To ease working with raster and pixel layers, the first thing I would like to see is that the move (and/ or transform) tool and select shape tool become merged. This would allow using a single shortcut and tool across these different contexts. When used on a pixel layer, the tool acts as the transform tool. On a vector layer, it should act as the select shapes tool.
This saves a lot of tool switching and — also helps to avoid confusion for beginners which tool they should use for each context.
This is a thing I would like to see. If you look at a program like Affinity, which combines vector and raster too, there is one tool for move & select shapes. Countless times I have picked the wrong tool, so having them merged would help me.
Yes, I would like it to be like Affinity for this. That’s what I had in mind when posting this. The workflow could be more seamless when switching between pixel and vector.
The idea is good but this needs proper thought process since move tool and transform tool have some nuances. I am copying my reply from the other thread
when testing I see that fast mode of transform tool is kind of buggy for moving things with arrow and shift arrow key.
Move tool also gives an option to set the move rate as in pixels or milimeters and multiples of that rate
Then there is option to move the group by holding ctrl shift and drag. and ctrl drag, the radio button at the top is for these.
Hope these options get merged in transform tool. This made me think that it is not as simple as merging and replacing.
Good point, didn’t use both very extensively yet, so I didn’t know about those.
Do note that the transform tool also has preview options to increase performance at the cost of a lower quality preview (no layer compositing). That’s not available for the move tool, so both have some pros and cons, which is why I think you should end up with the best of both.
There are quite a few tool options for transform already. With all options of move tool added into it, that could become confusing and overwhelming.
Another thing is, that I find it quite handy to have them seperated: usually I have transform set to fast preview, so I use that for fast editing and move tool for accurate preview. If they’re going to be merged, I’d have to switch the preview method every time I use the transform/move tool. As it is now, I do not even need to go the tool options at all for simple editing.
There was something on tool presets earlier right? Can’t link to the post atm.
I recall it being about accessing a particular tool with certain tool settings. Don’t know whether its by hotkey or that you could add the preset to the toolbar as well. I do agree that something lije that should be possible, perhaps through a python addon if that’s sufficient. However, I don’t think this justifies two extremely similar tools which have no access to beneficial features from the other. With proper merging, there won’t be any confusion.
So I’d say one polished tool and an option to easily access certain presets is much better than ehat we have now.
As a counterpoint- having 2 move tools which can act the same way and produce the exact same results depending on the layer type is confusing and overwhelming to new users.
It could very well something like an shortcut key that can call the fast preview mode,
or an action set to call the fast preview version of the merge version of this tool.
Most action can be put on toolbar so a button can be add there.
There is one more feature request for merging transform and move tool here - Would merging the transform and move tools make life easier? I think so
It was made prior to our voting change. I think we can merge those comments here?
Some more thoughts on merging move and transform:
I’d prefer having subpixel movement off by default (non-snapping to pixels) because it will blur the entire selection permanently most of the time and shouldn’t be on unless you really need it.
I lean towards having accurate preview by default (ideally, a temp copy of the transformed image could be stored and rendered with GPU to avoid lag in the future). Fine by me either way.
It took me a month to discover that the behavior of performing transforms and moving was split between two different tools, namely the Transform Tool and the Move Tool. I find in all aspects the transform tool to be far more user-friendly. I was only able to discover this schism after realizing the differences in how they responded (and notably, that I sometimes didn’t get the option to perform transforms). This had me going back and forth on thinking Krita supported transforms on selections at all. It’s very unfriendly to paste and get the move tool.
Doubtless there are stalwart souls that believe the move tool should remain its own entity and that this is not at all a problem; I’m sure they’re already quite familiar with this schism. But in the interest of making Krita more user-friendly and accessible to users (including those who’ve used it for awhile), it would be nice, I think, to include whatever functionality exists in the move tool into the transform tool and get rid of the move tool altogether.
This should help clean up the codebase as well. Let me know your thoughts on whether this is possible or not, because I’m really quite interested in being able to transform content shortly after pasting it, and everywhere else the move tool normally appears. It would be fine to always use the transform tool unless the user manually switches to the move tool as well, and keep both, but I think the transform tool should always be default.
I’m guilty of using the transform tool for moving except for layers where this doesn’t work (like file layers). I think i transitioned some times in the past when the move tool was buggy and couldn’t be undone by the undo function.
This is a bit like the link/split between the Crop tool (on the toolbox) and Resize (which is not on the Toolbox). They have different presentation and facilities.
Many people expect there to be a Move tool (and a Crop tool) and a Transform tool on the toolbox because that’s what they’re used to from other applications. Because of this, removing the Move tool wouldn’t make it more user-friendly.
At the moment, the Move tool has a very useful feature where you can adjust the step size of the move shortcut keys (cursor arrow keys) for controlled step movements. I’ve found this to be very useful. Also, the Move tool has three options which are not present in the Transform tool.
I suppose all that could be incorporated into a general purpose Transform tool (after a lot of work and testing and bug fixing) but would there be any significant benefit to doing this?
There are technical reasons why it is not one tool.
The transform tool creates a preview at limited resolution that can be edited more fluidly, but this makes pixel perfect positioning harder, while the move tool literally just moves the layer and updates the canvas to the exact result.
And the transform tool already does a bunch of different things even though you may not be aware they are different, transforming vectors shapes or transform masks is something entirely different than transforming pixel selections. Just ask Dmitry how much fun he already had debugging all the edge cases of the transform tool…
Adding yet another mode to it will not “clean up the code base” but increase its complexity yet again.
I can understand you want a tool that just does it all in one, but that’s unlikely to happen soon…
Ah, limitations of intended design. This is the feedback I was hoping to see; I have a second, much simpler request then, which is if it’s possible to use the transform tool after paste automatically instead of the move tool.
Thanks ahabgreybeard. I understand users may have such expectations, though in theory if move and transform were the same, there’d be no need to expose it as a separate plugin. The design reasons by Lynx3d have strong weight, I think.
Also the ability to use arrowkeys to move with the transform tool has been implemented and merged into master in March (hurray!) Just mentioning because you seemed unaware 
Use of arrow keys with the Transform tool moves by 1 pixel or 10 pixels (Shift+arrow).
The Move tool can have any amount of movement assigned to Shift+arrow.
(Tested with the 24th April 5.0.0 prealpha.)
Uhm now that I think of it, how would I even make krita switch to the move tool?
There is “Activate transform tool after pasting” in General->Tools in the settings, otherwise it should stay at the tool you have currently activated.
