[Gimp-developer] [wish] center on focused area on zoom out

[Maciej Pilichowski]

Hi,

Problem:
-------
The problem is with zoom in and zoom out. Gimp does not recenter the 
area user focuses on. With zoom in the workaround cost is small (the 
most problematic is how to zoom in the image when it still fits into 
the window), but with zoom out it is significant. It affects 
productivity, thus this wish. 

Example:
--------
While zooming in there is simple workaround for that,
it just takes moving mouse to "surround" the area you think of. The 
image:

|ABCDEFG|

(| denotes edges of the window)

so let's say I would like to zoom in image (it already fits entire 
window) but in such way F will be centered. Normally it is not 
possible, but you can "push" the image. You place mouse over the G, 
you zoom in, and the image is zoomed in, and the F gets centered.

But for zooming out there is no such "cheap" workaround. Image:

DEFGHIJK|12345|ABC
DEFGHIJK|12345|ABC

letters are off the screen, digits are visible. | denotes edges

Now -- I would like to zoom out on "5" (I would like to focus on that 
area), how do I do? 

a) move mouse over "1" (sic!) and zoom out
b) move mouse over "5", zoom out, and then scroll the image

ad.b) this is tiresome
ad.a) this is completely counter-intuitive, in order to zoom out 
element X I need to zoom out the opposite of X. This is more 
problematic with conversion when car driver gets on yacht 
(left<->right problem) 

And more about (a) -- while zooming in, the mouse cursor movement is 
small, so I can live with that, but on zooming out, the movement is 
huge -- it is entire screen.

The wish:
--------
Please recenter focused area on zoom out (and possible on zoom in).


Possible solution:
------------------
The centering idea -- please note that I am open to any other idea 
that would lead to productivity boost. Let's focus on zoom out:
* I point out the area
* I zoom out
* gimp know which area I would like to focus on, so the whole image is 
scrolled
in such way, that the area "travels" towards center of the window
* there is zoom out performed
* now the mouse cursor no longer points to the same area, so the mouse 
cursor
is moved as well, so it points to the "same" area as before

The question could be, well, ok, how much should it travel (image and 
the mouse cursor). The quick question -- by the zoom ratio. If zoom 
out is 1:10, than by 10 pixels. I think it is not bad, and pretty 
intuitive. Visually it is easy to keep an eye on the mouse cursor, so 
there is no penalty (I think so) in such behaviour.

In other words for a second mouse cursor is "glued" to the image. Of 
course we could think to leave mouse cursor alone, but I think it is 
more useful to move it too.


Kind regards,