shithub: blie

ref: 72ea71f4d629f81f7c5eb34d31cf4b873162d06b
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.TL
Blie — Blended Layers Image Editor
.AB
Blie [bli:] is an advanced image editor that allows editing images with multiple layers, similar to modern tools like Adobe™ Photoshop™.
However, blie tries to be as simple as possible.
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Introduction
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The layout (or architecture) of blie is very modular and on-the-disk.
On-the-disk means, that blie doesn't define its own file format, but a full structured folder.
Users have the option to compress the file in any format they like, or mount it directly from a compressed archive file.
Blie just needs full access to this folder (create, read, write, delete).
.PP
The modularity of blie comes from its architecture, especially how it handles layers.
Blie itself only does some marginal handling of layers, but each layer has its own type.
Each layer type is directly associated with a \fIlayer editor\fR, which gets all the input and manages the tools and data for that layer.
Therefore, each layer editor works differently.
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It is possible to extend the functionality of blie not only by changing its general behavior, but also by adding new layer editors, for example to support new file types.
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Common functionality
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Ask dialogs
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This feature displays a list of name-value pairs and allows for editing the values.
To edit a value, just click on it.
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After editing the values, use the \f(CWEnter\fR key to accept the changes, or \f(CWq\fR or \f(CWESC\fR to cancel the dialog.
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Editors
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p9img — Plan 9 images
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P9img supports standard plan 9 images using the RGBA32 format.
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Layer window
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The layer window shows three buttons:
.IP \fBC\fR
Display final (composited) image, draw on all channels.
.IP \fBS\fR
Display the layer image only (solo), draw on all channels.
.IP \fBM\fR
Display the mask only, draw on the alpha channel.
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Tools
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The tools window displays two rows of tools.
The first row shows the various brushes that are currently available.
The second row shows a color palette.
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Left clicking on a field selects the color.
Right clicking on a color palette field opens the color selection dialog, which can be used to pick a color.
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Left clicking on a brush field selects the brush.
Right clicking on a brush is supposed to open the brush editor.
At the moment, brushes aren't implemented, so the first brush (top left) is a circle brush to provide a minimum set of functionality.
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Filter — pipe through filter script
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Filter layers can be used to run custom scripts.
The scripts read the image from standard input and write them back to standard output.
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Layer window
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The layer window shows four buttons:
.IP \fBE\fR
Edit the script.
Right clicking it plumbs the script file to an editor, left clicking it reruns the script.
.IP \fBP\fR
Edit the script parameters.
Script parameters are exposed as environment variables.
This opens an ``ask'' dialog.
.IP \fBA\fR
Add a new script parameter.
This asks for two entries: name and value.
When using a parameter name that already exists, this will be overriden by this new parameter.
.IP \fBD\fR
Delete a script parameter.
This asks for the name of the parameter to delete.