Krita Monthly Update – Edition 15

Develop Development news
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Welcome to the latest development and community news curated for you by the @Krita-promo team.

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Development report

  • A 5.2.2.1 hotfix release was made for the Android Play Store version only, fixing a startup crash on the x86_64 platform encountered on Chromebooks. It also contains other fixes from the stable branch, but be warned there is a known crash regression with importing audio.

  • A proper 5.2.3 release for all supported platforms will be made as soon as possible, hopefully in the next few weeks.

  • At the time of writing, nightly builds for macOS are still blocked by a signing-related issue. Once that is resolved, automated builds for all supported platforms will be up and running again. That is the culmination of months of work by lead developer @dkazakov, together with macOS developer @IvanYossi, Android developer @sh-zam, Windows contributor Simon Ra, and others, in a refactor of Krita’s build system.

  • Feature Request: Palette in Toolbar has been marked “solved” by @freyalupen’s most recently merged code. Add docker box toolbar widget allows the user to add any docker to the toolbar in a temporary popup widget similar to the “choose brush preset” one in Painter’s Tools.

  • A problem with certain RBGA brushes has been solved and will be part of the next release. Users were experiencing lagging and freezing when accessing these brushes. The thread makes an interesting read as it’s a “live” look at an issue being revealed and it shows how helpful it is when users conduct testing. You can read the thread here.

  • @Ken_Lo has been accepted as a student for Google Summer of Code, to work on pixel perfect hand-drawn lines.

  • In addition to various recorder related fixes by @freyalupen, the FFmpeg profiles in the recorder docker are improved by @Ralek. We congratulate @Ralek on their first contribution to Krita.

  • When entering canvas-only mode, the document used to jump abruptly and reposition itself. @YRH helped in solving this issue

  • @Deif_Lou has improved performance of the fill tool making it faster.

  • @Ken_Lo added an option in the settings to pick default export file type.

  • @Grum999 has looked into improving Krita’s API for python plugins and as a start, chose to implement a scratchpad API that adds functionality to the scratchpad.

  • Emir Sari sent patches to help Krita build on Haiku OS.

Community report

The April Monthly Art Challenge, Animal Curiosity, inspired submissions from 26 artists. @jimplex was voted the winner with this creative piece:

Firefly by @jimplex

1200×1200 40.8 KB

The theme for the May 2024 challenge is “reflection.” You can get all the details here. We already have some ideas and pre-work flying around in the discussion and WIP thread. Have a look – something might inspire your creativity.

Featured artwork

Krita-Artists members nominated 9 images for the featured artwork banner. When the mid-month poll ended, these are the 5 that won a place on the banner. All 5 will be entered into the Best of Krita-Artists 2024 competition next January.

Cabin in the woods-RH by @rohithela

1920×810 157 KB

Detailed Portrait by @denjay5

1020×1217 68 KB

Nier Automata by @IvanGilbertt

1920×2400 234 KB

Alien Senator by @DavB

1920×2716 377 KB

My uni project by @smollbirb

1920×928 117 KB

Nominations for the April/May poll are open until May 11, 2024.

Noteworthy plugin

Blender-Krita link plugin for texture editing by @heisenshark

This plugin has a fresh update that the author describes as a “big overhaul of how the plugin works.”

Tutorial of the month

Krita’s newest tutorial by @RamonM features an interview with @Rakurri, the creator of @Rakurri’s brush pack containing more than 200 brushes made just for Krita. @RamonM demonstrates his favorite ones such Glow FX, Liquid Bristle and the vegetation brushes.

Ways to help Krita

Krita is a Free and Open Source application, mostly developed by an international team of enthusiastic volunteers. Donations from Krita users to support maintenance and development is appreciated.

Join the Development Fund with a monthly donation. Or make a one-time donation here.

Notable changes in code

This section has been compiled by @freyalupen.
Apr 3 - May 2, 2024

Stable branch (5.2.2+):
Bugfixes:

Nightly build regression bugfixes:

  • [Layer Stack] Fix wrong layer being active on opening document. In the case of single-layer documents, no layer was active, which caused crashes under some circumstances. (BUG:480718) (merge request, Dmitry Kazakov)

Unstable branch (5.3.0-prealpha):
Features:

  • [Toolbars, Shortcuts] Add Docker Box action that shows a docker in a temporary box, which can be added to a toolbar or assigned to shortcut. (merge request, Freya Lupen)
  • [Canvas Input Shortcuts] Add new Tool Invocation action, “Activate with Other Color”. This can be bound to a key+mousebutton, where holding those keys will cause, for instance, the Freehand Brush to paint with the background instead of foreground color. (merge request, ziplantil …)

Bugfixes:

Nightly build regression bugfixes:

These changes are made available for testing in the following Nightly builds:

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A big thanks to everyone who volunteers to work for Krita!

These monthly updates continue to improve, it’s always a joy to see that a new one is posted. Keep up the good work promo team, thank you!

E: The docker box feature sounds really useful.

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great work as usual and kudos for docker in toolbox. this has been the biggest feature for me personally.

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Yes!! Pixel Perfect lines.

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Once again, thanks for the update! Always looking forward to these

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Oh wow, with the docker drop down box and pop-up palette docker stuff, my android tablet setup is mega clean once I go into full canvas mode. This is awesome, thanks guys!

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