How to set a custom sized rectangle select area in gimp?

Question

I am a totally newbie gimp (using 2.6.11) user and whenever I need to select a rectangular area of an image (for further pasting it into a new image), I just click the "Rectangle Select Tool" button in the toolbar and try selecting with the mouse. If I aim for a rectangle of certain size, it often becomes a challenge, because it's not easy to select a rectangle of certain size (in pixels) with the mouse.

I would rather want a way to set/modify the rectangle area explicitly, by having a dialog where I can input the size of rectangle in pixels and a way to move that area over the image using keyboard shortcuts, to make sure that I can select exactly the area I need and that I can get the selection rectangle there as soon as possible.

How can I do this in gimp?

Solution

Unless you are using a very old version of gimp, you can resize the selection box after selecting by placing your mouse over one of the selected rectangle's sides:

You can also set the size and position manually from the tool options tab:

Comments

[Unknowntiou]

I have edited the question and included the gimp version. Modifying position and size of rectangle area in the tool options tab seems to be the perfect way to achieve what I want. Thank you.

[terdon]

@AnonymousLurker You're very welcome.