I don't know if it's too hard to implement, but I think that krita could do the same as photoshop does in the menus. It should have an icon and allow the user to compact the menus in small buttons, the same way photoshop does on the image bellow.



This would allow the user to have an wider drawing area and keep many options availabe on screen as well.

Please read https://krita.org/en/item/ways-to-help- ... -requests/ to see why requests for copying this or that photoshop design (or any other application) element isn't very helpful.

We would have to discuss this more with people. Krita already has a minimize concept with each docker, so you can shrink everything up to just show the header. One click either expands or collapses the contents. This gives a similar result and doesn't need a separate area to store the buttons like Photoshop does.

I don't know if we would need both options (button collapse and title collapse) as they do very similar things.

Yeah I agree the current system works fine and adding a whole new interface aspect to tidy up the existing interface seems kind of counter intuitive.

Hello to you,

Excuse my English, but I'm French and I'm not very good at English.

I just read this post.
I'm not sure I understood you correctly, but you said: «  Krita already has a minimize concept with each docker, so you can shrink everything up to just show the header ».
But how do we achieve this?
I search but I don't see how.
Can you give me more details?
I'm on Krita 4.1.0.

Hello everyone,

I come back to this topic, to propose a suggestion of optimization of the workspace of krita while keeping the maximum of dockers on the screen.
While digging on the forum, it seems to me to have understood that there is already a concept of minimization of the dockers but apparently this one would be only on Linux and would not be, or would not more, on the Windows version.
Because it seems to me to have read somewhere that this function would have been disabled for reasons of bugs.
I therefore wanted to submit to you this suggestion which would reduce the dockers in width and not in height.
I try to write this suggestion both as a tutorial, as if the tools already existed on Krita, and both as a specification.
Again, I hope that will be understandable, because English is not my native language.
I tried to put a maximum of screenshots (fictitious) to illustrate my suggestions.
I hope these suggestions will find an echo among you.
Feel free to comment to me and if I was not clear on certain points,to ask me details that I would try to answer my best.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xleb2BlgFn6Ize8SA9xM6eNueAG4aXAw

Hi @sebamak,
(disclaimer: I'm not a dev, but I follow development of Krita since years)

Impressive work and document. You probably spent a lot of time on it and thank you to share this work. There is a lot of good idea on it. Unfortunately, I guess changing the UI as much you describe, the overall refactor and with all this specifications is not a small task; it could take month of full-time work and probably require to do big changes in the library upstream. Developers often receive propositions like that (of big refactoring from artists). I know by experience this type of grand project never get coded... Open-source projects like Krita evolves small modifications at a time; with incremental changes.

So, encourage you to find in your project the most important issue your proposition addresses to fix (what you are trying to do and what you can't right now with current Krita interface) and then collaborate with the team to find an economic way to solve it. As far as I read; you look for a smoother way to work on a screen tablet only device. And that mean maximize your canvas area to draw and use the maximum of the small active area while accessing all the features and bells of Krita user interface. That's a valid issue. Right now, the best allies in Krita for that is the <TAB> key. A good way to hide/reveal all dockers/toolbar and it's only a shortcut away (you can also define what appears or is hidden with Settings > Canvas-only settings). If your tablet doesn't offer hardware button on the front, you can plug a digital button in the top-toolbar of Krita going with Settings > Configure Toolbar a "Show Canvas Only" action button. Workspace can also be good way to switch between various preset of layouts. Are you familiar with this one?

@sebamak - Wow. It looks like you spent a while working on this. There are some neat ideas. The functionality seems pretty much like how Photoshop does it. Are there many differences between what you propose here...and what Photoshop does?

At one time we tried to customize the dockers to extend the functionality, but ran into a lot of problems across operating systems, so that code got pulled. We now just use the default docker widgets that come with our coding framework Qt -- http://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-4.8/qdockwidget.html.

We only use the functionality that is provided there. Changing the dockers would probably be a task for the Qt developers to allow for these type of flexibility. You could also make the feature requests here...

https://wiki.qt.io/Reporting_Bugs
(Search for "Feature Request" to find the right area)

Probably the only way right now the Krita developers would get this in the code is if we had a new volunteer to work on this. If you, or if you know anyone that likes to program and would be interested in helping out, let us know.

Hi Deevad,

Thank you for your answer.
Yes, rest assured, I am familiar with the workspaces. No worries on it.
And I actually saw that we could create custom command icons in the toolbar.I had seen a video tutorial about it, from Mr. Revoy (you know maybe?).
But using my Lenovo Yoga Book vertically, as soon as I add an Icons it disappears in the extension of the toolbar. I find it even less convenient.
In fact, the purpose of my document was not to say, "Hey! Do it. That would be great. and is more, me it suits me! ".
No, I think that it takes a lot of programming time, and I know that this year will be devoted to eliminating bugs, with the fundraising campaign just launched.
My approach was more in the sense of a reflection on the arrival of more and more growing of touch pad, which has no mouse or keyboard.
And being the same owner of this type of material, I realize the disadvantages that we encounter.
And I seem to have already read somewhere that the Krita team was planning one day or another to export Krita on Android platform.
So my goal was more to say, "Hey! If you are looking for a way to optimize the workspace, here is a starting idea. "
Now yes I'm fine with it, besides, as you say, there is the option to hide the menus. It is true that there is the key <TAB> (which I do not have access when I am in mode tablet) but there is also the tool POP UP which now contains this key.
It's just that at times I use a lot of tools at a time and on an ad hoc basis. And constantly navigating between different displays can be painful.
There, the advantage is that they would be available without cluttering the workspace.
In addition, my Yoga Book is not extremely powerful, switching from one display to another causes latency.
And who knows, maybe it will interest enough people to be considered in one next development ... one day…


Hi Scottpetrovic

So to answer the question immediately, no, nothing to do with PhotoShop. Sorry.
To tell the truth, I actually drew my inspiration somewhere, but not on PhotoShop.
I used PhotoShop some years ago, and again, a CS3, but I did not get inspired by it.
I still went to see a screenshot of CS3, actually there was the possibility to close or open the side panels. Which is not stupid either. But I do not remember using them at the time.
I used it only for photo editing. I have never found it well done for drawing.
For drawing, I prefer Krita.
I can not tell you what differs from the current Photoshop.
In fact I am an industrial designer and I work mainly on 2 software: AutoCad and Solidworks.
And as far as this suggestion is concerned it is mainly inspired by AutoCad.
I just tried to adapt the same principle to Krita by correcting the defects that I found there.
For example, clicking to open or close palettes or icons.
On AutoCad you just have to hover over the palette or the icons to open them.
So when you skip a little with the mouse, it quickly becomes a window fireworks that open on the screen. Then you have to move the cursor so that they want to close well (which does not work every time!). In fact, I think that since no mechanical controls open or close them, the software must guess what to do when they are flown over. (This is not their best achievement!)
Another example, the tools under icons in AutoCad can not be blocked in opening (As I suggested in my document), which can be very painful when you have to do several manipulations as a result. It is necessary each time to reopen the window.
Here's a screenshot to show you:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UFY2YH95cQq7otODQPUHuvdca29bfXaW/view?usp=sharing

And I can say from experience, that to be able to reduce the side panels to keep the larger work surface and a real comfort. And yet I work with 2 screens of 24 ''.
I also think that if these features exist on such professional softwares is that there is a reason. The users requests had to be numerous.
In fact I saw these additions, more like an additional window that opens and closes, and in which we can put Dockers as they are already.
Now, as I say above, I wanted to make a suggestion. I do not think I will make a commitment to contact the QT developers to make this kind of request.
I hope I have answered your questions and provided you with some additional information.

Then :

The illustrations were made with Krita (of course!) And Inkscape, and writing on LibreOffice.
The longest thing was to translate everything into English.
And no, unfortunately I do not know any developers. Sorry.