As part of my GSoC’23 project on improving the Bundle Creator, I am planning to implement the bundle editing feature in Krita. In order to better understand the requirements and preferences of artists, I would like to understand on the types of bundles you would like to improve.
Is it only limited to the bundles present in the Resources folder (the ones you import) or you would like to have a feature for editing bundles from any folder you want to (which implies editing a bundle which is not imported)? Would be great if you all could throw some light upon the type of bundles you would prefer editing.
Cool feature, can`t wait to test it in nightly builds My usecase: i am using krita on different PC and use bundle to “transfer” changes in brushes and workspace from one PC to another to have similar latest version everywhere. So editing bundle that is already saved on disk somewhere (add new brush to it, remove old ones) would be cool. Editing imported bundle ok too, but this needs ability to “export” imported bundle as a file
Some additional notes regarding bundle editing dialog (from personal point of view):
would be cool to be able to change width of columns (by drag), or allow whole dialog to change dimensions by corner drag (in favor of extending colгmns width). They are too narrow currently, on mac, at least, lengthy names are just clipped inside it. And that columns much more important for bundle creation than left-side input fields.
generally path for saving is asked when user clicks “Save” button. Current behaviour with choosing path in advance - than saving to it without any confirmations is somewhat confusing
@Srirupa_Datta - BTW, mock ups loocks already great, much cleaner than current dialog, imho
What kind of editing are you imagining? And how do you propose to make it work?
Say I modified some brushes of a bundle, is the goal to then select these brushes and modify them as part of the bundle automatically with the click of a button in the Bundle Editor? Or will it be more similar to the resource manager? Where and how do you plan to expose the bundle editing? I can imagine it could be a part of the brush editor too, in case you want to apply the changes you’ve made to a brush to a bundle directly.
For me, one of the features should be to actually delete a brush from a bundle and from the .sqlite database. The reason is, if I download a bundle, I often times only like certain brushes and know I won’t be using say 10%-50% of them. In that case, if I can trim down the bundle size by actually removing the brushes, I could save on disk space. Considering the brushes are hosted online, I personally don’t need to back-up the bundles. Though I guess it doesn’t hurt to be able to export (edited) bundles, so you can make back-ups to other drives, thumb-drives or external hard-drives.
As for modifying bundles that are not in the resources folder, you don’t have access to any of the brushes to test them in Krita, do you? If that’s the case, you cannot see the original nor the changes you are making. Which could lead to some nasty surprises down the road.
You can simply copy/transfer the entire krita resources folder from one PC to another to have everything the same (except for settings and custom shortcuts).
You can simply copy/transfer the entire krita resources
With bundle i get used to sync only common subset, don`t really need ALL resources. Plus Bundle is compact file (+shortcuts) which is easy to put on google drive and easy to pick up everywhere, whole folders of rarely used stuff tends to became overbloated overtime.
BTW, would be cool to have shortcuts an optional part of bundle too (Shortcuts+Canvas Input Settings)
Noted. As for export, it would be saved as a .bundle file only.
You mean a resizable Bundle Creator? If that’s what you’re suggesting, I have already designed the new one to be resizable! You can check this out to see how the new one is looking so far.
I think it would be something like Settings > Manage Resource Libraries > Edit Bundle(Button).
Definitely deleting the resource items from the bundle is something that will be done in the Bundle Editor. As for deleting from the sqlite database, I need to talk to the devs once. You see, if you edit a bundle that is not present in the resource folder, the items that you delete from that bundle would not be present in the database. However, if you delete from a bundle present in the resource folder(these are all imported), I personally think it would be better to retain the deleted items in the database? However, I don’t create bundles so I would be happy to go with whatever you think is a better idea.
Actually the plan is, if you want to edit the bundle that is not present in the resource folder, it would be temporarily added to the database while you edit it, and will be removed once you’re done. Hence there should not be a difference in terms of what you see. But I’m pretty new to this, am I missing anything?
Can you elaborate more on this?
But how often would you edit bundles that you don’t use? I realised one of the reasons why you would want to edit a bundle is to get rid off items that you don’t need, and you would be using them later, right? Which means you would be importing that bundle. But are there cases when you edit a bundle, to not use it, and let’s say send it to someone else? (Note, here you don’t import the bundle). I kind of need to know are there use cases of editing not imported bundles? Is this something artists would need or prefer to have?
i am using bundle as a media for transfer enviroment. The need is not constant, but happens from time to time since workflow is evolving. In my case i also forced to use Affinity Photo from time to time (to fit client demands) and found convinient to make Krita hotkey to match AP photo ones (where possible). That is why option for saving keymaps (and Canvas Input Settings actually part of keymap, semantically) would be cool to have.
But are there cases when you edit a bundle, to not use it, and let’s say send it to someone else? (Note, here you don’t import the bundle)
in my case no, this never happen, bundle in use using is installed and active. Option to edit currently active bundle and export as bundle file would be sufficient.
UI gifs/Mock-ups looks cool Would be also cool to have the same for bundle creation too, not for edit only. In the end of the day bundle creation is the edit of initially empty bundle
In my eyes, only bundles loaded in Krita should be editable, simply to avoid confusion.
On the one hand, I find the idea of physically removing resources from existing bundles very valuable for experienced users.
On the other hand, I’m already seeing requests from non-expert users who, out of an inability to see the consequences of their actions, sent resources into nirvana that they didn’t want to delete. When these are then also guaranteed unrecoverable resources (self-created, no longer available in the WWW (and not in the @Michelist archive™ )), it will be a cruel experience for these users.
This is something that the previous philosophy of resource management was to prevent at all costs!
Therefore, shouldn’t some kind of life preserver be built in? For example, for physically removed resources to carry an always deactivated bundle into which the deleted resources are saved, in case of the guaranteed wrong decisions made? So these resources could be restored at least, as it was possible so far over ‘‘Settings’’ >> ‘‘Manage Resources…’’ >> ‘‘Show deleted Resources’’.
Well the bundle that I created I don’t use it because I have the components that made it. Editing it without it imported could give the ability to confirm it was constructed correctly ? But I donno. Bundle creation has changed so much back and forth donno what it is doing to advice anything.
That’s true as well. Maybe instead of deleting you should be able to split off parts of a bundle. You can either delete those later or keep them as backup.
These were actually made for the Bundle Creator. The Bundle Editor will share the same user interface as the Bundle Creator. I however made some changes to the design, for the Tags page and Side widget. You can check the diagrams/gif in this post.
Maybe I can add some kind of a warning while editing bundles outside of resource folder, which will warn users to import and edit if they do not wish to lose data, and only proceed if they are sure that they never need any of the resources that they delete?
Other option would be to add option of importing bundles as a default setting (which can be unchecked) prior to editing bundles so that inexperienced users do not lose data.
Looking at this gif, from the link above, I have to say, it looks really neat!
I have a couple of questions/ suggestions:
Can you click the buttons for “Choose resources”, “Choose Tags”, "Enter Bundle Details"and “Choose save location”?
In the Search pane, when selecting resources, could you add a highlight to items that were already selected? This to avoid having to cross-check with the selected pane on the right.
In the Selected field, is there an option to show resources from all categories, rather than just the one you have selected in the dropdown? This might save you from going back and forth in the dropdown to double check that you have everything.
Is it possible to add a search field up top in the dropdown, so you can click the dropdown and start typing to get a tag/ resource category? I understand the reason for dropdowns, but I personally really dislike that you have to move/ read a lot to get a specific option selected. In that case, typing the initial letters narrows down the movement and reading you have to do.
Nope, those are labels. Do they look like buttons? My mentor said the same thing. Would you mind suggesting how I can highlight the selected category without making them look like buttons?
That could be done I believe. I need to confirm with the devs once, but I cant think of any possible downside of this approach, so yeah, sounds good to me!
I think this part could be added in the summary section?
I think this can be done. Though the only concern is I think Krita currently doesn’t have such drop downs and maybe this could go against Krita’s style? Again something I need to confirm. Will let you know!
And usually, these large icons serve as buttons. Wouldn’t it be possible to make them work as buttons? The way I think of them is that you shouldn’t be able to proceed to a later stage if you haven’t filled out the details in the pane (e.g. you can’t go past choosing resources with no resources selected). But if you have, you should be able to click on it to go back in my opinion. Could you make it work that way?
But, if you want them to serve as labels, what you could do is grey out all of the labels that have not been filled in. So if you start out, you are at (1/4) done, so the other 3 should be greyed out. When you proceed to the next step, you could change their colour from a greyscale to a light grey (closer to white). And you could change the dark grey vertical background to something lighter (e.g. in the “Choose tags” the background is lighter and does not resemble the colour of a button in Krita, whereas the dark background does). That said, it’ll still resemble the Configure Krita… buttons when the labels are no longer greyed out. Hope this description is clear enough without a mockup.
Where’s the summary section in your gif? Could you clarify what you mean?
Correct, but it would be a welcome improvement elsewhere too. Perhaps it is possible that your solution could be used elsewhere as well for other dropdowns?
I am not proposing for her to rework all dropdowns, just saying it is something that could be considered if she ends up changing the dropdowns in the bundle editor. In which case, a modular design might be helpful.
Searching in dropdowns certainly shouldn’t end up being showstoppers, it’s more of a nice to have in case there’s time to spare.
I think I can try this. The reason why the wizard approach was chosen was to force users to visit all the stages of bundle creation so that they do not miss out on any important step. So I would stick to labels instead of buttons as buttons will give the user the freedom to skip a step.
That’s the last page of the Bundle Creator (Save to Page). You can see there’s a summary of the count of resources selected, tags selected. You can suggest a better design for that.
My usecase: i am using krita on different PC and use bundle to “transfer” changes in brushes and workspace from one PC to another to have similar latest version everywhere. So editing bundle that is already saved on disk somewhere (add new brush to it, remove old ones) would be cool. Editing imported bundle ok too, but this needs ability to “export” imported bundle as a file
)), it will be a cruel experience for these users.
My mentor said the same thing. Would you mind suggesting how I can highlight the selected category without making them look like buttons?