Krita and Selections
I've made it onto OSNews, just by blogging :-). My webserver seems to be holding up, so let's add another Krita entry.
Right now the Krita gang is assembled on freenode, #kritaselections, to discuss the selection system we're going to design into Krita 2.0. In Krita 1.6, there's no real distinction between a selection and a mask: selections are local to layers, and there is no global selection. In a way, this is logical, because you often use the pixels in a layer (for instance with the magic wand selection) to create the selection, and because the effects of what you do with a selection of limited to a single layer -- for instance filtering, copying or transforming.
However, that's not what users are used to: every raster image application has a global selection. Besides, not being able to selection something on one layer and the use the shape of the selection on another layer is a big limitation. So the question for tonight is: will we keep the per-layer selection, move to a global selection, or combine the two?
And at the same time -- how about masks? Technically, a mask is just a selection with an associated filter -- most often an alpha transparency filter. Of course, that makes a mask the same thing as an adjustment layer. Again, technically, you'd not even need a separate mask in Krita, just create a group layer with a pixel layer and an adjustment layer on top of the pixel layer. That's also probably how OpenRaster will save these things -- if Oyvind Kolas gets his druthers. If Bart Coppens gets his, they won't. It's too early to tell.
As I'm typing, every team member is giving their position, and we've also got a Real User, Ronan Zeegers, who creates the icons for our toolbox, to give his.