Thanks for trying it out. :) People actually using Pixel Proof and describing their experience goes a long way toward making it the best it can be for all of us.
No problem. I figured that I would use my little free time to give some feedback, I like to see new software cropping up, no matter how small. I also appreciate spriting software there are very few out there that are comfortable to work with, I realize that Pixel Proof is really early on, but the concept has potential. Of course it would be GREAT if there could ever be any potential support for creating animated sprites then it would probably find usage by many more people although it's still fairly early to even expect that, I feel that once you perfect the general flow or use and finish including layers, then it could be a nice thing to work towards (if you ever intend to). The price is really reasonable too.
I'm glad you found some things to like! Pixel Proof is what happened when I decided I had too many good ideas (read: experimental ideas) for graphics editors that weren't in any other editors.
I feel like this is how many great things start, and this is also why I do attempt to try out new applications from time to time, there are some hidden gems out there which are rather impressive once you find them. I feel like Pixel Proof is definitely heading in the right direction with trying to create something that the user can refine to fit 'their' needs or workflow rather than trying to create a standard that the developer(s) believe is the right way to do things, not to mention some of the tools are nifty here too. I really actually loved how you handle the resizing of the canvas and even the image resizing, being able to drag to resize the canvas is REALLY nice, I don't think I have ever seen this anywhere else (or I cannot remember it anyhow) and the preview of the image and how it will look when dragging to resize that is really helpful too! -- Small things like this are convenient and nice to use. The willingness to respond and deal with feedback to improve the software is something I personally really appreciate, some developers look past that or take the feedback poorly. Keep up the great work.
However, a lot of this app is still pretty rough, with original experiments hanging around without any UI to adjust them (like the scrolling background).
It's clear that a lot of the development is still rough, I've developed a handful of small apps myself through studying C++ that look pretty bad through the early stages and many games that have used such terrible art through the early stages of developments (it happens) It definitely helps that the full feature version is available for free via the "pirate edition" which I do love by the way, that was a nice humorous touch to it. (in my opinion)
The tool icons will definitely be updated in the future. I actually only recently did a run through them to replace all of the placeholder icons, so these are just 2nd pass programmer art. ;)
I assumed this would be the case anyway, I think the icons are understandable but some were a little conflicting with others and when working fast for me it was sometimes harder. It will be nice to see some of the changes you've mentioned here. Being able to place them on custom toolbars (something I wanted to suggest in an email) would void the immediate need to make them more distinguishable.
I just fixed the palette hotkeys '[' and ']' so that the current palette is used. That'll be in the next update.
I recently switched to someone else's dialog library, so I don't think I have control over where the color picker appears. In the near future, though, I'll be implementing an in-app color picker instead (for several reasons), so the positioning won't be a problem.
That fix will improve things a lot, I was struggling with that, I ended up painting some blocks into the image and colour picked from them when I needed a colour, I lost some of the progress that I had from when the image I took to share was taken. As for the placement of the colour creation window, it's a minor annoyance, I think that it was more annoying because of how much I would need to use it and then losing the palette was painful that I would have to go through that again knowing I could lose it again, being able to save it out and load it later would make this much more bearable!
I'm still designing the palette management system. Likely, the last palette will persist, you'll be able to save palettes to some palette file and load them again later
Having the ability to export the palettes will greatly improve the quality of life to users, even if for whatever reason the palette gets wiped out we can still load from a file which will save a lot of effort and time.
and palettes may also be associated with a future editor file format (analogous to .xcf for Pixel Proof-specific needs). Palette editing, too, will be improved, as you can't even delete entries yet.
I'm really glad to hear this, colour palettes are an important part of any pixel artist's workflow, you end up changing them over time all too often and being able to share them will be nice as well as just backing them up for personal needs, it sounds like you have the right ideas behind how to approach the various improvements here which is great!
The only way to currently "move" pixels is to cut and paste them... but that needs work too! I'll add something that makes this process better.
Regarding the moving of pixels, I did attempt to copy and paste as a way to move initially, and I even tried to paste something from outside of the application and nothing was working, I assumed it was not supported yet but I suppose it could have been a bug too, I simply didn't get to a few more things that I wanted to express because I was being pulled away from the computer at the time.
I was hoping to find the time to write you an email and mention more suggestions, one of which was a toolbar that we could customize and drag around the canvas as needed but it sounds like you've already come to that on your own which is awesome. Once the new update hits with the colour palette fixes, I will happily return to testing it out and providing further feedback.
Kind Regards,
Patrick Griffiths.