# Proposition So our idea (at ZeMarmot project) would be:
- When pasting on a layer, just create a new layer over the selected ones. Done. No floating selection anymore.- When pasting on a layer mask, still make a floating selection (but probably name it “Floating mask” because the name “Floating selection” is weird anyway).
Hi,
This proposed suggestion sounds good to me, I use the convenient “floating mask” everyday, to subtract from or add to a mask.
A big side benefit would be the fixing of the lost transform feature, which is a regular problem for me.
using the unified transform tool on a floating selection is possible,
however the transform is lost if you convert the floating selection to a new layer.
Hmm. Behavior is going to be different for layers on one side, and masks and channels on the other…
What if…
a layer could have a stack of masks? For instance adding an alpha mask would be adding the alpha channel as a first layer, and an empty/transparent layer above it? Then pasting to a mask is adding a mask to the stack.
a channel could be a group? Pasting to a channel add to the group. If the channel is not yet a group, a group is created with the original channel in it
This is definitely the next step. The “floating selection mask” concept is only useful (still) on masks because we don’t have yet any kind of mask stack (same as we can stack layers for instance). Once we have this, yes we would not need at all the “floating selection” concept anymore, neither on layers, channels, mask, nowhere.
It would also make masks a much more non-destructive concept (as a mask can be created off several non-merged masks, instead of forcing to merge the floating selection to continue working on the rest of the image).
Anyway yeah my original proposition (which was pasted in the first comment) was not about proposing an ideal behavior, just after going one step forward without changing the whole system of masks (this would be awesome but I want to be able to release GIMP 3.0 some day! ).
).