Looking for draggable guidelines

[Chilly_Bang]

I'm looking for a plugin, which enables draggable guidelines, as we know them from PS - you drag a vertical or horizontal ruler, pull it to the image and drop it as the guiding line.

[Tactilis]

There's this:

And this:
 

But I normally just create a horizontal and vertical line on two new transparent layers above my image and drag them around as needed.

It doesn't take long if you use the shortcut keys instead of the mouse:

1. Create the horizontal guideline
Ctrl+Shift+N   (New layer)

F4 H Enter   (Open the Layer Properties and name the layer H for horizontal)
O    (Activate the Line/Curve tool)
Hold down Shift and draw a horizontal line.

2. Repeat the above to create the vertical guideline layer (name it V)

3. Move a guideline

Alt+Page Up/Down  (Set the H or V layer active)

M    (Activate the Move Selected Pixels tool)

Use the mouse to drag the guideline layer to where you want it to be, or use the arrow keys (or Ctrl+arrow) for small adjustments.

Ctrl+D   (Deselect)
Alt+Page Up/Down (Set your image layer active)

The sequence in step 3 is very quick and can be repeated whenever you wish to reposition a guideline.

 

 

 

 

 

[Chilly_Bang]

Thank you!

Nevertheless I think it is strange, that this absolutely basic functionality, existing in other free editors out of the box, even together with snapping functionality, exists here on the, I must admit, very freaky level...

[Tactilis]

2 hours ago, Chilly_Bang said:

Nevertheless I think it is strange, that this absolutely basic functionality, existing in other free editors out of the box... exists here on the, I must admit, very freaky level...

I don't understand.
What is "freaky" about the process explained above? It's just basic layer manipulation.

Or is the "freaky" aspect the fact that I showed how to use the shortcut keys, which massively speeds up interaction with the UI compared to using the mouse?


Yes, draggable guidelines, perhaps associated with the rulers, would be a nice addition to Paint.NET. Maybe they will bubble up to the top of @Rick Brewster's TODO list at some point - but in the meantime there are a lot of much more important things to implement.

Out of interest, which other free editors are you referring to that have guideline functionality please? I'd like to take a look at how they implement it.

[Chilly_Bang]

To see an example look please into photopea. It make use of the same mechanics, like photoshop: draggable guidelines with the ability to snap elements to them, like we know this functionality since ever from photoshop.

 

Nothing against your plugin - it absolutely reachs the goal and delivers the missing functionality! With "freaky" I mean just the need to use layers for this - it looks for me like Okhams razor principle violation.

 

On the one side, it would be correct, to create this functionality in the same kind, as it works in other tools, to maintain the same UX. On the other side, this could be just impossible in the PointDotNet framework.

[Tactilis]

On 2/27/2023 at 4:37 PM, Chilly_Bang said:

To see an example look please into photopea.

The draggable/snappable guidelines are nice and Paint.NET would certainly benefit from similar - but to be fair, Photopea is not a free editor, unless you are OK with Ads: