carol.gimp.org

TheGIMP's Image Windows have gotten to be quite robust since gimp-1.2, along with several preferences to set the behavior that works best for you.

These are some of the very first preferences I change when the gimp reinstalls itself on my computer each new time.

This is how your image window should look if you do not change any of the preferences.

Every Image Window can be controlled individually via the View menu. I found it easier to try the different options via this menu to determine my preferences for the default behavior of my Image Windows. Image Windows respond immediately to changes made via the View menu; a new image or View ->New View is needed to see the effect that changing the preferences has.

Toggled Options

Most of the screen shots here are with the Menubar toggled off; I really really prefer this.

• Default
• Show menubar off
• Show rulers off
• Show scrollbars off
• Show statusbar off
• Show selection on
• Show selection off
• Show layer boundry off
• Show guides on
• Show guides off
• Show grid on

A few of the combinations of these preferences can perhaps cause you problems and frustration. Turning off selections, for example. I tried this option while making these screen shots and got a screen shot of the Selection Editor in some lame attempt to demonstrate that a selection was indeed there. If you make a selection and cannot see it, you will be wondering, perhaps, the reason you cannot paint on areas not selected or many other pitfalls.

Another potentially frustrating combination is to have the grid or guide view off but the snap-to action enabled (which you can do via the View menu. This would cause selections, points and crop areas to snap to an unseen grid or guide and not go where you intended them to.

Canvas padding mode:

Set the color of the window surrounding the image.

• From theme (Default)
• Light check color
• Dark check color
• Custom color

The check color depends on the color of the checkered background that was chosen in the Display Preferences.

In this demonstration, I used the default color to show the Custom color padding. Pressing the "color chip" there causes a color selector to pop-up in which you can use to actually customize the color.