Export dialog workgroup

[Category:Workgroups]

Feature request: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=754452

Summary

Save and export used to be considered the same action. This has been changed as of GIMP 2.8 to be considered as 2 distinct concepts, based on the Save + Export specification.

Nevertheless apart from label changes and programmatic restrictions of file types, the save and export dialog were still basically the same things. Actually they even used the actual same code under the hood! This explains probably partially why many users were puzzled: there don't seem to be a conceptual difference from the GUI point of view. The current workgroup proposes to continue the work started from the save + export spec.

Use Cases

• Export a work in progress in higher quality possible in a given filetype.
• Export a work in progress in as small a file as possible without too much quality loss for sharing over the networks (emails).
• Export for the web.
• Change the exported image's color profile without touching the work color profile (for instance sRGB export while original is in AdobeRGB).
• Export and make some changes (filters, crop, etc.) only on the exported file without touching the original.

Current UI Analysis

The current UI creates a common Gtk+ File chooser dialog with a preview (of selected file, not of the file to export) and a file type additional list. When clicking "Export", optional option dialog(s) can popup with various features. See for instance the steps for exporting a PNG:

When exporting the environment variable GIMP_INTERACTIVE_EXPORT, one may even get more intermediary dialogs which have been deprecated (but it resulted into feature loss too). The Save + Export spec was saying rightfully:

Nobody likes clicking their way through export options dialogs. So we will put the brakes on them:

* there shall be one export options dialog:
   * export conversion information that needs no user choices shall be omitted;
   * the generic export choices and the file-type specific export choices shall be integrated into one dialog; 
[...]

Proposal of Change

Couldn't we integrate the export options into the main export dialog, rather than popping up various dialogs? When the file name extension is changed (or if a file type is selected in the list), we could automatically update the export options to the right file type.

Note: it will involve a change of the API for file type handling.

Proposal of New Feature

Sometimes one wants to change an image only for some export cases without touching the original file.

For instance if you want to resize your export (for web upload, etc.) without touching the high resolution of your work in progress, a current common procedure is to resize your work, export, then cancel the resize. Often you want to apply a sharpen filter after your resizing, which involves even more steps to not forget to cancel (case which may result in data loss).

Often called "Save for Web" on other software, I believe these capabilities could belong to the normal Export dialog.