In the thread about the proposed mask panel overhaul there is one sub-thread about the sliders to control a shape parameters (opacity, feathering, size, grow/shrink) as well as sliders that are only available at AI mask creation time (smoothing, cleanup).
CLARIFICATION I am talking about these, not the refinement sliders:
The current Flexi implementation carries over these sliders (the AI-specific ones are not there yet, but this is just because of an oversight on my behalf, I am putting them back). By default they are hidden, but they are still there and they add a lot of code and UI bloat.
Therefore, I would like to have a separate conversation on WHETHER and HOW people actually use these sliders.
When are the on-canvas controls (e.g., scroll to resize, ctrl+drag to rotate) not enough?
Under which conditions do you reach for them?
Do we really need to see all of them at once?
Can we think of a better UX pattern to make the same precision controls without using a docked panel?
Thanks in advance for your comments, I really appreciate it.
I use the slider āfeathering radiusā which does in my understanding something different from āfeather sizeā (shift+scroll"). I rarely use the other sliders āblurring radiusā, āmask opacityā, āmask contrastā.
I reached for these sliders for the first time when I started using darktable with a touchpad on a macbook, in the light of the recent accessibility improvements for touchpad users. Scrolling behaviour is still fiddly with the touchpad, so I prefer to drag the sliders. Before I started doing this, I didnāt know these sliders existed
Hey Daniele. I use the sliders only for adjusting the feathering. Thatās because my default feather for a drawn mask is near 0% and scrolling on canvas takes way too long to extend the feather (even with a hyperscroll wheel).
The others like opacity and size are easy to adjust by scrolling on the canvas. Also, I donāt remember when I last rotated a mask lol.
I didnāt even know there were sliders in the mask manager Thatās how much I use them. I donāt think they were very discoverableā¦
I do use the sliders in the individual moduleās masking
I also did not know it. I see it being useful, but only for ellipse masksā¦ I canāt see how this would be use for an AI mask.
I have never sized a mask because it never gives me the results I want. It would be awesome to shrink / grow a mask by a couple pixels to prevent haloingā¦
I used only the opacity slider when I had the āstickyā problem from a previous session. But I think there are other ways to get rid of āstickyā.
The same wording on two different functions is not ideal. I think one is the feathering of the edge of the mask and the other is the feathering within the masking filter (in module). If I can come up with a different name, I will propose it.
Most of my computer mice that failed on me did so because of the scroll wheel. It was either not registering or the wrong direction. The electromagnetic wheel of my current mouse is a blessing in this way, though the mouse has a few other problemsā¦
Thatās how much I use them. I donāt think they were very discoverableā¦