I've put down some ideas for a possible feature that could be useful for Krita users (or at least, I would personally find it useful), following some advice on #Krita. It ended up being more like a programmer's brainstorming list, but the main point of this thread is the discussion of the possible difficulties that this feature could bring, if some areas could be better defined, if it would go out of Krita's scope (etc), and not really strictly a feature request to the Krita maintainers.


General rationale
I find myself often using Krita for sketching or doodling and I have a directory filled with filenames with a generic datetime just of this kind of work. Sketchbooks are an important part of an artist's drawing life. Therefore, it makes sense to improve Krita so that browsing through such sketchbook can be quick and painless, and so that one could quickly start the program and draw/paint right away without having to think too much about saving, page resolution, etc.


Proposed features and feature detail discussion
Sketchbook is the default Krita interaction when opened
- Could be done as an option with simple big button on main window when starting the program
- By default opens on today's last edited page

More aggressive autosaving (when switching pages if dirty and more frequently when drawing)

Present by default simplified program layout, discouraging complex editing
- But keep basic tools available like the reference images tool? (rationale: we want to use the sketchbook for quickly putting down ideas, etc)

Additional buttons to go back and forward between sketchbook "pages"
- Forward adds new page if does not exist
- Will not add if current page is blank
- Probably needs to preload 1-2 previous pages and a new blank page for increased speed

Pages are files of predefined resolution and bit depth to be defined in default program options or at sketchbook creation
- Page color? Per-sketchbook or per-page?
- Pure white paper not great for sketching. Brown or neutral gray paper would be best.
- Per-page page color could allow predefined textured paper like lines, squares, etc to be chosen as needed.
- The page layer would ideally be a special layer, normally non-editable layer.

Optionally show a sketchbook page list or calendar docker to browse through the sketchbook efficiently

Files could have a name like "sketchbookname_datetime_####" inside a predefined or initially set directory
- Individual files would increase reliability.
- At most, in case of problems we only lose the current page. Since it's a sketchbook, no big deal.
- But taking advantage of the animation capabilities could make the implementation process easier (one frame/page).

Page naming is automatic, no user intervention required
- How would system date and time be sampled? They could change due to external factors.
- Simple solution: just increment the # for that day
- Overkill solution: internet time synchronization

Each page has one-two lines comment or title for easier browsing / page retrieval or perhaps even search within the page list docker.

Page bookmark list specific for the current sketchbook.

Today I was made aware that Wolthera's Comic Book Manager Python plug-in (which is bundled with the latest versions of Krita) already fulfills the main requirements of the previously described suggestion, which are:

• Loading
• Saving
• Maintaining a list of files in a predefined directory
• Allowing the user to iterate through them with back/forward buttons or perhaps directly through a list- or calendar- view

I think I could easily strip down the plug-in of its current features in order to make a simplified version that would be suitable for a simple sketchbook manager, but I wonder if it's worth the effort? I would definitely use it, but I don't know how others would feel about having a very similar plug-in, only much simplified ans slightly changed in some areas.

Hi, make it as you want it to be for you and share it You may have suggestions by other users after.

After initial attempts at removing features from Wolthera's add-on failed, I managed to do something very simplified from scratch, partially functional (it can iterate back/forward through files in a predefined directory, which makes going through many files much quicker than normally opening them manually one by one).