Hi, I just tried out the new lasso fill implementation, thank you so much for putting it in! My main point of feedback is that you cannot use it as an eraser, only to fill color. It would be nice to have fill and erase modes. To take it further, it would be neat to support pattern fills. But that seems a bit much for a sub feature of selection tools.
Making it another mode of the lasso tool is interesting- I didn’t think of doing it that way but it makes a lot of sense. You get all the benefits of the lasso tool. I really like it with the auto close turned on because its really fast.
However, there are some problems with it being a part of the lasso tool. The first is simple- using the lasso as a fill will clear any selections that exist. So you can’t take advantage of selections to mask your fills.
The second issue with it being a part of the selection tools is related to rapid tool switching, especially with hot keys. I use hot keys to quickly switch to the normal lasso tool to make selections. You cannot quickly switch between the lasso selection tool/lasso fill tool, because it requires digging into tool options. Instead you have to switch modes, and open the tool options to turn on auto complete, which is slow.
I tried using “favorites” to overcome this, assigning the selection lasso to favorite 1 and fill lasso to favorite 2. This skips needing to dig into the options each time you switch, which is great. However, there is still an issue. I like to assign the same hot key to several tools to cycle through them (I love that feature)- hotkeys for favorites does not support being in a multiple tool hotkey cycle. This forces me use separate hotkeys for the selection tools, instead of having 1 hotkey that cycles through them, because they now all have to be accessed via “favorites” to preserve the settings that make them a selection tool. (Specifically, I like to cycle between selection lasso and the move tool on a single hotkey, to quickly select and move things around.)
A couple proposed solutions-
-Move lasso fill option to be a “drawing mode” entry, next to freehand, line, etc, in brush and eraser tools- This would eliminate the contention with selections, and would support fill and erase by simply setting this on the brush or eraser tools. You could easily cycle between freehand and lasso fill drawing modes with hotkeys(those modes support hotkey cycling!). Setting it this way could simply ignore the brush’s stamp settings and instead fill solid shapes. You could even use the brush’s texture pattern to support a pattern filling mode, if its enabled. One issue with this would be that there’s no simple place for the auto-close option for the lasso (which I think is real important!)
-Make hotkeys for favorites support being in multi-tool hotkey cycles- If you keep the functionality as a part of the selection tools, you can alleviate the issues with hotkeys/rapid switching by making hotkeys for favorites act like normal tool hotkeys, and allow them to be a part of a multi tool cycle when they are assigned the same hotkey as another tool. This one should likely be done regardless!
-Consider making this its own tool, with its own options- The lasso tool is starting to feel like a simple “shape tool,” especially using it with the ellipse or rectangle selection modes. (Using it with the magic wand is like the fill tool!) If this tool became its own “shape fill” tool, it could have its own options, and own hotkey. One potential issue with this approach would be rapidly switching between fill and erase modes with it, since those might be options for the tool, and might again only be accessible for hotkey switching via “favorites.”
Again, thank you so much for implementing this tool. I hope you are able to address some of these issues, and I hope that my feedback/suggestions provide some help!
