various clicks in a layer row of the layers dialog

In the present situation of GIMP, a layer row in the Layers dialog may be
the target of a lot of different clicks: simple click in the visibility eye
or link symbol, double click in the name, and now Alt-click in the layer
thumbnail, which can also be combined with Shift and Ctrl to give
Alt-Shift-click, Alt-Ctrl-click, and even Alt-Ctrl-Shift-click. Moreover, if
there is a layer mask, clicking the layer thumbnail becomes meaningful, as
well as click, Ctrl-click, and Alt-click in the layer mask thumbnail. A
total of eleven different clicks, if I'm not forgetting some.

All these are certainly useful. However, there is no mechanism for revealing
them to users, and no other way to do the same thing. Thus many users, not
reading the user manual or the good books, can very well be unaware of all
these possibilities, and maybe they are using complicated and poor solutions
to do some actions that are in fact very simple.

Would it be interesting and useful to add some mechanism to correct this
situation? There could be additional entries in the Layers dialog menu, or
in the Image: Layer menu. There could be information messages displayed when
the mouse pointer is hovering some parts of the layer row.

I could refine the idea, but unfortunately I'm not able to implement it.

On Sat, Jul 03, 2010 at 05:38:40PM +0200, Olivier wrote:
> Would it be interesting and useful to add some mechanism to correct this
> situation? There could be additional entries in the Layers dialog menu, or
> in the Image: Layer menu. There could be information messages displayed when
> the mouse pointer is hovering some parts of the layer row.
>
> I could refine the idea, but unfortunately I'm not able to implement it.

Indeed that is a _very_ good idea. Maybe it is better to file a bug report for it?
Just to avoid to loose it in the dev mailing list...

On Sun, Jul 4, 2010 at 2:47 PM, Marco Ciampa <ciampix@libero.it> wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 03, 2010 at 05:38:40PM +0200, Olivier wrote:
> > Would it be interesting and useful to add some mechanism to correct this
> > situation? There could be additional entries in the Layers dialog menu,
> or
> > in the Image: Layer menu. There could be information messages displayed
> when
> > the mouse pointer is hovering some parts of the layer row.
> >
> > I could refine the idea, but unfortunately I'm not able to implement it.
>
> Indeed that is a _very_ good idea. Maybe it is better to file a bug report
> for it?
> Just to avoid to loose it in the dev mailing list...
>
> Maybe the idea should be more precise for filing a bug?

On Sun, Jul 04, 2010 at 03:21:08PM +0200, Olivier wrote:
> Maybe the idea should be more precise for filing a bug?

Ok, let say it in another (maybe clearer) way.

There is no way to know precisely how many shortcuts could apply to a
specific window, panel or image window in a specific tool state.

Near the context help entry in the help menu I would see a (maybe
Ctrl-F1?) command that could open a window (could be a useful dockable
panel) list of current short cuts that could be applied in that specific
context.

That could be a _great_ usability improvement and would help help manual
writers/translators (like me) improving the GIMP manual too.

bye