A window is a persistent window that will close once the [x] is clicked. It does not show up in the taskbar of the OS. The taskbar should be for individual applications NOT THE WINDOWS THEY CREATE. Creating windows that are on the taskbar leads to clutter and decreases legibility of other applications on the taskbar.

[edit] A "Gtk-like" layer dialog for blending modes

I paste here a simple mockup built around an inkscape screenshot of the layer dialog. I imagine it simple ; with the opacity setting & blending mode. The only new thing I bring, it's maybe a system of notification icon ; mainly my idea is to have a little icon ( here I create a little triangle ; but thats can be anything else ) that notify about the layer blending mode is another one of a regular normal one. A notification of the same type can be done if a protect alpha transparency is done in next version. That's all ! --Deevad 15:01, 13 September 2009

[edit] Workspace dialog

Dialog window with tools to manage your workspace: zoom and rotate. Zoom and rotation tools are already implemented, but they provide lack of functionality. A dialog like this one may help with this problem.

[edit] Docking Zone

Screenshots of my attempt to implement MyPaint using PyGTk's implementation of GDL (used in Anjuta and Inkscape). I opted for flexibility: thus, the canvas also acts as a dock, although it's title bar (called grip) is removed. --japtar10101

[edit] Status Bar

And since there's a chance of landing on porn if you get that address wrong, it's here: http://omploader.org/vMnd4Nw --Naught101

[edit] Brush editor

It would be good to visually simplify the Brush editor by grouping and hiding most options until they are needed. Brush settings could be grouped under:

• "shape" (angle, radius, elliptical ratio, etc.)
• "colour" (HSV, opacity)
• "effects" (blur, smudge, eraser, etc)
• "dynamics" (jitter, dabs/s, etc.)

in each group, the specific settings would be displayed, and in a separate section of the window, the specific attributes of that setting (pressure, speed, direction, random). I reckon it'd be good if that section was hidden unless needed. Since I'm too lazy to do a mockup, I reckon a large-icon-tab-on-left interface would be best for the groups, a la konversation: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kontact-Screenshot.png . I think the group's settings window should stay basically as it is now, and the setting's attibute window should be docked to the left of that, and be hidable in the same way that the "colour history" and "details" parts of the Color selector are. Maybe I'll try an do a mockup later... --Naught101 11:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Drawing and measuring guide

not much text and the language is bad but I hope you understand what I want to tell you. Leo

[edit] Choice file size and resolution

Now, the format of the working zone are the place that it has on the memory of my computer and the resolution are 72dpi. It's good for painting for web but in graphic industry of printing we need to choice a size and a resolution. If we have to draw a picture of 12 picas per 8 picas to but in the text of a book, we need to see the limit of the 12px8p zone and adjust the resolution to 300dpi. It's very important because we should drawing in the good size to go in the space on the text and need have the good quality to print. It's good to have a very big space to draw but you should add a frame that we can move to have guide when we draw and select what we want to export in jpg.

[edit] the saving file

Add the possibility to save on a format readable by adobe softwares with a with background and no compression.

[edit] Help Lines

Insert in mypaint a tool to create "help lines" to be snapped in drawing

• I can create a rectangle, a circle, a straight line, a curved line with a tool

( a new menu?? for example a menu called Help Lines with create circle, create line,create etc etc, show/hide help lines)

• these object are on a layer of their own, that can be show/hide with a menu or with a shortcut key

(Show-> Display Help Lines F4)

• These "help Lines" can be modified/dragged using the square
• The cursor "snap" on these lines when they are showed to create a perfect circle, a perfect straight line, a perfect

curved with any or part of shapes

[edit] Multifunctional select tool

Selected area could be transformed in many ways: mirrored, rotated, scaled, etc.