Some things I'd like to do

Okay so I figured instead of making a bunch of bug reports for these improvements, I’d just make a thread here. I’d like to get the general community’s opinion before I do anything drastic - something I didn’t do last time, and which I think was a bad decision on my part, since it probably confused the other devs.

Anyways, here’s my list, if there are any that will cause issues in the future, let me know which ones :slight_smile:

#1. Add a zoom percentage notice somewhere. Like, a little box on the sidebar that tells you your current zoom. That would be useful.
#2. The ability to disable feathering. I tried implementing this before, but I did so poorly and it seems to have been removed. I’ve actually added this feature - in a much cleaner, less confusing manner - to my fork, but before I submit a pull request I’d still like to get the community’s opinion on this.
#3. The ability to choose fonts. Instead of Helvetica for everything, it’d be nice to give the user the choice!
#4. Grid customization. Having a generic grid that can’t be customized - as it is now - is not very useful.
#5. More consistent appearance, possibly customizable as well. This isn’t my main priority but it would be really nice and attract more users.

I will add more things here if I think of them :stuck_out_tongue:

@spark You should talk to @highkillerdk as well for the customizable appearance since he’s implementing changes for things like the color wheel and he already gave us the much needed number diplays on the tool options.

+1 on the zoom% I think it’s one of those basic things that must exist.

Regarding the feathering it depends…I think we should of course have a choice, but @feeef was proposing that each tool had a distinct function like what happens in Digicel Flipbook, which is that the pencil tool is used to make lines, but the brush tool can paint behind those lines without having the risk of “effin’” up your drawing.

+1 to grid customization, to which I add, do we even have a grid anyhow?

regarding the font choice…well it’s true that the user should be able to choose comic sans if they want to…but I think out of your list this is the least important thing, and quite frankly unless I’m a bitchy typography designer (with all due respect to my bitchy typography designer friends) this is an animation program. We can look to unify and have a slick interface -after- we can actually work with it without crashing, lol.

Just my 2 cents, It would be great to hear other devs on these subjects.

Alright, thanks for the input. In regards to the feathering, I just made a little checkbox - which is by default on - for feathering. You turn it off, it just makes the brush a solid pixely brush. You turn it on and it goes back to normal, no harm done. :slight_smile:

Personally I really like the idea of the font choice, but you are right that it’s not very important. If nobody minds I would like to try and implement it at some point, but that can wait.

Follow the roadmap, https://github.com/pencil2d/pencil/wiki/Roadmap if lost, ask for directions :wink:

Follow the roadmap, https://github.com/pencil2d/pencil/wiki/Roadmap

Commit often, do this on you own branch, the zoom thing seems like a nice place to start and I don’t think you’ll be tripping over anyone else at the moment… Work on one thing at a time.

My personal opinion is that new features should be tested by someone else than the developer on a branch before we have do a request to move this into the master. The master is less pristine than it should be at this moment…

I’m all in for a zoom percentage notice, that and being able to choose document size would be great too.

The ability to change font seems like a needless feature though, i would much rather have that we find one font that works and looks “good” and use that only. As the software is focused on animation, i think we should focus on that and usability, and being able to choose font really seems like quite an outlier here.

Grid customization sounds like an ideal feature too, and yes the appearance could be more consistent, this is something i’m working on myself atm.

@spark
Jose had mentioned a bug (exactly at the beginning) of the in resizing the frame in his video review of bugs in the latest build. http://www.pencil2d.org/forums/topic/bug-video-bug-report-nightly-build-jan-15-2016/

I’m don’t think this is a git hub issue yet(it should be),but I’m not positive on that… If it its there some potential that you might be tripping over someone else.
IMHO this issue should be fixed before you start working on your enhancement.

jonasthomas, I would like to fix the issue, but I am not entirely sure how yet - I will look into it. However I’ve already uploaded my fork with the enhancement, and it shouldn’t conflict at all with the fix. It doesn’t actually affect the zooming functionality at all :slight_smile: