To make a square, you choose the rectangular select, hold down shift, then fill it (or stroke if you want outline). Same for ellipses (and circles, while holding shift down). This is a nice generalization, letting many small tools work together rather than having single-purpose tools that aren't good for other things. Some might call it the UNIX way of thinking, but it also happens to be the same way things are done in Photoshop!
--Jacob Rose Sat Jan 19 17:08:56 2008
Yes, and mulled it over, and with Kate's patience am kind of grokking the subtask dogged-mindness of it, but am not sure don't agree. Your instructions (same as the ones I link to) don't work that well if, say, you're putting a square over a region that already has stuff in it. In that case you have to start building up layers as well. In both cases, it's more steps, and impedes smooth flow.
I suppose the stronger arguments are that it's not quite the right tool for the job, but I still think it's embarrassing for Gimp that it can't do something that Paint Shop Pro and Windows Paint do quite handily, especially when there are bajillions of other features in there that clearly just scratched some small, infrequenet itch.
Gimps interface is pooish. Perhaps well-defined, Unix-esque poo (and even then there's some goofiness, like the lack of a "Edit|Paste as New Image" feature in the main tool bar, so you have to be in an existing image to make a new one.
(This probably bothers Linux users less, since copy an image from the clipboard isn't as taken for granted as it is on other platforms.)
--Kirk Sat Jan 19 17:56:07 2008
Photoshop doesn't have a rectangle or ellipse tool either. You are expected to use the select tools to do that, as someone else suggested.
--PSD Sat Jan 19 19:52:35 2008
So, there's one precedent for it. I'm still unconvinced it's the way to go, or that Gimp's approach is that terrific.
--Kirk Sat Jan 19 23:13:24 2008
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