Following the botched macOS build yesterday, we’re releasing Krita 5.0.0 beta 5. Beta 4 didn’t happen: while it was building, Dmitry Kazakov fixed an issue which we really wanted tested right away.

Krita is a free and open source project. Please consider supporting the project with donations or by buying training videos! With your support, we can keep the core team working on Krita full-time.

This release has the following fixes since beta 3

• The macOS build works again…
• Fix an issue with the resource selector where the wrong resource would be selected
• Only save color palettes if they are modified
• Fix the line height of text shapes being too large
• Fix the size of text in text shapes compared to Krita 4
• Remove the obsolete shortcut for the brightness/contrast filter
• Create MSIX packages of Krita on the binary builder
• Fix wrong animation for preset save dialog
• Fix loading resources from bundles if newer versions of the resource are deleted from the resource folder
• Fix the color model of group layers
• Fix issues with soft proofing
• Fix brush presets that use the gradient map mode

Download

Windows

If you’re using the portable zip files, just open the zip file in Explorer and drag the folder somewhere convenient, then double-click on the krita icon in the folder. This will not impact an installed version of Krita, though it will share your settings and custom resources with your regular installed version of Krita. For reporting crashes, also get the debug symbols folder.

Note that we are not making 32 bits Windows builds anymore.

• 64 bits Windows Installer: krita-x64-5.0.0-beta5-setup.exe
• Portable 64 bits Windows: krita-x64-5.0.0-beta5.zip
• Debug symbols. (Unpack in the Krita installation folder)

Linux

• 64 bits Linux: krita-5.0.0-beta5-x86_64.appimage

The separate gmic-qt appimage is no longer needed.

(If, for some reason, Firefox thinks it needs to load this as text: to download, right-click on the link.)

macOS

Note: if you use macOS Sierra or High Sierra, please check this video to learn how to enable starting developer-signed binaries, instead of just Apple Store binaries.

• macOS disk image: krita-5.0.0-beta5.dmg

Android

The Android releases are made from the release tarball, so there are translations. We consider Krita on ChromeOS and Android still beta. There are many things that don’t work and other things that are impossible without a real keyboard.

• 64 bits Intel CPU APK
• 32 bits Intel CPU APK
• 64 bits Arm CPU APK
• 32 bits Arm CPU APK

Source code

• krita-5.0.0-beta5.tar.gz
• krita-5.0.0-beta5.tar.xz

md5sum

For all downloads:

• md5sum.txt

Key

The Linux appimage and the source .tar.gz and .tar.xz tarballs are signed. You can retrieve the public key here. The signatures are here (filenames ending in .sig).

The post Krita 5.0.0 beta 5 released appeared first on Krita.

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2021-48.

Microsoft says its own Edge browser is more trustworthy than “so 2008” Google Chrome

Tags: tech, microsoft

Microsoft doing Microsoft things… those GAFAMs are all the same.

https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-says-its-own-edge-browser-is-more-trustworthy-than-so-2008-google-chrome/

FTC Sues to Block $40 Billion Semiconductor Chip Merger

Tags: tech, nvidia, arm, antitrust

In my opinion, this is a good thing if that merger doesn’t happen.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/12/ftc-sues-block-40-billion-semiconductor-chip-merger

The Internet is Held Together With Spit & Baling Wire – Krebs on Security

Tags: tech, internet, security, routing

Always amazed when such important routing systems are reached through very insecure means.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/11/the-internet-is-held-together-with-spit-baling-wire/

It takes a lot of energy for machines to learn – here’s why AI is so power-hungry

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning

A reminder of why machine learning is currently so power hungry. It’s in fact (still) highly inefficient.

https://theconversation.com/it-takes-a-lot-of-energy-for-machines-to-learn-heres-why-ai-is-so-power-hungry-151825

‘Small Data’ Are Also Crucial for Machine Learning - Scientific American

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, complexity

Or why we should keep an eye on transfer learning. This is one of the promising way to get a more efficient machine learning process. Might come with its own challenges in methodology complexity though, it’ll likely be easy to do it wrong and to notice that too late.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/small-data-are-also-crucial-for-machine-learning/

Firefox is the Only Alternative - (think)

Tags: tech, web, mozilla, google

Despite the problems with Mozilla’s politics and funding, this is the main reason why I use Firefox as my main browser (even on my smartphone). We can’t have a monopoly on which organization influence the web standards… unfortunately we get fairly close from that position.

https://batsov.com/articles/2021/11/28/firefox-is-the-only-alternative/

PeerTube v4, more power to help you present your videos – Framablog

Tags: tech, peertube, framasoft

Really nice to see PeerTube making so much progress. Hope we’ll see more and more nice content hosted on PeerTube instances.

https://framablog.org/2021/11/30/peertube-v4-more-power-to-help-you-present-your-videos/

Why Etalab’s Free Software unit uses SourceHut - man.sr.ht

Tags: tech, git, sourcehut

Nice to see such an organization use SourceHut.

https://man.sr.ht/~etalab/logiciels-libres/why-sourcehut.md

How JavaScript engines achieve great performance | by Robin Heggelund Hansen | Nov, 2021 | Bekk

Tags: tech, javascript, optimization

This is a good way to get into how Javascript engines try to optimize the code thrown at them. It’s definitely not an easy job with Javascript…

https://blogg.bekk.no/how-javascript-engines-achieve-great-performance-fb0b36601557

Python’s None problem

Tags: tech, programming, python

Good reminder on why mypy is an essential mitigation to use when dealing with Python. This avoids some quite common mistakes.

https://engineeringblog.ridereport.com/pythons-none-problem

What Will Enter the Public Domain in 2022? – The Public Domain Review

Tags: copyright, public-domain

Nice advent calendar listing some of the works to enter public domain next year.

https://publicdomainreview.org/features/entering-the-public-domain/2022/

Bye for now!

We are happy to announce the release of Qt Creator 6!

Cutelyst the Qt Web Framework got a new release, Yes, I fotgot to make a post about Cutelyst 3.1, so to sum up:

• Support for SSl::Ec
• Faster parsing of application/x-www-form-urlencoded body
• Cutelee v6 support
• Fix server usage without –reuse-port (added SO_REUSEADDR)
• Documentation fixes
• Increased usage of std::shared_ptr

ASql the async Qt SQL library also got an update, it’s API is rather stable now, main changes were:

• Fix memory leak on ACache
• Proper std::shared_ptr usage
• Postgres driver is now a separate library ASql::Pg
• Paved the way to have multiple drivers (yes MySQL is planned)

As always have fun and a happy new year!

Today we’re releasing the third beta for Krita 5. There are a lot of fixes compared to beta 2. We’re aiming to release Krita 5 before Christmas, and are beginning to feel a bit confident about that.

Of course, the nightly stable builds already have a number of fixes compared to this beta release…

The new splash screen, by Tyson Tan

Krita is a free and open source project. Please consider supporting the project with donations or by buying training videos! With your support, we can keep the core team working on Krita full-time.

These are the most important fixes since Beta 2:

• Resources can no longer be assigned the speciall All and All Untagged tags. BUG:446148
• Alpha-mask PNG brush tips work correctly again. BUG:445691
• Android: creating a 16 bits integer image no longer crashes. BUG:445179
• Thumbnail for MYB mypaint brushes in a bundle now are loaded.
• Fix a performance issue in the magnetic selection tool.
• The recorder no longer goes in an infinite loop if the selected colorspace is not supported by the recorder.
• Drag and drop of remote images and copy/paste of images from Chrome is fixed. BUG:446029
• Cancelling pasting is fixed. BUG:438426
• Tyson Tan provided many disambiguations for user-visible text, which helps improve translations.
• A crash that happened when opening the popup palette, closing the image then creating a new image was fixed. BUG:443402
• Paste at Cursor now positions the clip correctly. BUG:446120
• The outline of brushes with a non-standard number of spikes is now correct. BUG:445927
• Disable subpixel translation in the transform tool. BUG:445714
• Fix saving palette on quitting Krita. BUG:444309
• Fix deduplication of resources on import. BUG:445367
• A crash when using the text brush was fixed. BUG:443308
• The handling of pattern files of types other than gimp patterns was fixed. BUG:443151
• Resource libraries are now sorted in alphabetical order in the bundle manager. Patch by Reinold Rojas.
• Handling of really broken .kra files was improved. BUG:443559
• Performance of textured brushes was improved.
• Renaming brush presets and SeExpr presets was fixed. BUG:445048
• Fix saving MyPaint brush presets after modification. BUG:445281,  BUG:445282
• Improve the stylinmg of the tagging widget. BUG:445625
• Fix a crash when trying to add or move layers too quickly. BUG:445831, BUG:444516
• Fix a crash in the transform tool. BUG:441826
• Fix the text tool not updating the font size correctly.
• Fix the initialization of the random generator for non-brush tools. BUG:445775
• Fix tilt rotation when the canvas is rotated and the stabilizer is active. BUG:436618
• Make the mesh gradient respond to the first invocation. BUG:445617
• Make mesh gradient handles consistent with the mesh transform tool handles. BUG:442201
• Fix canceling saving an edited gradient.
• Fix loading palettes of types other than GPL and KPL.
• Fix an assert when opening an SVG document.
• Make it possible to actually change between different resource folder locations.
• Make it possible to overwrite existing workspace definitions. BUG:444975
• Fix a crash when warning the user when there is a problem saving a resource. BUG:445581
• Update the Intel GPU driver version detection.
• Fix artefacts in the freehand selection tool in polygonal mode. BUG:441569
• Fix issues with layer styles not be able to retrieve resources such as patterns or gradients. BUG:443621
• Blacklist line tool to make it work while recorder is active.
• Make the line tool’s preview faster. BUG:411768
• Fix the flickering in the line tool’s preview.
• Make it possible to save mypaint brush presets to resource bundles.
• Fix issues creating a new image from the clipboard. BUG:443111
• Do not select control handles when using the Edit Shapes Tool rectangular selection option. BUG:434535
• Fix updates when undoing pasting multiple layers.
• Fix adding a new file layer.
• Fix issues with testing the speed sensor in the scratch pad. BUG:425124
• Fix issues with retrieving the pattern in the pattern fill layer generator.
• Fix artefacts in the color smudge lightness mode.
• Improve font style selection, enabling the proper styles to be selected. BUG:425312
• Report to the user when a bundle fails to save. BUG:439110
• Improve importing bundles. BUG:445336
• Improve handling layer styles.
• Remove the vertical shift-drag to resize the current brush feature. BUG:442544
• Improve handling and editing palettes.
• Fix a crash in the freehand selection tool.
• Fix issues with embedding palettes and other resources in a .KRA document.
• Fix a crash when working with gamut masks.
• Animation: fix caching bug when scrubbing from cached to uncached frame. BUG:445265
• Fix some crashes when Krita is built with optional dependencies missing. BUG:445276
• On database creation, add tags only after all storages have been added, so all resources that can be tagged by default are tagged.
• In the scale and resize image dialogs, set the focus on the first field instead of the OK button. BUG:445250, BUG:444806
• Android: write document state info in mdiArea title.
• Fix issues creating, saving and updating SeExpr scripts.
• Fix issues creating, saving and updating workspaces. BUG:444980
• Android: Fix crash in file handling on Android 11.
• Fix a crash when exporting an image with EXIV data. BUG:444256
• Android: fix problems with the Android Back Button.
• Fix a crash when selecting a new color after a document has been closed. BUG:444308
• Android: Fix closing the popup palette with a keyboard shortcut. BUG:443631
• Improve color drag & drop on the canvas
• Fix update issues in KoDualColorButton. BUG:442861
• Fix a possible crash on closing a document. BUG:444613
• Improve the welcome page.
• Improve the preset history docker so the correct row is selected. Patch by Mike Will.
• Fix exporting a recorder session.
• Improve discrete canvas rotation. Patch by Reinold Rojas. BUG:429637
• Animation: Improve the usability of navigating keyframes. BUG:444310
• Animation: Fix a Windows-specific issue with the autokey blank causing artefacts. BUG:441588
• Refine tablet right click popup palette behavior. BUG:441899
• Fix saving the current session to the right location. BUG:443652
• Fix the translation context of the layer group menu. BUG:444238
• Make it possible to select and deselect ABR files in the brush tip tab of the preset editor.
• Fix handling jpeg2000 images.
• Fix a problem where editing text makes the color selector select the wrong color. BUG:443793
• Android: fix hiding the popup palette when using Samsung Air Actions. BUG:443600
• Make Krita 5 and Krita 4 session files compatible.
• Android: fix a memory leak in the Android Window Manager.
• Do not make the toolbars immovable after configuring a toolbar. BUG:441808
• Change Lod in Move Tool to ‘true’ by default.
• Set Crop Tool to have Grow checked by default.
• Change autosave to be every 7 minutes.
• Change the default DPI when importing a PDF to 300.
• Make the layer docker narrower.
• Update SeExpr with upstream patches.
• OpenGL: support LoD on OpenGL ES 2.
• ANGLE: support 10 and 12-bit HDR.
• OpenGL ES: support float and half textures.
• OpenColorIO: use Natron’s workaround for parsing LUTs on localized systems. BUG:407921
• OpenColorIO: support VFX Platform CY2021 and newer. BUG:435474
• Improve the SeExpr user interface and parser.
• Halve the minimum width of recorder’s status bar item.
• Fixed default scrollwheel behavior on timeline to be consistent. BUG:443852
• StoryboardDocker: Added more protection from duplicate names in storyboard docker.
• The storyboard export functionality has been improved.
• Fix crash during animation export. BUG:442578
• Fix updates of the brush editor when the preset is chagned externally. BUG:443579
• Fix the textured smudge brush causing square artifacts when drawing on a transparency mask. BUG:443422
• Fix performance issues with textured brushes.

We will continue fixing issues that come in from testing the beta and the nightly builds so we can release a solid Krita 5. Please consider supporting Krita’s development through the development fund:

Download

Windows

If you’re using the portable zip files, just open the zip file in Explorer and drag the folder somewhere convenient, then double-click on the krita icon in the folder. This will not impact an installed version of Krita, though it will share your settings and custom resources with your regular installed version of Krita. For reporting crashes, also get the debug symbols folder.

Note that we are not making 32 bits Windows builds anymore.

• 64 bits Windows Installer: krita-x64-5.0.0-beta3-setup.exe
• Portable 64 bits Windows: krita-x64-5.0.0-beta3.zip
• Debug symbols. (Unpack in the Krita installation folder)

Linux

• 64 bits Linux: krita-5.0.0-beta3-x86_64.appimage

The separate gmic-qt appimage is no longer needed.

(If, for some reason, Firefox thinks it needs to load this as text: to download, right-click on the link.)

macOS

The macOS build is unfortunately broken. We are working on a fix.

Android

The Android releases are made from the release tarball, so there are translations. We consider Krita on ChromeOS and Android still beta. There are many things that don’t work and other things that are impossible without a real keyboard.

• 64 bits Intel CPU APK
• 32 bits Intel CPU APK
• 64 bits Arm CPU APK
• 32 bits Arm CPU APK

Source code

• krita-5.0.0-beta3.tar.gz
• krita-5.0.0-beta3.tar.xz

md5sum

For all downloads:

• md5sum.txt

Key

The Linux appimage and the source .tar.gz and .tar.xz tarballs are signed. You can retrieve the public key here. The signatures are here (filenames ending in .sig).

Support Krita

Krita is a free and open source project. Please consider supporting the project with donations or by buying training videos! With your support, we can keep the core team working on Krita full-time.

The post Third beta for Krita 5.0 appeared first on Krita.

Starting on January I will be working on a project named "Improve Okular digital signature support" that has received a grant from the NLnet foundation as part of the NGI Assure fund.

This will allow me to work part time on Okular (in case it's not clear I work on Okular on a "when I have time-hobby" basis right now), the planned improvements are:

1. Support for signing unsigned signatures. I know it sounds confusing, think about it like something like the old "sign here" boxes on printed paper forms.

2. Support digital signatures in the Okular Windows version

3. Make signature text support all character sets

4. Write Okular-mobile user interface to show signature status

5. Support digital signatures in the Okular Android version

But I'm hoping to squeeze some other signature related improvements in, if you have a particular favourite please leave a comment.

Thanks to NLnet for trusting me on this, and also thanks to my current employer (KDAB) for allowing me to work less hours for a few months so I can take on this project.

Yesterday’s article about KDE’s target users generated some interesting discussions about the zero-dot users. One of the most insightful comments I read was that nobody can really target zero-dot users because they operate based on memorization and habit, learning a series of cause-effect relationships: “I click/touch this picture/button, then something useful happens”–even with their smartphones! So even if GNOME and ElementaryOS might be simpler, that doesn’t really matter because it’s not much harder to memorize a random-seeming sequence of clicks or taps in a poor user interface than it is in a good one.

I think there’s a lot of truth to this perspective. We have all known zero-dot users who became quite proficient at specific tasks; maybe they learned how to to everything they needed in MS Office, Outlook, or even Photoshop.

The key detail is that these folks rely on the visual appearance and structure of the software remaining the same. When the software’s user interface changes–even for the better–they lose critical visual cues and reference points and they can’t find anything anymore.

On the desktop side, these people are the target audience for Long Term Support (LTS) distros, where the UI never changes for years at a time. This is exactly what they want because they prefer a bad yet unchanging UI to one that incrementally evolves to be better.

So I think if we want to reach these people, it will probably be done less by improving Plasma or KDE apps, but rather by being more attentive to our existing Plasma LTS offering and broadening it to encompass apps and frameworks as well. That way these other KDE products that are used alongside or underneath Plasma can benefit from more bugfixes without the UI changes of non-LTS upgrades. And we should increase the support period to 5 years or more. It’s 10 years for Red Hat Enterprise Linux! This is what’s needed to have a real LTS product and bring the zero-dot users into the fold.

However I’m not sure we have these resources right now. No KDE developer I know uses the Plasma LTS release. Working on old crappy code isn’t any fun. Backporting fixes is a thankless task. I think we would probably have to pay someone to be the full-time LTS developer-and-backporter if we wanted to have an LTS product worth of its name. It will most likely need to be on the back burner for a while. Hence, focusing on the one-or-more-dots users for the time being.