Layer Channel view, selection and switch optimization

[puchingball]

Hello there, this is a improvement proposal to the channel manipulation in the layer stack.

So far you have a selected channel at the top of the layer window, and you have to drop down select the one you want to operate on, this is time consuming.

1) Add an indicator on each layer/folder that uses that channel and have a contribution on it, even a color dot in the layer should be enough. Right now you pick a channel and you see every layer blending mode and amount but you don't know if it has that channel in use in the first place.

2) Add the posibility to: custom shortcut layers channel switch, ctrl+cllick the channel you want to switch to on a layer channels view (since ctrl + click has no use so far)

[Just Another Rappy5C4A]

I think I would like to see something like this. I do feel that, depending on how many channels you have, it could become cluttered rather quickly, though I suppose it only needs to show the ones in use. I imagine we would need the ability to customize and designate colors depending on the channel, which makes me feel that templates for channel texture settings are essential. Otherwise, you run into the issue of constantly setting up the channels and colors for each texture set in every project, which sounds pretty tedious. This functionality should be tied together in a similar fashion to export templates.

Regarding point #2, I’m not entirely sure if I truly need it, but I can see how it could be useful for specific projects. In its current state, switching between them by looking at a list isn't efficient, especially when the list is limited in length and requires scrolling when dealing with a large number of channels. It would be easy to implement along with being more intuitive once users become familiar with the shortcut.

[puchingball]

i think selecting the channel in the layer influence with ctrl or any other modifier combination like the 2nd picture i uploaded is the fastest channel changing method, even faster than shortcuts, since every layer list all channel included in the project you can just pick it from there and already start working in the blending mode of that channel, you will soon forget about the dropdown list and shortcuts.