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Using text and anchor layer

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Using text and anchor layer Karl Auer 18 Jun 14:42
  Using text and anchor layer Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero 18 Jun 20:46
Karl Auer
2002-06-18 14:42:30 UTC (almost 22 years ago)

Using text and anchor layer

Hi there.

I'm using Gimp 1.2.3 (came with SuSE Linix 8.0).

I have yet to see the "anchor layer" menu item activated. It seems always to be greyed out. Is this normal?

When I use the standard text tool and click on my background, a font dialog pops up, and I can select all the desired font characteristics. None of these are reflected in the "preview" window, into which I've typed my text. Then when I click "OK", absolutely nothing at all happens, except that the dialog disappears. No text appears on the background. I'm fairly sure I'm not creating text in the background colour, too. So, is the standard text tool just unusably broken, or am I missing some vital step or doing something else really dumb?

So, I try the dynamic text tool. Much better, at least I can get text to appear, and the preview *does* show me all the selected characteristics. Placement is always at top left of the background layer, on a separate GDynText layer. To position the text I have to then position the text layer over the background. Not much of a problem. However, I can't anchor this layer. "Merge down" works, but then of course the text becomes one with everything and is no longer separately manipulable.

Now, maybe I don't actually *need* to anchor the text - however, a great many articles and tutorials about the Gimp make use of this feature, which seems to me to be permanently disabled. Have I fundamentally misunderstood something here?

Yours in some mystification, K.

-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) +41-43-2660706 (h) http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/ +41- 1-6327531 (w)

Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero
2002-06-18 20:46:17 UTC (almost 22 years ago)

Using text and anchor layer

kauer@biplane.com.au (2002-06-18 at 1442.30 +0200):

I have yet to see the "anchor layer" menu item activated. It seems always to be greyed out. Is this normal?

That is for floating layer, an old thing... I think it will disappear in the future. Basically every time someone sees "floating layer" in the dialog he should hit "new layer" button and keep working.

When I use the standard text tool and click on my background, a font dialog pops up, and I can select all the desired font characteristics. None of these are reflected in the "preview" window, into which I've typed my text. Then when I click "OK", absolutely nothing at all happens, except that the dialog disappears. No text appears on the background. I'm fairly sure I'm not creating text in the background colour, too. So, is the standard text tool just unusably broken, or am I missing some vital step or doing something else really dumb?

Dunno, maybe out of screen or weird colour. You should forget about it anyway, use GDynText or the FreeType one.

So, I try the dynamic text tool. Much better, at least I can get text to appear, and the preview *does* show me all the selected characteristics. Placement is always at top left of the background layer, on a separate GDynText layer. To position the text I have to then position the text layer over the background. Not much of a problem. However, I can't anchor this layer. "Merge down" works, but then of course the text becomes one with everything and is no longer separately manipulable.

You can move it, and you can edit that layer and it will keep the new position. Merging down the layer is bad if you really do not need, cos you lose the edit feature, as well as the option to move the text. If you use GDynText in a GDynText layer, you ented edit mode (it has some bugs about forgeting the encoding, but it is pretty nice).

Now, maybe I don't actually *need* to anchor the text - however, a great many articles and tutorials about the Gimp make use of this feature, which seems to me to be permanently disabled. Have I fundamentally misunderstood something here?

OK, my prefered method for text: GDynText and keep the layers as they are, except renaming them to "T: ".
Plain tool is not an option, nor good rendering nor save info, and the FreeType based text tool, while good rendering, does not keep the info for edition (my usage requires more editing than very high quality).

For the record: what I have heard is that next version will have good quality and save info feature. Current solutions are band aids and will be kept in 1.2 (only bugs are solved in 1.2).

GSR