Okay, this is just a mockup:
And these are my initial thoughts upon it's usability:
Arrangement of the screen is configurable.
The Tool bar (which is comprised of the painting tools, zoom level, frame number, palette and File & Settings buttons) can go either at the top or bottom of the screen.
The order of the items within it is partially configurable. The tool bar is separated into three banks. The first is the tools, zoom level and frame selector. The second is the palette. The third is the File & Settings buttons. The size of the palette entry swatches are also configurable in that the user can choose how many rows and columns of them are displayed - this is quantised into suitable numbers (i.e. 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 or 32 columns and 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 rows). It defaults to 2 rows of 8 columns as this is a very manageable size.
The width of the Editing Window is also configurable, and the Preview window's size will be determined by how much is left over. If the Layer Selector is visible (it will never be visible if the image only has one layer) then it will eat into the space allocated to the Preview Window, unless this would cause it to be clipped off of the side of the screen.
Scroll bars around the Editing Window will not be displayed as long as the Preview Window is displayed, this is because the Preview Window is used to dictate what is shown in the Editing Window.
Tools - Any tools which have advanced settings can be double-clicked in order to bring up these settings (they will cover up the Zoom Level / Frame Selector / Magic Button until they are altered and closed or the original icon is double-clicked again).
Pen (settings: size / shape - choose a shape from square/circle then a size from 1-15)
Line (settings: width / shape - choose a shape from square/circle then a width from 1-15)
Shape (setting: width / filled / shape - choose a shape from square, rectangle, circle or ellipse, filled/unfilled, width of edge)
Brush (setting: pattern mode - choose whether the grabbed brush smears, wraps or blocks when applied to the image)
Fill (setting: edge-size - choose how many pixels in from the edge the flood actually stops at)
Pattern (setting: choose stipple pattern from set of 6 (none, 25% dither, 50% dither, 75% dither, vertical lines, horizontal lines) - extendable)
NB. When drawing with a pattern the top-left pixel indicates the origin of the pattern which will start at the point where you start drawing.
Magic - If this is toggled on then when drawing with Pen/Line/Shape/Brush will only overwrite pixels of the colour you first tap on when drawing to the screen.
Zoom (does what it says on the tin, zoom is centered around the last area altered on the sprite)
Frame Number (settings: x/y offset (for testing jumps and that), frame length in milliseconds)
Palette
Tapping a colour swatch selects this as your pen colour.
Double-tapping a colour swatch allows you to alter the currently selected palette entry's colours without entering palette editing mode (colour-selector pops up over middle of screen).
Tapping the Edit icon (looks like a patchwork of colours) brings up the entire palette full-screen and allows you to edit the colours by tapping them then adjusting the sliders at the side (which can be quantised) or reorder the palette by dragging colours around.
File - These refer to the image being edited and allow you to save/load/exit as well as alter the number of layers the image contains, the size of it, etc.
Settings - These refer to the editor itself rather than the image being edited. So things like the grid size, whether the grid is visible, the grid's colour, the size of the colour swatches in the palette, etc.
Layer Selector
Tap a layer to select it.
Double tap a layer to toggle its visibility.
Hold the Left/Right Shoulder button down and tap a layer and drag to move it up and down.
Hold the Left/Right Shoulder button down and double tap a layer to delete it (Confirm prompt will appear as this erases the layer for ALL frames).
Tap the NEW LAYER icon to create a new layer.
Tap the arrows at the top and bottom to scroll through the layers (these will only really appear once you have more layers than can be represented by the vertical set of icons).
Preview Area
When editing single large images:
Tapping and dragging on here scrolls the editing area around. After releasing the stylus it will also center the preview window on the focussed area to allow you to scroll around larger images (there will also be scroll bars to allow this).
When editing animations:
Tapping the preview window will cycle through zoom levels so you can see the animation at native res or larger. If the frames are larger than the preview area then use of the scroll bars will be necessary.
So, thoughts?
