Component Thumbs in Main Gui

i'm surprised this hasnt been asked for before. when i'm working in the editor, i love being able to see the various stages of my filter through the thumbnail previews on the components. but, we lose that when we go to the main GUI. when working with somewhat complex filters from the main GUI, it would be a big help if i could see at least some of my component thumbnails in the main GUI. up to four would be good. and, it would also be good to be able to change those four around with others in the editor but without having to go back into the editor to do it. having a slider or prev - next system would be good on each of the four component thumb slots. one could tag the defaults in the editor for this to start and then, when in the main GUI, one could simply hit the previous or next arrow to advance that slot to the next component.

when working with more than one perlin or noise component, in particular, to be able to see each stage or at least several stages, would aid in the use of that filter.

also, with most computer monitors going to the 16:9 format and computers getting more and more powerful and therefore desktops going to higher and higher resolutions, i find that i could now easily handle a whole column of these previews on one side of the main GUI. i dont even open FF up all the way any more because i have so much room on the desktop with these new monitors. therefore, the added footprint of these editor thumbs wouldnt even push the current GUI for space.

what brought this up today was, i have a component with four perlin noises. working with those four in the editor is a breeze because i can see where each of them is at visually. but, when i leave the editor for the main GUI, i can no longer see the perlin thumbs and thus creating with the filter becomes much more guesswork and less visual. thus, having the thumbs from the editor available in the GUI would make things a whole lot easier for a filter like this.

and, i see no reason why, if someone else didnt want these showing in the GUI, there could simply be an option to turn them on or off and not even show the slots for them.

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Kraellin wrote: i find that i could now easily handle a whole column of these previews on one side of the main GUI

that would be very handy to see changes and tweaking it would be good to also have the controls accessable for a number of components at the same time