when gimp mysteriously refuses to work (i)

Gimp makes the hard things maybe possible, and the easy things very difficult.

Symptom: you want to select a part of the image, in this case with the rectangle-select tool.  Instead of allowing you to make a selection, the application taunts you by drawing a no-entry sign, a cross-hairs, and a little rectangle.  If you are paying attention, you may see the text "Cannot subtract from an empty selection" in the status bar, which gives a clue about what's gone wrong.

In the tool setting area is "Mode", with 4 possibilities.  These are labelled with hieroglyphics, not text.  The normal mode, replace, is the left-hand one.  Choose that, and gimp may deign to allow you to make a selection in your image.


My screenshot program doesn't capture the mouse cursor, so here's a photo of it:



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