Suggested new behaviors for Erase Terrain (both of them) #3483

👎 for a separate Terrain Eraser. I think instead, the Empty terrain should just be listed as the 0th terrain in every Terrain Set instead of hidden somewhere away from the Terrains list. A Terrain is exactly what it is, and I think treating it as something separate just makes it harder for people to understand the Terrains feature. A possible exception would be in the Map Editor, those terrain sets where every tile that isn't completely Empty has no Empty markings - it wouldn't work meaningfully there anyway, so there's no reason to list it.

👍 for clicking a terrain again to clear it in Terrain Editing mode. However, I'd still like to have the Empty Terrain listed as a terrain I can use, both for easy drag-drawing, and for the reason above.

~ I think Magic Wand and Select Same Tile should be merged into a Magic Wand tool with Contiguous as a toggle. A similar toggle should be added for the Bucket Fill. The icon would just be the Magic Wand icon, recognizable from similar tools in other programs. Select Same Tile is infrequently needed IME, especially because it's a little too picky -"Ignore transformations" would be a handy option to add in addition to "Contiguous", both for Magic Wand and Bucket Fill.

~ I don't think the selection tools need to go before the other tools (you can fill without selecting anything), but I do think there should be a separator between them and the drawing tools. Better yet, I'd love to see each section of the toolbar be separately draggable or even fully customizable.

If you feel like you now have too many toolbar buttons, move the transform stuff to the menus (where it is usually found). Could be in either Edit or Map.

👎 I think you might misunderstand what the transform buttons do. They apply to your current brush, and are much more frequently needed actions in Tiled than in image editors. Also, the transform buttons are on the tool options bar, which is separate from the main toolbar.

Overall, I think Tiled's reliance on toolbar options makes for a good experience, and if some of the different tool options were broken out into separate tools, the UI would be overwhelming for new users - and even for some experienced ones. I think it's better to have to poke around than to be overwhelmed. That said, I do think it would be nice to have some way to customise the toolbar, ideally which would allow you to pin certain sub-tools like the different fill/selection shapes (but not, e.g. the flip actions, since those are one-off actions rather than tool behaviours).

I'm not sure I fully understand your first paragraph. There is already a Terrain Eraser, so I'm not sure if you agree or disagree with my proposal, or want something completely different. For map editing, I am basically saying, relocate it to the toolbar and stop treating it as Terrain 0 so that users can go into erase mode ("color 2" if you like) without losing their selected ("color 1") terrain. While not everyone works like this, some do (I typically do until I learn the shortcuts -- which, if its a tool I use rarely, I never learn the shortcuts). Otherwise, the same argument for not having an eraser could be applied to any paint program... and, yet, we still have erasers (some set the eraser to color 2, some set it to mask/transparent).

Then again, yes, I do agree that, if nothing else, it would be better to have a Terrain 0 than the way it is. That was, indeed, one of my first thoughts: "That, given the way this currently works, there should be some sort of empty terrain listed as part of the terrain palette." It would be far less confusing that way. Better still, however, I think the paint programs set a better work pattern overall (with the caveat that paint programs let you add a transparent or background color to the palette, if you want, and I've suggested nothing similar here - other than permanently assigning Terrain 0 to the right mouse button, I suppose). If the idea a background terrain (or a "color 2" terrain) were in play, I could see this going different, but its not, and that's a can of worms I don't care to open.

As far as terrain set and terrain editing go, yeah, it's a whole different story.

you can fill without selecting anything

Well, yes, of course, I just didn't think I needed to be so explicit as to explain all workflows here. I was just merely trying to point out that most (all?) paint programs I've used put these first because that is the logical work order when using them. I see no difference here. Not something I care to dig into, just something I would rearrange if I were already changing other things on the toolbar.

👎 I think you might misunderstand what the transform buttons do.

You are completely correct that I misunderstood these. Thank you for the correction. That's what I get for making a side remark without proper research first. I picked up Tiled for the first time just a couple weeks ago and have been hitting it pretty hard to set up a lot of terrains and automaps. I have yet to use the map editor for anything other than testing all that. Also, I'm not using rotated or flipped tiles on this project and had completely forgotten about that use case. My mistake there. Thus, in light of all that, first, I personally didn't think the toolbar was too busy for them where they are. It was just a side comment, trying to think ahead. Second, now that I understand that they are not what they appear to be, I would recommend different icon art, but, more importantly, I would replace these four buttons with 2 toggles and a 4-button radio group, so that you always know where you are at, and how to get back: h flip, v flip; 0, 90, 180, and 270.

I've proposed breaking only one tool out into two, the shape tool, for an increase of one button. I don't think this will overwhelm anybody. Indeed, early paint programs had these broken out. Simple ones, like Irfanview, still do break them out, simply because (I imagine) it makes more sense than rolling up only two shapes into one button. Will Tiled ever really need more shapes? I did, however, also add a button for the Terrain Eraser, and another button for the Tile Picker (because it feels to be missing). I still don't think this overloads the toolbar. But, sure, options to hide what you'll never use is always best, but I'm less concerned about how to do that at the moment.

After trying to use Bucket Fill to change a global magic wand selection (Select Same Tile), I saw that Bucket Fill (as eishiya suggested) needs the same contiguous/global treatment as the magic wand. Thus, I now agree with eishiya that contiguous should be a modifier (toolbar toggle) on a combined Magic Wand (likewise with Bucket Fill). While I believe that a global magic wand is generally more useful in Tiled than in paint programs -- and, thus, a candidate for it's own tool -- it does seem a bit too much to consider doing the same thing to paintbucket as well. And, yet, they indeed should work alike.

(Side note: The Shift-key modifier used for global fill is not discoverable by mousing around the toolbar or menus, as such actions should be. I had to google it. [If nothing else, add such help to the tooltip... or bottom-bar context help.])

I also agree that the magic wand should have yet another modifier for including transformed matching tiles. This would be analogous to magic-wand tolerance/sensitivity modifiers in painting. And, if wanting yet another stretch goal, a layer/visible-layers[/image] modifier is also typical.

Thus, I'm now at suggesting three(ish) tools added to the main tool set (Terrain Eraser, Tile Picker, and Ellipse Fill [or change the Shape Fill icon to include both shapes]), and removing one (Select Same Tile). And... still a side topic to the main topic.

It should be noted that Erase Terrain in the map editor, as currently built, is not merely Terrain 0. No, some state is maintained and used (perhaps indirectly) about the last selected terrain brush when erasing. For example, if you paint some terrain with one brush, switch to another brush that uses the same center tiles as the first brush (much of my tileset is like this), Erase Terrain will then erase the first terrain as expected but with the edges of the second brush instead (which is handy in some use cases for adding different types of holes into the terrain). And, thus, it makes even more sense to always show the selected terrain brush while in the proposed Terrain Eraser mode/tool since it clearly affects the eraser in some cases.