A "Spotlight" feature

[budz45]

Ok Pierre the shapes idea was just something for the far future, I got way ahead of myself there.

Right, I would like to bring up the feature idea issue of
'Auto-number labels'

Would it be possible and better if the canvas of native tooltip background for the boxes for the number labels?

On Win Vista/7, the tooltip canvas is Grey-gradient (with drop-shadow) look like this:

Copy of taskbarfrown.jpg

On Win XP, the tooltip canvas is a plain light yellow like this:

infotag-magic.png

But I much prefer the Grey-gradient one of Vista/7's tooltip as I think this would work best on any rgb spotlight color or brightness/opacity level. It could keep the same drop-shadow too. It won't be the actual tooltip but just the canvas style of the tooltip for as part of the picture.

I made this mock-up to show how it would look in XnView MP (the grey-gradient one) on each spotlight auto-randomly:

Image Source: http://news.usask.ca/
-former University of Saskatchewan Students' Union (USSU) presidents who work on campus

...Again a useful feature for labeling in family/class photos of people by adding a "number label" to each spotlight

[marsh]

I hope the purpose of this experment has nothing to do with crop!! rgb, opacity, drop panel were all suggested for area selection years ago. Spotlight proves them to be tedious and indirect. v.1.8 had multiple area selection bug as well.

[budz45]

I hope the purpose of this experment has nothing to do with crop!!

No it isn't.

[budz45]

One last idea for this feature,

for Mutliple Spotlights drawn but before pressing 'apply'; How about an ability to select any one of the drawn spotlights by pressing 'Ctrl+Single left click' on it's space for the 'selection' to be shown. - This would be for the ability of further resizing a spotlight if one needed to.

[XnTriq]

While I do agree that the “spotlight” feature is a useful addition to XnView, I would've preferred if it were integerated in the Paint add-on with all the other annotation tools for editing screenshots.

To me, the current functionality is sorta like an inverted text marker.
I would like to suggest to extend the tool so that it can be used for both dimming down unimportant...

• 
  [ z00m ]

... as well as highlighting important areas of an image, ...

• 
  [ z00m ]

... and to ultimately rename it to “highlighter”.

<!-- EDIT --//

• Now I see this has already been requested [quote="helmut (Re: A "Spotlight" feature)"]From my point of view, "Spotlight" is a way of highlighting. In you latest suggestion you have added "Outline" and this will more and more lead to a more general function "Highlight". Once more highlighting features are included, "Spotlight" might be renamed to "Highlight".[/quote]

//-- EDIT -->

[budz45]

Personally I feel it's an editing tool (similar to 'crop' or 'resize') and not an annotating one. If "Spotlight" was to be removed then I might suggest it be one of a future 'Effects' or just be moved to under the 'Tools' drop-down menu in XnViewMP viewer. Currently I like the way where it is.

Also how would the spotlighting options like brightness, opacity & more all look if they were crammed into the Paint plugin interface not to mention additional memory usage that can be bad to users using it (drawing spotlights with child-application open).

One thing to note is that XnviewMP can take screenshots via Browser mode and like cropping and other tools it is good to have "Spotlight" ready-to-use rather than opening another child-application within XnView.

The renaming to 'Highlight'? No I disagree here too.. Highlight in my experience (like with text) is an action of drawing a semi-transparent color over the part of the picture that is intended to be highlighted and Spotlight does not do this but the opposite. One of the goals that "Spotlight" achieves is to preserve most of the non-spotlighted area while at the same time obscuring it.

Please refer to the "Spotlight & Magnify" feature seen in Snagit. I'm sorry if you disagree with my counter-argument in this case.

..Developer get's the final say.

[budz45]

You see below screenshots taken is another reason why 'Spotlight' in name should remain as so and Not be renamed to 'highlight':

Notice FastStone Capture's "highlighter" feature in it's internal paint program, called Draw


On a side note I have already requested a same 'Highlighter' feature as FastStone's, to be available for the Paint plugin in a future XnView MP version: In this topic---> Subject: Discussion & suggestions: Paint plugin for MP

[XnTriq]

Notice FastStone Capture's "highlighter" feature in it's internal paint program, called Draw

OK, that makes sense to me.

[budz45]

Xntriq,

You have got me thinking....

We could have also have a Highlight feature too that could be included into the same "Spotlight" toolbar.

The "Spotlight" command and menu name would still remain exactly the same. Users could choose/switch between 'Spotlight' or 'Highlight' via a choice drop-down menu but "Spotlight" would be the default choice.

In fact I already suggested the same 'Highlight' feature to go in for Paint plugin MP topic but I am now thinking that it would be better if it were included in the "Spotlight" toolbar.

'Highlight' is a brilliant feature in FastStone:
(click image to enlarge)

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So this is my mock-up of how it would look (users can switch between both):

(click on image to enlarge)


(click on image to enlarge)


(click on image to enlarge)


I think that this would be truly awesome

EDIT:- (picture added 15-Dec-2011)

[budz45]

POST EDIT:-

Forget that 'Inverse Spotlight' idea I previously had and just leave it as plain spotlight toolbar.

Final Spotlight mock-up:


Summary of changes here:
=A standard color choose command has replaced the 'RGB' controls - Xntriq and Helmut viewpoints.
=Added reset buttons for each input boxes of opacity,brightness,blur - knobs are much quicker to configure values with.
=Toolbar spacing in between each
=Added 'Shape Selection' such as rounded rectangle and oval - although Pierre has already stated that currently only standard rectangle is supported and no other shape.


Further final requests:

A.) Ability to click on each drawn Spotlight, during spotlight mode, and resize/delete the drawn spotlight by holding the 'Shift' key (Shift+left Click) - so this would mean it would execute a similar command as spotlight(s) 'undo' button already does.

B.) For 'Blur', after a user goes higher than '5' or '10' in blur value entered - then the inside surrounding-inline of each spotlight would blur too automatically, like this comparison; (xnview mp)- http://i.imgur.com/pEipu.png , (snagit with blurred inline)- http://i.imgur.com/m4hMn.png

C.) During choosing a color in the proposed 'choose color' dialog for "Spotlight": http://i.imgur.com/woaWc.png - the color should be applied to the same picture in real-time preview even before applying the color OR if better with a 1-2 seconds delay. A seconds delya might be best especially for larger scale images in where spotlight drawing would take it's toll on slower systems.

D.) If a user adds a 'Blur' to the spotlight then after that it would mean that no further spotlights can be drawn unless blur has to be undo first. Blur would be considered a final touch because of the potential CPU load of this effect.


======================
Previous REMOVED IDEAS that I have removed:
=RGB has been removed and replaced with a standard color picker on the toolbar.
=The 'auto label markers' idea is not needed here. If possible the 'auto label markers' could be completely separate feature for in a future XnView MP's "Effects" or separate tool.
=The 'Highlighter' feature is much better left for the Paint plugin MP or perhaps maybe as a separate XnView tool like how "Spotlight" is