Krita Workspace Proposal + Mock-ups

[Valerie]

Now that KDE 4.0 is out...

Half out of curiosity: is it possible for one to build Krita 2.0 
without:
- installing the whole of KDE 4.0 (I've switched to Kubuntu 7.10 
with KDE 3.5, but I don't Really want to switch to KDE 4 until I 
know it's stable enough)
- installing the whole of KOffice (though I wouldn't mind it too much,
I've checked out Kword and frankly I like it!)
- and without ending up with lots of broken dependencies that will 
crash all of my other programs?

I don't Terribly mind having a desktop that crashes all the time, 
but I'd rather maintain one by the side that doesn't crash. My new
computer not too long ago reminded me in fact never to mess with
the screen resolution settings without making a backup of xorg.conf. 
=\

Basically I've been rethinking the workspace concept a bit. I've 
recently noticed the KOffice workspace system as well, so in Krita
it could be renamed taskspace to avoid confusion. But as I've been 
discovering things about Krita, I'd rather keep some things 
consistent if possible, so I'm curious to see where Krita 2.0 is 
headed.

The new proposal basically divides implementation into the following
independent tasks:

- improved management of toolbars. Adding to the toolbar should 
work with a menu system similar to the general menu system on top,
instead of listing everything in one drop-down. Also, making
toolbars collapsible could be useful against clutter. Drag-and-drop
system would also help.

- basic workspace implementation. The very basic one basically
allows you to save different toolbar settings and such. At this
point they don't need to have many functions. Eventually new 
developers could add specific functionalities for each. A quick
photo editing workspace for example would offer to load a photo
or even a whole folder instead of offering templates, and can
generate a list of photo thumbnails on the side so that you can
quickly access new photos one by one for quick editing or batch
operations on an entire new folder. Obviously, painting doesn't
need this.

- brush presets system. This will need a lot of defining, and it'd 
be helpful for me to know what the new brush options will be...

- resource management system, and corresponding "drawer" system
(thanks to Boudewijn for the term idea!). My new idea is to use 
something much like the bookmark system in many programs (like
Firefox). The "Drawer" system then allows you to start a 
special type of toolbar where you can load entire folders at a 
time. Click on a drawer-like icon to see folders and sub-folders 
you can load up. I'll send a mock-up later.

Once the above foundations have been set up, not-necessarily-
programmers will have to be called in to work on possible
workspaces and create presets and such for future releases.

Though... You're all very busy with KOffice 2.0 right? I can
always re-submit everything I have in mind later when you have
less on your minds.

In the meantime would you like me to help on the content for a new 
website again? The biggest problem, obviously, is that I
don't know what the new features will be. XD


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