You raise some good points and ask many good questions but the particular example (audio sync) was not a good one. It’s an attempted fix for a well known but little understood problem which needs testing and responses from particular users.
The question still stands and I’m not sure how it could be done except by relying on the good will and effort of users/artists here and other places.
The main problem with threads like these, in my opninion, is that it’s hard for the devs to actually act on the basis of this discussion. Statements like: “It needs convenient colouring tools” are still very open to interpretation. What kind of tools? How do you define convenient? What does that amount to?
What is currently missing and what is currently too time consuming/ tedious to warrent the new solution? How should feature bloat be contained? > Should several tools be integrated into one with modifier based shortcuts? > If yes, which?
In the end, the discrepancy between devs and artists, I think boils down to the artists wishing for something that is quite broad and ill-defined, whereas the devs are working on something that is rather concrete (since they have to deliver and assess their work). So the more artists are able to present the broad and bigger picture AND make the bridge to concrete
That said, despite the devs being short on hands, I have already seen a couple of my requests merged to Krita. If I take Autodesk software into account, it took me about 5 years to get as many evenly small things implemented/ fixed. Not to mention Adobe.
With Photoshop it’s not so much the size of the software in terms of features, but rather that it has become ‘industry standard’ to the point where users are content with the features to get their work done. They have learnt to do it this Photoshop way. So they are generally less inclined to make feature requests. On the other hand, the average user is not likely to change software, at least not when it is used in a corporate environment. Training users for new software is also costly, not to mention converting the pipeline and all legacy files.
Adobe knows this and can keep its users in stranglehold, by developing the absolute bare minimum to show that its software is still being developed as to not infuriate its userbase too much.
Back to FOSS, Blender has the same thing as Krita: some users are not seeing their wishes implemented. When were the last new Mesh modeling tools implemented? — If not for GSOC I doubt there were any. But, when devs work on something (which means they need to get accustomed to the code) they do ask users and they will listen! You see, you can’t just start somewhere and implement X instead of Y. That would be very inefficient. But as I said, choose your pet projects and help the devs!
To be honest, I have yet to find a piece of software that doesn’t have this wall. No software is perfect, the ones you choose to use are just the ones that are least frustrating across the board (and most enjoyable) to get your work done within budget.
For me: Affinity is feature incomplete, Illustrator is buggy, Photoshop has terrible vector tools and not always intuitive, Fusion 360 lacks proper shortcuts support, Blender is not procedural enough, Autocad is clunky, etc. It’s just something to accept at some point, be patient, contribute and hope it improves in the long run.
E: By the way, it’s FOSS, so why not come back to Krita next release, see if things improved. Poke those who left and tell them it has become great.
–
I don’t know where to start, but, I for one would like governments to invest in FOSS. This is indirectly an investment in education and a productivity improvement. Consider it a public utility and implement it in the administration (IIRC several local governments in Germany run entirely on FOSS). If anyone knows how we could get this on any public agenda, let’s go for it.
The only real way I think you could have artists and devs work together more closely is if there were to be a thread with small and consise targets for particular features (e.g. a shortcut for tool X, a Canvas input setting for tool Y or UI papercuts). List these features as “Workflow polish”, add a voting system and let devs assess whether the request is valid for “Workflow polish”. Then there could be a weekly/ monthly target to deliver a certain number of these.
But, this is already happening to some extent. Moreover, in the long term, focussing on low hanging fruits has to be balanced with core features. So I doubt there’s anything that can be improved really, other than, just like the Blender foundation, publish the weekly meeting notes on the forum so users can read what’s going on.
Yes, he did, just read, find out yourself. 
And it is not a negative post or topic, perhaps one or another other opinion or may it be a (common) misconception. I find it okay, all in all.
Michelist
Yeah its not really negative, its an understandable frustration.
though the issue is not something that only krita experience, i think most software had a portion of their user that feel this way.
Correct. To me, it is not negative in any way, @Ralek means well by Krita. To assume otherwise is also impossible for me because I have read a large part of his posts here in the forum.
However, the way he expresses this may be disturbing to someone who comes across this topic without any background knowledge about it.
As hinted at before, I like the idea behind this topic. It’s heading in the right direction. It may be tricky to grasp.
Michelist
The weekly report was done initially by @hellozee they are a volunteer and got busy with job. After that @Reinold took the mantle and I believe he got busy with life too. So I think there is no volunteer who is doing it now. May be someone can step up and continue it?
I can agree with that, it’s a borderline example at best and it’s a bit of a stretch to try and fit into this topic at large. I think the update is a great addition and I look forward to it. That being said, that is partly the reason I got annoyed at the way it’s being tested, because:
I feel like I’m one of those particular, niche, rare users that could give an honest and complete explanation for what I like/don’t like about the build from an animator perspective. I have hundreds of hours in other animation software, dozens of hours using Krita’s animation tool in my own workflow, I’m constantly on the nightly builds for bugtesting and I’d love to give my feedback on the changes.
But I can’t, it’s Linux only. And that just made me think, who is this test build meant for? Is it meant for artists at all or am I getting the wrong impression for why the build was made? A very nuanced feature that requires very in-depth insight to a very specific and specialized workflow is being added, and the devs are just sort of patting each other on the back in a public thread just out of reach of artists. If the main dev wasn’t an animator themselves I’d be much more appalled.
This isn’t a specific tool or fix suggestion thread, I make threads all the time answering every question you just asked about very specific tools and I can assure you they do about as much good as this one does with its vague calls to action. In fact I’ve felt more in tune and heard by devs from this thread than almost every other thread I’ve ever made.
This is flawed thinking. I have thousands of hours more in Krita than Photoshop, why haven’t I learned how to do things ‘the Krita way’ and been fine with it like you claim people do with PS? Could it be ‘the Krita way’ is slow and hostile to an artists workflow?
The deeper and more proficient you get into a program, the more likely you are to hit a wall. The ‘wall’ in this scenario meaning ‘you are no longer limited by your potential, you are limited by the program itself’.
I have gotten so fine-tuned to Krita’s workflow and functions and shortcuts that simple delays measured in the milliseconds cause me anguish on a daily basis.
Yes, these threads like the linked one look stupid. I can absolutely see how completely pointless and useless and nitpicky threads like that are, but things like this actually cause me more time loss and frustration than actual crashes, and I get crashes a lot being on the master nightly. And I don’t even report them most of the time.
Ask yourself, why would I put in the effort to type up a thread detailing some “small, insignificant” bug like that, and completely ignore crashes? It’s because this bug, as dumb as it looks, causes more pain, and time loss, and frustration for me than actual crashes. Yes, that’s right. If I added up all the time loss from stupid minor stuff like this, I would lose more time to those than actual crashes that make me restart the program.
From a developer standpoint that makes no sense. Crashes bad. Minor bugs ok. And that’s what I’m frustrated about, if I’m encountering this dev disconnect then I know other artists are also or have before. It may not be the undo function, or shortcuts, or anything I care about, but I know artists feel unheard because from a dev’s perspective, their problems may seem absolutely stupid.
This is a more toxic and vitriolic way of thinking than I’ve ever expressed in this thread. The things I bring up and talk about are from a deep place in my heart that Krita resides in, where I long for Krita to improve and become the best it can.
Your way of thinking, ‘If you don’t like it, don’t try to change it, just leave’, is abysmal, and it hurts the program more than any sort of indignant rant like mine. Believe me if I didn’t care about Krita I wouldn’t be here.
This sounds really nice, I believe there are a lot of things that could be added or tweaked about current tools to make them much more versatile and usable for everyone regardless of workflow. If many people chip in their ideas about certain tools, perhaps new methods of accomplishing tasks can be designed that fit everyone’s workflow better.
Thank you, I’ve been told I’m a bit rough around the edges, but I do want to just clarify that I really just wish the best for Krita. I would want nothing more than to have a bunch of artist friends say they’re glad I recommended it to them, or be amazed at the functionality. Instead every time I tell colleagues I use Krita they chuckle or look at me like I’m crazy. It wears on me cause I know it’s in a good spot, just needs some direction and funding.
As cool as a weekly report is from a technical standpoint, I fear it may not accomplish much or not be worth doing without a way for artists to provide feedback.
Obviously if someone wanted to do that for fun or just to be informative I wouldn’t object, I just don’t know if it’s something that should take up valuable dev time.
The easiest start to that is really getting foreground extraction tool to work. I do have a long dead pull request that needs to be worked on by someone else which is almost complete before going into the stage of user discussions and implementation. It’s faster than the implementation in GIMP (runs in a 1 s flat compared to few mins in GIMP), and the bug that needs to be fixed is noise edge generation. If that is implemented, I would be happy with Krita as it is.
Do you have any suggestion to mend this?
Instead of going this and that, and going back and forth no clear direction. 
We are not really getting our point across and not accomplishing much of what we want. I think i get more done convincing my cat that it’s bath time [and yes i can bath him and come out alive].
Let’s analyze where Krita stand as of now in terms of communication;
So far people know of this forum, but a good portion dont. Some are on reddit - i direct some of them here when it warrants
This are the current communication way;
Feature request thread
Bug report thread and bug tracker.
Feature request are open to be visit by the main devs and contributors that again are not necessarily controlled by the main devs on what feature or bug they might fix or improve [as such is OS way]
Call for Improvement threads/ Feature discussion threads [Usually started by the main devs]
So this are thread that tiar and co mostly starts and that solicit artist feedback.
Plugin Dev thread - So this is not exactly from main dev. Its more from contributor like @Grum999 who create plugins to enhance user experience.
I think there was a chat channel - i think I only got there once since their time is drastically different to mine. [Netherlands vs SEA]
Weekly report
This is a one way communication mostly just detailing.
Dev Blogs
the occasional update.
the Git repo
You dont really need to be a dev, being a bugtester is fine as long as you test an actively being develop feature/ that is on nightly and return a feedback. But this hold a bit of barrier - that is you know how to navigate it , and i can see how it can get confusing for anyone with no dev background.
Things that limit what we and the devs can do;
Funding. 
Number of Paid Devs
Number of Contributors
Time.
Feature that can’t be work on due to either limitation of the core code, or technology or libraries the app currently uses, or other propriety hurdle that OSS experience (PSD extraction for example).
And Krita despite not being on the level of blender is one of the more robust funded Open Source.
Funding is the biggest one - and this somewhat hard to mend. Is there a suggestion to get more funding?
[2d is far smaller and more hobbies centric niche when it come to software] so Corporate sponsorship might be harder to come by. The alternatives are not cripplingly expensive [for comic illustration CSP is like 25usd a year if you catch it on sale which it regularly is/ the pro-er ver is alot more expensive but not as outrageous].
I’ll think of suggestion.
Current Source are donation fund/ Steam and MS store.
Time: With only so much you can consume in a day, there’s only so much they can spend communicating with us users.
I know personally its can get consuming to translate what user want to something that can be work on a code. Sometimes something seemingly simple can be pretty complicated in a code.
Suggestion on what can be done
For communication:
Weekly update, blogs, IRCs seems to be not very effective in bridging the gap of what devs are doing and what the user want [which are many - and we as user hardly agrees which should be the focus]
My suggestion is maybe opening a Once every month or every two months [so its not time consuming or too taxing].
State of Our Software Stream + Q&A / Maybe once after a major release cycle [ .x release]
Where we get an update of what was released.
Where we get update on what have been done to the core.
Where we get told what are the potential issues/ issues the dev is facing technical wise.
Where we know what can be [features/ polishing] that can realistically address on the next cycle.
Where we can be presented a road map with leeway ofcourse [because things can change]
Where the user can suggest focus / feature polishes [based on what can realistically be done] and shortlist it - before it going to general vote. One of which can be added to the focus of the release cycle.
We should be able to donate money during the stream.
What user should look for, these will get thread here in Krita Artists - so those interested can debug, and follow up and make suggestion.
Users can ask question and maybe suggestion regarding topics presented.
** Maybe invite a few artist/ contributor to present a feature or tool polishing - and how those can be implemented.
Q&A.
Pros:
Helps clearing air and setting expectation
Cons:
Timezone [i’m probably affected here i live in GMT+8] so only those awake at those time can participate.
Probably hard to setup to make it feel like a conference, and take some time from development.
Preparation for it, setup, time consuming - and not all be able to paricipate
Feature/ Polishing Focus General Public Vote.
A shortlist of feature / tool polishing prepare by the devs can be voted by the user [ala way back in Kickstarter days]
I choose shortlist, because its the devs who knows what can be realistically implemented given the core, budget and focus of that release. [like how text improvement cant move on because krita needs QT update iirc]
Schedule it maybe 2 weeks before a major release, or immediately after release [for two weeks], or after the above.
**optional funding scheme can be opened.
Pros:
Alot more people can participate
Cons:
Voting tend to favor majority and can end up starving some feature or polishing that are not popular to the majority of the user. In our case painter illustrator would probably win over animators /photo editors [just a hunch - im not sure about krita user distribution].
Base on my [very flimsy not reliable] observation , voting tends to favor new shiny feature compare to the not so shiny checking/polishing/improvement.
Some feature / tool update that user might want might not still be here because its a shortlist.
**Amendments most of this probably can be address by making the voter aware of why this are the shortlisted features.
Establishing A more active communication platform that is accessible.
As far as i know Krita has discord?
Is the irc/dev chat still alive? If it is a link to it should be readily visible.
Pros:
This probably about as quick as you can do to reach a dev.
Cons:
Need mods, possibility of harassment increases
If devs are busy they probably wont have time to drop by there as much as possible. [they only few of them and time is premium]
Weekly updates on what features under development and need of testing
One of the best way for artist to participate is to bugtest.
Lots of under development feature get lost in the forum.
So this is a thread with links of the other feedback thread.
A reminder of them could probably help artist track what are currently underway, share what they expect and what they want to see or expect on upcoming changes, or feature.
Ok now on Funding…
maybe we can add stream donation by hosting art stream.
Need someone to do the stream.
Attracting more pro?
this probably gonna be decisive. Its like what type of pro?
what a concept artist want is different to what an illustrator want and to what a professional who uses photoshop want.
There is also going to have pushback to some user who feel that krita is going direction of a photoshop replacement and the incoming user who expect it to be when for most of us its a painting software.
Need a balance here.
committing to one direction will probably alienate others.
Tying some donation to a feature/ improvement vote.
Like way back kickstarter days where you can vote for your pet feature or wanted improvement.
I honestly have 0 good idea how to improve funding.
PS. This are just suggestion - don’t take me too seriously , or that i wanted this all to implement.
Im just raking my brain to what we can explore to improve the communication to help artist and devs improve it. These are stream of thought. we going back and forth here with no plans. So i might as well explore the WHAT IFs.
Do I think they are viable? Maybe,
Are they possible? Maybe,
Are there concerns? Definitely.
Do I lack sleep and don’t know what im saying? most likely.
Regarding some test versions only the linux version is provided.
Personally, versions for all supported platforms should be available to facilitate user testing.
It should also include multiple languages, not just English.
This allows users to test non-English languages for unique bugs.
But I think this matter should be published a new topic note.
This makes it easier for developers to notice.
That’s not easy
Building on Linux is simple
Building on Windows seems to be hell and you must have a Windows paltform…
Building on MacOs means you must have an apple computer - all developers I think can’t buy an apple stuff
Building in Android : there’s only one developer for Android and I dont know how much Time it could takes to build an Android version
After probably most of users are on Windows…
This will be really difficult…
A developer don’t speak all languages 
Language translation is made by benevols
It can took days, weeks, months to get translations 100% done
Providing a testing version is to get a feedback
If you have to wait that all translation are done…
Also, maybe what has been implemented won’t be kept and in this case all translation made have been made for nothing… (Then it might be discouraging people who made translations)
Grum999
As you can see from this thread, I’m definitely not the kind of person you’d want to ask about how to properly handle PR :^)
That being said, I think any way to quantize user support and suggestions, in a way that is slightly curated by devs but still very artist friendly, is a good step forward.
I would suggest some sort of idea board. Anyone can put together a nice little presentation post about their idea. They can explain their reasoning, show some examples, etc. Users can browse the board and upvote ideas that would improve their Krita experience, or that they think would benefit everyone. They can also comment on the ideas, and the board can be sorted by score (default) or new.
Some important things of note about that:
Users should be able to suggest something that was already suggested in a previous thread. A very important feature shouldn’t go to die just cause the first person to suggest it wrote 2 sentences. Mods/devs should be able to merge/link/lock worse requests with requests that fix the same thing but explain it better.
We’re begging devs here to listen to our plights by making elaborate Powerpoint presentations, the least we can be allowed to do is ignore previous suggestions that we know look terrible to a dev, and explain them our own way that’s likely more palatable.
I think you misunderstood my words.
For example, “Krita_Nightly” provides versions for linux, windows, macos, and Android.
So I don’t think it’s a problem to provide a multiplatform version of the test files.
And by multilingual I mean translations other than English.
This is not to say that certain languages are not translated or partially translated or the like.
Previously only official editions included translations other than English.
In the past “Krita_Nightly” was only in English and could not be switched to other languages, even if there was a translation.
They’re build on a KDE continuous integration server
KDE provides server resources for all KDE application
Build are made daily, based on official source code
A developer I think don’t have access these resources serveurs
Also, a developer who is currently developing something can’t merge it to official source code unless development has been finished and tested…
Translators can translate official source code only…
Grum999
I was just pointing out that we had a wekly report and why it had stopped in response to someone asking for it. How much value it is for you or any other artists that I do not know. For me as an artists it informs me of what is store for future release of krita and what direction krita is taking.
About the animation build being not on windows, I believe it is because @emmetpdx didn’t have access to windows machine or some other issue. It is not because they do not want windows people to test it.
Instead of thinking and assuming what must be the reason, I believe you can ask the devs directly. That way there is no communication barrier or gap. I believe you are present on IRC channel too. So I do not know why you did not ask it in the chat for a windows build. Anyway I have asked for the windows build hope they build it and give for testing.
As for regular testing there is a nightly build for windows here - Krita_Nightly_Windows_Build [Jenkins] . The nightly build is even linked in the download section - Krita Desktop | Krita
Do not get me wrong, but I believe you assume too much about the behavior of the developers. Your points may be good and valid but you tend to think that they are doing this on purpose or ignorance, at-least there is some kind of snark in your message, may be because of the frustration, may be because of my own wrong understanding.
All I say is rather than being appalled for the dev being not an animator (should there be such a restriction to begin with) or rather than assuming things like for whom the build is made if it is not made for windows, just go and ask the devs who made the build. You have IRC and also the public mailing list, join it and ask your question, close the communication barrier. All the decisions are taken in online public meeting, the documents of meeting are shared. The bug report is public, There is this forum and mailing list too. You yourself are on IRC I believe where the meeting happens . I do not think there is no transparency from the dev side here.
I’m not in any position to be snarky, if my messages come across that way it isn’t my intention and I’m sorry. At worst I’d like my messages to be seen as frustrated, feeling cornered, or just tired and defeated in general.
I don’t expect that devs do any of this on purpose. I fully expect the animation build to be Linux only because of the limitations of their development environment, or time constraints. I’ve personally built the Windows version myself back when I was messing around with the source and it’s not an easy or fast thing by any means and I understand
That being said it’s just the most recent minor inconvenience straw that broke the camel’s back. “Hey, here is a test build covering your very specific interest, also you can’t test it” It just gets frustrating. I know it wasn’t out of malicious intent.
I obviously don’t think there should be a restriction on devs being in the art scene at all. That being said, I do believe that at some point in time in the development process (barring refactoring or optimization) that artists in general, dev or not, should be consulted. I hope that isn’t a radical viewpoint.
This metaphorical barrier I’ve been talking about is the reason this isn’t that easy. No one cares what any singular artist has to say, or at least it feels that way. Artists are a dime a dozen here and devs are the literal lifeblood. At least in my mind, it would be extremely pretentious to think that I have any sort of ground to stand on to talk to a dev directly and waste their time. In my eyes, if what I’m saying to the dev one on one isn’t directly helping them triage a bug, or it contains any opinion whatsoever, it’s basically useless if not detrimental.
I don’t know how true it is, but I feel very heavily that if I joined the irc/matrix/whatever and tried to have opinionated conversations about things like what should be currently worked on I’d just end up making the place worse. That’s not my area or field and I don’t have say there.
Which means the development cycle as a whole, at least in my eyes, is a very read-only thing for artists. We’re allowed opinions in forums like this and that’s about it if we don’t want to be in the way. If or when a dev decides to reach out here it’s by the goodness of their hearts. This feeling of ‘look don’t touch’ as an artist finally spilled over in my mind with the no-windows-build minor inconvenience.
Don’t worry, that might be because of my own wrong understanding.
I do not feel happy that you are feeling defeated.
It is not radical at all and I believe there is no intention of not consulting the artists. Hence the nightly builds are being made with huge cost from the KDE. And hence from time to time things are getting posted here to get the builds tested. You can find threads by @dkazakov with a call to test all the time. And @dkazakov does give windows build too. Here in this animation instance I believe it was not intentional not the give the windows build. No dev wants their software to be not tested.
Well that is your assumption again and opinion. I am not saying you can’t have your own perception or opinion. But from my side I think it is wrong.
I do not know if you are familiar with free software and open source development scenario, Most of the things that is done is often done by volunteers and people who do most stuff get a voice in the team. It is how Free software team is built. If I choose any free software project that I use say for inkscape and go to their chat and say hey your development method is wrong do it this way, they will ignore me. If I stay in the chat invest my time, voice my opinion slowly and contribute (you can contribute in any way not just code) they my voice has some weight behind it. I am not saying that it is an elitist group or something. User feedback is heard and bug reports are taken seriously. The pace of the development may not be to our linking but that is how free software works, nobody is forced to work on any particular things. the volunteers pick the project based on their interest.
If you don’t participate and just assume then how will you know what the other party thinks. Do you expect a dedicated developer assigned to listen to users? How do you think this metaphorical barrier that you say needs to be tackled? Do you have any idea or solutions?
Yes they are very helpful, they’ve listened and helped me with odd problems over on bugs.kde many times and I’m grateful for them. Same with Tiar
You say my way of thinking is wrong but then go on to explain why it’s mostly correct:
This just turns around back to the same problem I’ve always brought up, developers (who naturally stay in the chat over time and build rapport with everyone) get their voices heard because of their time spent in dev chats.
Meanwhile I’ve probably spent more time using Krita than some devs have spent working on Krita, and my opinion means next to nothing unless I essentially become a dev or blend in with them. It’s entirely fair, and it makes sense, and it’s not malicious. But it’s why I feel defeated. Because I made the wrong decision of using Krita instead of working on it, and using Krita doesn’t gain you any rapport with anyone.
