[NEW PLUGIN] - TF Easy Colors Map

[TigerForge]

Hello,
I’m a software developer and a (hobbyist) comics artist too. Krita is my art software, I can live without its colors flattening automatic system, but… I find the colors management not so good for my very personal needs because I have to use the same colors through different pages and the actual colors organization system doesn’t meet my desired needs.

I’d like to share this plugin with others, that may have needs similar to mine. You can find it here:

GitHub - TigerForge2/easycolorsmap: TF Easy Colors Map (Krita plugin)

This is the first release and I tested it (and corrected it many times!) using it in my “job”. This doesn’t mean it’s free of bugs!

I hope it can be useful for someone.
Cheers,
Steven

[Troken]

Hi @TigerForge Sounds great with a new plugin that deals with color management, but I didn’t get exactly what it’s supposed to do? Can you elaborate?

[Grum999]

Hi @Troken

Detailed explanations about plugin, with usage example, are available on github page

Grum999

[LunarKreatures]

Seems like an alternative to the palette docker considering the readme on GitHub. I wonder what issues you encountered with the palette docker, to want to make a plugin instead of using it? Just curious.

Still it’s an interesting plugin i will sure check it later, thanks for sharing.

[raghukamath]

Copy pasting the readme from github -

WHAT IS

TF Easy Colors Map is a plugin for Krita for creating a Map (a collection) of your favourite colors in a very simple way. The final result of your Map can be something like this:

HOW IT WORKS

All starts creating a new Colors Map, which is a simple .txt file. Now, you can start adding your colors and, if you want, organizing them with titles. Adding a colors is pretty simple: once you have the desired color set in the Krita document foreground, just right click your Map, type a name when requested and it’s added to your collection.

To add a color in a specific position, just right click with the SHIFT button pressed.

If you need to catch more colors (for example, grabbing them from an image) you can automize the process. Just press the “Auto Add Colors” button and start using the Krita’s Color Sampler tool to select your desired color. Every time the foreground color changes, the Colors Map will ask you to type a name and that color is added into your Map. When you finished, press the “Auto Add Colors” button again to stop this feature.

SELECT A COLOR FROM YOUR MAP

In your Map, just left click a color and your Krita document foreground color is set to that color. Moreover, if you click with the SHIFT button pressed, the Krita document background color is set instead.

MANAGE YOUR MAP

You can perform various operations to manage your colors, titles and grouped colors. For example, you can rename colors and titles, move a color in a different position, delete a color or a title, and so on. Just right click with the CTRL button pressed and a popup menu appears with all the available functionalities.

INLINE HELP MANUAL

Click the [?] button to show the inline manual with all the features explained.

WHY THIS PLUGIN

I’m a comic artist, so I have to apply the same colors on different pages. Krita is fantastic software for the flattening process, but personally I find the color management system unsuitable for the flexibility and speed I would like. For this reason, I created a plugin that offered what I need, such as organizing colors quickly, easily seeing the name of a color and so on.

[Troken]

OK, got it!

[Troken]

Oh, impressive and useful plugin.

[TigerForge]

Hi,
as you sayed, this plugin is an alternative. It’s not meant to be a replacement or a “better” system. It’s just a little project I did for myself.

The Krita’s palette is good and I used it a lot, without any problem. However, for my personal needs, I wanted to have a similar system, but faster to create. Basically, I wanted a system to quickly add colors and names through simple mouse clicks, without opening dialogs where I have to type values, choose options in the combo boxes, and so on.

I wanted just a thing like: I create a palette, with one click I add my color, with my name well visible, optionally with a title for organizing the colors. And if I have to do something else (rename, move a color, delete it, etc.) I can do it with just one click or two directly in the palette, without pressing buttons and opening other windows with forms to compile.

It’s just this! This plugin meets my needs, but I understand that for other artist it may be useless or limited.

Also, take into consideration that I use the colors for flattening comics, so this kind of colors management may not be suitable for illustrators who, instead, may need an high level of colors management.

[LunarKreatures]

@TigerForge

It’s not meant to be a replacement or a “better” system

No worries i didn’t assume that either, like i said i was mostly curious about what were the issues you had with the palette docker as i don’t use it much. From what you said your issues with it were similar to mine.

Thanks for answering.

[Ralek]

Ooo this looks like it could be pretty useful.

[EyeOdin]

This looks pretty cool, I have to try it.
I also am not a big fan of the palette docker at all.

[fae]

Thanks for this plugin. Really well done and easy to understand. Using a recent dev appimage on Linux, and it’s working perfectly. Interesting visual way to manually create a useful palette from a painting to apply in another.

Just one thing; is it possible to increase the colour box size? Am no tech wizard, lol, but I know with kanvasbuddy could alter size of buttons by just changing the numbers. I can see myplugin.py and UI.py referencing 16x16. Would changing those numbers enlarge the boxes?

[Grum999]

@TigerForge as your plugin is finished and ready to use, it will be best placed in #resources:plugins category

Grum999

[EyeOdin]

After doing some testing my notes would be:

• I would set up your license on the files and on Github.
• The function resizeEvent helps updating when changing the docker size.
• the Managed Color function colorForCanvas helps to display colors when outside of RGB documents.
• Also saving the palette into the KRA file with annotations might be worth considering.

The plugin is really cool. Thank you.

[TigerForge]

Hi fae,
at the moment I used a 42x42 fixed size, that for me is an ideal size (not too big, not too small). I’m aware of the fact that by placing the color name inside this size, you have to write short names (in fact, in the message box I wrote “type a short name” )

The reply to your question is “yes”. I can implement any kind of functionality in this plugin and what you’re asking is pretty simple to do. The only thing I have to think about is how to integrate this feature in the UI keeping all “super” simple.

In my very personal opinion, the best approach is to keep color names short. I mean, they’re your colors, so the meaning of the names is for you. For example, instead of writing “mask dark shadow” you may write “mark dark sh.” or use specific terms like “l” for “light”, “lr” for “lighter”, “d” for dark and so on. I don’t know if it’s clear what I mean.

But I understand that other may want to have more descriptive names.

[TigerForge]

Hi EyeOdin,
firsly thank you for your suggestions. I’m replying to your points:

• I would set up your license on the files and on Github.
  OK

• The function resizeEvent helps updating when changing the docker size.
  It’s true, but sometimes events like this are memory consuming because they are executed more times per second. For the kind of rendering process I created, I preferred to implement a “custom” resize event, that’s called only once for a second during the resize process. The result is not as “beautiful” as using the resizeEvent, but it works

• the Managed Color function colorForCanvas helps to display colors when outside of RGB documents.
  Uhm… sorry… I don’t understand this!!!

• Also saving the palette into the KRA file with annotations might be worth considering.
  Sorry, I don’t know if I’ve understood correctly. Are you suggesting me to save a reference to a Colors Map into the Krita document so as when you open that document, the Colors Map is loaded too?

[EyeOdin]

@TigerForge

Uhm… sorry… I don’t understand this!!!

despite being the same color if your in a document that is not RGB that color will have acctually need to be displayed differently to the user. I will show some differences with the same colors on it.

rgb

cmyk

@TigerForge

Are you suggesting me to save a reference to a Colors Map into the Krita document so as when you open that document, the Colors Map is loaded too?

yes. seems suitable. I saw the text file you save and it looks tottally possible.

[fae]

@TigerForge

The reply to your question is “yes”. I can implement any kind of functionality in this plugin and what you’re asking is pretty simple to do. The only thing I have to think about is how to integrate this feature in the UI keeping all “super” simple.

Hi @TigerForge and thanks for your response. Just that I know there’ll be eye strain at the current size tbh, and gotta look after the peepers, lol, so if zoom options may be possible at any point, that could be great e.g. how Krita can resize brush preset icon size via the small hamburger box? And I can fully understand what you’re saying about keeping names short, but I worry I’ll forget what my abbreviation meant, when importing the txt file at a later date, lol.

[TigerForge]

Aaaahhhh, ok!!! You’re right!!!

[TigerForge]

Yeah, don’t worry, I’m going to implement the custom color size feature