whither krita -- summary

[Cyrille Berger]

On Thursday 24 September 2009, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> On Thursday 24 September 2009, Cyrille Berger wrote:
> > On Thursday 24 September 2009, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> > > flexible, comprehensive app  <---------> polish and usability
> >
> > Not sure why there is a contradiction here.
> 
> Because if we attempt comprehensiveness, we don't (have time to) polish
> anything. And comprehensiveness and flexibility come at the expense of a
> complicated user interface.

I am not aiming at making krita easy to learn, but rather on ease of use.

> > > platform for experimentation <---------> stable application for users
> >
> > Hum not a contradiction. Depend of what you are experimenting, if it's
> > experimenting on core, then yes, but if it's a platform to allow new
> >  plugins, then you can have both stable plugins ship to the user and
> >  experimentation in your personal tree.
> 
> Experiments tend to satisfy the experimenter before becoming stable,
>  polished features. And experiments can very easily disrupt the rest of the
>  application, even if they are a plugin. The histogram docker is pretty
>  dangerous, for example.
True. I wouldn't call histogram an "experiment", but an unloved docker, and I 
don't see more "experiment" of that kind in the future, but I think the 
experiment will go on less "dangerous" stuff like paintop or filters or tools.

> > If by manipulation of images, you mean improving the quality of pictures
> >  taken by a camera, then ok, but I would argue that neither the gimp or
> >  krita are the best tool for just that.
> >
> > > integrated in koffice        <---------> attractive to artists
> >
> > I keep expressing doubts about that one. If you could find someone who
> > has such a problem and make it discuss with us, and see if it's just
> > troll, ignorence, "the weird idea that artists aren't just like any
> > office worker" or if there is a real issue. I also think that the
> > katelier concept has not been pushed to its full potential, because it
> > requires someone to do it.
> 
> For instance, on #mypaint -- none of these guys are trolls:
> 
> 04.09.2009-16:28 < vlada> guys, have you tried krita?
> 04.09.2009-16:29 < boud> I've written krita :P
> 04.09.2009-16:29 < boud> (well, large parts of it)
> 04.09.2009-16:29 < vlada> boud, I remember your blog :P
> 04.09.2009-16:29 < vlada> but nick is sooo unassociative :)
> 04.09.2009-16:31 < Songwind> I tried Krita several version ago, didn't
>  particularly like it. 04.09.2009-16:31 < Songwind> and now I don't want to
>  install KDE and Koffice just to use it. 04.09.2009-16:32 < vlada>
>  reasonable choice
> 04.09.2009-17:01 < Popolon> The same, I'm not really a krita fan
> 04.09.2009-17:01 < Popolon> but some articles write their are some
>  promizing features 04.09.2009-17:01 < Popolon> since few years
> 04.09.2009-17:01 < Popolon> I would like to see them
> 04.09.2009-17:10 < Popolon> What I most dislike, is the need to install kde
>  office suite to have it 04.09.2009-17:10 < Popolon> else it looks good
> 04.09.2009-17:11 < Songwind> having too install KOffice wouldn't be a deal
>  breaker for me if it didn't mean I had to have all the KDE services r
> unning.  If it was just a Qt app, I would go ahead and invest a few hundred
>  megs of space to check out the drawing program. 04.09.2009-17:12 < jonnor>
>  what kind of services do you need to have running? 04.09.2009-17:14 <
>  Songwind> kdeinit, the kparts, etc.
Well, we were mentioing fud :)

kparts isn't a running service, kdeinit is mostly used to preload libraries, 
that would be loaded anyway. That leave kded.

Maybe we need a FAQ:
"What I most dislike, is the need to install kde office suite to have it"
No you don't.

> And, actually, the services a kde needs to have running mean that it's very
>  unlikely that there will ever be a krita installer for windows or a krita
>  dmg for OSX.
hum we have that for windows. I just think that those platforms need love.

> Also, they clearly have noticed that we don't deliver what we are
>  experimenting with.
Yes and that's a bigger problem.

> Krita right now can do a lot of things a little, but there isn't anything
>  at all that it can do well, let alone excel at. Sometimes that is caused
>  by our abysmal performance, sometimes it's just because the features are
>  not sufficiently finished and not well integrated.
Yes. Lets focus on that then :)

> > > Use cases I've seen in the thread:
> > >
> > >  * photo manipulation
> > >  * HDR workflow (for film or for pictures?
> >
> > Not sure what the question is about ? I think the flipbookdocker we have
> > in the kross plugin could be extented to allow frame by frame editing of
> > a movie (which was kind of the design goal of the flipbook).
> 
> Painting hdr backgrounds for use in animated movies is different from
> combining multiple exposures into weird-looking photos.

Well, I kind of want both. And we kind of have both.

> > >  * illustrations and comics
> > >  * sketching
> > >  * integration with movie workflow, blender
> > >  * web development (what is that, actually?)
> >
> > I see it as CSS design.
> 
> Then it's certainly one thing we can exclude from krita :-)
Well not really. And there isn't a good tool to do that on linux at the 
moment. But would require investigation on the workflow (what I usually do is 
design something in a vector application, import in a raster application to do 
cutting then write the css from the pieces). Lets not focus on that, anyway.

> > > Can all these things work in one application?
> >
> > Yes.
> 
> But currently we are failing at that: we have lots of features, but none
>  work well, the discoverability is minimal and the integration into one
>  user interface sucks because we just add menu items and dockers into one
>  big basket. So I'd say, if we go for a big integrated can-do-everything
>  app, we need to come up with a UI strategy that works (after bug fixing
>  and performance work, of course.)
yes.

Well we have some good UI concept as well, like the filter "class", the paintop 
"class" and tool "class", I think we more have a problem of uniformity, most 
paintop widgets seems different from one an other. Filter aren't really better.

-- 
Cyrille Berger