Feature request: image panning off-screen

[complainer 9000]

I've tried to quickly check existing requests and comments so forgive me if this is already well known or an option I'm unaware of.

 

Currently with the initial 800x600 white canvas, the image is centered on screen at 100% zoom. It is not possible to free-pan the image coordinates. Ideally it would be possible to force-center the image when it fully fits on-screen (as it currently is) or disable that to free-pan the image to the screen edges. The upper-left image coordinate (0, 0) should be possible to pan to the screen's/paint.net ruler window region's bottom-right corner. The lower-right image coordinate (800, 600) should be possible to pan to the screen's upper-left. This would make the canvas fully off-screen and it would be necessary to re-pan or re-center the canvas according to the offsets displayed on the rulers.

 

When zoomed to 1000% the current panning coordinate limits present an additional problem when editing the edges of the canvas. The upper-left corner of the canvas is limited to pan to the upper-left corner of the screen and no further. It is impossible to place the canvas corners or edges at the center of the screen when working at a high zoom near the edges of the canvas.

 

 

If it were possible to fix these panning coordinate limits by simply replacing the numbers in a limit(x, min, max) call it may be best to start out with only that minimal change. I'm not sure what side-effects may occur if the limits were changed to the far canvas/window/screen edges to allow the canvas to pan fully off the screen. I do appreciate that adding additional options re: canvas free-pan or auto-center may be far more complex.

 

I see that the "overscroll" option allows the canvas center to be panned to the edge of the window. This isn't the same as allowing for full free-panning all the way off the screen but it does get half-way there. I understand the logic involved and fear of allowing the image to pan fully off screen leaving users who've "lost my canvas" confused. When zoomed above 100% it seems the limit switches to the corner of the canvas at the center of the screen.

 

The View/Zoom to Window menu has the effect of "re-center/scale canvas". These are of course all sensible trade-offs to find a balanced middle-ground. So I feel like I'm a bit picky to demand any changes from what's already supported. I am left wondering why the option is not a sensible default enabled rather than disabled apart from backward compatibility. It is certainly possible for me to cope with these trade-offs.

Edited December 11, 2021 by complainer 9000

[complainer 9000]

Upon using Zoom to Window, the canvas is locked into the center of the window and can't be panned at all. I see there is a new overscan button (?) next to the zoom % and -/+ buttons and bar. These new buttons appear to lack tool-tips.

[ardneh]

See if this helps.
If not already checked, tick this entry and restart Paint.net.
 

[complainer 9000]

9 minutes ago, ardneh said:

See if this helps.

 

The overscroll option does work.

 

It just has a similarly limited panning range which I've assumed is a trade-off to avoid having the canvas fully off-screen. I'd prefer to have tools with flexibility to the very edge of where they're useful and beyond - so placing the bottom-right corner at screen(-1, -1) as a limit makes the most sense to me because it covers most if not all of the practical applications of such a feature. It definitely has negative side-effects and consequences for other users though so it's something I'm willing to accept as a trade-off.

 

The one reason I can think that you might want to scroll the canvas even further than fully off-screen is when using a very large brush, larger than the on-screen region. This could be used to slowly blend gradients for example. That's an extreme edge-case though and probably best solved by zooming out and using higher sub-pixel precision tablet input of some sort. Another option I've used to work around these limits in the past is to oversize the canvas with the true working canvas region in the center of the larger "virtual canvas". It seems that's also how the overscroll feature works but without the overhead of allocating a larger canvas region.

[complainer 9000]

Here's an example of this type of "edge case" (hah!)

 

Due to the wide-screen format, attempting to equally work around the corner of the canvas isn't possible while maintaining the zoom level. If the canvas could be moved more fully off-screen vertically the solution would be a quick vertical pan, continue drawing and then re-pan and move on.

 

With the limit of the upper-right corner to the center of the screen/ruler window I'm forced to zoom out a bit until the brush fully fits. So my work on the top-edge of the canvas is forced to be lower precision than the left-edge.

[complainer 9000]

I see ardneh's post was marked as the solution although it isn't one. My request was to allow the image to be panned off-screen, not to the middle of the screen.