picedit Google code project

[lance.ewing]

For those who are interested, I decided I needed a proper SVN repository to keep track of my source code for the Java version of PICEDIT. I have therefore created a project at code.google.com called picedit that I will be committing to fairly often during those times that I'm able to work on PICEDIT (which might end up being fairly infrequently). It does however already have a number of features in there that weren't in 1.2.1.

http://code.google.com/p/picedit/

[lance.ewing]

What are peoples thoughts on using the mouse wheel for changing between drawing tools? e.g. roll over between Line, Pen, Step, Fill and Brush (or maybe a subset, e.g. Line, Pen, Fill, or maybe just Line and Fill)? There was a suggestion to use the mouse wheel for rotating between colours, but after having implemented this, I quickly removed the code. It wasn't very useful, and the code to handle colour changes got very complex. For example, you don't want to add colour change codes to the picture buffer for every colour it rolls over. So I had to ignore those that weren't used, which got really complicated in some cases. So I stripped that code out and left the mouse wheel doing nothing. But today I was wondering whether it could be used to change between tools. Tool changing doesn't have the same issues. If I select a tool, it doesn't start adding pictures codes into the picture buffer until the user starts clicking on the picture to use the tool.

I think I still need a quicker way to change colours, but I have to keep in mind that for SCI there are more "colours" than in AGI.

[robingravel]

Can you make a windows version of picedit?


Robin Gravel

[Collector]

I would find the use of the wheel for color selection very unintuitive. Almost every image editor out there makes use of pallets, whether docked or floating. Additionally, most image editors make use of the mouse wheel to zoom. Perhaps some that would use picedit have rarely or even never used one of the standard image editors, but for everyone else it would go against what is engrained in them.

@ Robin, Lance has ported picedit to Java. It easily runs on Windows, even x64.

[robingravel]

Thanks for the info Collector.

I hope I don't need a browser to use the new picedit.


Robin Gravel

[Raf]

I agree with Collector on using the scrollwheel to zoom. I'm not sure how zooming'd be useful for AGI pics, though. Maybe it'll make the lines alot thicker, too, allowing more accuracy? Dunno...

Being able to quickly access colours and / or tools without having to move the mouse would be useful, but that's what keyboard shortcuts're for

[lance.ewing]

I would find the use of the wheel for color selection very unintuitive. Almost every image editor out there makes use of pallets, whether docked or floating. Additionally, most image editors make use of the mouse wheel to zoom. Perhaps some that would use picedit have rarely or even never used one of the standard image editors, but for everyone else it would go against what is engrained in them.

Yeah, I guess you're right. Regarding zooming, I do have a new feature in 1.3 that allows different window sizes to be chosen. The current release uses a windows where the graphics within the window are multiplied by 2 in both directions. Version 1.3. has a feature to select between 2x, 3x, 4x, and 5x. I haven't yet got the smarts in there to detect whether 4x and 5x are applicable to the monitor being used. The hard coded 2x in version 1.2.1 is quite small on some monitors.

Maybe I should leave the mouse wheel alone.

[Collector]

While it would be nice to have some sort of zoom feature, that was not a request. My main point was that anyone who has used any of the major image editors has an intuitive feel for a different function for the wheel.