OpenDraft

I don't usually leave reviews, but I found this really nice and useful that I thought why not, with 40 hours in, this can be my first review on Steam!

I was a bit hesitant buying this, especially with a bunch of other programs out there, but I can say with all honesty I am very glad to have bought it! It might not be for everyone, but it was 100% for me.

TL;DR:

I'd highly recommend this to anyone looking for an infinite mapping or writing application. Its features are simple, useful, and work really well together. Doesn't take up much space or resources, can be open in the background without issues, and does what it says well.

Long Review

Pros:

1. It's very simple. It really is! I found the simplicity really useful because I get distracted easily and a lot, so I feel like this was tailored for people like me with ADHD or that are restless lol

2. The background looks really nice on my monitor; it isn't too bright or too dark, and its colour kind of reminded me of construction paper, which in turn reminded me of when I was a child and had school assignments to submit on construction paper. I didn't like the assignments, but I liked the paper lol

3. The text boxes can fit quite a bit of text in them, and I think it's the same limit in the vertical or horizontal boxes, but I used the vertical boxes more often because I personally liked the look more

4. The brush has a really detailed colour wheel with good controls. I really like that with larger brush sizes the lines taper, and based on the patch/update by the developer, holding shift while drawing creates solid lines! I found that to be a sweet toggle between the two, and while messing around I, out of habit, pressed Ctrl+Z to undo a line and it worked.. It wasn't mentioned in the info slides so I thought I would have to delete every line individually, but Ctrl+Z works for undoing lines!

5. I love being able to paste images anywhere. It took me a second to figure it out, especially because I didn't connect that the icon that showed up was a clipboard, meaning nothing was in the clipboard

I initially tried to paste something I already had in my clipboard, but it wasn't when the application was open. I tried to copy the image again while I had OpenDraft open and then it worked! So you just need to have something in the clipboard after you've opened the app. The resizing worked fine, I had to click on the image I wanted to be resized and they would resize to a pretty decent limit on either end. And I am so glad PNG images get pasted properly and their transparent background don't get replaced with solid white/black! Makes them look like stickers on the board

6. The delete feature works on everything, but for the text boxes it only deletes their content and not the actual boxes. At first it seemed weird, but I actually like that. Kind of forced me to fill out the boxes I already had, and in a way made me feel like if I restarted my work, I had to get to the point I was at before and not write less. Kind of motivational but I'm sure that's just me lol

There was also the reset option, which cleared the entire board and would give me fresh starts/boards every time, but I didn't use it except to try it; I kept working on the same board since it truly is infinite and allowed me to divide this one giant board my own way.

7. I was intrigued by the nature sounds mentioned, so I had to try them all out and they're actually very calming, and I loved that it was different weather/environment for each button. I think I played the campfire and night audio tracks more than the others because I loved those two and playing them while writing was actually quite fun.

8. That zoomed out view of the entire board is amazing! I wasn't sure what it was at first, but that's because I didn't generate enough boards. When I was just messing around with it I accidentally pressed Shift+Z which toggled that zoomed out view, which is that "screen" button in the menu. Compared to the default board, what I generated was ridiculous and I didn't even think I went that far off from the "start" lol

9. AUTO SAVE! I kept seeing the save icon in the corner every few minutes, and holy, that's so useful! In the past, I've lost a lot of work in both Photoshop and Office whenever they'd crash and my last saved point was hours earlier. This being auto saved every 3 or 4 minutes is genuinely a life saver, so thank you for that!


Just additional points:
The fact that it's offline, so I can use it anywhere, and also has Steam Cloud enabled is a big thumbs up from me. Being able to download it on multiple computers and simply picking up the progress from where I left off, regardless of the computer, is a great addition! Obviously that's with the Cloud syncing, so if you turn that off nothing will be backed up so it's local saves on each computer.




Slight Cons (in my opinion):

1. The panning of the canvas is smooth with both the arrow keys and the mouse, but it stopping suddenly seemed like a bug. Then I noticed it stops whenever the mouse is on a text box or image; I'm guessing this is to prevent accidental moves of boxes or images, but if the screen gets a little too crowded (of my own fault, it is an infinite space so I didn't have to bunch them together hahaha), the panning might seem a bit "jittery".

2. The colour wheel for the brush has a lot of info and allows you to choose any colour you like, but I definitely would love it if there was like a "recent colour" or even something like a colour picker; that way I can easily go back to a colour I had already used, so I hope it gets added in the future!

3. Although the background is great and looks great on my monitor, I would love it if I was able to change the background colour as well! With the way I understood the board generation, I'm hoping maybe each board can be individually coloured? So I could have one board that's green and next to it is red? That would definitely be a great addition, but if not individually, I think at least being able to change the background to another solid colour is enough.


Yeah so, other than that, I really love this app and I am enjoying it a lot! I still use others that I have, but OpenDraft is basically open in the background while I'm using anything else because it's so easy to use for quick notes.

I already saw an update/patch from the developer, as well as comments and engagement from them on the discussions hub, so this makes me hopeful that it will always be updated and maintained. I'm also always happy to support indie developers, so I'm looking forward to the future of this app!

I definitely recommend this for anyone reading, and if the developer reads this, I hope you add the background customisation and colour picker in the future! And