GIMP Version: 2.8.6
Operating System: Linux
GIMP Experience: Intermediate Level

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I've been trying to figure out how to have my padding color default to my current theme and be able to use a shortcut to make the padding color white. I'm aware I can use a shortcut to select a custom color on the fly, but that is tedious when I know what color I want.

The closest I can get is to set the custom color in preferences to white then a shortcut to to set the padding from theme. (which is backwards of what I want.) White is just too bright and I only want to pull it up as needed.

I've also looked into trying to edit the default theme to set the padding to white there and then using preferences to set my custom color to what my theme uses, but I haven't been able to figure that out. Any guidance here would be Hugely appreciated. I've been wanting to do this for over a year now and hope I can find a way.

Cheers

A keyboard shortcut to Light Check is the easiest way to go and the closest to white, which isn't that bad. If you do your keyboard shortcut to Custom it only take a second to make a choice, that's not too tedious.

Thanks for the suggestion Odinbc, but I've already tried that route. I moderate images at fanart.tv and I need to check for cropped drop shadows and such and really need white. (I realize there are other ways to do this, but some are fine if cropped a tad and not really visible.)

The ultimate would be to change the color of Light Check, but then I suppose I'd have to recompile. Was hoping for an easier solution.

This might seem odd but it could work for you if the test images are similar sizes.
Make a new white background image a bit larger than the image(s) your testing.
Open as Layers, one or more images to test.

I really appreciate you putting some thought into this. That was certainly creative. I might see if that can work somehow for moderating. Right now I just drag the image from my browser and stack them for all the same types. It seems like I would have to open a template canvas ahead of time for each type, but it's worth considering if I can't figure this out otherwise.

I still feel like I'm missing an easier way to do this via a custom gtkrc or something similar. Hacking the binary maybe instead of recompiling? I guess it's time to dig deeper to find out. Just thought I'd pick the brains here before I went that far.

Edit:
Thinking about it a little more, I may be able to pull it off. You can set a custom gtk theme per application with something like this.

I could duplicate my existing theme and change the property that sets the padding. (Hopefully only the padding.) Now I just need to figure out what that setting is.

You can change the check padding by going to Edit>Preferences>display>check style>white only.
Not sure if you can set a keyboard shortcut to that though.
Or are you talking about the actual bg color of the GIMP ui?

Hi Rod,
Not the check color, but the actual padding color outside the canvas. Edit>Preferences>Image Windows>Appearance>Canvas Padding Mode/Color.
I attempted my custom theme workaround I mentioned but it doesn't seem to work. Something to do with gnome/xfce overriding the GTK2_RC_FILES= command. I guess for now I'll just shortcut to View>Padding Color>Select Custom Color & View>Padding Color>From Theme. It may be a few more clicks but seems the easiest way to get what I want for now.

I should probably make a feature request to be able to set custom colors for Light Check Color and Dark Check Color, but I'm not hopeful as it seems it would be low priority. All in all it just seems backwards to me the way it works now.
Thanks

You would be surprised how quickly something like this may get pushed ahead if it's an easy fix.
Might even be easier to request something like this from Onkel or Partha.

With a search in, Edit | Keyboard Shortcuts you can attach shortcuts to almost everything in Gimp.
For example,
1. Search for G'MIC
2. Select G'MIC, hold down Shift + Alt + G, release.
3. Make sure, Save keyboard shortcuts on exit is checked, your done!
Use Ctrl + N first, when needed

Sounds encouraging. How would I go about doing that?

PM Onkel or Partha here at Gimp Chat.
Select members and search their name (by first letter), select PM or email. Or you can select their name in the board index on any post they have started or responded to, and then select PM from the next window.
Partha also has a email responder contact form on his home page here - http://www.partha.com
I was unable to find a contact form for Onkel on Free Gimp Packagers.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gimp-pa ... kel_Hatti/

Thanks Rod,
I didn't see your reply soon enough and posted to the gimp-user mailing list.
http://gimp.1065349.n5.nabble.com/Featu ... 39136.html
I'll see if anything comes of that before bothering these guys. I really do appreciate the guidance.
Cheers

Hope it gets worked out for you. Others may need this option available also. I am always happy to help when, and where i can.

Enlarge canvas (or not), insert white/black layer under image layer? Three lines of script+one shortcut....

Great idea Ofnuts. I didn't think of a script to just create a white bottom layer larger than the image above.

It's not a fix, it's a new functionality... (new dialogs to set the colors, or allow them to be customized in the themes, etc...)

One more suggestion for a faster workflow, use XnView to preview your images.
1. Put all the test images in one folder.
2. In XnView, change to your preferred background colour.
3. Scan through images, when you find an image that needs adjustment, send to Gimp.

Well I already made a script to check for transparency issues that inserts 5 colored layers in a layer group at the bottom of the stack. I could probably modify it to enlarge the canvas as well. The only problem I foresee is when dragging an image into a bigger canvas it is not always centered. Ala, more steps if I don't do it all in order.



Again, more steps and another program to open, but a fine idea. I do have XnViewMP installed.

For now I've gotten used to just using the 2 shortcuts for Padding from Theme & Select Custom Color. It's only 2 extra clicks if I have a white tile already in the color selector, so it's not horrible. I'll just hope the devs might see the usefulness in being able to define Light & Dark check colors in the future. *crosses fingers*

Thank you everyone for the suggestions.