2.3.  Dialogs and Docking

In each dialog, you can access a special menu of tab-related operations by pressing the Tab Menu button, as highlighted in the figure on the right. Exactly which commands are shown in the menu varies a bit from dialog to dialog, but they always include operations for creating new tabs, or closing or detaching tabs.

The Tab menu gives you access to the following commands:

Context Menu

At the top of each Tab menu is an entry that opens into the dialog's context menu, which contains operations specific to that particular type of dialog. For example, the context menu for the Patterns dialog contains a set of operations for manipulating patterns.

Add Tab

This entry opens into a submenu allowing you to add a large variety of dockable dialogs as new tabs.

Close Tab

This entry closes the dialog. Closing the last dialog in a dock causes the dock itself to close. Choosing this menu entry has the same effect as pressing the "Close Tab" button.

Detach Tab

This entry detaches the dialog from the dock, creating a new dock with the detached dialog as its only member. It has the same effect as dragging the tab out of the dock and releasing it at a random location.

Preview Size

Many, but not all, dialogs have Tab menus containing a Preview Size option, which opens into a submenu giving a list of sizes for the items in the dialog (cp. Figure 3.10 ). For example, the Brushes dialog shows pictures of all available brushes: the Preview Size determines how large the pictures are. The default is Medium.

Tab Style

This entry is available when multiple dialogs are in the same dock: it opens into a submenu allowing you to choose how the tabs at the top will appear (cp. Figure 3.11 ). There are five choices, not all of which will be available for all types of dialogs:

Icon

This choice gives you an icon representing the dialog type.

Current Status

This choice is only available for dialogs that allows you to select something, such as a brush, a pattern, a gradient, etc. It gives you a tab showing a representation of the item currently selected.

Text

This choice gives you a tab showing the dialog type in text.

Icon and Text

This choice gives you wider tabs, containing both an icon and the type of dialog in text.

Status and Text

This choice, where available, shows the item currently selected, as well as the type of dialog.

View as List; View as Grid

These entries are shown in dialogs that allows you to select an item from a set: brushes, patterns, fonts, etc. You can choose whether to view the items as a vertical list, with the name of each beside it, or as a grid, with representations of the items but no names. Each has its advantages: viewing as a list gives you more information, but viewing as a grid allows you to see many more possibilities at once. The default for this varies across dialogs: for brushes and patterns, the default is a grid; for most other things, the default is a list.

Show Image Menu

This is a toggle. If it is checked, then an Image Menu is shown at the top of the dock. It is not available for dialogs docked below the Toolbox. Don't confuse this menu for the Image Menu, that is the menu of the active image on your screen.

Auto Follow Active Image

If this option is checked, the related dialog will be that of the current image and will change if you select another image. For example, if you have two images and the Histogram dialog on your screen (and this option checked in this dialog), then the histogram of the activated image will be displayed.