Subject: Proposal to Update the Design of Krita's Interface

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Hello Krita

Subject: Proposal to Update the Design of Krita’s Interface

Hello Krita Community,

My name is Eduardo.dom, and I am a dedicated enthusiast and user of Krita. I have great admiration for our community and the continuous development of this incredible tool. I would like to share a proposal for updating the design of Krita’s interface and hear your opinions on it.

Context and Justification: In recent years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of people interested in digital art. Tools like Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, and Medibang Paint have attracted many users not only for their functionalities but also for their modern, intuitive, and visually appealing interfaces. Compared to these tools, I believe Krita’s interface design, while functional, may appear somewhat outdated.

Proposal: I propose a revamp of Krita’s interface that includes:

  1. Icon Update:
  • More modern and intuitive icons that align with current design trends.
  • A more uniform and vibrant visual style to attract new users.
  1. Usability Improvements:
  • Adjustments to the layout to make the interface more intuitive and accessible.
  • Implementation of customization features that allow users to tailor the interface to their preferences.
  1. Inspiration from Competing Tools:
  • Adopting design and usability elements from popular tools like Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, and Medibang Paint.
  • Integrating features that facilitate the work of speed artists and digital influencers.

Personal Commitment: I am eager to contribute to this effort personally. Although I am still developing my programming skills, focusing on C++ and Python, I am committed to working hard to bring these design changes to fruition. Over time, I plan to enhance my skills to ensure I can effectively modify the interface and create an appealing design that attracts influencers and speed artists.

Expected Benefits:

  • Increase in User Base: A more attractive and modern design can draw in new users who are accustomed to the interfaces of other popular tools.
  • Greater Engagement: More intuitive tools and icons can make learning and continuous use of Krita easier, increasing user satisfaction.
  • Competitiveness: An updated design can position Krita more competitively in the digital art software market.

Conclusion: I strongly believe we are living in an era where design and usability play crucial roles in the choice of software tools. A Krita with a revamped interface will not only keep our current user base satisfied but also attract new artists and influencers to our community.

I would love to hear your opinions on this proposal and am open to suggestions. I am eager to collaborate with the community to develop a design that meets our needs and expectations. Thank you for considering my proposal. Let’s make Krita even better together!

Best regards,
Eduardo.dom

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Krita is skinnable and adjustable to one’s own requirements. A more uniform and vibrant visual style might not necessarily attract new users, might not be what everybody wants and might even make Krita look cheap where now it looks quite professional. Your post really comes across to me like you want to take Krita and sell it as a commercial venture of your own. Even your choice of phrasing sounds like you are advertising something and your whole premise is based on the assumption that your aesthetic tastes and practical requirements are superior to all others. Krita already uses features that facilitate the work of speed artists and digital influencers. I don’t see a problem.

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Krita is not sold; it is free and so it is not in any competition in any market.

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Hi there! We have open topics for exactly that topic. The conclusion is, that we have to wait, until krita was migrated to QT6. Krita lives in the QT environment, so if you are willing to redesign its UI/UX try to do some mockups for it.

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It’s in competition for market share (users). And it is sold by the Krita Foundation on Steam/Windows Store/Mac App Store/Epic Store (but you can always get it for free on the official website).

As for this proposal, there are a lot of pretty words but not a lot of specifics. If you wish to contribute, you’ll have to pick a topic and get down to actionable details.

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I don’t know how this site works I’m making a series of videos talking about an original production that I’m creating to be able to develop software with the krita source code and yes I’m using C++, QT, & Python, visual editor to be able to make the modifications to tell the truth I am creating a program from scratch and I am using its source code to speed up the process if krita is interested It will be very good for their users I will test the program with some people that I am creating in practice and if it turns out well I want to share the source code with krita developers maybe we can take advantage of it.

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I strongly prefer the older style and find current/modern trends in design to be so minimalist that I can’t figure out what things are or where they are. One of the things that keeps me on Krita is the information density of the UI.

I could see an advantage however to different “skins”, particularly for users on different form factors. A friend of mine who draws on a display tablet has said that while she likes Krita fairly well on PC, on display tablet (handheld/lapheld size) it can be challenging to use.

I think there’s a balance one has to find between “this has been discovered to be generally preferable by all”, “this ostracizes the people who were already happy and don’t need a change” (reminiscent of the ongoing need to constantly change/remove social media platforms), and “this other UI is already available in another program; we don’t need two of that program: we can have it AND Krita so people have options”.

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I’ll agree with the icons part. They do look a bit too “blocky” for my taste. And what also creates inconsistency is the fact that icons in toolbox can be resized but the ones within dockers cannot. Not to mention that most are 16px size meanwhile some are 20-22px even.

My main complaint would be “Layers” docker here, and is probably what catches everyone else’s attention too.

Not only does it look too cluttered with all the icons always visible on layers but is also the most inconsistent with icon sizes within the docker.

For start, it would be nice if icon size was a global option rather than toolbox exclusive. And layer options (lock and such) optional between “On layer” and “On docker” where if they were available on top of the docker only the active would be visible on the layer. This alone would clean up the visual clutter.

Default themes could be modernized a bit too, to fit the current trends better.

Other than that Krita looks fine although it could use some polishing but best wait for qt 6.0 transition for the rest.

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I appreciate your intentions of improving the software but I agree with the answers here. I would like to know what your proposals are exactly since this post currently is too generic. I’m not against changes if they don’t disrupt the features and tools we already have that work well.

If you want to talk about changes it would be best if you created topics about the parts that you want to improve and discuss it with the current users so people know what they are voting for. There already are some proposals with many votes on this forum that discuss some ux improvements.

Side note
As a long time user of adobe’s software, calling photoshop’s ui modern is a bold move. Most digital art software in general do not have what people think as “modern ui”. People will think about phone apps with minimal looks when you say that.

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I was sympathetic with the first post, but the OP’s second one really confused me :laughing:

Anyway… Just wanted to say that I don’t think this is a programming problem, but rather a design problem. We need to discuss this with pictures, mockups and visual ideas. I couldn’t really “see” anything from what was said.

Once we have a good design in hand, we can decide how to turn it into assets and get implemented. And that may actually be the easier part :smile:

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Hi!

First, feelings and subjective opinions, to get it off my chest: I never really understand the “Krita looks outdated” opinion, especially when comparing with Photoshop or, worse, Clip Studio Paint (with PS looking roughly the same and CSP looking imho worse and more outdated). I get that in comparison with Procreate, but their UI has some disadvantages. I wouldn’t mind stealing some design from Medibang in some areas, I’m still impressed how they managed to include so many things into a tiny phone UI.

Now, the practical matters.

That’s a huge task. It’s not just programming - it’s design. And Krita is huge. We can steal here and there from other programs, but we cannot just blindly copy whole UI, because Krita is different from other programs (all programs are different from others). What we need, is the most convenient UI (that’s the priority, because it’s made for professionals who spend hours daily using those tools) which hopefully looks not too ugly so it doesn’t deter a newcommer.

Beautifying or making the UI/UX more convenient is of course a good idea. However, while making the UI/UX more convenient can be somewhat measurable (but even that not always :upside_down_face: ), the beauty aspect is way more subjective. What looks good to you, might not look that good to someone else. It’s also very prone to bikeshedding - as in, users (and sometimes developers) building trenches on specific sides on a very minute issue, and fighting, and making threads longer than 100 posts in a day, and getting them hidden and closed before I even manage to answer the original question.

Do you do UI/UX design, or only implementation?

Moreover, you gotta say more details. Preferably add mockups. When making the mockups, you need to consider how that will affect the productivity of people working with the specific tools. For example, I recently used a program where the layers docker was hidden - I was constantly checking it to make sure I’m painting on a correct layer. So every new design must be at least as convenient, if not more convenient, as the old one, in addition to looking better. Especially lots of minimal design relies on hiding the complexity or hiding the functionalities away, and that’s something you want on a phone, but not necessarily in a PC application.

And as I said, the task is huge. I would prefer if maybe you could start from just making designs of smaller parts. For example, the Welcome Screen - the look in the 5.2.2 version is a bit weird, I fixed it for future versions in this MR: Improve the look of Welcome Page with a few small changes (!2047) · Merge requests · Graphics / Krita · GitLab - but it’s still a far cry from the current idea to make it into a nice welcome hub with projects and whatnot. See here the most current work for that: WIP: Scaffolding work for QML Welcome Page (!1522) · Merge requests · Graphics / Krita · GitLab . You can suggest a design for it and then work on it. If it’s in qml, I don’t think it would conflict with the Qt 6 work.

There are several places where some more UI/UX design would be needed. For example, I had no idea how to make the buttons underneath the resource selector in Settings → Manage Resources. Likewise for the whole Settings → Manage Resource Libraries. I think the Fill Tool is ingenious but right now even I am getting lost in it - it could use some better visual hierarchy, I guess. The default workspace could probably use an update - especially since we know that people sometimes can’t find the Tool Options. I also think the current “import” and “export” old icons are terrible (they look like doors with arrows) (now that I think about it, download and upload icons are bad too, the download is maybe fine, but the upload is difficult to understand at glance), which is why I tend to use other things instead, so a new design would be welcome - except that we have a specific person who does icons (though some ideas could be helpful, I guess).

There are other things for which new UI/UX would be useful, for example the Transform Tool could use an on-canvas widget with a row of buttons representing the most common options - like Keep Ratio, flip horizontally etc. I meant to make a post about it a few months back, actually. You can make it, to learn how artists use it, what buttons are needed there, and then make a mockup.

Regarding things like the look of a button etc., we are a bit limited. we use Qt, and Qt has stylesheets, and Krita uses fusion by default (on linux systems, when using an installed version, you can install and use other stylesheets). There is one stylesheet that is often loved by Linux Krita users called Breeze, but we don’t build it and include in Windows etc. versions because it’s too big (afaik) and quite often become buggy in some specific areas (we had to blacklist it a few times). So for example we can’t really make the contrast between the slider and its background greater - it’s coded in fusion, and it is what it is. We would have to code a whole new stylesheet, probably. And in Krita we usually prefer to use ready-made solutions (and Breeze isn’t perfect either, btw).

Likewise the docker behaviour mentioned recently in another thread, we can’t really do anything except using a different docking system. And we do intend to change the docking system, there is one selected already. I believe we wanted to change Qt first, even though those projects are somewhat independent, they are both big changes in similar areas.

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Unfortunately I won’t be writing an paragraph/essay like everyone else here(I would love to, but I’m actively suffering on a tiny phone screen), but Krita’s overall design is fine. It gives a professional air, and if it was bubbly and fun I most likely never get used to it(Its current design makes me feel grounded.). As for customization, I don’t know how much more you want, Krita is one of the most flexible art programs I know of.

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Out of all the responses, I say I am completely behind this idea, specially considering the OP also wants to chip in with programming skills.

However, while comparing to other programs, let us discuss the elements which I superior or better. I guess visualising it would convince more people.

Next would be to create mock ups.

with QT6 migration, it was expected that we will get a tablet (or in web design terms, responsive UI). But since the Android Dev is no longer available, you can contribute.

This is actually a win win, we are short on devs and now we have a guy. let us all pitch in.

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HI, This sounds interesting, would be nice if we can hear more about it. docker presently has its own issues.

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I sure would like to see someone actually doing some work instead of just proposing things. Over the last five years or so it feels like every few months someone comes along and promises a groundbreaking and modern UI overhaul they think they can do in just a fraction of the time the core team has estimated. Not a single one actually followed through and got any work done, and honestly reading this proposal (and what was written in the Krita chat on matrix) that doesn’t even have any example of how the goals are supposed to be met, it checks all the boxes again. Not to sound mean but that’s how it always went in the past, would be cool if someone actually would get something done for once.

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well, I agree, but I am hopeful every time whenever something is proposed, out of thousands of proposals and over the cloud enthusiasm, we just want one push. lets hope for the best, there are already some UI changes in 5.3, hopefully more will come

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To be clear, the Docker development environment and docking system inside Krita are two different things. Docker environment stays, the docking system is going to change. I think this is the new one we want to use. In the link it shows a video of a demo and there is even a link to click to test it out yourself in a browser: KDDockWidgets - KDAB

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@Titan_Tech_games_mas:
I always like it when users want to improve Krita. But I prefer to see great deeds rather than just great words.

First you proposed to improve Krita, now you say you want to create it/something new (not clear?) from scratch. And unclear you go on:
Can you please make up your mind? Or enlighten us with clear statements, instead of absolute confusion? Either you build on Krita’s source code, or you create your project from zero, or as you put it: “From scratch.” But in that case, you should not use other sources, because then it would be based on the work of others and not “from scratch”.
Furthermore, should you create an app based on Krita’s source code AND distribute it (i.e. not just for your own use), whether for free or for a fee, then you are obliged to publish the source code you have modified together with it. Because you are not free to decide, and it would not be a generous act on your part, you are simply obliged to do so, or you are committing a license violation and would have to reckon with consequences.

Well, at least you’re not the first to make such grand statements here, but you’d be the first to put them into practice if you actually did. But I doubt it. Time will tell.

Michelist

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I checked it out, video demo i will see later. But i tried the web based examples.

I was wondering if dockers can be minimised too? If every docker has its own icon and can be minimised, then it can open new possibilities for mobile UI

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Krita does feel outdated. But so does CSP and PS. I think I only liked the Affinity Photo UI, and it’s probably because of their neat colored icons. So let’s make them in Krita!

Actually, someone on reddit is trying to redesign Krita, here’s a link.

More users = more attention; More attention = corporations’ gaze; Corporations = money; Money = better product.

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