Development Update (Patreon)

There hasn't been a patch in several days so I wanted to give y'all a quick development update as to what I'm up to.

One of the oldest parts of the application is the asset manager--the place where you manage your images and maps. While functional, it's a little dated and not the best experience. When dealing with personal files, there are a lot of established standards (your OS's file browser, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc) to compare to, and LK is long overdue for a modern, first-class treatment of assets. 

I'm currently working on Asset manager V2, which brings a Google-Drive-like experience to the asset manager. The new asset manager will have list/grid views, searching, sorting, filtering, drag and drop, external file dropzones, multi-select, folders, custom collections, etc. I've pretty much completed the backend/server work, the UI components, and the drag & drop functionality. Next up is multi-select, and from there it'll be mostly UI polish. Assets V2 will later be enhanced with tagging and a few other organizational tools. 

While it's probably not the most exciting thing in the world, I believe that having a good file management experience is foundational to LK, especially for the updates that follow. The major update after Assets V2 will introduce LK Community, a hub for sharing content across users and projects. The new assets manager will be the staging area for creating shareable content modules. You'll also  be able to quickly populate your project with tons of pre-made assets from the community, and I believe it's imperative that managing these numerous assets gets first-class treatment.

All of your image and map collections will automatically be converted into equivalents in the new system, so you don't need to do anything different. Things won't be cordoned by type either; you'll be able to group maps, images, templates, and eventually pin presets, however you like, which will allow for a lot of freedom in organization style.

Tentative Roadmap

0.8 "Garuda": New assets management

0.8.x: Auto image upload on paste/drop, custom image pins, hidden secrets in editable articles

0.9 "Hydra": LegendKeeper "Community", modules, enhanced sharing features

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your patience! I hope LK is enhancing your world-building experience :]