Quick GIMP question pls

[lightstream]

Hi - I'm getting into computer doodling and stuff with GIMP. GIMP I love although a few things do annoy me, mostly because I don't know what they're supposed to do!

There's one thing it does, where you have two tools seemingly selected in the Toolbox - one appears as normal selected, kind of like an emphasised button... the other one jst has a yellow square around it..?

What does the yellow square one mean?? It exhasperates me a bit because i keep going to choose a tool and it ends up just having this yellow square around it but the tool that actually gets used is the one that was selected before...

[Bölvaður]

no idea... screenshots?

[blackened]

I've never seen this behavior before and couldn't reproduce it. What you're describing is not how GIMP is supposed to work normally.

[lightstream]

Thanks for the responses. I have done some more experiments and discovered that the mystery yellow selection square appears when you right click a tool in the toolbox. I've also noticed that the yellow selection square is there all the time, but usually it is on the same tool as is selected.

Screenshots are in order :)

In the first shot on the left, you can see the pencil is selected, and look closely and you will see a yellow/orange square inside the pencil button.

http://www.kuxas.com/images/screenshot-toolbox.png

In the middle shot, I've right-clicked on the ink pot, and it then gets the yellow/orange square which remains as you see in the third shot on the right.

Anyone know what this is for and how it can be used? It looks like it could be useful if only I knew what it does!

At least though I've discovered what was causing it. Still it's always good to find out new features!

[mcduck]

Thanks for the responses. I have done some more experiments and discovered that the mystery yellow selection square appears when you right click a tool in the toolbox. I've also noticed that the yellow selection square is there all the time, but usually it is on the same tool as is selected.

Screenshots are in order :)

In the first shot on the left, you can see the pencil is selected, and look closely and you will see a yellow/orange square inside the pencil button.

http://www.kuxas.com/images/screenshot-toolbox.png

In the middle shot, I've right-clicked on the ink pot, and it then gets the yellow/orange square which remains as you see in the third shot on the right.

Anyone know what this is for and how it can be used? It looks like it could be useful if only I knew what it does!

At least though I've discovered what was causing it. Still it's always good to find out new features!
That square is just to help navigation with keyboard, it'll show when the toolbox window is active, and you can move the selection around with arrow keys & switch the tool with enter key.

While you could probably use this to some benefit when switching between tools it would be more useful to simply learn the shortcut keys for different tools instead.

[lightstream]

ahhh, i see, thanks mcduck!