Feature Request: Project files support (save/load settings and edit history)

[RMantis]

Hi!

I think adding support for project files would be incredibly handy. It would allow users to save and load their current image along with all applied settings. Beyond user convenience, this would be a huge help for debugging and troubleshooting, as users could simply attach a project file to an issue to easily reproduce bugs.

Another great feature tied to this would be saving the edit history directly into the project file. This way, users could seamlessly undo/redo changes even after closing and reopening Kromacut.

I would be more than happy to work on this and submit a Pull Request if you think it would be a valuable addition to the project. Let me know your thoughts!

[vycdev]

Hi,

This has been on my list for quite a while, and I think its a really great idea which is why I would like to plan it well as it might require a lot of changes in the codebase.

First, someone mentioned at some point on discord (BrashLO) that we could have a homepage for opening older projects or a new project. We can add a lot of things here, like a search feature, organizing projects in folders, adding titles, descriptions, tags etc. At some point I was even thinking of using the Discussion page here for serverless hosting, letting users upload their projects, upvote, and leave comments (If they have access to the internet). Giscus is one library that would let us achieve some of that.

Second, there will be a lot of work to integrate the history in the project files and I would like a well thought out solution for this, such that it won't be hard to expand when new features are added to the app. Project file versioning will matter a lot too.

But my crazy ideas aside, I think the best first step would be making an MVP for this feature, that would include saving / loading project files without a history.

That means the project file has to contain:

1. The latest version of the image
2. All static settings
3. All dynamic settings (custom palettes/filament profiles that need to be added before being loaded)
4. Some metadata like app version and project name

And the save/load system has to take all of these into account.

If you have more ideas regarding this I'd like to hear them, even if they might only be added far into the future.

[RMantis]

Yeah I agree it's better to start with a basic implementation of the save/load feature and then gradually implement more features from there.

About other ideas: I was thinking about a "layered" approach for the history and a sidebar to quickly undo/redo and test various settings, some layers (like color filters) might also support a "hide/disable" function and it automatically re-applies the changes from the first to the last layer skipping the disabled ones.
Just an idea I had today, didn't think about it much but there you go ahaha

[vycdev]

Yea, I think that would work well, especially in the 2D mode.