I've been using Krita for about 1.5 years and contributed to the previous KickStarter. I think it's a great program, but I'm moving back to MyPaint and Photoshop. Here are the reasons why.

1. Krita changes the way it does things too often. I'm constantly having to relearn the program. Unfortunately, learning Krita is impossible because of the second reason I'm leaving.

2. Documentation is non-existent. What docs do exist are obsolete and should simply be deleted. This morning I found documentation on the Krita wiki for the pop-up palette that was last updated in 2010. I also found documentation for the Palette Docker that was more recent--Jan 2015--but it was already obsolete because of the overwhelming rate that Krita changes. YouTube video tutorials done this year for Krita 2.8 are already obsolete for Krita 2.9. As a technical writer myself, I've been tempted several times in the past to contribute to the Krita docs, but each time I decided that the rapid rate at which Krita changes made working on the docs an impossible task.

3. Krita adds new features without making sure that the features it already has work. I'm not a Krita power user; I use only the most basic capabilities. But too often, those basic functions just don't work. The whole program just feels flaky and brittle. For example, today I tried to use the Palette Docker. Open the docker window and click the + button to add the foreground color to the palette. Nothing. Select one of the default palettes. The docker is filled with 100+ colors that I don't want. Click the + button to add the foreground color. Now the color is added... to the bottom of the 100+ colors that I don't want. Select the 100+ colors that I don't want and click the - button to delete them. Nothing. Select one color at a time and delete each one individually. Sort of works, but the display of the remaining colors in the docker is bizarre. Give up after deleting about 20 colors. Even if I had been insane enough to delete those 100+ colors to create the 5-color palette that I wanted, I have no idea how to save my custom palette.

I hope Krita can someday become more stable and include up-to-date documentation so that I can spend my time using Krita instead of learning and relearning it. Until that day, best of luck to you.

@1: We actually change a lot less than in the past. Most changes are actually new features that were added. Where did a feature change in a major way?

@2: That's also improving in recent time also due to the Kickstarter. I would generally go by these https://krita.org/learn/tutorials/

@3: I did implement the palette docker and I'm not aware of any bugs there. Adding colors to in with the + button works here. You can add new palettes of the button on the left where you enter a name and number of columns and then press save.

@1: This morning I tried to get three Krita features to work in Krita 2.9 for Windows. (1) Install David Revoy's brush set. Looking through the Wiki docs that had been last updated only two months ago, none of the information was accurate. (2) Use the Popup Palette. See my response to @2 below. (3) Use the Palette Docker. All docs I located were obsolete. Also, a feature does not need to be changed "in a major way" for it to become effectively impossible to use. If a minor change occurs, like moving a menu item or replacing a toolbar button with a menu item, that feature becomes hidden. I see this occurring a lot in Krita. And even if it's true that there are fewer changes in Krita now than in the past, that doesn't refute my opinion that there are still too many changes occurring to keep up with.

@2: I went to the tutorials link you provided. I clicked on the Popup Palette tutorial. I was sent to the YouTube tutorial that I actually referred to in my original post. This tutorial describes the popup palette for Krita 2.8.3. It no longer applies to Krita 2.9. As I said in my original post, YouTube videos for Krita 2.8 are already obsolete for version 2.9!

@3: As for you not being aware of any bugs in the Palette Docker, I just told you of at least two in my original post. I am using Krita 2.9 for Windows. Finally, I have no idea what you are referring to in the last sentence of your post. I see no "button on the left to enter a name and number of columns." But no need to explain further, I've already left Krita.

It does not bode well that Krita will ever reach a stable, well-documented position--both in changes to existing features and the correct working of those features--if one of the developers denies that any such problems exist. I hope that's not the case.

We don't deny that there is a problem. Documentation currently always lacks a bit behind of the development version. The only way around that would be to have an LTS version that doesn't change at all over a long period of time, but it appears users always want the latest and greatest.

@3: http://imgur.com/ag3XkEZ

Hello everyone,

calwas wrote:
> Krita changes the way it does things too often. I'm constantly having to relearn the program.

IMHO, the beauty of Krita is that it is trying to turn into a "professional" application aimed at "professional" artists.
For painting "basic" stuff (I mean no offense with "basic"....) there has always been MyPaint and even Gimp does a great job on this department [0].
From what I gather, Krita tries hard to being on to the same level of Photoshop (mostly as regards the painting stuff of course).
However, Photoshop has been developed for more than 25 years now with *plenty* of full-time developers...
As a consequence, there are always many feature requests in order to add some missing features even though the Krita team is not as big as the Photoshop one
Artists often complain that they can not fully exploit Krita because it lacks something which Photoshop has: E.g. saving colors in brush presets [1]
If you take a look at YouTube there are plenty of "speed painting" videos to watch which are done with Krita but finalized with Photoshop for the final refining and touch up.

As regards the missing documentation I think it is lacking too (thus I agre with you...):
Needless to say, a good updated book about Krita 2.9.X would be great...
But again, since Krita is luckilly changing so much these days, I think It is unlikely to "motivate" someone to write a comprehensive book about this software.
Thanks to the successfull Kickstarter there are even more big changes in store for Krita (notably the animation feature)
Not to mention the move to the Qt 5 framework (for Krita 3) which is bearer of even biggest changes

[0] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/zema ... are#/story
[1] https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=336731#c0

Well, Calwas, if we're making too many changes, I guess that it's time for me to take that long vacation... Maybe finish that fantasy novel, or do some hiking!

Hi Boud,

Boud wrote:
> Well, Calwas, if we're making too many changes, I guess that it's time for me to take that long vacation...

On behalf of the Krita community, please, don't even think about this
Funnily enough, regarding both Gimp and MyPaint, the biggest complaint has always been the slow pace of development regarding these 2 softwares...
For instance, Gimp 2.8 has been released 3 years ago and the next stable version (2.10) is far far away...

As regards Photoshop, I am pretty sure that none of the *many* Photoshop full-time developers has ever written a long tutorial (or book) about their own software...
Usually, developers and writers of documentation are two very different people.
IMHO, it does not make much sense to ask a developer to write a long tutorial himself: It is much better having him fixing bugs and adding new features

Just my 2 cents...

Hi,
I can only agree with Silvio Grosso!
Please do only take the Vacation, if you want or need it for recreational purposes.
While i'm sure you have eared it, i'm sure most people here will agree that the speed of Kritas development is reason for happyness, not despair!
Even if you don't take our word for it, you must be doing something right, since the Kickstarter this year was much more successful than the one last year.
Greetings
Arne

Loving the direction of Krita!!! It's fantastic and it's the only tool I use nowadayz. BTW I love the updates, I agree with Silvio Grosso it's making krita an extremely valuable illustration tool.

Uh, sorry I said anything.

and another one bites the dust...

I think the point initially being made was not too many changes but too many undocumented changes. Nobody can deny that someone searching for documentation on Krita today is more than likely to run into inaccurate (at best) or wildly inaccurate information. I updated the Wiki this past spring with all new screenshots from 2.9 for pretty much every menu option, docker, etc... I could think of. Someone mentioned writing a book on 2.9 and I started to put together an outline and realized that I had so little information to draw from that it was hopeless to produce a comprehensive manual. Those of us that have written software for a living know that a basic rule is document before release, otherwise there will be a billion excuses why it never gets done.

As for the issues reported with the Docker Palette. Of course they are real. The Docker Palette will be awesome when it is finished. The point is it's not finished. There is no ability to manipulate the color chips; to sort, drag, remove, swap, etc... These are the things that a reviewer would pick up on immediately if comparing to other programs. The fact when you try to remove the selected color swatch with the "-" key and the first color chip is deleted shows that this docker could not have gone through much QA before being pushed into production. Yes, Krita has a Color Palette Docker but it is a minimal value as is.

I think that was really the point of the post (or at least it's my point!). Don't develop slower or any less but release full, reasonably comprehensive and stable components into the marketplace. People can wait for quality.

Krita is rapidly turning into a leading open-source professional paint and image manipulation program and IMHO, much like Blender, will go through growing pains with funding and trying to cater to differing audiences for varying needs. I just hope that along the way they don't lose sight of core competencies, what they set out to create and end up trying to be all things to all people. That can be a dark pit.

so endeth the lesson...

Well, yes, perfection is an awesome goal. But "document before release" needs way, way, way more man hours than we have available currently. Staying on top of the bug reports is already hard; also write manual entries for every change? Sorry, but we're really going to need the community to help here! We're definitely not at Blender levels of funding yet. We can pay one full-time developer, one part-time developer and we can try to release one training dvd a year with current funding levels.

So it comes down to this: what would users prefer: less bug fixes, less new features but more documentation? Who is going to write the documentation? Developers shouldn't write manuals, that way madness lies...

As for the palette docker... We know it isn't good enough. It hasn't been good enough since it was developed in 2006... But removing it would _also_ lead to a user revolt! Because, limited as it is, it is useful to many people, even as-is. Fortunately, nobody doing a Krita review has noticed it yet But doing a good, fully functional color swatches feature is likely to take three months, once you consider all the requirements we've discovered over the years. Maybe next year's Google Summer of Code?

Also, in the past year the manual actually got up to date. Not fully, mind you, but it's 80% up to date, compared to the 10% of last year around this time.

I actually find it very very difficult to keep working on it, because regardless of what I did, no one else seems to be interested in writing anything(rather, what we get is that people get perfectionist and don't want to write anything unless it's the perfect explanation or decide to write their own manual from scratch), I myself am a volunteer, a university student, which means that I sometimes can't work on the manual for weeks at a time. Yes, that means I can't get every single change in, but I try.

And I must be completely missing something, but the manual is 80% up to date, and I don't get why no one is helping me do that last 20%? I mean, everyone with a forum account can edit the wiki, right? I personally just started editing things in, no one told me to work on it, maybe I am a strange person for this?

And then, next to that, we also have professional technical manual writers, who post that apparently the manual is in such a bad and terrible shape that they can't work on it, and that Krita needs to stand still for them to catch up. Which means that, all in all, my attempts to get it into shape past year are considered to be worth nothing. Considering this is volunteer work, I am actually genuinely sad right now.

My apologies if this seems too emotional, but is half about my work, and it be silly for me not to respond, and I honestly have nothing else I can say about the situation.

holy s**t! I didn't mean to stir up some emotional soup here, I was just agreeing with calwas and bolstering some of his points.

Wolthera, I'm sad that you're sad. Hopefully we'll both cheer up soon

and...uh, I too am sorry I said anything

askinner wrote:holy s**t! I didn't mean to stir up some emotional soup here, I was just agreeing with calwas and bolstering some of his points.

Wolthera, I'm sad that you're sad. Hopefully we'll both cheer up soon

and...uh, I too am sorry I said anything

But... considering you too have experience with technical writing? What would you think needs to be done to facilitate the manual writing? Because, sure, there's things like the colour management which only a few people really understand, but for each colour management page, there's a rectangle tool where people added constraint thingies at one point, and I would imagine someone could play with the constraint thingies and see what they could add to the manual for that?

Do you need a 'how to contribute to the manual page?'