Hello! Starting a thread here for PlayPainter! PlayPainter is basically my dream drawing app for the Playdate! Based on a mix of Macpaint, Procreate, and maybe even some elements of early Photoshop!
Yesterday I opened it up to early access, so I'll just be posting updates and talking about it here for anyone interested in the project! Check it out on itch.io!
Currently it's your standard drawing app, some simple tools, pallet selector, zoom, and a painting library to tie it all together!
Reworking the drawing UI, currently it's feeling much less dynamic than some other elements of the tool!
Was also able to add in some simple UI animation today, really happy with how it's lookin!
A few updates today!
Got that new drawing menu UI implemented in code! Will need some small tweaks and fixes but it's feeling a lot better.
Also commissioned some Flipnote studio style sounds from my friend Chris, so happy with the feel now that there's some sounds! Here's a little look at both of updates in video form!
More updates this week!
I've mainly focused on moving chunks of code into classes and optimizing some calls to improve performance. While canvases half the screen size ran fine on hardware at 48-50 FPS, full screen canvases were chugging it down to 30 or worse. Classifying the menu elements and canvas apart allowed me to seriously reduce the rendering for the canvas, and the performance is feeling much better!
There's now shape tools! While still very janky it's fun to see the tool buttons actually operate in some capacity.
I've also started on the color palette again! I'm going to move this to a popup panel along with some other options though, since the constant menu scrolling for a simple color change is too complex.
Sketch for potential options panel
Awesome work on the partial refresh! 
Woah, it's been a while, hey!
I've been pretty busy with both my full-time work at Jackbox Games, and some other projects like my brand new portfolio site! That said, I'm ready to get back on this and wrap it up, I'd love to submit it to the Catalog eventually!
Jumping back in, first thing I noticed was a nasty bug when attempting to rename drawings, the fix revolved around how and when the gallery screen was redrawing. This wasn't a problem before, so I believe it was due to an SDK change? not entirely sure.
I've improved quite a bit as a programmer since starting this project, so various elements have been split to their own files, I plan to do more of this as needed!
I added an about screen! It's accessible from the pause menu, and adds that extra layer of polish I feel the app was missing.
I also wasn't digging the default app launch animation, so I whipped up a new one in Adobe Animate!
There's also a new icon for list view!
Less visual but still an important change, I moved all previously embedded strings to the en.strings file. This will make any future localization efforts far easier, and allows me to easily change strings if needed, it's super convenient!
I'm now turning my attention to some of the missing tools and dialogs I feel a solid paint app should have. I'm starting with the "new document" modal, and that includes all the components which I want to be reusable for other modals if needed.
I'm really happy with this screen so far, the aspect preview is fun, and the list feels really good to use! It really just needs manual input boxes for width and height, a way to add and remove presets, and a confirm button!
Once that's done I'll finally be working on the color selection menu I previously posted some sketches of!
I'll be posting more updates here, and new builds on the itch.io page very soon! If anyone has questions, feedback, or any ideas feel free to reply, thanks!
